John Kiriakou

And yeah, the rest is history.

Well, in the immediate term, I was passed over for promotion, which was kind of funny to me because I had just captured with these two hands, the number three in Al Qaeda.

And in my promotion panel, the chief of counterterrorism said exact words.

I had displayed a shocking lack of commitment to counterterrorism.

Whoa.

Well, the deputy director then promoted me just with the stroke of his pen.

So no big deal.

But then a friend of mine at the agency who happened to be he happened to be a lot of things.

We go to the same church.

We were in the same men's group.

He happens to be a psychiatrist and he happens to also be a brigadier general in the U.S.

Army.

He's a CIA psychiatrist.

He came up to me and he said, hey, buddy, I got to tell you, you know, they call you the human rights guy behind your back.

And I said, yeah, I know.

I've heard that.

And he said, you know, that's that's not a compliment.

And I said, Steve, I'm on the right side of this.

They're not.

I said, I'm not going to change my point of view just because they say something behind my back.