(MENAFN- Live Mint) A top-ranking CIA officer and whistleblower who exposed the agency's use of waterboarding to interrogate al-Qaeda terrorists has now made explosive revelations about US covert operations and Washington's ties with Pakistan, shedding light on the contours of a complicated relationship that shaped the regional balance of power in South Asia.

John Kiriakou, who served as the CIA 's chief of counter-terrorism operations in Pakistan in 2002, made the bombshell claims in an interview with news agency ANI.

Here are some of the most explosive revelations by the former CIA man.

1. Osama bin Laden escaped dressed as a woman, aided by a traitor

Kiriakou, a 15-year CIA veteran, said in the interview that when US and allied forces had 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, traitor within the US military helped the al-Qaeda leader escape.

"We did not know that the translator for the commander of central command was actually an al-Qaeda operative who had infiltrated the US military. We knew we had bin Laden cornered. We told him to come down the mountain. And he said through the translator, 'Can you just give us until dawn? We want to evacuate the women and children.' The translator convinced General [Tommy] Franks," the former agency man recalled.

"What ended up happening was Bin Laden dressed as a woman and he escaped under the cover of darkness in the back of a pickup truck into Pakistan," Kiriakou said.

Also Read | Did Donald Trump recognise North Korea's nuclear capability? 2. US 'purchased' Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf

Asked about Washington's tendency to collaborate with authoritarian figures, Kiriakou minced no words, saying.

"Let's be honest. the United States loves working with dictators. Because then you don't have to worry about public opinion and you don't have to worry about the media," the CIA whistleblower said.

"And so we essentially just purchased Musharraf. We gave millions and millions and millions of dollars in in aid, whether it was military aid or economic development aid. And we would meet with Musharraf regularly, several times a week, and essentially he would let us do whatever we wanted to do," Kiriakou said, explaining the CIA's hold on the former Pakistani President.

3. Pentagon controlled Pakistan's nuclear arsenal

Kiriakou also said that Musharraf, fearing that Islamabad's nuclear weapons could fall into terrorist hands, gave control of the entire Pakistani nuclear arsenal to the United States.

"When I was stationed in Pakistan in 2002, I was told unofficially that that the Pentagon controlled the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, that Musharraf had turned control over to the United States because he was afraid of exactly what you just described," the ex-CIA man told the interviewer.

4. Assassinating Abdul Qadeer Khan

Known as the father of Pakistan's nuclear programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan also gained global notoriety for his role in running a nuclear proliferation network.

Commenting on whether the US ever meant to act against A Q Khan, the former CIA officer said, "Well, if we had taken, you know, the Israeli approach, we would have just killed him. He was easy enough to find. We knew where he lived. We knew how he spent his day."

However, the assassination never took place because the Saudi Arabian government, who backed Khan, intervened directly.

Also Read | Maduro pleads 'no crazy war' – but what's Trump's endgame for Venezuela?

"But he [Khan] also had the support of the Saudi government. And the Saudis came to us and said, 'Please leave him alone.'... there were instructions from the White House not to attack A Q Khan and it had to be because the Saudis were demanding it, insisting on it," Kiriakou said.

5. US ignored Pakistani terrorism against India

Kiriakou also went on to say that a conscious decision was taken at the highest levels of the US government to turn a blind eye to Pakistan's support for anti-India terrorist groups.

Explain why the White House chose to do so, Kiriakou said, "That was a decision that was made at the White House and the decision was that that the relationship is bigger than India-Pakistan at least temporarily."

"We really needed them [Pakistan] to let us base our drones in Balochistan for example... And so a decision was made at the White House that if we strategically ignore this terrorism problem vis-a-vis India, the relationship [with Islamabad] would be much easier to negotiate and and so that's what we did," the the ex-CIA man said.

6. A tale of two ISIs

Commenting on what he described as the "dual life" of Pakistan, Kiriakou told ANI that Islamabad had to balance between carrying cooperating on counter-terrorism with the US and backing anti-India terrorists.

"There really were two parallel ISIS. There was the the ISI that I was working with and these guys were heroes... But then there was another ISI made up of people with long beards who gave you a dirty look when you were walking the halls there," Kiriakou said, adding, "These were the members of ISI who had created these Kashmiri terrorist groups... or you know other groups that were blowing up Shia Muslim mosques and were attacking Americans."

7. US paid millions to ISI

Apart from aid given to Pakistan to "purchase" Musharraf, Kiriakou said that the US also paid millions of dollars in cash to the ISI. How the money was used still remains a mystery.

"We paid tens of millions of dollars in cash as rewards to the Pakistani intelligence service and God knows what they did with that money," the ex-CIA officer said.

8. US expected India to attack Pakistan after 26/11

Kiriakou also said that the White House had expected a war to break out in 2008 following the 26/11 terror attack.

Recalling the US government's surprise at India's restraint following the 2001 Parliament attack and the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Kiriakou noted that New Delhi would have been "perfectly within its rights" to attack Pakistan in retaliation.

Also Read | Pak PM Shehbaz Sharif's Sycophancy In Full Display For 3 Mins 9. No victory if India attacks

However, such an attack by India, if it were ever to happen, would be devastating for Pakistan, Kiriakou unequivocally said.

"Literally nothing good will come of a of an actual war between India and Pakistan because the Pakistanis will lose. It's as simple as that. They'll lose. And I'm not talking about nuclear weapons. I'm talking just about a conventional war. The Pakistanis will lose," the ex-CIA agent said.

10. Rampant corruption among Pakistan's elite

Giving a firsthand account of the opulence of Pakistan's ruling elite, Kiriakou also recalled meeting former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto during her exile in Dubai.

"When Benazir Bhutto was in exile in uh Dubai... we heard a car pull up and she said these exact words, 'So help me, God. If he [former Pakistan President and Bhutto's husband Asif Ali Zardari] comes home with another Bentley, I'm going to kill him,'" Kiriakou said.

"And I said to my boss afterwards, 'She makes $60,000 a year. She lives in a $5 million house and he has a collection of Bentleys. Aren't they ashamed of themselves?'," the former CIA agent recalled wondering.

Who is former CIA officer John Kiriakou?

A career CIA man, Kiriakou shot to public fame in 2007 after becoming the first US government official to confirm that waterboarding was being used as a technique to interrogate al-Qaeda prisoners, something he described as torture.

Whistleblowing on the CIA only landed Kiriakou in trouble, and in 2012 he was convicted for exposing the agency. He pleaded guilty and was given a 30-month prison sentence.

MENAFN25102025007365015876ID1110246373