John Kiriakou

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.

And in that position, I had access to literally everything that the CIA was doing around the world.

And it was on August 2nd that we began torturing Abu Zubaydah, who was the first high-value prisoner that we had.

I led his capture in Faisalabad, Pakistan in March, March 28th.

Yeah, you know, I was standing on a coffee table in the safe house with 60 people arrayed in front of me, and I said, listen, the orders are to take them alive.

Do not shoot them.

And of course, as soon as...

The proverbial shit hits the fan.

A Pakistani policeman just opens fire and shoots him three times with an AK-47 in the thigh, the groin and the stomach.