# The regime change approval process

> **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 regime change approval process," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-regime-change-approval-process/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's step-by-step account of how a proposal to overthrow a foreign government travels through the United States government — beginning as a memo written at an officer's own desk, cleared by lawyers at the Justice Department and the National Security Council, signed by the president as an executive order, and ending in a safe on the seventh floor at CIA headquarters while the order itself goes to the Pentagon.*

- **Where it starts:** A memo written at the proposing officer's own desk
- **First clearance:** The officer's own chain of command — 'they always do'
- **The lawyers:** Justice Department [Office of Legal Counsel](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/assassination-approval-process), then the National Security Council's attorneys
- **The signature:** An executive order signed by the president and the national security adviser
- **Where the order rests:** A safe on the seventh floor of the CIA operations centre
- **Who executes:** The Pentagon
- **The three lawful grounds he cites:** Being attacked; invitation by the host government; a UN Security Council mandate

**The regime change approval process** is [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s account of the route a proposal to overthrow a foreign government takes through the United States government. He gave it in detail in August 2020, prefacing it by declining to name one link in the chain — *"I won't say the name of the office because they'll probably fall on my head like a ton of bricks"* — and this article follows him in leaving it unnamed.[1]

## The route

It begins informally. An officer with an idea *"simply sits at your desk and you write a memo and you say, I would like to overthrow this government and these are my reasons for wanting to overthrow the government."*[1] That memo goes up the officer's own chain of command, which signs off — *"and they always do"* — after which it is carried to the unnamed office whose job is to walk it through the rest of government.[2]

From there the sequence is legal rather than operational. The memo goes first to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, *"the body in government that determines whether such an overthrow would be legal"* — and, in his account, *"of course, they always decide that such an overthrow would be legal."*[2][3] It then goes to the [National Security Council](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/national-security-council)'s team of attorneys, who repeat the exercise and reach the same conclusion, and then to the national security adviser, who decides whether it is *"a good enough idea that it should go to the President."*[3][4]

If the president judges that the overthrow fits his foreign policy, he orders it as an executive order, signed by himself and the national security adviser.[4]

## Where the paper ends up

The signed order returns to the CIA and is *"physically put in a safe on the seventh floor in the CIA's operations center."* Kiriakou gives the reason for the safe as a collision of two rules: it is a government document *"so it can't be destroyed,"* but it is *"so highly classified that no one can see it besides the CIA's leaders and the CIA leader's attorneys."*[4][5] The order to begin the overthrow itself goes to the Pentagon.[5]

## The legal test he says officers are taught

Against that machinery he sets the rule he says is taught early: there are only three circumstances in which regime change is lawful — the foreign country has attacked the United States, its government has invited the United States in, or there is a mandate from the United Nations Security Council. *"You can't just decide one morning that you don't like another country's politics, and so you're going to overthrow that government. That's not the way that international law works."*[6][7]

He describes two generations inside the agency holding different views of this. Officers who had been there since the 1970s and 1980s were *"gung ho for regime change,"* treating it as part of the agency's reason for existing; his own generation, he says, believed *"we're supposed to be the good guys … and regime change is just simply illegal."* The choice he draws from that is stark: either renounce it, *"or we have to be willing to watch our own leadership be prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity."*[8][6]

## Why he objects to generals running intelligence agencies

The same passage contains his reason for opposing the appointment of [military officers to lead intelligence agencies](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/generals-in-national-security-posts). The question he asks of any such appointee is *"how did they get those four shiny stars on their shoulder?"* — and his answer is that they got them *"by saying, yes, sir, throughout a 30 or 35-year career."* What the post requires is the opposite: someone willing to say *"Mr. President, let me tell you why that's a terrible idea."*[9][10]

## The banality of it

Kiriakou's own gloss on the process is that its horror is procedural rather than dramatic. He reaches for a Banksy work — a cheap second-hand pastoral scene onto which the artist painted a park bench with Adolf Hitler sitting on it, admiring the view — and applies the title directly: *"to me, that's what this is. We all know this is wrong. We all know this is illegal. We all know that innocent civilians are going to die."*[11][12] The cost falls on people with no say in it, he says, because *"this banal evil is what created the policy."*[12]

## See also

- [The assassination approval process](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/assassination-approval-process)
- [National Security Council](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/national-security-council)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia)

## Sources

1. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 28:10. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1690s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
2. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 28:41. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1721s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
3. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 29:16. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1756s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
4. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 29:48. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1788s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
5. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 30:23. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1823s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
6. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 25:55. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1555s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
7. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 26:27. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1587s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
8. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 25:21. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1521s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
9. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 26:58. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1618s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
10. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 27:34. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1654s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
11. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 30:58. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1858s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/
12. The Banal Evil Of US Imperialism: A View From Inside The CIA (2020-08-24), at 31:29. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aud9551bcd7a&t=1889s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2020-08-24-clearing-the-fog-the-banal-evil-of-us-imperialism-a-view-from/

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