John Kiriakou, who worked for the CIA from 1990-2004, recently wrote a book titled "The Reluctant Spy". Below is a link to an interview he did on C-Span. This guy wasn't just another field agent at the CIA. He's fluent in Greek and Arabic, worked in both Intelligence and Operations, was involved in the CIA's participation in the 9/11 Response planning and led the CIA team that, in a joint effort with the FBI and the Pakistani Military, captured Abu Zabaydah in Faisalbad, Pakistan in 2002.
It sounds like there's a lot of revealing stuff in the book but one story that he talks about in the interview goes like this... In August of 2002, he went to work for the Associate Deputy Director of the CIA that was (as he quickly found out) in charge of coordinating the CIA's participation in planning for the Iraq War.
The Associate Deputy Director told him that "In March (2003), the U.S. is going to invade Iraq, overthrow Saddam Hussein, open the largest Air Force Base in the world (in Iraq) and move all of our Air assets from Saudi Arabia to Iraq. The reason for doing this is to deprive Osama Bin Laden of the ability to say that we're polluting the land of the two holy mosques (Saudi Arabia)."
When Kiriakou asked the DD (Dpty. Director) "What about Osama Bin Laden... we haven't captured him yet... aren't we taking our eye off the ball in Afghanistan?" The DD replied "It's a done deal. The decision's been made." The DD then told him "The decision was made last March" (a full year before the invasion of Iraq).
The DD went on to tell him... "We're going to the United Nations by the end of the year (2002) and we're going to pretend we want an International Coalition. We know that China, Russia and probably France will oppose us but we're prepared to go it alone."
Kiriakou said that as the March 2003 date got closer and Dick Cheney talked more and more about the supposed Saddam Hussein/Al Qaeda connection, everyone inside the Agency referred to it as "The Big Lie". Everyone inside the Agency knew there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
Pretty interesting stuff. Here's the full interview on C-Span:
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/293438-1
Trench
It sounds like there's a lot of revealing stuff in the book but one story that he talks about in the interview goes like this... In August of 2002, he went to work for the Associate Deputy Director of the CIA that was (as he quickly found out) in charge of coordinating the CIA's participation in planning for the Iraq War.
The Associate Deputy Director told him that "In March (2003), the U.S. is going to invade Iraq, overthrow Saddam Hussein, open the largest Air Force Base in the world (in Iraq) and move all of our Air assets from Saudi Arabia to Iraq. The reason for doing this is to deprive Osama Bin Laden of the ability to say that we're polluting the land of the two holy mosques (Saudi Arabia)."
When Kiriakou asked the DD (Dpty. Director) "What about Osama Bin Laden... we haven't captured him yet... aren't we taking our eye off the ball in Afghanistan?" The DD replied "It's a done deal. The decision's been made." The DD then told him "The decision was made last March" (a full year before the invasion of Iraq).
The DD went on to tell him... "We're going to the United Nations by the end of the year (2002) and we're going to pretend we want an International Coalition. We know that China, Russia and probably France will oppose us but we're prepared to go it alone."
Kiriakou said that as the March 2003 date got closer and Dick Cheney talked more and more about the supposed Saddam Hussein/Al Qaeda connection, everyone inside the Agency referred to it as "The Big Lie". Everyone inside the Agency knew there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
Pretty interesting stuff. Here's the full interview on C-Span:
http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/293438-1
Trench
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