Abu Zubaydah's diary contained the cell phone numbers of three Saudi princes. The CIA demanded access. Within days, one died on the operating table during bariatric surgery, another died in a one-car accident on a Saudi highway, and the third died of thirst while camping in the desert. Kiriakou says Saudi Arabia killed them.
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At 43:14 · chapter starts 38:30
Kiriakou details the 6-week hunt for Abu Zubaydah across Pakistan, culminating in his capture in Faisalabad in March 2002. His confiscated diary — actually a collection of drawings, most classified top secret — contained the cell phone numbers of three Saudi princes. When the CIA demanded access to the princes, the results were swift and suspicious: one died during bariatric surgery, another in a one-car accident on a Saudi highway, and the third of thirst while camping in the desert. Kiriakou is unambiguous: Saudi Arabia killed them. He also notes that CIA Director George Tenet was the only official he ever saw 'completely lose his shit,' threatening Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar that the CIA would start killing people 'named Al Saud' if cooperation didn't improve.
Three Saudi princes whose cell phone numbers were found in Abu Zubaydah's diary all died suspicious deaths — hospital surgery, a one-car accident, and thirst while camping — before the CIA could interrogate them.
Kiriakou believes Israel had sources inside al-Qaeda and advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks but deliberately withheld that intelligence. The reasoning: they knew the U.S. would respond by attacking Afghanistan and Iraq, killing millions of Muslims — exactly what Israel wanted. He calls the 'Dancing Israelis' incident still unresolved and is 'still mad about it.'
Factories that replaced coal engines with electric ones in the early 1900s got only 6% efficiency gains. Those that redesigned their entire factory around electricity got a 3x productivity improvement. Swapping AI tools into your existing structure will give you 6%. Rebuilding around AI will give you 10x.
Lebanese terrorists backed by Iran were holding American hostages throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan had loudly campaigned against negotiating with terrorists — putting him in an impossible position that his team quietly decided to ignore.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
The Pentagon sold missiles to the CIA for $3,700 each. The CIA sold them to Richard Secord at cost. Secord sold them to Iranian middleman Ghorbanifar for $10,000 each. Ghorbanifar charged Iran even more. The profit — including $3 million in interest in one Swiss account — was diverted directly to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in 8 shipments over more than a year. Only 3 of 7 hostages were released. Three more were taken. The net result was zero freed hostages and a full-blown constitutional scandal.
On October 5, 1986, a CIA Contra supply plane flew a weapons drop at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. A Sandinista soldier shot it down. The only survivor, Eugene Hasenfuss, had borrowed a parachute from his skydiving brother. He was captured, paraded in front of cameras, and told the Sandinistas everything he knew.
The CIA supply operation used a front company called Southern Air Transport, widely known to be a CIA cover. Crew members of the downed plane carried their Southern Air Transport employee IDs in their wallets. One also had a business card directly linking him to Oliver North's office in Washington.
When the scandal broke, Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall conducted what became known as a 'shredding party,' destroying a day's worth of documents. The full truth of Iran-Contra may never be known because of what was fed through that shredder.
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