Intercept - John Kiriakou is the only CIA employee to go to prison in connection with the agency’s torture program. Not because he tortured anyone, but because he revealed information on torture to a reporter.
Kiriakou is the Central Intelligence Agency officer who told ABC News in 2007 that the CIA waterboarded suspected al-Qaeda prisoners after the September 11 attacks, namely Abu Zubaydah, thought to be a key al Qaeda official. Although he felt at the time that waterboarding probably saved lives, Kiriakou nevertheless came to view the practice as torture and later claimed he unwittingly understated how many times Zubaydah was subjected to waterboarding....
John Kiriakou - One thing that I think most everybody has missed is, we knew about the waterboarding, we knew about the cold cells, we knew about the loud music and the sleep deprivation. We knew about all the things that have been ‘approved’ by the Justice Department. But what we didn’t know was what individual CIA officers were doing on their own without any authorization. And I would like to know why those officers aren’t being prosecuted when clearly they’ve committed crimes and those crimes were well documented by both the CIA and the Senate Committee of Intelligence....
When I was in the counter terrorism center, an official came up to me and asked me if I wanted to be certified in the enhanced interrogation techniques. And I said, “Look, I have a moral problem with this. I think there’s a slippery slope, I think somebody is going to get killed. There’s going to be an investigation. And a bunch of people are going to go to prison, and I don’t want any part of it.” And ironically, I was the only one who went to prison...
As part of this conviction, I lost my pension. I had $770,000 saved in that pension. And it’s just gone. So, I’ve got to start rebuilding. And I still owe my lawyers almost a million dollars.
I have a temporary job when I get out, doing some business development work for a medical group. But it’s just a temporary position. What I’d like to do is go to a think tank. I like to write and speak and teach, and I think that’s the best fit for me. I got to take things slowly, get back on my feet again. But it’s been hard.
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