Former CIA Analyst on India–Pakistan Conflict: “Told Pakistanis I’d Use Their Letter to Wipe My A**”

Former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou has ignited a fresh controversy after revealing how Pakistan’s political leadership attempted to coerce him into retracting his statement on India’s military superiority. According to Kiriakou, leaders from Imran Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), demanded an immediate apology — only to receive a scathing reply they did not expect.

Kiriakou said he told them he would use the apology demand letter “as toilet paper,” adding that the PTI officials never contacted him again. His comments surfaced during a YouTube podcast in which he described the intimidation attempts and the online harassment campaign that followed.

For context, Kiriakou served in the CIA for 15 years — first as an analyst and later as the chief of counterterrorism operations in Pakistan after 9/11. His extensive experience in South Asia has made his assessments influential, though often controversial in Islamabad.

The controversy began after Kiriakou publicly argued that India would easily defeat Pakistan in a conventional military conflict. “Nothing good will come of an actual war between India and Pakistan because the Pakistanis will lose,” he said in an earlier interview with ANI. “They’ll lose — that’s how simple it is. I’m not even talking about nuclear weapons, just a conventional war.”

His remarks infuriated many in Pakistan, triggering widespread trolling, threats, and eventually an official letter from the PTI leadership. The letter condemned his statements “in the strongest possible terms” and demanded an apology to former Prime Minister Imran Khan, the PTI, and the people of Pakistan.

According to Kiriakou, the letter was signed by the PTI President — a position held since March 2023 by former punjab chief minister Chaudhry Parvez Elahi. Rather than retracting, Kiriakou decided to respond even more forcefully.

“My lawyer told me to ignore it,” he recounted. “Instead, I wrote back: ‘Regarding your demand for an apology — I wipe my a** with your demands.’ Then I hit send. I haven’t heard from them since.”

WHO IS JOHN KIRIAKOU?

Kiriakou is a former CIA intelligence officer who spent years working across South Asia and West Asia. He has authored multiple books on geopolitics, the Middle East, and Pakistan’s security apparatus. His evaluation, he insists, was based on military and demographic data, not political motives.

His comments came months after India carried out strikes on Pakistani military facilities following the ISI-backed terror attack in Pahalgam. Kiriakou highlighted that India’s actions — from the 2016 surgical strike to the 2019 Balakot airstrike — demonstrate a nation increasingly unwilling to let strategic patience be mistaken for weakness.

He warned that Pakistan would inevitably lose a conventional conflict with India and urged Islamabad to stop provoking a neighbour that is now considerably stronger, more assertive, and less tolerant of terrorism.