John Kiriakou - Former CIA Intelligence Officer HARDtalk

Now on BBC News, let's get some more HARDtalk.

Today is a first for this show. My guest is currently on probation

after serving two years in a US federal prison. It was eager to join

me in the studio at the British government refused to give him a

visa. So John Kiriakou is joining me from Washington, DC. He is a former

CIA agent who played a key role in anti- terror operations after 9/11,

and later went public with the truth about waterboarding. He was

imprisoned the names of two CIA agents. He says he is a truth teller

scapegoated by the US government IT by trade and trust. -- but he

portrayed a trust. John Kiriakou in Washington, DC,

welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you for having me. He walked out over

federal prison pretty much over a year ago -- you walked out. Do you

feel like a free man today? Know, frankly, I don't. It took me about

six months before the post-traumatic stress disorder and prison dreams

start, but I am also on something called federal probation for another

2.5 years. So I have to get permission every time I want to

leave Washington, I have to get a judge's permission to travel

overseas, and submit a monthly expense report. So the courts know

what I spent my money on. Let's get this business of why you are not

here in the flesh as we planned. You say the judges have to give you

permission to travel. Did you get permission to travel for this

interview? Yes, I did, very quickly in fact. The judge usually asks for

a month's notice, and I gave her two weeks. She approved immediately. So

why are you here? Unfortunately the British Home Office refused my Visa.

This is despite the fact I have actually been decorated by one of

your intelligence services. They say it is standard practice that those

convicted of crimes, for example in the United States, they do not think

it granted visas when they are released. They would say it is

nothing to do with anything connected to your intelligence work

or the words you have given us about what you were involved in. Yes,

apparently there were just following orders. That is what they say. Let's

get to the eye any of this. You worked for 15 years in the CIA. Your

duty was to keep America safe. You then find yourself locked up in a

federal jail. How difficult was that to deal with? It was very stressful

in the beginning. I was worried about it, frankly, but what I did

was I made a conscious decision to rely on my CIA training and to make

sure I use that training to keep myself at the top of the heap, so to

speak, in prison. You said it was both the greatest and worst

experience of your life. Worst I can get my head around, latest I am

struggling with. It opened so many doors to me. I got to see a side of

American society I otherwise would never have been exposed to. Our

justice system in the United States is deeply flawed. I never paid any

attention to it until I was mired in myself. For many people who do not

know your case, we need to go back a bit. The bottom line is you were

convicted of a very serious crime. You meet the names of two covert

operatives working for the CIA -- leaked. There is no doubt you did it

Why did you do it? Let me correct you. I named one covert operative.

The other name wasn't over name. He was in public as a CIA officer and

had never been undercover. That charge was dropped. A reporter told

me he was writing out book and asked if I could introduce him to someone

who might agree to sit for an interview. I said I did not know

anyone who was active in the area in which it was writing. Then he said,

what about...? And he offered a first name. And he said, I will say

John Smith, and I said I did not know what happened to John Smith, he

is retired. That is the crime I committed. You make it seem so

innocent. You are a very senior CIA agent. You must have known when you

provided this name you were broaching all of the oaths of

secrecy and confidentiality you had taken over many years in a job. I

will tell you the truth. It was a momentary lapse in judgement and I

greatly regret I did it. I would then offer to you that a general

leaked the name of ten covert operatives to his golfing and faced

a misdemeanour charge that included no prison time, a fine, and 18

months of unsupervised oration. That is what a child says in the

playground. Little Johnny did something worse than me. That does

not excuse what you did. I want to focus on what you did. How would you

feel if you were a covert operative whose name had been leaked one of

friends and colleagues. This was a friend of yours whose name you go to

the reporter. How would you feel if the situation had been reversed? I

would have been angry and that is why I have apologised and expressed

contrition and remorse. I will also add the name was never leaked, I

mean never made public in any way, and this is a double standard we see

in the CIA and the Justice Department that they will look for

something with which they can use in court against someone whose politics

they do not like or whose opinion they do not like. When names are

made all the time in Washington and there are no legal proceedings after

that. We will get two reasons why you may not have been right for

several reasons for a moment, but let's stick with the narrative. It

seems important if you are a CIA operative that you appreciate just

how sensitive the information is you hold. As I understand it,

investigators discovered that you have provided at least one of these

two names when they realised that the defence team representing some

of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners had information that could not have,

from official sources and must have come from you. That surely makes you

feel terrible! That is endangering the lives of others. What happened

was the reporter who had asked me for the name was secretly working

for the Guantanamo defence attorneys, and when he received the

name from me, he turned it over to the Guantanamo defence attorneys. I

can't imagine that you worked in the CIA for so long against the al-Qaeda

organisation, against global terror, how guilty you must have felt at

that point. Sure, I felt awful. One of the questions frequently people

ask me is our use re-? The answer is I am terribly sorry I did it. -- are

you sorry? I will be sorry for the rest of my life. I have written a

book in which I expressed his remarks. I am sorry it ever

happened. John Rizzo, a longtime CIA lawyer has brought very long time

what you it, and he concluded I think John Kiriakou wanted to be a

big shot. I don't think it was evil, but it was definitely not a trivial

thing giving away that name. Did you want to be a big shot? If I wanted

to be a big shot I would have gone on BBC grammar and giving the name,

or gone on CNN given the name -- BBC HARDtalk. I answered a question from

a reporter that I shouldn't have. It had nothing to do with being a big

shot. The other issue is about whether you were trying to lead the

press trying to -- towards something you wanted to provide, about

waterboarding. One man was very close to the waterboarding

programme. Did you have a motive? You wanted to lead journalists to an

investigation of everything around the waterboarding story? No, it was

actually much more civil than that. I think you are talking about an

article in the New York Times. -- simple than that. He did a

biographical look at his career in the CIA. I did not give Martinez bat

name -- Martinez' name to the author. Scott Shane interviewed what

he called two dozen former and current foreign and domestic

intelligence officers and he came to me saying he was doing an article on

Martinez. Martinez had never been undercover ever. He was not even a

CIA employee. That is why that charge was dropped. To answer your

broader question, did I want the press, no. I have very strongly held

leaves against torture. Especially against waterboarding. But the

information was ready out there. I was happy to provide my opinion and

whatever background I could because I believe my government was

violating the law, not just domestic war but international law as well. I

was happy to provide that opinion to the press -- domestic law. It just

seems odd to me that you obviously as an operative, a singer operative

in the CIA working in Pakistan and elsewhere in 2002 -- senior

operative, you were aware that the government and CIA had authorised

these alternative interrogation methods, including waterboarding. It

seems to me from reading the background you were quite happy to

believe that was justifiable at the time. It was only many years later

that you decided it was completely unacceptable. Why the timelag? I

wanted to believe what our officers were reporting back from the field,

that while this was a terrible thing, torture was a terrible thing,

that it was working and saving American lives. I wanted to believe

that. This is the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. We

really believed Osama Bin Laden when he said al-Qaeda was planning

another attack that would dwarf 9/11. While I thought it was a

hideous pink, how operatives in the field was saying it was working --

hideous thing. That turned out to be a lie. It was not working. No

intelligence was gathered. No attacks were disrupted and no

American lives were saved. When two to first find out, to use your

phrase, it was a lie was like user was so effective that you told the

ball one captive saying like a canary after just one waterboarding

session. The things you said in the past were simply not true. I came to

that understanding after the report in April 2009. The CIA Inspector

General was the first person to release documentary evidence,

primary source evidence, CIA operation cables, that were

redacted, saying the reporting from the field was a bye and the torture

had never worked. We are getting a picture of the transition you made

-- was a lie. Becoming a opponent of these tactics. But let's talk about

the principles you have to abide by as a CIA agent. When it came to your

trial, and in the end there was a plea bargain in you did not face

charges under the espionage act which could have locked you up for

many years, he faced lesser charges to do with the specific leaking of

the name and got 2.5 years in prison, but the judge said at the

time she was really disappointed that she could not give you a more

serious sentence. She said the sentence you eventually got was, way

too light. Can you understand that giving your breach of trust?

No I cannot and I will tell you why. In the preliminary hearing the judge

described my sentence of two and half years as fair and appropriate.

Those were her words. Fair and appropriate. It was only three

months later when the court room was packed with every reporter in

Washington that she decided to make a name for herself in the paper by

saying that she wished she could've looked me up for ten years. Her

point was simple and it is still surely the most important point

today. This is not the case of a whistleblower, she said. This is the

case of a man who betrayed a solemn trust and the truth is that is the

label that will follow you to your grave. I don't think that's true. I

think I am seen as a whistleblower. The judge said the same thing. The

judge is handling the Edward Snowden case and she said the same thing

about him. She said the same thing about Jeffrey sterling whom she

sentenced to three and a half years in prison several months ago. This

is a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia. It is considered to be

the espionage court. No one is ever found not guilty of a national

security crimes in the Eastern District of Virginia. This is what

this judge does. She is a hall on national security, she doesn't

believe that there is such a thing as a national security whistleblower

and she changes her opinion based on whether there are reporters in the

courtroom. But if you were not punished for what you have

acknowledged, even on the show with deep regret, to be a serious breach

of the oath that you took, if you are not punished for that, how can

the US or any intelligence service function if people are not punished

for breaking those rules of secrecy and confidentiality? The whole

system breaks down. You are a making the assumption that I believe I

shouldn't have been punished. And I acknowledged in court that I should

have been punished. I gladly accepted that punishment. What I am

arguing is that the courts in the United States should be consistent.

I don't have four shiny stars on my shoulder, I am not a friend of the

President, I do not make $250,000 a speech. If an employee of the CIA is

going to leak names, there should be a standard set punishment for that

no matter if you are a friend of the pond Dow president or not. Went back

to David the traitorous, you say what sticks in your throat is that

David the Trias is found to have leaked information including

important secret information to the woman who was his lover at the time

and was fined but was not sent to prison. That just sticks in your

craw, does it? Not only that but the day after his sentencing he flew to

Iraq on a contract to devise the White House. He didn't even lose his

security clearance and not only did he leaked ten names of covert

operatives to his girlfriend, but he also leaked something called the

Black books. These are the most closely held secrets that the CIA

has. Right but to be clear in legal terms, in the end, at the crime he

is deemed to meet the standards for storage of confidential

information. You can make your claims, but the court was clear and

that is why he was fined and not as you were, put on a in a US federal

prison. Yes and that is my argument. The fix was in because he is a

friend of the president and he had those four shiny stars on his

shoulder. What about Leon Panetta? You seem to have a beef against him

as well because it does seem from public reporting that he

confidentially released the names, or confidential information, I

should say, in a presentation about the targeting of Osama Bin Laden

when there were people in the room who had no security clearance. That

sticks in your craw also, does it? Again, it is inconsistent. Leon

Panetta provided confidential information to a Hollywood

screenwriter and a Hollywood producer, including the name of the

Navy SEAL who killed Osama Bin Laden. That there was no

investigation of him. There was no punishment for him. So where's the

consistency? Leon Panetta made it very clear that he didn't know those

nonsecurity cleared people were in the room. I suppose what intrigues

me is the sense of resentment you have got. Rather than just moving

on... You are wrong. I have moved on. I am only answering these

questions because you are asking them. Here in Washington in my

everyday life, this is all water under the bridge. I haven't even

discussed these issues in a year. Except it is not really water under

the bridge, I'm not making this up, you have alluded to the fact that in

your view, the Obama administration is more paranoid than the Nixon

administration was. You have said that he is worse than Nixon. He is

worse than Nixon. Even Nixon never prosecuted leakers under the

espionage act. Let me tell you something, the espionage act was

written in 1917 to combat German saboteurs during first World War.

Between 1917 - 2009 it was used three times to charge leakers who

had leaked information to the press. From 2009 to the present, President

Obama has charged ten people under that act. It was not meant... What

about motivation? We know that as Richard Nixon got deeper and deeper

into his scandal, he was 20 save his own skin. Obama isn't, he is simply

trying to save the functioning of his own security services. To quote

the attorney general at the time, safeguarding classified information,

including the identities of CIA officers is critical to keeping our

intelligence officers safe and protecting our national security.

Then I ask you, why was there no prosecution of Leon Panetta and why

was there no felony prosecution of David Petraus? I agree with Eric

Holder, the secrets have to remain secret but by God, if you're going

to prosecute people under the espionage act, an act which is meant

to convict spies and traitors, then why aren't you consistent? The

interesting point, I know that you are in contact with Edward Snowden

and we know that he dumped a whole mountain of sensitive, top-secret

information into the public domain on the basis that you agree that

those who of confidentiality ought to be held to account, do you want

to see him come back to the US and face trial? I think Edward Snowden

has said himself he is willing to come back to the US and face trial.

Let me comment on him for a moment, if you don't mind. I would not have

done things the way Edward Snowden did. I would not have released all

the information that Edward Snowden released had I had access to it. For

example, I don't mind that the NSA is spying on the leaders of some of

our allies. I want the NSA to collect as much information on

foreign leaders as possible. That is what intelligent service does. But

the important thing, in my view, that he did is that he exposed

crimes that the American government is committing against its own

people. It is against the law, and it is indeed a violation of the NSA

charter, for example, to spy on American citizens. Sure but you know

there are internal procedures by which people like Edward Snowden or

anyone working within the system can flag these sorts of reservations.

No, that's not true. What he did by dumping information in the public

domain was exposed active agents and indeed come military operations to

the scrutiny of outsiders, including enemies. No, he has not declared any

agents to anybody. Your premise is incorrect. Tom Drake was a very

senior NSA officer. We have had him on the show. He went through the

chain of command and went to the Inspector General and the General

Counsel in the NSA, then he went to the Inspector General at the

Department of defence and when he got no satisfaction, he went to the

House Select Committee on intelligence and that got him nine

felony charges including seven counts of espionage. In addition,

while there is a whistleblower protection act in the United

States, NSA will sell blowers are exempt from its coverage so there is

no place to go -- whistleblowers. If you have any concerns of fraud or

any -- illegality, the only place to go as the press and then you have to

face the consequences. And you have had to face them puppy you've been

out of the CIA for more than a decade now. 14 years now. How do you

feel about the way the CIA is working today and the morale inside

the agency today? I think morale is probably a little better now than it

was at the time that I left. Because it appears we are not torturing

people in secret prisons anymore. But there is an ongoing problem that

the CIA has and that is its inability to infiltrate foreign

terrorist groups. Rather than focusing on things like collecting

information on American citizens, for example, I think all of our

intelligence services should be focused on infiltrating foreign

terrorist groups in order to disrupt future attacks and I think the CIA

is still, all these years after September 11, unsuccessful in doing

that. To put it bluntly, you think there is too much focus on drones

and what you call paramilitary operations and not enough on basic

intelligence gathering? Yes. The CIA is not a paramilitary organisation,

it was never designed to be. It was designed to recruit spies to steal

secrets and then to analyse the secrets and pass them to US

policymakers. It needs to get back to those core values. And to keeping

its own secret safe. Indeed. All right. John Kiriakou, a pleasure to

talk to you. Thank you for being on HARDtalk. The pleasure is mine.

Thank you very much.