CIA Whistleblower: They Can See All Your Messages!

0:00 – 7:00

The Day a 26-Year-Old Briefed the President on War

John Kiriakou was 26 years old, sitting at his CIA desk covering Iraq—a country his boss had called a "training account because nothing ever happens there." Then Iraq invaded Kuwait. His boss appeared at his cubicle: "Don't take your jacket off. We're going to the White House." Moments later, Kiriakou found himself in the Oval Office with President George H.W. Bush, the vice president, the CIA director, and the national security adviser. Everyone sat down. The president asked, "Well, now what do we do?" And everyone turned to look at the youngest person in the room. Kiriakou walked them through the invasion timeline, identified the new occupation governor, and revealed a crucial detail: the governor was co-founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Vice President Dan Quayle shouted, "Jesus Christ." The president thanked them and ended the meeting. Walking out, Kiriakou thought to himself: "My friends would never believe in a thousand years what I was doing right now. They wouldn't even believe me if I told them." This is what CIA analysts do—they write intelligence assessments that land on the president's desk by 7 a.m., sometimes labeled "flash" (wake the president immediately) or "critic" (we're at war, scramble the jets). The job sounds glamorous until you realize it destroyed Kiriakou's first marriage because he couldn't tell his wife anything about his day, even when he came home at 6 a.m. reeking of garbage after sitting in a dumpster waiting for a target to throw documents in an alley.