A senior CIA officer and whistleblower who revealed the agency used waterboarding to interrogate al-Qaeda terrorists has now made explosive revelations about US covert operations and Washington’s ties to Pakistan, shedding light on the contours of a complicated relationship that has shaped the regional balance of power in South Asia.
John Kiriakou, who served as the head of the CIA’s counter-terrorism operations in Pakistan in 2002, made the bombshell claims in an interview with news agency ANI.
Here are some of the ex-CIA man’s most explosive revelations.
1. Osama bin Laden escaped dressed as a woman with the help of a traitor
Kiriakou, a 15-year veteran of the CIA, said in an interview that when US and allied forces had 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, a traitor within the US military helped the al Qaeda leader escape.
“We didn’t know that the translator for the commander of Central Command was actually an al-Qaeda operative who had infiltrated the US military. We knew we had bin Laden in a corner. We told him to get off the mountain. And he said through the translator, ‘Can you give us until dawn? We want to evacuate the women and children.’ The translator convinced General (Tommy) Franks,” recalled a former agency man.
“What ended up happening was Bin Laden was dressed as a woman and fled under the cover of darkness in the back of a pickup truck to Pakistan,” Kiriakou said.
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2. The US “bought” Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
When asked about Washington’s tendency to work with authoritarian figures, Kiriakou said nothing.
“Let’s be honest. The United States loves working with dictators. Because then you don’t have to worry about public opinion and you don’t have to worry about the media,” the CIA whistleblower said.
“And so we basically just bought Musharraf. We provided millions and millions and millions of dollars in aid, whether it was military aid or economic development aid. And we met with Musharraf regularly, several times a week, and he basically let us do whatever we wanted,” Kiriakou said, explaining that the CIA was holding the former Pakistani president.
3. The Pentagon controlled Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal
Kiriakou also said that Musharraf, out of concern that Islamabad’s nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists, handed over control of Pakistan’s entire nuclear arsenal to the United States.
“When I was stationed in Pakistan in 2002, I was told anecdotally that the Pentagon controlled Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, that Musharraf had handed over control to the United States because he was afraid of exactly what you just described,” the former CIA man told the interviewer.
4. Assassination of Abdul Qadeer Khan
Abdul Qadeer Khan, known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, also gained worldwide fame for his role in leading the nuclear proliferation network.
Commenting on whether the US ever intended to take action against AQ Khan, the former CIA officer said: “Well, if we had taken, you know, the Israeli approach, we would have just killed him. He was easy enough to find. We knew where he lived. We knew how he spent his day.”
However, the assassination never took place because the Saudi government, which supported Khan, directly intervened.
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“But he (Khan) also had the support of the Saudi government. And the Saudis came to us and said, ‘Please leave him alone.’ … there were instructions from the White House not to attack AQ Khan and it must have been because the Saudis demanded it and insisted,” Kiriakou said.
5. US ignored Pakistani terrorism against India
Kiriakou further stated that a conscious decision was taken at the highest levels of the US government to turn a blind eye to Pakistan’s support for anti-India terrorist groups.
Explain why the White House made that decision, Kiriakou said: “That was a decision that was made in the White House, and the decision was that the relationship is at least temporarily greater than India-Pakistan.”
“We really needed them (Pakistan) to allow us to build our drones in Balochistan, for example… And so a decision was made in the White House that if we strategically ignored this terrorism issue vis-a-vis India, it would be much easier to negotiate a relationship (with Islamabad), and that’s what we did,” the former CIA man said.
6. A tale of two ISIs
Commenting on what he described as Pakistan’s “double life”, Kiriakou told ANI that Islamabad has to balance between counter-terrorism cooperation with the US and support to anti-India terrorists.
“There were really two parallel ISIS. There was the ISI that I worked with and these people were heroes… But then there was another ISI made up of people with long beards who gave you dirty looks when you walked down the corridors there,” Kiriakou said, adding: “These were the ISI members who created these Kashmiri terrorist groups… or you know other groups that blew up Shia Muslim mosques.
7. US paid millions to ISI
In addition to the aid given to Pakistan to “buy” Musharraf, Kiriakou said the US had also paid the ISI millions of dollars in cash. How the money was used remains a mystery.
“We paid out tens of millions of dollars in cash as rewards to Pakistani intelligence and God knows what they did with that money,” the former CIA officer said.
8. USA expected India to attack Pakistan after 26.11
Kiriakou also said the White House expected war to break out in 2008 after the 11/26 terrorist attack.
Recalling the US government’s surprise at India’s restraint after the 2001 Parliament attack and the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Kiriakou noted that New Delhi would be “perfectly within its rights” to attack Pakistan in retaliation.
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9. No victory if India attacks
However, such an attack by India, if it ever happened, would be devastating for Pakistan, Kiriakou stated unequivocally.
“Literally nothing good will come out of a real war between India and Pakistan because the Pakistanis will lose. It’s that simple. They will lose. And I’m not talking about nuclear weapons. I’m just talking about conventional war. The Pakistanis will lose,” the former CIA agent said.
10. Rampant corruption among Pakistan’s elite
As Kiriakou gave a first-hand account of the wealth of Pakistan’s ruling elite, she also recalled meeting former prime minister Benazir Bhutto during her exile in Dubai.
“When Benazir Bhutto was in exile in Dubai … we heard a car pull up and she said exactly these words: ‘So help me, God. If (former Pakistani president and Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari) comes home with another Bentley, I will kill him,'” Kiriakou said.
“And then I said to my boss, ‘She makes $60,000 a year. She lives in a $5 million house and he has a collection of Bentleys. Isn’t he ashamed of himself?'” the former CIA agent recalled in amazement.
Who is former CIA officer John Kiriakou?
Kiriakou, a career CIA operative, gained notoriety in 2007 after becoming the first US government official to confirm that waterboarding was used as a technique to interrogate al-Qaeda prisoners, which he described as torture.
Whistleblowing at the CIA landed Kiriakou in trouble, and in 2012 he was convicted of exposing the agency. He pleaded guilty and received 30 months in prison.
