John Kiriakou

And I asked a very, very senior official for whom I had worked in the Middle East 10 years earlier for some advice.

I knocked on his door, no appointment.

And I said, listen, I was just approached and asked if I wanted to be trained in these enhanced interrogation techniques.

What do you think of that?

And he said, first of all, let's call a spade a spade.

They can use whatever euphemism they want.

This is a torture program, and torture's a slippery slope.

And you know how these guys are.

Some of them are cowboys, and somebody's gonna kill a prisoner.

And then there's gonna be a congressional investigation, and then a Justice Department investigation, and somebody's gonna go to prison.

Do you wanna go to prison?

And I said, no, I don't wanna go to prison.

As it turned out, I was the only person who went to prison.

But I went back downstairs and I said, this is a torture program.

I have a moral and ethical problem with it.

I think it's illegal and I don't want to have anything to do with it.

And so they cut me out, which was fine.

I preferred to not

I preferred to not be read into the program.

But then on the strength of my work in Pakistan, I was promoted and I was named the executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director.