John Kiriakou

I've changed dramatically in the intervening years.

Not just because I'm so much older and more worldly, more mature, but my core beliefs about my own government have changed.

I used to think that it was just so easy, so clear, there are good guys and bad guys and we're the good guys.

And that's just not, life is not that clear cut.

It's not that simple.

And I've also come around on the idea of foreign interventions.

I made my bones at the CIA with the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait.

And I went into Kuwait City with Marines on Liberation Day, February 17th, 1991.

It was formative for me.

But then, you know, when we attacked Iraq in 2003,

That's when I really began my transformation.

That was a war of choice.

We all knew that the Iraqi government had literally nothing to do with 9-11.

Literally nothing.

That was a lie that was being fed to the American people.

We knew that the Iraqis had no weapons of mass destruction.

I sat in on the meetings where the analysts were practically killing each other

The Department of Energy said, yes, there are weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons.

And the CIA said, no, there are none.

There were none.