# The CIA and Iridium

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The CIA and Iridium," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-cia-and-iridium/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's account of the Central Intelligence Agency buying the satellite telephone company Iridium when it was unprofitable and about to go out of business, because the agency needed the network — a purchase he places alongside its acquisition of Intelsat, and which he encountered personally when he had to rent the phones for Afghanistan.*

- **Company:** Iridium, satellite telephony
- **Condition at purchase:** Unprofitable, about to go out of business
- **Buyer, per Kiriakou:** The CIA
- **Also bought:** Intelsat
- **Kiriakou's own use:** Rented the handsets for Afghanistan
- **Comparison:** Thuraya, made by the Guttières

**The CIA and Iridium** refers to John Kiriakou's account of the Central Intelligence Agency's purchase of a satellite telephone company that was about to fail, given in August 2025 in answer to a viewer asking whether the agency's mathematics department might have created Bitcoin.

## The pattern

Kiriakou allowed that CIA involvement in Bitcoin was possible without endorsing it, and moved instead to a case he was sure of. The agency, he said, often has to create — and then he reached for the example: the satellite phone company the CIA bought because it was in trouble.[1]

His first attempt at the name was Thuraya, which Rall correctly identified as the handset made by the Guttières; Kiriakou then said the company he meant was Intelsat, and immediately doubted himself again.[1] The name arrived from the chat some minutes later, and he accepted it: Iridium.[2]

## The reasoning

The substance survives the confusion over the name, and it is the part he stated with certainty. The company was going to go out of business. It was an unprofitable company. But the CIA needed the network.[1]

That is a different logic from ordinary state investment: the asset being rescued is not a revenue stream but a communications capability that would otherwise simply cease to exist, and with it the ability of officers in places without infrastructure to talk to headquarters.

## How he came to know it

Kiriakou's own connection to the equipment is practical rather than institutional. He knew the name, he said, because he had had to rent those phones when he went to Afghanistan — and what he remembered about them was their size: *"They were big."*[1] Rall, who had carried a Thuraya into Afghanistan himself, said his had been better and smaller; Kiriakou did not contest it.[1]

## See also

- [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [Ted Rall](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ted-rall)

## Sources

1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-08-18), at 55:52. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwweQtSlWCs&t=3352s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-18-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-08-18), at 1:00:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwweQtSlWCs&t=3600s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-08-18-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-cia-and-iridium/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt