John Kiriakou

My pleasure.

Sure.

I was born and raised in western Pennsylvania in a very rural, tiny town in Amish country north of Pittsburgh by about one hour.

Really, my biggest influences in my life were my dad and my grandfather, my father's father.

My entire family emigrated to the United States from Greece, from the island of Rhodes.

All four of the grandparents in 1931 on my dad's side, 1934 on my mother's side.

The week after I turned 18, I went to Washington, D.C., went to school at George Washington University.

I earned a...

I earned a bachelor's degree in Middle Eastern studies, and I stayed for a master's degree in legislative affairs with a focus on American foreign policy analysis.

My graduate school advisor, it turned out, was undercover as a graduate school advisor.

He was a CIA officer looking for people who might fit into the CIA's culture.

He believed that I would fit into the CIA's culture, and he recruited me into the CIA.

I spent 15 years there.

The first half of my career was in analysis, specifically on Iraq.

And then the second half of my career was in counterterrorism operations.

I served many tours overseas in counterterrorism.

I was the chief of CIA counterterrorism operations in Pakistan just after the 9-11 attacks.

and um that's where things sort of begin to turn i was uh i'm sorry to say that i was the only person who objected to the cia torture program i did so internally which just fell on deaf ears and then after i left the cia i decided finally to go public in a nationally televised interview and i i said that the cia was torturing its prisoners that torture was official

U.S.

government policy and that the policy had been personally approved by the president.