John Kiriakou spent fifteen years at the CIA, first as an analyst and later as head of counterterrorism operations in Pakistan after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Kiriakou had said in the aftermath of the four-day mini-war between India and Pakistan that India would easily defeat Pakistan in a conventional war. Speaking to news agency ANI, Kiriakou said: “Nothing, literally nothing good will come from an actual war between India and Pakistan, because the Pakistanis will lose. It’s that simple. They will lose. And I’m not talking about nuclear weapons. I’m only talking about a conventional war. And so there is no point in continually provoking the Indians.”
Kiriakou’s comment in October sparked a wave of online abuse among Pakistanis.
Then came the letter from the president of the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Kiriakou said. As of March 2023, former Punjab CM Chaudhry Parvez Elahi leads the party.
The letter condemned his comments “in the strongest possible terms” and demanded “an immediate apology” to “His Excellency, the former Prime Minister.” [Imran Khan]to the members of the party [PTI]and for the people of Pakistan.
“I said that India would beat Pakistan in a conventional conflict because it has five times the population. The death threats… I’ve lost count of how many death threats I’ve received. And best of all, like my lawyer, keep a low profile, be aware of your surroundings. So I got a letter from the president of Imran Khan’s political party, right? Whatever it’s called, the Pakistani… whatever… party. And he says they condemn in the strongest possible terms what I told the Indians, and they demand an immediate apology to His Excellency the former Prime Minister, to the members of the party and to the people of Pakistan,” former CIA officer Kiriakou revealed in a YouTube podcast with Julian Dorey.
Instead of backing down, Kiriakou claimed he did the opposite.
He ignored his lawyer’s advice to quietly throw the letter away and sent back a blistering email.
“So my lawyer said, just throw it away, just throw it away. So I didn’t throw it away. I sent him an email and I said, ‘As for your demand for an apology, I’m wiping my ass with your demands for an apology.’ And I hit send and that’s how I left it and I didn’t hear from them again,” Kiriakou revealed in the podcast uploaded on November 18.
WHO IS FORMER CIA OFFICER JOHN KIRIAKOU?
Former CIA officer Kiriakou spent years working in South Asia during his time in the intelligence community and later wrote extensively about Pakistan’s internal security apparatus and West Asia (or the Middle East). His assessment, he said, was not political but mathematical. Besides, it was his opinion.
Kiriakou’s comments on India’s superiority in conventional warfare came months after Indian troops attacked Pakistani military installations following the war. ISI-backed terror attack in Pahalgam. Speaking in October, he said India’s responses, from the surgical strikes of 2016 to Balakot in 2019, show a country that do not be mistaken for ‘strategic patience’ more for weakness. It is against this backdrop that he warned that Pakistan would lose any conventional war with India and that Islamabad should stop provoking a neighbor that is much stronger and much less tolerant of terror than before.
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