John Chris Kiriakou (born August 9, 1964) is an American author, journalist and former intelligence officer. Kiriakou is a columnist with Reader Supported News[2] and co-host of Political Misfits on Sputnik Radio.[3]
In 2012, Kiriakou became the first CIA officer to be convicted of passing classified information to a reporter.[9] He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 months in prison.[10]
Kiriakou was recruited into the CIA by a graduate school professor who had been a senior CIA official.[12] Kiriakou spent the first eight years of his career as a Middle East analyst specializing on Iraq.[12] He maintained a Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance.[12] He learned Arabic and, from 1994 to 1996, was assigned to the American Embassy in Manama, Bahrain, as an economic officer.[12] He returned to Washington, D.C. to work on Iraq until 1998, when he transferred to the CIA's Directorate of Operations.[12] He became a counter-terrorism operations officer and worked in Athens, Greece, on Eurocommunist terrorism. In Greece, Kiriakou recruited foreign agents to spy for the United States, and was nearly assassinated by leftists.[13] In 2000, Kiriakou returned to CIA Headquarters.[12]
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Kiriakou was named Chief of Counterterrorist Operations in Pakistan. In that position, he led a series of military raids on al-Qaedasafehouses, capturing dozens of al-Qaeda fighters. Kiriakou led a raid on the night of March 28, 2002, in Faisalabad, Pakistan, capturing Abu Zubaydah, then thought to be al-Qaeda's third-ranking official.[12] He left the CIA in 2004 to take up a consulting job.[9]
On December 10, 2007, Kiriakou gave an interview to ABC News[17] in which he described his participation in the capture of Abu Zubaydah, who was accused of having been an aide to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Kiriakou said that he did not witness Zubaydah's interrogation, but had been told by CIA associates that it had taken only a single brief instance of waterboarding to extract answers:
... He was able to withstand the waterboarding for quite some time. And by that I mean probably 30, 35 seconds ... and a short time afterwards, in the next day or so, he told his interrogator that Allah had visited him in his cell during the night and told him to cooperate.[18]
Following the interview, Kiriakou's accounts of Abu Zubaydah's waterboarding were widely repeated and paraphrased,[Note 3][7] and he became a regular guest expert on news and public affairs shows on the topics of interrogation and counter-terrorism.
In 2009, however, it was reported that Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded at least 83 times.[19] The treatment "broke" Abu Zubaida and he told his interrogators of al-Qaeda terrorism plots. However, most of the useful information was obtained prior to Abu Zubaida's waterboarding and the torture resulted in little or no useful additional information.[20][21]
Kiriakou has said that he chose not to blow the whistle on torture through internal channels because he believed he "wouldn't have gotten anywhere" because his superiors and the congressional intelligence committees were already aware of it.[22]
Trial and sentence
After the ABC News interview, Kiriakou exchanged emails with a freelance writer. In the emails, Kiriakou disclosed the name of a former CIA colleague who had participated in the detention and interrogation program; the employee was, at the time, still undercover.[23] The freelance writer then shared the name with lawyers representing detainees held at Guantanamo Bay.[23] The name then appeared in a sealed legal filing submitted by the defense attorneys.[23] Although the name was not made public at the time, the disclosure angered federal officials, and the resulting federal investigation led to Kiriakou's arrest.[23] The name that was disclosed appeared on an obscure Internet website in October 2011.[23]
On January 23, 2012, Kiriakou was charged with disclosing classified information to journalists, including the name of a covert CIA officer and information revealing the role of another CIA employee, Deuce Martinez, in classified activities.[24][25][26] In addition, Kiriakou was alleged to have lied to the CIA in order to have his book published.[27] His lawyer was Robert Trout.[28] Lawyer and whistleblower Jesselyn Radack told Politico that the government was wrong to deny Kiriakou's whistleblower status.[29]
The specific charges were that in 2008, Kiriakou confirmed the name of a CIA officer—which was already well known to people in the human rights community, according to the Government Accountability Project—to someone who claimed to be writing a book about the agency's rendition practices. In a separate 2008 incident, Kiriakou gave a New York Times journalist the business card of a CIA agent who worked for a "private government contractor known for its involvement in torture." That agent had never been undercover and his contact information and affiliation with the CIA was already publicly available on the Internet. Kiriakou faced up to 45 years in prison and millions of dollars in legal fees for these charges.[22]
Starting September 12, 2012, the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia conducted closed Classified Information Procedures Act hearings in Kiriakou's case.[32]
On October 22, 2012, Kiriakou agreed to plead guilty to one count of passing classified information to the media thereby violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act; his plea deal spared journalists from testifying in a trial. All other charges were dropped.[33]
On January 25, 2013, Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in prison, making him the second CIA employee to be jailed for revealing classified material of CIA undercover identities[22][23] in violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (the first was Sharon Scranage, a CIA secretary who was arrested and convicted in 1985).[34] In February 2013 New York Times reporter Scott Shane referenced the Kiriakou case when he told NPR that Obama's prosecutions of journalism-related leaking were having a chilling effect on coverage of national security issues.[35]
In January 2013, Bruce Riedel, a former intelligence adviser to Barack Obama who had turned down an offer to be considered for CIA director in 2009, sent the President a letter signed by eighteen other CIA veterans urging that the sentence be commuted.[23]
Imprisonment
John Kiriakou talking on prison survival and whistleblowing at the Disruption Network Lab, Berlin, 2017
Kiriakou received a prison "send off" party at an exclusive Washington, D.C., hotel hosted by political peace activists dressed in orange jumpsuits and mock prison costumes.[36]
In summer 2013, Kiriakou wrote an open "Letter From Loretto" to Edward Snowden, published by the blog Firedoglake, expressing his support and giving advice; urging him to not, "under any circumstances, cooperate with the FBI".[37]
On February 3, 2015, Kiriakou was released from prison to serve three months of house arrest at his home in Arlington, Virginia.[38] Following his release, Kiriakou said his case was not about leaking information but about exposing torture, continuing, "and I would do it all over again." He has since expressed interest in campaigning for prison reform.[38]
In July 2018, Kiriakou signed a $50,000 agreement with Karen Giorno, a former campaign advisor to Donald Trump, as payment for lobbying for a pardon, with the promise of an additional $50,000 as a bonus if it was granted. Kiriakou said that he also discussed his quest for a pardon with Rudy Giuliani, in 2020. Specifically, an associate of the latter's suggested that they could help, but "it's going to cost $2 million — he's [Giuliani] going to want two million bucks"; Kiriakou laughed, and said that "even if [he] had two million bucks, [he] wouldn't spend it to recover a $700,000 pension."[39]
In a 2018 op-ed for the Washington Post, Kiriakou criticized Gina Haspel, a CIA officer nominated by Trump to the post of CIA director, writing that "while I went to prison for disclosing the torture program, Haspel is about to get a promotion despite her connection to it."[40] Kiriakou said the time he spent in prison was "worth every day" because revelations about the CIA's use of torture led to Congress's enactment of a specific ban on waterboarding and other techniques used at the black sites.[40]
In January 2022, Kiriakou commented to Declassified UK about their allegations that the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a non-profit corporation funded by the United States Congress, had funnelled millions of dollars into British independent media groups since 2016. He said: "In 2011, the US Congress changed the law that forbade the Executive Branch from propagandizing the American people or nationals of the other 'Five Eyes' countries—the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.[Note 4] The National Endowment for Democracy, like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, countless Washington-area 'think tanks', and Radio/TV Martí [the US broadcaster that transmits to Cuba], are the vehicles for that propaganda.... And what better way to spread that propaganda than to funnel money to 'friendly' outlets in 'friendly countries'? The CIA's propaganda efforts throughout history have been shameless. But now that they're not legally relegated to just Russia and China, the whole world is a target."[42][non-primary source needed]
Books
In his writing, Kiriakou continues to advocate for increased transparency in government agencies.
The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror (Bantam, 2010) discusses the CIA's response to 9/11 and their involvement in the Middle East during the George W. Bush administration.[43]
The Convenient Terrorist: Abu Zubaydah and the Weird Wonderland of America's Secret Wars (Skyhorse, 2017) is an account of the hunt for Abu Zubaydah, his capture, interrogation, torture, and incarceration at Guantanamo.[44]
How to Disappear and Live Off the Grid: A CIA Insider's Guide (Skyhorse, 2022)[46]
Lying and Lie Detection: A CIA Insider's Guide (Skyhorse, 2022)[47]
Surveillance and Surveillance Detection: A CIA Insider's Guide (Skyhorse, 2022)[48]
Awards
The CIA awarded Kiriakou with 10 Exceptional Performance Awards, a Sustained Superior performance Award, the Counterterrorism Service Medal, and the State Department's Meritorious Honor Award.[12] Kiriakou won the 2012 Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, which is awarded to "national security whistleblowers who stood up for constitutional rights and American values, at great risk to their personal and professional lives".[49] In 2016, he was awarded the Sam Adams Award.[50] Also in 2016, he was given the prestigious PEN First Amendment Award by the PEN Center USA.[51]
↑ "... The waterboarding lasted about 35 seconds before Abu Zubaida broke down, according to Kiriakou, who said he was given a detailed description of the incident by fellow team members. The next day, Abu Zubaida told his captors he would tell them whatever they wanted ... He said that Allah had come to him in his cell and told him to cooperate, because it would make things easier for his brothers ..."
Abu Zubaydah is a Palestinian citizen and alleged terrorist born in Saudi Arabia currently held by the U.S. in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He is held under the authority of Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF).
Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was a Libyan national captured in Afghanistan in November 2001 after the fall of the Taliban; he was interrogated by American and Egyptian forces. The information he gave under torture to Egyptian authorities was cited by the George W. Bush administration in the months preceding its 2003 invasion of Iraq as evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. That information was frequently repeated by members of the Bush administration, although reports from both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) strongly questioned its credibility, suggesting that al-Libi was "intentionally misleading" interrogators.
Waterboarding is a form of torture in which water is poured over a cloth covering the face and breathing passages of an immobilized captive, causing the person to experience the sensation of drowning. In the most common method of waterboarding, the captive's face is covered with cloth or some other thin material and immobilized on their back at an incline of 10 to 20 degrees. Torturers pour water onto the face over the breathing passages, causing an almost immediate gag reflex and creating a drowning sensation for the captive. Normally, water is poured intermittently to prevent death; however, if the water is poured uninterruptedly it will lead to death by asphyxia. Waterboarding can cause extreme pain, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation, other physical injuries including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, and lasting psychological damage. Adverse physical effects can last for months, and psychological effects for years. The term "water board torture" appeared in press reports as early as 1976.
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 is a United States federal law that makes it a federal crime for those with access to classified information, or those who systematically seek to identify and expose covert agents and have reason to believe that it will harm the foreign intelligence activities of the U.S., to intentionally reveal the identity of an agent whom one knows to be in or recently in certain covert roles with a U.S. intelligence agency, unless the United States has publicly acknowledged or revealed the relationship.
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" was a program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at remote sites around the world—including Bagram, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and Bucharest—authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration. Methods used included beating, binding in contorted stress positions, hooding, subjection to deafening noise, sleep disruption, sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination, deprivation of food, drink, and medical care for wounds, as well as waterboarding, walling, sexual humiliation, rape, sexual assault, subjection to extreme heat or extreme cold, and confinement in small coffin-like boxes. A Guantanamo inmate's drawings of some of these tortures, to which he himself was subjected, were published in The New York Times. Some of these techniques fall under the category known as "white room torture". Several detainees endured medically unnecessary "rectal rehydration", "rectal fluid resuscitation", and "rectal feeding". In addition to brutalizing detainees, there were threats to their families such as threats to harm children, and threats to sexually abuse or to cut the throat of detainees' mothers.
Malcolm Wrightson Nance is an American author and media pundit. He is a former United States Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer specializing in naval cryptology.
The CIA interrogation videotapes destruction occurred on November 9, 2005. The videotapes were made by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during interrogations of Al-Qaeda suspects Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2002 at a CIA black site prison in Thailand. Ninety tapes were made of Zubaydah and two of al-Nashiri. Twelve tapes depict interrogations using "enhanced interrogation techniques", a euphemism for torture. The tapes and their destruction became public knowledge in December 2007. A criminal investigation by a Department of Justice special prosecutor, John Durham, decided in 2010 to not file any criminal charges related to destroying the videotapes.
Deuce Martinez is an American intelligence professional. "Deuce" is not his given first name, but a nickname that was used in the first newspaper article naming him. He was involved at the start of the Central Intelligence Agency's Rendition, Detention and Interrogation program of "high-value detainees," including Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Ali H. Soufan is a Lebanese-American former FBI agent who was involved in a number of high-profile anti-terrorism cases both in the United States and around the world. A 2006 New Yorker article described Soufan as coming closer than anyone to preventing the September 11 attacks and implied that he would have succeeded had the CIA been willing to share information with him. He resigned from the FBI in 2005 after publicly chastising the CIA for not sharing intelligence with him which could have prevented the attacks.
The Sam Adams Award is given annually since 2002 to an intelligence professional who has taken a stand for integrity and ethics. The Award is granted by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence, a group of retired CIA officers. It is named after Samuel A. Adams, a CIA whistleblower during the Vietnam War, and takes the physical form of a "corner-brightener candlestick".
Noor al-Deen is a citizen of Syria wounded when he was captured by counter-terrorism officials at a raid on a "Faisalabad safe house" when Abu Zubaydah was captured. According to the Washington Post Noor al-Deen, like Abu Zubaydah, was sent to Morocco by the CIA, so he too could be subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques"
Abu Zubaydah is a Saudi citizen who helped manage the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan. Captured in Pakistan on March 28, 2002, he has since been held by the United States as an enemy combatant. Beginning in August 2002, Abu Zubaydah was the first prisoner to undergo "enhanced interrogation techniques. There is disagreement among government sources as to how effective these techniques were; some officials contend that Abu Zubaydah gave his most valuable information before they were used; CIA lawyer John Rizzo said he gave more material afterward.
A set of legal memoranda known as the "Torture Memos" were drafted by John Yoo as Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the United States and signed in August 2002 by Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice. They advised the Central Intelligence Agency, the United States Department of Defense, and the President on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques—mental and physical torment and coercion such as prolonged sleep deprivation, binding in stress positions, and waterboarding—and stated that such acts, widely regarded as torture, might be legally permissible under an expansive interpretation of presidential authority during the "War on Terror".
Alfreda Frances Bikowsky is a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who has headed the Bin Laden Issue Station and the Global Jihad unit. Bikowsky's identity is not publicly acknowledged by the CIA, but was deduced by independent investigative journalists in 2011. In January 2014, the Washington Post named her and tied her to a pre-9/11 intelligence failure and the extraordinary rendition of Khalid El-Masri. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, released in December 2014, showed that Bikowsky was not only a key part of the torture program but also one of its chief apologists, resulting in the media's giving her the moniker "The Unidentified Queen of Torture."
The Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program is a report compiled by the bipartisan United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) about the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)'s Detention and Interrogation Program and its use of torture during interrogation in U.S. government communiqués on detainees in CIA custody. The report covers CIA activities before, during, and after the "War on Terror". The initial report was approved on December 13, 2012, by a vote of 9–6, with seven Democrats, one Independent, and one Republican voting in favor of the report and six Republicans voting in opposition.
Gina Cheri Walker Haspel is an American intelligence officer who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from May 21, 2018, to January 20, 2021. She was the agency's deputy director from 2017 to 2018 under Mike Pompeo, and became acting director on April 26, 2018, after Pompeo became U.S. secretary of state. She was later nominated and confirmed to the role, making her the first woman to become CIA director on a permanent basis.
The Report is a 2019 American historical political drama film written and directed by Scott Z. Burns that stars Adam Driver, Annette Bening, Jon Hamm, Ted Levine, Michael C. Hall, Tim Blake Nelson, Corey Stoll, and Maura Tierney. It depicts the efforts of staffer Daniel Jones as he led the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation of the Central Intelligence Agency's use of torture following the September 11th attacks, covering more than a decade's worth of real-life political intrigue related to the contents, creation, and release of the 6,700-page Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture.
The CIA controls black sites used by the U.S. government in its War on Terror to detain people deemed to be enemy combatants.
United States v. Zubaydah, 595 U.S. ___ (2022), was a United States Supreme Court case related to the state secrets privilege.
The CIA Insider's Guide to the Iran Crisis: From CIA Coup to the Brink of War is a non-fiction book by former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Officer John Kiriakou and investigative journalist and historian Gareth Porter about America's behavior and actions during four decades with Iran. The book was published by Simon & Schuster publishing on February 4, 2020.
↑ Jeff Stein (January 26, 2010). "CIA Man Retracts Claim on Waterboarding". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 2010-03-07. Well, it's official now: John Kiriakou, the former CIA operative who affirmed claims that waterboarding quickly unloosed the tongues of hard-core terrorists, says he didn't know what he was talking about.
↑ Toby Harden (June 7, 2007). "The spies who loved ... and lost their jobs". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on November 3, 2007. Retrieved 2014-12-11. Scranage was a lowly secretary in the CIA's Accra station in the 1980s who betrayed the names of American informants in Ghana after being seduced by her boyfriend, who turned out to be a Ghanaian intelligence agent. ...
↑ Fresh Air, WHYY (Philadelphia Radio), Interview of Scott Shane by Terry Gross, February 12, 2013
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