Kumar Bahukhandi
John Kiriakou, who has served in the CIA for 15 years, has opened up about his years leading counterterrorism operations in Pakistan.
Pakistan would lose any conventional war with India, a former US intelligence officer has said, recalling that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) believed the two nuclear-armed nations would go to war after the 2001 Parliament attacks. John Kiriakou, who has served in the CIA for 15 years, opened up about the unease between Washington and Islamabad and his years leading counterterrorism operations in Pakistan during an interview with news agency ANI.
Islamabad needs to arrive at a policy conclusion that it would gain nothing from a war with India, the former CIA officer noted. “Nothing, literally nothing good will come of an actual war between India and Pakistan because the Pakistanis will lose. I’m not talking about nuclear weapons. I’m talking just about a conventional war. There is no benefit to constantly provoking Indians,” he added.
India had acted decisively after attacks carried out by terrorists from across the border over the years, including surgical strikes in 2016, Balakot strikes in 2019, and Operation Sindoor after the Pahalgam attack that left 26 innocents dead in April this year.
New Delhi also warned Islamabad that it will not tolerate its nuclear blackmail, as the Pakistanis tried to control the rhetoric despite pleading for a ceasefire after failed attempts to target Indian cities.
Kiriakou shared that in 2002, the US anticipated that India-Pakistan tensions at the height of Operation Parakram, after the 2001 Parliament attack, could escalate to a war and had started evacuating its civilians from Islamabad. He also claimed that during his Islamabad stint, he was unofficially told that the Pentagon controlled Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. “Musharraf had turned control over to the US.”
At that time, the CIA was focused on Al Qaeda and Afghanistan and did not pay much attention to India’s concerns, the former CIA officer admitted.
‘US Could Have Killed Pak Scientist’
The US could have eliminated Abdul Qadeer Khan, who designed Pakistan’s atomic bomb, but spared him at the request of Saudi Arabia, Kiriakou said.
“If we had taken the Israeli approach, we would have just killed him. We knew where he lived and spent his day. But he had the support of the Saudi government. The Saudis came to us and said, ‘Please leave him alone. We like AQ Khan. We’re working with AQ Khan. Just leave him alone,” he recounted.
Kiriakou had turned a whistleblower in 2007 and exposed the CIA’s “torture programme” in a television interview. He spent 23 months in jail. The charges against him were later dropped, with the former CIA officer remarking that he has “no regrets, no remorse.”
