# The CIA as a paramilitary organization

> **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 as a paramilitary organization," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-cia-as-a-paramilitary-organization/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's periodisation of the CIA's mission — spying and analysis until Vietnam, restored after the Church and Pike hearings of 1975, and converted immediately after September 11 into a paramilitary body that he says it has remained ever since. His objection is stated without hedging: drawing up a kill list every Tuesday and dispatching officers to carry it out is not intelligence, it is murder.*

The CIA as a paramilitary organization is John Kiriakou's central structural criticism of the agency, and the argument on which his call to [abolish it](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abolish-the-cia) rests.

## Three phases

Kiriakou describes the agency's original mission as very simple: to recruit spies, to steal secrets, and then to analyse those secrets so that the policymaker could make the best-informed policy.[1]

That changed, he says, during the Vietnam War, and then reverted after the Church and Pike committee hearings of 1975.[1] But immediately after September 11 the CIA became a paramilitary organisation, and it has remained one ever since.[2]

## The objection

Kiriakou calls the change a grave mistake, on the ground that it should not be up to the CIA to jet around the world murdering people and then go home to collect the name and location of the next person it is supposed to murder.[2]

He states the alternative plainly. If people pose a clear and present danger to the United States, to American citizens or to American installations, then indict them — indict them and bring them to justice.[2] What he rejects is the standing process: coming up with [a kill list every Tuesday morning](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/tuesday-morning-kill-list) at the White House and passing it to the CIA's Special Activities Division so that officers can fly around and kill people. That, he says, is not intelligence — that is just murder.[2][3]

## Why he expects no reversal

Kiriakou says he honestly does not see the agency reverting to what it was, and that this is precisely why he is on record saying there should not be a CIA at all.[3] The redundancy case that follows — State Department analysis, Pentagon human intelligence, DARPA and the NSA — is set out in [abolish the CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abolish-the-cia).[3] Nearly twenty-four years after the September 11 attacks, he concludes, the agency is still paramilitary, and he fears it is never going to change back.[4]

## See also

- [Abolish the CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abolish-the-cia)
- [Tuesday morning kill list](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/tuesday-morning-kill-list)
- [The CIA as a policy support agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-as-policy-support-agency)
- [The Gang of Four and Gang of Eight](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-gang-of-four-and-gang-of-eight)

## Sources

1. Ask Ex-CIA Agent and Whistleblower John Kiriakou Anything (2025-10-16), at 1:17:04. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auddbc2c676&t=4624s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-16-seymizzle-podcast-ask-ex-cia-agent-and-whistleblower-john-kiria/
2. Ask Ex-CIA Agent and Whistleblower John Kiriakou Anything (2025-10-16), at 1:17:41. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auddbc2c676&t=4661s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-16-seymizzle-podcast-ask-ex-cia-agent-and-whistleblower-john-kiria/
3. Ask Ex-CIA Agent and Whistleblower John Kiriakou Anything (2025-10-16), at 1:18:13. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auddbc2c676&t=4693s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-16-seymizzle-podcast-ask-ex-cia-agent-and-whistleblower-john-kiria/
4. Ask Ex-CIA Agent and Whistleblower John Kiriakou Anything (2025-10-16), at 1:19:20. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auddbc2c676&t=4760s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-16-seymizzle-podcast-ask-ex-cia-agent-and-whistleblower-john-kiria/

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