The Team House - An Inside Look at the Covert Fight Against Russia | Pat Weninger | Ep. 302

Episode Date: October 12, 2024

Support the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHousePatrick Weninger is a retired CIA Senior Intelligence Service Case Officer with over 28 years of experience in the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. Air Force. He served executive-level headquarters assignments overseeing clandestine operations, tradecraft, and technical operations and served as a Senior Executive Operations Officer and Manager, with senior field assignments in the Near East, South Asia, and Europe, including multiple Chief of Station and war zone assignments. He led and oversaw the CIA’s global program for Russia.—————————————————————-Today's Sponsors:GhostBed⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseKetone IQ ⬇️https://ketone.com/TEAMHOUSE for 30% off your first subscription and a free 6 pack!My Bookie ⬇️https://www.mybookie.agUse code “TEAMHOUSE” to double you first deposit.____________________________________Pre-order Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" today! ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/——————————————————————To help support the show and for all bonus content including:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse-AD FREE AUDIO-AD FREE VIDEO-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseOr make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseTeam House merch: ⬇️https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963Social Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSampleWant to sponsor the show?Email: ⬇️[e-mail]#cia #espionageBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House. channel and podcast if you'd like to. And we really appreciate that. So go it and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house. Special operations. Covert Ops. Espionage. The Team House with your host, Jack Murphy and David Park. Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode 302 of The Team House. I'm Jack here with Dave. And our guest on tonight's show is retired CIA senior officer Pat Wenner. Pat had an amazing career with various assignments around the world pretty much throughout the war on terror and some pretty cool stories actually that we're going to get into. But I've got to do this ad here and tell

you guys about our sponsor. So with the upcoming U.S. election, it's a pivotal moment. for our country and we've all got a responsibility to get out and vote. But there's another way to support your side before you even get to the polling station. Right now you can back your candidate with a bet and win when they win. It's a trend amongst voters that is exploding in popularity and we're getting in on it too at My Bookie. Honestly, could there be anything more American than putting your dollars behind your vote? Show your confidence with a straight bet on a winner of the election and choose from all kinds of fun

wagers like what color tie will Trump wear? Spoiler alert, it's red. It's always red. The betting market for politics is a proven track record with the favorite to win in four of the last six elections, all cashing on the day of. Donald Trump opened as the favorite for my bookie in 2016, and he again opened as the favorite this year. Harris currently has a slight advantage, but that can easily change with voters laying their bets. Listen, I can't tell you who will win the 24 election for certain. What I can tell you is that I'll be putting my money on choose your preferred political candidate here. And with a book we trust. Don't miss out on this. Support your side. Use promo code Team House to double your first deposit and instantly start with a leg up,

but only with my bookie. And with that, we get into our interview for tonight. I think Vegas would put a line down just about anything. I think you just prove that point for it. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. So, Pat, I want to jump into, you know, your entire story is interesting here from front to back. But even just starting with your origin story, to start talking about your upbringing, you know, your father, obviously a huge presence in your life. And we would be remiss if we didn't mention your father recently passed away.

and his name was George Wenner. He was a special forces legend service in Vietnam and all over Latin America. And George and I used to talk over the phone once in a while over the last year or so. And your dad had some of the most incredible stories. I've got to tell you. I'm sure you've heard them too, but. I've heard some of them. No, thanks for that.

And first of all, thanks for allowing me to be here today. I'm super excited to be with you guys. I think one of the reasons I like doing things like this, And I am somewhat selective. I don't have the public presence that some of my colleagues have. And that's nothing against them. It's just I choose to kind of do it in a more discreet way, talking to universities and finding platforms where that align with my interest.

My interest is like, hey, the world is only getting more complicated. How by sharing my story can I potentially inspire folks to get into the national security space, whether it be with the uniform or without a uniform? because the world is only getting more complicated. And, you know, what you guys do and the tremendous success that you guys have had and the folks that you have on talking about their journeys and their stories, I think is in alignment with that. So thanks for having me.

And thanks for talking about my dad a little bit. Yeah, he just passed away a little over a month ago. And as you mentioned, you know, he was a career, Special Forces guy in for 35 years. and his story is super interesting, and it certainly plays into my origin story. I wouldn't be where I am today without him on many fronts. He was a young kid and 18 years old and left Peru, born in Peru, came to the United States, chasing the American dream,

and raised his hand and joined the military in the late 50s, and wanted to serve the United States, wanted to become a citizen, and he achieved that. And through that path, you know, really was interested in intelligence and special operations and got into that path. Was posted in Europe. Met my mom, who was French, French interpreter, you know, speaks five languages, fluently,

amazing lady, and brought her back to the United States to start a family. And that started with me and my brother and my dad subsequently, you know, sponsored two of his three other brothers from Peru to come to the United States and they all have built their families and grandkids. So he really was, you know, kind of the patriarch of our family. So in that sense, he's going to be missed. But the other part of it was, you know, he was a green beret's green beret, as you talk about and, you know, served in Vietnam and several tours and Purple Hearts, multiple Purple Hearts, Bronze Stars with Valor. And really, because of his background, his language skills, you know, was part of the seventh group based out of Fort Bragg and,

or Fort Liberty now. Sorry, it's hard to say. You guys too. And was involved in all the, you know, the Shadow Wars in the 80s and early 90s in Central America. And I was very proud about that. So it was really cool to grow up with, you know, my dad. He wasn't always there.

You know, he missed some chemo. moments and he regretted that, but he missed my high school graduation. He missed my commissioning when I got commissioned in the military because he was he was doing his thing, serving his country downrange in the tough spots. So yeah, he's going to be missed. He really appreciated the interviews that you did with him, Jack, recently and was able to tell a little bit about his story. So thank you for that. He was really happy about that. It's my pleasure. My pleasure. My My only regret is, you know, I was planning to go down to Fayetteville to talk to him more in-depth for a couple days. And, you know, that didn't happen, of course.

But I am glad that, you know, I got to write a little bit about him and a little bit about his life. And maybe we'll do more in the future, you know. Absolutely. I guess some of his colleagues are still around. Yeah, they are. And that was the cool thing about, you know, his wake and his religious ceremony. It was just some of the stories that were being told and how. the SF community really rallied and presented themselves.

Retired Major General Ed Reeder was really behind it. And it was really cool to see that. So it really made my family proud and put his celebration in different light, as you can imagine, a celebration of life in a different light. You know, with that special operations influence, it was really cool. You know, they don't leave anybody on and they take care of themselves, take care of each other. so that was evident.

Pat, a lot of times we talk about, you know, when us pursuing the lifestyle that, you know, the life that we dream of, you know, everybody will say thank you for your service and whether that's for the military or the intelligence service, you're gone a lot and things like that. But it's also a life that you're choosing, right? It's a life that you dreamt of.

It's a life that a lot of people admire and envy. And at the end of the day, we are also doing it for selfish reasons on top of, you know, the service. to the country and things like that. So we talk about it from that angle about the people we leave behind. Can you talk about a little bit as like a kid growing up and how that influenced your relationship and how that influenced your choices later on?

Yeah, absolutely. Great question, Dave. Thanks. You know, it was an interesting time because, you know, when my dad missed a lot of those events, I remember having a lot of regret and really blaming the military. And there was a time in my life when I was young and impressionable where I wanted to nothing to do with the military. And, you know, growing up in Fayetteville, you know, going to a public school,

everybody's parents were in the military. All my friends, everybody was in the military. And I remember it was just the way of life, you know. All the sports I played were on base at DIA. We went to church on base, went to the hospital on base, went to the dentist on base. You know, we never had an insurance card or anything. You just went on base, you know. You purchased all your, the PX and the commissary.

That was the life. And that was the only life I knew. So when I showed up in college as a young freshman at NC State, something clicked. And I joined ROTC, and my parents were shocked. And it was interesting for me, and I think part of it was when I showed up at NC State, I was, you know, my circle of friends, they were from, you know, all across the state and other.

States and I just assumed that all their dads were in Vietnam and were in the military and they're like no my dad's an accountant my dad's a lawyer you know my dad's this my mom's this my dad's a doctor my mom's a doctor so it just I saw a different perspective where there wasn't this sense of service that had unbeknownst to me been instilled in me along the way you know and it it it it was there subliminally I just never realized it and quickly I was like, this seems really odd. If nobody here is going to serve, I have to serve. So that's why I joined RCC, and my parents were shocked.

But it's a great question. And it goes back to my dad that as much regret that I had where he missed certain parts of my life, I had a greater appreciation for what he was doing. And that appreciation grew significantly through my career, both in the military. And when I was in the agency, there was a, couple of touch points where, and I can talk about those as we talk a little bit about my career, I'll remember to bring it up, where his world, the special ops world intersected with what I was doing. And people were like, you're George's dad? And I would start hearing the stories and some of

the respect came out. And you saw the respect for him. It was super, which in my mind as I got older made all those, you know, those regrets that I had when I was a young man just go away. and it's deprived. Yeah. Did, I know you said you blamed the military. Did you and your father have a good relationship as you were? Yeah, we had a great relationship. Good.

Yeah. He was very good to me and my brother, my mom, gave us everything we ever wanted, instilled good values in us. You know, he was a staunch conservative during the Reagan era. And that's when I was growing up, you know, the very impressionable time. he was all about service before self and country. And, you know, I remember as a kid driving on base at 5 o'clock and all the cars stop on base and everybody gets out of their car for Revely, you know, when the flag is coming down. That was normal, right?

That's just how it was. And, you know, I hope there's still that now. And again, it goes back to my first point that I raised is that, you know, one of my, my goals is to share my journey and somehow hopefully inspire people to kind of get into this space because you guys know we need people. We need smart people. We need good people. Retention rates are down. Recruitment rates are down. And I think there's a void there. People are missing that sense of service before self. So to your parents shock, you joined ROTC in college and you commissioned in the Air Force, right?

Correct. Yeah, I came in and I, you know, I was, I was somewhat like, I'm like, I don't want to go in the Army because the Army for me was, you know, I want to serve, but it was like, you're going to be gone all the time. Yeah. You know, I understood the brunt of that that ended up doing that in CIA. and, you know, the Fayetteville life, the pawn shops, the used car dealerships, and all that. It was just like, there's got to be better than this, a better version of this.

And I wanted to fly. And I joined ROTC because I wanted to become a pilot. I wanted to fly eight-tens. You know, I was growing up, every year we'd go to the KPEX demonstration at Fort Bragg. And every summer, they'd check the base in four days. I don't know if you guys remember this or not. and they do a capabilities demonstration and they bring in tanks and planes

and you sit there in the crowd and they open it up to the public and they're dropping bombs and doing assaults and that left an impression on me. I'm like, I want to fly one of those eight teams. And I was on track to do that. And summer before my junior year,

I was actually working at a golf course in Fayetteville in the summer to make some extra money and had a really bad accident. I wasn't like, I was the one, one of the guys that raked the traps and aerated the greens and had to be there at six o'clock in the morning and cleaned the, you know, I was the maintenance team on the golf course, not somebody

working in the country club with a polo shirt. I had that job, too, at that age. Yeah, but there was this really bad golf cart. It's kind of a funny, but tragic story, and it ended up changing my life. I was going down this steep hill, and there was a lot of play in the wheel, and this big hose and big thing on the back where you aerate. and water down the greens and the cart flipped. Went over a bump.

I was going really fast. It flipped. It got sideways and started to flip. I jumped out and it rolled and it landed on me and broke my ankle. And I'd have a metal plate and five screws put in. So that was in early summer. I showed up in the fall at ROTC and I report in. I told him what happened?

They're like, you've lost your pilot slot. In fact, you can't be an ROTC with a metal plate. and you're so you're out. Wow. So they're like, if you get the plate out, come back and see us. So I had to wait a year. The plate came out. It pushed my graduation, my commissioning date back a year,

went back into the program. They only gave me a navigator slot. And they're like, well, we'll try to upgrade you. We don't have a slot right now. This was in 1990, 89, 90. And then my senior year, the Gulf War happened. And the lead up to the Gulf War, if you guys recall, there was a big concern about the Iraqis and their capability where we had overestimated. And they're like, okay, we got to get a lot of people in the pilot pipeline.

You're getting upgraded to a pilot. Great. Fantastic. And then, you know, the war was over in what a week? And then the military came back and they're like, well, we're going to downsize. So I was supposed to. to graduate and get commissioned in the end of May. And they call us in less than a month before graduation.

They said, okay, the military is downsiding. All of you have lost your pilot slot except two people. If you don't want to get commission, you don't have to. Even if you were on scholarship, whatever, you don't have to pay the money back. You don't have to enlist. You can walk. But if you want to get a commission still, you can. But it's going to be in one of these three career fields.

security, aircraft maintenance, or intelligence. And I was like, well, I don't know anything about any of those, but, you know, I, you know, what are the Intel guy? And they do all the secret, spooky stuff. It's kind of cool and you have to have a clearance. And I was like, I'll do that. So, you know, that broken ankle, you know, pushing my graduation date out to the right a year really changed my. force because if I would have graduated on time I would have went into you know probably to went into pilot training yeah a year early so that kind of changed the course of my life

without me even knowing it and then the next thing I know um yeah I get commissioned I'm off to intel school in the Air Force down a good fellow Air Force base and it was like a year or so you know and it's not you're not doing human or anything sexy you're basically understanding the threats to pilots, whether they come from the air or the ground, and being able to articulate that and brief that. But what it did teach you was, hey, here's the role, here's what classified information looks like, here's what it is, here's how you handle it, here's how you engage, you know, pilots, quote-unquote, operators, I use that term loosely a little bit.

And here's the threats you need to know about both geopolitically and militarily that you need to be on top of. And, you know, so it was a great way to kind of, you know, get into the military, understanding classified information, learning about the world. And, you know, I was assigned to an air unit. And I was their first intel officer. And everywhere they went TDI. They dragged me along. I went everywhere.

I was in Cairo West Air Base. I flew down to Mogadishu right after, you know, the Black Hawk down. I was, you know, they took me all places in the Middle East, Pacific. It was fun. And I was a young, you know, 22, 23-year-old kid with some responsibility and suddenly have NCOs with, you know, 15 years of experience working for me. I got a chance to learn about leadership and responsibility, but also about the world. Yeah.

Which started feeding into this, this, okay, I'm starting to understand my dad did this. you know, kind of thing. So it was fantastic for me as a young officer. And with the Air Force Town, I assume that it wasn't played by pawn shops, check cashing joints, and strip clubs. Not to the level of Fort Bragg and probably Fort Benning, not to those levels. I love Fable, not to say anything bad about it.

I love Fable. But again, as a young guy, that's kind of how you viewed it, you know. Yeah, for sure. And so tell us a little bit about how things go on. on as an Air Force intelligence officer and how you started working with J-SAC too at that time. Yeah, kind of a funny story. Like I was in Panama. I was supposed to in Panama.

So it was the other thing. That's another funny story where I found out I was going to Panama. And the, you know, the NCO in charge of personnel calls me, you know, kind of as my sponsor to talk to me to tell me about things I need to think about before I get to Panama. And I was in Panama from 94 to 96. And he's, and, you know, there's NCO. He's like, sir, you know, and I was a, I think I was a first lieutenant. And he's like, he's asking all these questions, you know, very formal at the end. He goes, sir, do you mind if ask you a personal question?

And I was like, yeah, go ahead, man. And he goes, are you, are you married? I was like, no, I'm single. He's like, this is a man's paradise. You're going to love it down here. So that was a great tour. I got to work at Southcom. That's when it was still in Panama, not in Miami, before it moved.

And again, that was my first time working at a big command out of a tactical unit and, you know, working in a joint environment. And there was a major there that had worked in the special operations community, in the tiered community. And he would tell stories and like, wow, that sounds really interesting. And kind of gave me this bug about it in my head. and there were some jobs opening up that were really strange that had these you know in air force polyuns were data massed you know these secret jobs and I started applying for them and um you know one thing led to another next thing I know I'm I'm flown over I'm flown back from Panama for an interview and they don't tell you you know what unit you're working with

who you're working you just very one-sided interview and you know should you accept the job then you'll get read in to, but, you know, you kind of have an idea. So I ended up making it through that interview and got an opportunity to work with the command in one of the tiered units as a young Intel officer, which was cool. But at the same time, I had to move back to Fayetteville. That's why I caveat. I said, I love Fayetteville and came back and ran into house. and not far from, you know, where my parents were living.

And my dad had retired at that time. So he was super excited. And, you know, all my friends would come over. My dad, it was a fantastic cook, would make us lo most saltado and serve us, you know, great meal every Sunday night. And it was a good time in my life, you know. And but it introduced me to this, you know, this tiered community and how they do things. And the difference between what it, you know, the specialty.

and the, you know, just the machine behind it, the O300 package and all that, and how that works as compared to Big Blue Air Force or Big Green Army. You know what I mean? It's like night and day, as you guys know, and nothing against that. That's where I came out of, you know, the Big Blue Air Force. It was a great place to learn about myself and being a young military officer. but it's just a different world. It was a fantastic experience.

And it started exposing me to the folks in Langley a little bit. And how did your job change in your... So at first you were just sort of doing the, knowing all about the air threats available pilots. Did you start taking on a lot of new stuff at this, like in this new position? Yeah, so it was, then, you know, it was being kind of the, senior intel guy for for for an element and within the command and you know you had a team and you're integrated into the you know the tiered society if you will yeah and that team and it was

really cool uh and you get exposed to stuff but if you recall at that time again pre 9-11 um the clinton years there was not a lot of real world deployments going on. Right. And the, the command was really, the battle rhythm was around the quarterly JRXs, right? And those were the big exercises every few months that we did to, you know, to keep, you know, the pointy end of the spear sharp. Right. But it just wasn't being used. And there was a lot of frustration in the ranks. Yeah, like you guys, at the time, if I got the timeline, right, I mean, they were pretty much looking at like Haiti, Libya, a couple other place, a couple other things, stuff that

never got off the ground, really. Yeah, it was, you know, that there was not, there was not a lot of, you know, policy support to use that instrument of power within the United States government. So it was, it was cool. and you got to do neat stuff and you got the coolest pagers and if you had the coolest pagers you were on a one hour hook

if you got the beep and I'm dating myself a little bit you guys know this and you know you got to travel different you had blanket orders you could do whatever you want it was just a different

you know it's a very different experience than kind of the regimented military way they do things but it was exposure into that world which also exposed me to the agency

which is where that you know that little nugget started to in the back of my head was like wow that's kind of cool so I'll ask you about how you're you know you jump ship and you know applied for CIA

got to tell you our viewers about our next sponsor for tonight ketone IQ this is a high performance energy drink and I actually use this on a recent trip to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. And, you know, I've super jet lagged,

but also wanted to go hiking out in the woods and horseback riding and all this other fun stuff to do. You have a limited amount of time on your vacation. And Ketone actually helped me get over some of the jet lag, kept me going through the day. So I took a box through a box of this in my rucksack, and it definitely helped get me through that trip. And ketone, I should also mention they have, this was actually developed for special operations in a lot of ways.

And they developed it for some of the mountain teams, the high altitude guys, because the ketones help oxygenate the blood. And so that's what helps, you know, the performance and the resilience and able to, you know, keep going every day. They also work with top Olympic athletes like Des Linden and Michael Andrews to Ironman World Champion Sam Laidlow. They just launched a supplement and research partnership with Team Visma Lisa Bike, the top pro cycling team in the world, winning the last two Tour de France's in 2020 and swept all three grand tours this past year. I should also point out there are two different versions of this. This is ketone IQ. It also has, I believe, 100 milligrams of caffeine derived from natural green tea. So this is the caffeinated version.

And then there's the other, just the ketone version that is not flavored and does not have caffeine in it. So you can go and check out those. You can save 30% on your first subscription order and receive a free six pack of ketone IQ by going to ketone. dot com slash team house that's k-e-o-n-e-com slash team house over to you dave uh and thanks to our third sponsor uh tonight it's product i love uh i'm a super hot sleeper like i the house has to be 68 and i have to have a fan on me um just to try to get to sleep and i still wake up sweating half the time um if you sleep hot at night like i do you know just how disruptive it can be whether you're having trouble falling asleep you're waking up sweating and

in the middle of night or all the above. And if you have to take your pillows out to the back porch to dry them out each morning, that's where ghost bed can help. As the makers are the coolest beds in the world, ghost bed is your go-to for the cooling mattress, cooling pillows, and even cooling bedding. From their signature ghost ice fabric to patented technology to adjust with your body temperature, every ghost bed mattress is designed with cooling in mind. So whether you want a plusher mattress that cushions your shoulders and hips,

or a firmer option with exceptional support, your ghost bed will keep you cool and comfortable all night long. When you purchase a ghost bed mattress, your comfort is guaranteed. You can try out your mattress for 101 nights risk-free and make sure it's the right fit for you. Plus, they offer free shipping and most items ship within 24 hours. If you're not sure which ghost bed is for you,

check out their mattress quiz. You'll answer a few questions to get your personalized recommendation. or reach out to their friendly team of sleep experts for all the help you need. Even better, team house listeners can get 50% site wide for limited time. Just visit ghostbed.com slash house and use code house at checkout. Again, that's ghostbed.com slash house with code house at checkout to save a whopping 50% off sitewide. Pat, back to you.

Sorry about that. Thank you for your patience there. Pat. So through your work with J-Soc, you get exposed to the interagency process, I imagine the CIA liaison officer, how does this idea start to formulate, germinate in the back of your mind about maybe joining the agency? It's kind of an interesting story, which I think I can tell. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can't. So we were planning this. J-Soc was doing it, had a planning cell and kind of an AFO team that worked on the planning so and I somehow I can't remember how I got looped into that to be part of the planning team and it was overseas to kind of do a sensitive um CTO. So my boss comes to me is like,

hey man, we need somebody to go to the agency and talk to them about it. But, um, you know, this is a really sensitive kind of bigoted list thing. You can't talk to them about it. But we, I want you to try to go up there to see if you can solicit there. You know, if we need to leverage them to support this and talk about it and get. a better understanding of what their capabilities are, but you can't talk about the app. I was like, I get to go to the agency. So, you know, through the ADMA office, I go up there and I got my uniform on. I show up.

And I have an office call with the chief of staff to the counterterror center center center. Really good guy. It was a legend, by the way, in the CE world. And knock on his door, kind of report. And he's like, come on in. You know, I say on my calendar. to do for you, you know, and I'm like, you know, I'm Captain Winninger. I'm from Jay Sock. You know, we have this operation, but I can't really talk about it, but I need your help and

blah, blah, blah. And looking back, like, how ignorant was I to go into his office and kind of say that. And he just kind of leaves like, well, young man, I don't think we're going to be able to help you much. But, you know, thanks for coming. You know, if I don't know what you're doing, then I really can't help you. Etty, yada, yada. And kind of kindly escorted me out of his office after a few minutes. So I meet a friend of mine for lunch, and I'm in the lunche holiday agency. And that didn't go well.

You know, I'm like, I can't go back with that answer. I was like, the hell with it. So I go back after lunch, knock on his door. I was like, hey, look, I'm sorry. And there's some sensitivities about, you know, this. And I'm new to this working with you guys.

Here's the deal. Here's what we're going to do. Here's what we're trying to do. And I told him. And it took a risk. And he's like, look, you can trust me. I understand.

That's great. We can absolutely help you guys. So he started talking to me about all the different things and setting up meetings for me to talk to people about how, you know, again, pre-9-11, that integration of J-Soc and CIA was not there. Right. And they were sending, you know, young, naive, you know, officers like me up there to make a fool of themselves in front of a...

Later, I found out how this guy was a legend. And, you know, he said something to me at the end of the day. He was like, hey, you know, we have this course that we do that's really for us and a few FBI peoples. What if I, folks, what if I sponsored you to be the first kind of J-Syc DoD guy to come through it? And it'll, through this course, you'll be able to understand the capabilities of the counterterrorist center. And I was like, hey, that sounds great. I'd love it. He's like, all right, I'll set it up.

So went back to my boss. He was like, wow, you're going to go to a course and represent, you know, Jason. That's great. And I go, yeah, I'll be the first and, you know, maybe they'll let folks come in after me. This will be, you know, we'll help with that integration. So I ended up coming to the course. It was one of their sensitive off-sides, super cool. You know, I was the only DOD, the first DOD guy, J-Side guy to be in the course.

And they treated me really well. And it was a week long, you know, and afterwards, it was very collegial and all the agency, folks that were coming in talking about, you know, how the CT Center operated. You know, everybody's drinking and there's a social scene and stuff. And folks start talking to me. I'm like, hey, man, you ever thought about a flying force? And I was like, to do what? And I'd be a case officer.

And I was like, well, I thought you, you know, I thought, I thought you had to be an Ivy League grad. You know, I went to NC State. I was like, no, man, that's like, that's from the days gone by. Like, you have a resume? Skull and bones. I know. Like, do you have a resume? I was like, no.

I'm in the military. I don't have a resume. And it's put them together. So one thing led to another and put a resume together and got an offer, got an opportunity. And it takes a little bit of time. And it's not an easy process. It's purposeful. And it's very competitive.

And I remember going through the, and it's a series of interviews that culminate. with a with a series of interviews in Washington. If you make it to Washington, you have a, I learned after the fact, if you go through the several gates you have to go through, you eventually, you know, you're doing in-person interviews along the way in different locations, and if you make it to watch,

and you probably have a 60, 70% of getting a conditional offer. And I remember I made it all the way to Washington, and one of the interviewers asked me, and they said, what's the, you know, what's the, you know, some of the standard interview questions. And he said, and I was completely bought in. I was like, this is what I want to do. You know what I mean?

And one of the interviews questions, you know, what did your greatest success? And he says, what's your greatest failure in life? I remember this kind of distinctly. And I said, well, it hasn't happened yet. And I was like, well, what do you mean? I said, if I don't make it through this process. And he's like, you know, it's the first time I heard that man. And for whatever reason, I think that impacted this guy.

and they were able to let a guy like me, you know, a kid from Fayetteville who went through public schools, who went to NC State, didn't have an advanced degree, and gave me a shot. And I'm grateful for that, that they gave me an opportunity where I didn't really think, I wasn't sure I'd make it through because it is a very competitive process. I say that with all humility.

But was, you know, that kind of set me on my way and I had a conditional offer of employment. And of course, that's shrouded in secrecy where you can't talk to people about it. Understood. That's purposeful. And then I go back to my office at J-Soc. Of course, I've told nobody anything.

Like a week later, they tapped me on the shoulder. And they're like, hey, man, you've been picked to go be the aide-de-cant to the new three-star commander of AFSoc. You're PCS in the Heraldbrook field. And I was like, what? And they're like, aren't you excited? Like, you just, they picked you. And I'm like, well, I didn't apply.

Like, no, man. You know, the commander came down. He's like, you're going. This is great. You know, this is a path to become a senior officer in the military. And they were like, you don't seem very excited about it. And, you know, I couldn't say anything. And I was like, no, this is great, you know.

Inside, I was, I wasn't sure what to do. And by the way, there was a stop loss going on at the time because of the Kosovo War. So you couldn't get out. So I ended up PCS into Hurlbert. working, became the aid to camp to this great three-star general good guy. I didn't know what an aide-de-camp did. I didn't understand that at all. But it was, you know, you're basically the right-hand person.

You guys know this for a general officer. And you've got to get to sit on, you know, and bend a knee, if you will, and see how, you know, these three-and-four-star, you know, generals operate and how they drive mission. how they manage and lead. And it was a super interesting time for me. But in the back of my mind, I have this conditional offer.

And the agency's calling me every couple months. It's like, okay, we got a class starting. You're ready to start. You know, the case officer training. And I said, I can't get out. There's a stop loss. And they're like, well, we're going to give you one more window. If you can't get out by then, we're going to pull the offer.

So about six months through my one-year, aid to camp tour, the general brings me in. He's like, all right, Pat, I'm going to give you some feedback. You know, you're half your point. You're doing a good job. When you finish up, we're going to put you in this, you know, leadership class, can give you a command, and you got the pathway to colonel. And it was a one-on-one meeting. And I had talked to the building, and I said, can I tell this one person that I need to get out

and maybe he can help? And they're like, yeah, we'll authorize you to tell this one person, which is kind of funny. Right. and so he's in this story he's like well he's telling he's kind of giving me this guidance and this professional feedback and I was like hey I want to get out he's like what and I was like he's like what do you mean I was like yeah I want to get out and he said why you got you got a great path ahead of you you're a good officer you know and I said look you can't tell anybody and I kind of give him this whole story that that's been directed at me and I say um

I got this offer to go work at the CIA. And he's like, to do what? I'm like, to be a case copse me. He's like, what's that? And I explained, he was like, you know, the guys go out and recruit. They're the ones, you know, recruiting and handling agents and yada, yada, yada. He's like, well, what do you wait for? That sounds great.

I said, well, it's funny you ask. And I said, I got to be honest with you. It's like, I can't get out because of stop loss, but I got to be frank. You know, I'm, I do. I wasn't sure to do it. And this wasn't a fib, and it was true at the time. There was a part of me as like, hey, man, you do have a path forward in the military. You have worked, you know, I've been in for eight years now.

That's, you know, you're almost halfway to potential retirement. You set yourself up. You kind of, for whatever reason, you've been able to rise to the top of that crest of that wave. And you can ride that for a while potentially and have a really good life and a really good career. and stepping into this unknown, truly unknown unknowns, right? They don't tell you anything.

You go into the job with your eyes wide shut. You really don't know what you're getting into until you're into it, the agency. And you're going to have to start over. So I kind of laid that out for him. I was like, hey, look, I really want to do it, but I have some hesitation.

And he said, all right, listen, this is, you know, I owe this man a lot of credit. He's like, let me tell you something. He's like, first of all, you don't have to wear a uniform to serve your country. And I was like, wow, when he said that, like this, like, what a great comment, like this, this burden just lifted off me immediately. And he's like, let me tell you the second thing. He's like, this is the Air Force, not the intelligence force.

He's like, look, I fly gunships, basically 30 gunships. There's a pecking order. You know, there's the fighter pilots, then guys like me, then guys who find cargo planes, then navigators, then weather officers, then the maintenance officer, then the Intel guy. And he said, who's the head of Air Force intelligence right now? And I said, you know, Brigadier General, so-and-so. And he goes, he's a pilot. You ain't.

So I was like, well, you're right. I think I want to get out. but I need your help. I was like, what do you need my help for? I was like, I can't get out because the stop loss. And he knew that. And he's like, okay, well, what can I do? I was like, you tell me.

He's like, I'll call the head of Air Force personnel right now. He's a two-star general. He's name was Tex Brown. I can't remember his name. So I was like, but you can't tell him anything. You know, how naive I was. You can't say anything. And sure enough, he's like, go get this two-three, right?

So I go get this two-three. Hook it up right in front of them. I call. And because this guy was a three-star, you know, I get the two star on the line. I was like, hey, you know, my three stars calling, put the two star, the two stars like her. You know, my three star wants to talk to you, gets on the phone. And they're having this conversation in front of me, and I'm only hearing one side of the phone call.

And he says, hey, I got a favor, text. I got a young guy here. I need to get him out. And I can't really go into it, but it's for national security purposes. And then they're kind of going back and forth. And he looks at me, he's like, what's your social? I write it down on a yellow stick, and I handed to him. And then he's like, okay, thanks, text.

I can get off the phone. And then he looks at me. He's like, somebody's going to call you. Like, but it's going to get taken care of. And then, like, two days later, I get this phone call. And this colonel, he's like, hey, is this Captain Weninger? And I was like, yeah. He's like, I don't know who the hell you are, but I'm supposed to get you out of the air.

And that was it. He got me out. And I got out on a Friday. started on a Monday. Wow. And I don't know if you're allowed to say the name, but America's premier tradecraft espionage training course, right? Correct.

So how did that experience go? And now you're training. I mean, it's interesting that you were essentially an intelligence briefer and planner, it sounds like. Now you're becoming the practitioner. That's exactly right. And it was, you know, there's a little bit of, when you look around the room, when I showed up as far as my class goes, there's some, some of my best friends, really bright people, you know, people that were very accomplished, much more than me in the room. People with PhDs, lawyers, people with, you know, hard military skills, you know, accountants, people that spoke five languages, hard languages.

and I'm looking around the room and I'm saying I'm not the smartest guy in the room here. It was very apparent to me. So I took it as a challenge, say I really need to try to overachieve if I'm going to make it through this and focus on the task at hand because it's competitive, it's not easy.

It's not. And I say that with all humility. It's not. There is a weed out process. Just like any of these professional courses, whether they're being special ops or anything else. There's a weed out process. And you are under the mic, they are watching you the whole time.

So it's very stressful, but at the same time, you learn a lot. You learn a lot about yourself. And you make some great relationships along the way. Tell us about, you know, after you graduate a little bit about pre-9-11 CIA, sort of like what that experience was like for you? Yeah, so that great question. I mean, you come into the place at the time, again, pre-9-11, and it's, you know, hey, we need you to recruit Russians and Chinese and Iranians and North Koreans. And it's very hard-target, classic intelligence, you know, traditional intelligence, you know, kind of the Cold War theme that you, and tactics, techniques, and procedures, if you will, that you're being trained on, right?

but those skills are you know you can just about drop you anywhere and you could do it right and that so that was kind of the mentality and you know you you finish I finished the training you know prior to 9-11 so again still in that mindset you know I was super excited to make it through and you know learned a lot and felt really comfortable with what I had been taught and I was ready to go execute that mission and felt very prepared and armed with the right trade craft, the mindset, and the understanding of kind of the environment of where you were going and what you needed to do. And then 9-11 happened. And, you know, everything changed. Changed. You know, that, you know, I was in Washington that day. and the you know it was a very powerful dramatic day but the transformation that happened within the organization overnight was was real and you could see it you know immediately went on war floating

and you pretty soon found yourself in an undisclosed south asia country yeah so so yeah you know that that you know my career again as I mentioned kind of came in with that classic you know you're going to go after hard targets kind of mentality and then that was a game changer and suddenly you know not unique to me a lot of people became CT officers and you know there was a ramp up time but I soon found myself um after a little bit of time in in South Asia um in a very austere difficult environment at as a very young officer in a paramilitary austere environment. Yeah. And in a very violent place, a dangerous place, which was a fantastic assignment, which was, you know, that's where the mission was. And that's where I wanted to go. And I wanted to, you know, I think there was this broader sense in the organization

that, you know, that, you know, there was a black eye. And it wasn't unique to us. I think the FBI felt that way. I think we felt that way. And people took it personally. And, you know, that sense of service that had been instilled in me by my dad early on had really grown over time.

And that watershed moment of 9-11 just put it on steroids. And that's where I want to be. You know, I raised my hand and that's where I wanted to go. I wanted to go to the toughest place. and do that mission and be part of that team that was forward. So I had the opportunity to do that. And it was a fantastic experience in many ways. Any stories that you're able to tell from those early years of the war?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a, it's a super interesting environment when you're dropped in as a quote unquote line case officer and you're not a paramilitary officer. And you're suddenly in a paramilitary environment. they, they certain, the organization did train you. I mean, before I went, I got some, you know, non-standard training of how to operate in that environment, as you guys can imagine, the shoot, move, communicate, the tactics, um, in very short order. Um, you know, how to get off the X, all those different things.

How to, how to, you know, manage tactical, secure radios, crypto, all those things. You get the medical pieces of it, you know, pounded into you very quickly, you know, the ABCs all that and when you when I arrived I remember my first day thinking wow this is this is like

this is this is real and you know there's a there you're going to see I remember before I I landed in country I was in the capital and I had to go see the COS

and I walked into this COS's office, this legendary COS, a guy by the name of Greg Vogel. He'd know me from Adam. And he said, hey man, come in, sit down. Where are you going? And I told him, he's like, all right, you're going to see some shit there. He goes, here's my guidance.

And he looked at me and he said, you're ready? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, kill Al-Qaeda. Any questions? Like, no chief. He's like, be safe. We'll take care of your people. That was it.

The helicopter that night. That was it. You know, push down range. And, you know, it was a super interesting experience where there's this balance of, you know, how do you execute an FI mission in a paramilitary environment? you know you're you're you're teamed with you know a couple other case officers and a and a paramilitary team and paramilitary resources um and indigenous resources and you're trying to get to places where you can collect a strategic intelligence as well as tactical intelligence

on al-Qaeda senior leadership in an environment where everybody whether he's trying, you know, you're getting attacked every night. You're getting, you know, rockets, mortars, just on a nightly basis. Every time you go outside the wire, there's a threat of IED. But you, the super thing, the thing that I found interesting about that environment was how to, how to operate and move in that environment. There was kind of this sense of the way I would, the analogy I give to it is kind of, um, blue state's, red states and swing states, if you will.

You kind of had this perimeter of villages that was right outside your wire that were your blue states, if you will. And then you would always try to push to the swing states that were being influenced by, you know, as some of my colleagues, or some of the locals that call them the miscreants term that they use. But the extremists were influencing those. But those swing states were still vulnerable. to our American influence.

And, you know, Katie, let's do a med cap. Let's do, you know, let's bring in coats for the winter. Let's try to make sure that we were able to push our sphere of protection out to protect them so that, so that, you know, the bad guys can't influence them and then have a tactical, you know, lily pad one step close. to where we're at, where we are now become under, we're under more danger and we can't do our mission to collect intelligence on al-Qaeda senior leadership.

How do we keep pushing out our wire? And then there's the red states beyond that, right? That are, hey, there's nothing you can do. They're bad areas if you're going to get out there, if you're going to be in there or near there, you're getting into a firefight. Right. And, you know, so,

navigating that environment to collect intelligence, recruit people, and run sources through that gate, through those wickets is an interesting challenge. And, you know, the story of what happened in Coast with the triple agent, you know, highlights some of those threats. Yeah. Where we lost seven officers. that meeting they had was a very, no, I'm not downplaying it,

but it was that type of meeting where there's a lot of unknowns with unvetted people where you're trying to determine if they have information or not was very common amongst all, you know, in that part of the world, no matter what side of the border you were on, no matter where you were at. Out of curiosity, so you mentioned FI, when you say that for listeners who might not be familiar as foreign intelligence,

you know, you mentioned that, you know, the CIA ramped up pretty quickly. Did you see any type of reluctance or resistance to this idea of were the people who go to embassies or were the people who go to these parties, where the people go to universities? You know, we're doing this strategic mission, and now they want to send this tactical. environment. And because you were military, and you were Air Force, you know, you weren't, you know, a Greenbrae, but you were Air Force. It wasn't a door kicker. Never was. Never would be. Right. But, but you were still Air Force. So you still had some military bona fides. Did that play into them when to the whole, we're looking for people to go out in Manatee's bases?

Now, you know, at the time, I don't think it did. And that's a great question. But there, there was this, you know, I think over time as the. kind of the war zone ramped up in the early 2000s, the war zone environments, and there were several as you know, or a couple, should I say a couple as you know. As they ramped up, you know, there was a group of people that were raising their hands

that would go and bounce between them. And I ended up, you know, it wasn't used to me. I enjoyed that. I, you know, my career was defined by that for good or for bad. And there were some people that, because of their family situation or their background viewed it differently. And I'm not saying anything against them.

But, you know, there was a requirement over time for every case officer to do at least one tour to get, you know, promoted to certain ranks. You had to have done, especially to get to the senior ranks. So you had, you certainly had people that, that were coming in and doing their one, and I'm not faulting them, because they were going back to missions that were just as important, maybe just not the priority at the time. And then there was a group of people that were, you know, kind of bouncing around in the war zone and, you know,

kind of had this addiction a little bit to it that I don't think is, you know, anybody that worked in the, you know, in the SF community, special operations community kind of understands that. Yeah. Yeah. And, and yeah, it's a great mission, but it's not without sacrifice. right and there's a cost that comes with that to your family um to your psyche in many ways yeah you see a lot of bad things out there as you guys know yeah and coming back and trying to

assimilate um is not always the easiest thing um but that's where the mission was and that's where the organization and the you know the full of government frankly was on a CT war footing right whether you were a dhfs officer or a CIA officer or a doD officer as you guys recall that was that we were starting to stop another attack on the homeland. And I was happy and not just happy, but I felt privileged. And I used that term purposely to be a part of it. So on the flip side of that, with your experience, like looking in retrospect, you know, hindsight, with this huge focus on the seat, on the counterterrorist environment and, you know, OIF and OEF.

And then with ICE, do you feel as though, the FI site suffered from that at all? I don't think it did in theater. I actually think that by being deployed in these locations, it forced us to create a methodology that could be used for this type of mission, of putting people on the X, the fine, six finish mission. you know, there wasn't the pre-9-11, the targeting career track, the CIA was almost non-existent. Right.

I think it grew massively not only in numbers, but in importance with the, you know, the advent of this new CT mission of, hey, we have to put people on the X to get them and remove them from the battlefield. field. We have to layer intelligence in a way that we weren't doing before where we were, you know, overlaying SIG-int, Humint, Geo-int, and building out what that picture looks like on the ground, these N-AIs, if you will, and start understanding patterns, start understanding networks. And our trade cap changed to accommodate and support the mission. And that ended up creating a methodology. that I think was at the forefront that was then J-Soc started using. You know what I mean?

And now it's normal. But that methodology wasn't there. So the question about you saying, hey, did FI fall off? And I said, well, no, actually, I believe it's the opposite. FI was a big part of kind of creating this targeting methodology that we used and we learned from. And, you know, sensitive side exploitation. When we hit a target, hey, we got pictures. We got we got phones.

you know, we got letters, we have somebody, a detainee, how do we, you know, exploit all this information? Like, that methodology had to be created. And it happened very quickly. And I think to the benefit of the mission in that, and as that methodology was advancing, so was our capability in our mission. It's really fascinating to think that this area of, you know, CT, which is very, you know, target fixate to very, you know, like you said, the fine fix finish, that that actually bled

into the FI as later in your career, you know, but it actually bled into FI and improve the capabilities of foreign intelligence. It did. It did. It took us a while to figure that out, though. Yeah. But it was a great proving ground to kind of test these new ways of doing business. And, you know, and again, leveraging the exploitation.

of information and then processing that data in a meaningful way and an efficient way, that it can be operationalized and take things off the objective and say, okay, let's figure out a process to get through it and then use that information because we might have another attack coming at us. So we have to, this can't be in a thumb drive and sent back to headquarters and sit on the shelf for a couple of months before anybody gets to it. Yeah. Right?

It doesn't work. You know, those days were over. And being early in on that, early in on the GWAT with that, how was your relationship with the paramilitary aspects? Because they were kind of new, too. They had been like the red-headed stepchildren for a long time. Yeah. You know, honestly, I was super impressed with that cadre of people. And they kind of took me under their wing and helped me understand.

I was a young base chief. It was a GS-12 base chief. And it's kind of equivalent to a captain, I guess. And, you know, I was fortunate to have some really seasoned operators that were in those positions that kind of grabbed me by the nose and helped me be a leader and be responsible and be smart. Because there is always this, you know, again, there was a little bit of this friction where it's like, hey, we got to go out here to prosecute to collect this FI or meet this agent. or do this some sort of operation. But we could go this way and it would be a safe way or we could maybe veer off a couple clicks this way

because we know there's some bad guys there and we can do some movement to contact and then go meet the agent. So we can go get it on. And you realize like, you know, that's not our core mission. Right? Our core missions to collect FI on senior Al-Qaeda leadership. Right.

There's other people in country that are here to do that. Let's help them. Let's enable them to do that. Right. Although we have that capability built in-house with our indigenous folks, but it was both, you know, and there's a role for them in that, but it was also a role to be defensive and that protect the collection mission. Yeah.

But there was always this balance. and a little bit of friction. And you had to be, and as a young officer being dropped into that, having some good, you know, you know, former tier one guys that are now, you know, ground branch guys that are that now are reporting to you in this forward base, kind of whispering in your ear saying, hey, you might want to think about this was really helpful for me. Did you have to like rein them back and say? It was time.

Yeah. Yeah, there's times. Yeah, there was times. Yeah. We had the hard conversations, but it was all good. Everybody got it. Yeah. When everybody, you know, and we got everybody home safe.

Yeah. Right. And we have the mission done. So on that note, you know, this would be maybe a good time to roll into this story. Where fast forwarding a few years later, you're in a region of the world that in antiquity would have been called Mesopotamia, perhaps. and you got involved in a very interesting operation targeting al-Qaeda that you know you would mentioned to me and that the CIA had actually cleared you to tell this story in a fair level of detail yeah yeah it's it's and the reason the agents cleared it just because it highlights

how far we go as an organization to protect our sources, what we call agents, our agents. And the moral responsibility we have in the operational responsibility we have to protect them, safeguard them. Because if you think about it, they are risking their lives, the lives of their family,

their livelihood, their careers if they have them, to support the national security of the United States. So we have an obligation to protect them and safeguard them. And I think, you know, from the agency thought that this was a story that was beneficial to be told to highlight that narrative when I approached them on it. But yeah, happy to talk about it. It was, you know, during that mid-2000 time frame, it was, you know, in a location in the Middle East where that was, there was a lot of Sunni and Shia strife and Civil War and militia. and it was a very complicated and difficult environment to operate.

And, you know, it was also a location where, you know, there was U.S. troops deployed. So as a CIA officer, you have a responsibility. Yes, you're there to collect FI and all these things, but there is a forced protection responsibility that is paramount in everything that we're doing, right? You know, there's duty to Warren's responsibility. But, you know, I was, I was, I was, you know, I was, I was, you know, PCS to this location and kind of given this mandate, which, again, wasn't unique to me.

Everybody there is like, how do we get more, you know, CT sources, counterterror sources that have access to al-Qaeda decision makers and leadership? And this role I was in was a really unique role in a sense that it gave me an opportunity to work with some of the special mission units. And, you know, again, there's nobody better than the U.S. Special Forces. They really are dedicated people that really know how to know their tactics and their TTP, like at another level. So it was a really cool opportunity to really work closely with them and take intelligence and action and operationalize it and to be part of that firsthand. and to see through this case where I was able to meet an al-Qaeda guy that had unique access.

And he was, you know, he was easy to contact. He was unvetted. We had not vetted him. So there was a concern that, you know, he was seeking contact with me, you know, with my organization to potentially, you know, for an affair. purpose, you know, suicide bomb, thing like that. But, you know, with some very careful planning, we were able to arrange a meeting with him, a high-threat meeting with him, which I was able to do with the help of our security teams. And, you know, he was, he was as advertised. He was right out of,

you know, central casting of what you think a terrorist would look like, kind of this burly man. with a beard and, you know, short pants and long beard. But the something, the interesting thing about him and, you know, these high threat meetings are very, you know, they're very stressful and, you know, you're wearing local garb and you're armed and all these different things. And there's a whole process and protocol to arrange that meeting. But he was, but from, the interesting thing for me was that after meeting, you know, I had to use a terp of one of our vetted trusted interpreters who was a really really brave good guy man

what a great what a great hero he was and he was very you know the way this guy looked he looked the part but he didn't he didn't speak the part like he actually he was actually you know once you got to know him um he had some unique personality traits but he became you know for a terrorist, kind of a likable guy, just because understanding where he came from and his motivations, he was disenfranchised. He had come into the, he wanted to be part of Al Qaeda,

you know, to get the crusaders out of his country, if you will. And, you know, he really did, you know, he was one of the brothers, the brothers, you know, as they call themselves. And it was fully bought in and pledged by at Al Qaeda. and all those things and allegiance. And over time, you know, he realized he became disenfranchised because he kind of, the myth of Al Qaeda, he realized was a grand lie.

You know, the way they were treating other Muslims through some of their attacks, you know, a lot of Muslims were getting killed. This idea of, you know, when the fighters were getting killed, when the brothers were getting killed, hey, you know, whether it be in their activities or suicide bombers, we'll take care of your family and your widow. None of that was happening. None of it.

They were all drinking and, you know, smoking. And, you know, the piety that he thought that the al-Qaeda brand stood on, it just wasn't there and it was a lie. And he realized that his time was going to be up. The more he was involved with this network, he just knew it was a matter of time until he got it. He was going to die. And he was concerned.

He had a, you know, he had a wife and young kids and he was concerned about them. So as a, you know, as a as a father, you could kind of relate to it. You know, that's where I'm saying. There was a side of him that you could almost relate to on why he wanted to work with us and change his situation and his outcome. And it ended up being a really brave and courageous soul. And it also highlighted for me that, you know, the power of one. one great source can really have a huge impact.

And it sounds like this guy really was a primo source that he had all kinds of inside insight into the organization at a high level. He did. He did. He had unique access. And he had, he had, he had,

he had, there was blood on his hands. There was U.S. blood on his hands. But he also had religious credentials. So he was, he was accepted at the highest level. within the organization.

And, you know, we started running him. I started running him. And, you know, we had to vet him over time. But his information was really good. And, you know, the proof in the pudding was when I was passing it to, you know, the special operations team, you know, the, they are actioning it on a nightly basis. And they're like, hey, this level is. of detail, the bed down locations, the, you know, the coordinates, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, a

case that he was doing it was, was, um, was, um, unique at the time. Pat, can you talk on a little bit on a personal level, uh, because the, the popular, like, uh, media image of a CIA case officer is obviously, uh, you know, willing to blackmail, willing to do whatever it takes. But here you are, you're dealing with a man who, you know, has American blood on his hands. But also, you know or believe that he is disillusioned with what's going on. From a human point of view, from a sense of empathy, you know, from anything else, How do you deal with somebody like that when you're meeting them? That's a great question.

I think what you walk into and where you start is not where you end, depending on the level of vetting. And the business of a case officer, no matter where you, whether it's in a CT framework or in a hard target framework, and you guys know this, it's about relationships, right? It's about building relations, even if it's in a liaison capacity, it's about building relationships. And, you know, through that relationship, you leverage that relationship to direct, you know, the person you're working with and you build trust and you get them to do the things you want them to do to benefit the United States.

But they're humans, right? And every, every case that you recruit, I don't care if it's a CT case or what, it's an intimate relationship, not in a sexual way, but it's just, it's a very personal relationship that you have. because me as a case officer, I realize I have a responsibility to protect this guy. If he is vetted and he's working hard and he's doing the things that we ask him to do, we have a responsibility, a moral obligation, to protect him and his family.

Now, they're not always good at following your orders and hearing your advice, but you have a moral obligation to do it because they are risking their lives. They're risking everything to protect us, our kid, our family, our families in the homeland. You know what I mean? Like so, you know, that's a long way of answering your question,

but it's as you build a relationship and as you get through these vetting milestones with them, you, and agents prove themselves that you draw closer to them and you draw them in. But you can't be so close to them, you lose your objectivity. Right? There is a line. Because at the end of the day, yes, we have to protect them and do all those things,

but if I have to protect him or protect a, you know, a kid from the 82nd airborne, I'm going to go with protecting the kid from the 82nd airborne. Right. And if I lose my source, I lose my source. So there's a balance, though, you know what I mean? Because you have to, and we're going to talk a little bit about that. That's where this, that's what the, you know, I think the interesting part about this case was, was that as as the relationship grew and we were able to vet him more,

we realized, wow, we were in a unique position with this guy. We're going to take down a tremendous part of this network, and we did. But while we were doing that, the network and the leadership, we're also starting to look around and say, who's the mole? Right. Right. So, you know, we as case officers and, you know, the agency, we have responsibility to collect that information,

and we can't sit on it. I've got to put it out. Right. putting it out and there's there's operational units that are going to action it that's part of the business and you know as they action these targets the noose is tightening around the source's neck right you know if that makes sense yes yeah because the special mission units taking all these people off the chess board so there's just naturally less and less players on the field and they're all I imagine pointing for you.

Right. Yeah. Who has access, who was where. Yeah. And it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, there was some good hunting going on. Yeah. Believe me. Good hunting going on. So, yeah. So, so what happens with this is you talk about striking this balance between, you know, force protection of the American soldiers out there with protecting your source. How did that start to play out? So as the case matured.

it became more difficult. And I started to have conversations with the special forces to say, hey, man, like we need to be a little more selective about how we're doing this. And the whack-em-all strategy I know is great. But, you know, there is a little bit of conflict of mission where there was a whack-a-maw mentality from the special ops guys. which I'm not faulting that. And, you know, as an agency case officer,

we're tasked with getting al-Qaeda leadership. So as they're, they want to take out the bottom part of the pyramid, if you will, and here's the ICADA leadership. And we want to get to the top. Right. Right. We want to cut off the head.

And they want to whack everybody. Yeah. And that whack-em-all strategy is good because there's a force protection play. As they're hitting these targets, they are protecting other U.S. forces on the ground. So this is, is the this is where the confluence of you know the the differing missions start you start seeing like hey

how do we navigate this because i have a great this is not you know i'm not going to say once in a generation source i'm not going to go that far but he was a really good source believe me and and and you know how do we make this how do we extend the life cycle of this source so that we get to the top of the pyramid without getting him killed but at the same time, how do we ensure that we're keeping in mind that force protection mission? Right. There were some hard conversations, believe it. Because these low-level guys are the guys out there in place in the IEDs, doing stuff like that.

Right. You're spot on, Dave. That's exactly right. So morally, I found myself in a tough place sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. Yeah.

Where I have the relationship and responsibility to protect this source, but I also have responsibility to protect our defense. troops right in the ground and so what what what happened to this what happened to this gentleman has uh as the noose tightened around his neck yeah so so we started getting a sense that the noose was tightening around and he was talking to me about it we know we were doing we were we were we were throwing the kitchen we were throwing the trade craft kitchen sink at him if you will to this case to try to we were pulling out all the stops to try to come up with creative ways to protect them and we did some things to do that

that extended and kind of put the, you know, the trail, hold the trail off him, if you will. If there was a trail of Al-Qaeda senior guys looking around, we were able to move that off of him, if you will, for a couple of months. And it worked. But as the, you know, as my, you know, the special ops team I was embedded with, if you will, they kept being active and I wanted him to be active, but although we were starting to put some controls in place

because they saw the value of the source. They didn't know who he was, but they saw the value. So they also were trying to put some controls in place, but we got to a point where, you know, it was clear that he was going to be under duress. And then it all kind of culminated one day where I got a, you know, was in contact with him and he, and the source was basically saying,

hey, I've been asked to meet the senior guy. And I'm super excited about it. And this is great for us and yada, yada, yada. And I was like, this doesn't seem right. There was like something I was trying to talk to him about like, how did this come to fruition? Why do they suddenly want you to meet? Like this something doesn't seem right. And my instincts were like, hey, man, this could be a setup.

He was adamant that it was not. The source was adamant. so I was like okay and I just said hey look man I and I had told them this earlier in the relationship I go I can't really go into how but I'm just telling you you know you are such an important part of what we do that and I'm telling you that there's we have ways to protect you and I just want you know we have ways to monitor I can't talk to I can't tell you how but I will protect you Something is bad is going to happen to you. I'm going to do everything I can to protect you.

And I had said that to him a couple months earlier. And he saw that I was doing some things to kind of throw the Al-Qaeda leadership off his trail. And it worked. So he saw that. And that resonated with him. Like, okay, they are helping me out. These guys aren't bullshit in me. And so that, so, you know, he said the next day he was going to make this meeting.

So I told him, I was like, hey man, the next day, good luck. And he's like, you know, I'm not going to be in contact or anything. I was like, don't worry. You know, if there's an opportunity for me to monitor the situation, I will, I will. But good luck. But I'm concerned. I was clear with him about my concerns.

I told the, you know, the special ops guys about what was happening, that this could happen the next day. So sure enough, the next day happens. He leaves in the morning. We are, you know, we're kind of monitoring the situation. And at some point, we're seeing some things that highlight, you know, the kind of tradecraft that they, that the bad guys that Al Qaeda uses to facilitate senior meetings. We see that. We see it kind of happening.

Like, oh, this is interesting. And then at some point during this process, he is taking. he is taken out of a vehicle at gunpoint to his face and thrown in the trunk of a vehicle. And right away, I was like, they're going to kill him. And I jumped in my car with the turp and went down to the special ops guys and I was like, hey, man, I think they're going to kill him.

And, you know, there was a debate and they were like, well, no, this is what it looks like. for a meeting with a senior al-Qaeda guy. They don't want him to know where the meeting's going to occur. I was like, but they don't put a gun to his face. He's a made guy, right? So we had this debate with this commander I did about, is this high threat?

No, is this a senior meeting protocol that we're seeing? Or is this a form of al-Qaeda tradecraft to take the agent to a senior meeting, or is this they're going to kill him? and I was convinced they were getting to kill him and he was at okay well you know the special ops commander was like what do you want me to do I was like I want you to go this guy's done a lot for us

and we owe it to him at least try now asking that question I had a moral conflict with too because I was asking them to go do a daytime raid in a not pleasant place in a violent part of the city So I had a moral conflict with that like wow, you know, I'm putting U.S. troops at harm to go get this guy. And I was concerned about that.

And, you know, the commander of this unit, he's like, you know what? You're right. This guy did a lot for us. We're going to go do it. So right there, you know, in front of me, they pull up the map and they really put a mission together in like five minutes. And just that, you know, that process. And it was very rudimentary. Like, we're going to drive the armored vehicles.

And he, by the way, he was at a house that we had never seen before. And they pulled them out of the vehicle at gunpoint, put him inside the house, and put out armed guards in front of the house. Which was really strange. So we're like, what's going on? Maybe this is a scene. You know, we kept questioning ourselves a little bit because of the protocols they were putting in place for this. but I still was convinced they were going to kill him. So the SF guys, the special ops guys, were like, okay, we'll go get them.

And this plan in five minutes, like, you know, we're going to take the armored vehicles, we're going to drive the end of the street, the block. And the house was at the opposite end of the street. And four guys are going to get on the skids of a little bird that were parked right out back. And they're going to fly. And when they come over, you know, where the drop-off point was, where the guys on the ground were, as soon as the little bird gets over them, they're going to start running to the house.

And, you know, the little bird will land on the roof and the guys will hit the house at the same time. And, you know, they start kidding up and turn up the music and freaking dogs are getting ramped up. You know what I mean? These guys are one of a kind, man. They're the best, you know that.

And they launch. And I'm sitting there in the jock. and listening and watching and monitoring. And sure enough, the mission goes, as soon as the little bird comes over, they start running. Little bird, you know, is landing on the roof and take out the guys, the armed guys out front,

very quickly, the guys on the ground that ran up to the house, breach, get in, there's a big firefight. You know, I'd showed him pictures of my guy, and they called jackpot and they are like hey we got this guy what do you want to do

as like treat him like everybody else that were taking off the objective you know the same protocols flex cuff them you know blindfold them so you know

there was like three or four guys you know taken off the objective brought back to the facility I'm waiting downstairs with my turf and the SF commander. And, you know, they're lined up. The guys that survived that weren't killed, were all bloodied and, you know,

blindfolded and flex cuffed. And, you know, go grab one and, you know, kind of turp, you know, let him know, you know, didn't want him to know that his, the counterparts that survived that there was anything different. Right. You don't want them to know. It's like everybody else, right? brought him into the room, closed the door.

It's me, the turf, J-Soc guy. He's sitting in front of me, pull the blindfold off. The agent just starts bawling, starts crying. And I was like, hey man, I got to know.

Was, were you going to meet a senior guy? Or were they going to kill you? And he said, they were going to kill me. And they just about, they were about to kill me and I was arguing with him that the leadership had sent two people to kill me I was like well why he's like they didn't know it was me they just suspected they were looking around at everybody and some of the

meetings that I had been there's only a few people in this one and that one they started to suspect me and they were two guys were going to shoot me and I and I begged them to let me pray and they agreed after you know going back and forth with them and hold out the prayer rug, started praying, prayed for my family. And he said, I prayed for, I prayed about what you told me that you would protect me. And as I was praying, the little bird, the helicopter landed on the roof. If he wasn't a devout Muslim before that, he certainly was after. Right. Yeah. It's quite an amazing story. And it's like, you can't make it up. Yeah. It was quite an emotional meaning, as you can imagine. But it highlights,

that ethos that we have in the agency that, you know, one of my mentors, a senior officer by him Mark Kelton, used to say, we don't leave agents on the street. Like we go and get them, whether, you know, it's a planned meeting, unscheduled meeting, we don't leave them behind that ethos, we protect them at all costs. We go and get them. And we did. And it's, you know, it's a good story in a sense that nobody on the U.S. side was injured, thank God. And, you know, we saved his life. And, you know, it was, you know, sadly the case came to an end.

But it also reinforced, you know, why we do this business. It's about, it's about, you know, relationships. You know, there's people at the other side, on the other side that we're working with, too, you know. So does your agent that you rescue? I mean, is he like owning a gas station in New Jersey now? I don't know what he's doing. I hope he's still alive. But yeah, we definitely took care of him.

And I have not do what he's doing now, but he's not working with us anymore. Pat, do you feel that the way modern media movies film, you know, TV, stuff like that, portrays CIA. Do you think that helps you guys in the recruiting or hurts you guys in recruiting? So I think there's a narrative out there that we're a rogue organization or we're a risk-averse organization, right? And we're not both. We're not either. You know, there is, as you guys know, in this community, there's good people, good Americans, you know, follow the law. Yeah, we break the law overseas, but we follow the law in the U.S.

We're not the baby killers. We're not the coup. We're not doing the coups. You know, we're not all those negative things that you hear about that we're kind of this ghost and easy to point to. And you hear about our mistakes. But the thing that I think hurts us most are the leaks. There's something to be said about keeping our secret secret. And the, you know, there's a mystique that comes with that.

there's a mystique that comes with the organization that attracts, that helps us in those moments when we're trying to recruit agents. And leaks and people saying, talking about what we do, it undermines, you know, this narrative that we are, when we're working with agents or trying to recruit an agent, that we're going to protect you at all cost. and when they hear about the leaks and this and that and this negative narrative about the organization, they're like, you know, they come in with predisposed judgment.

Like, why would I work for you guys? So it does hurt it. Always. But I've been in meetings where you have to address that. Yeah. The thing that really comes to mind is a media fabrication, but the loss of a lot of Chinese agents, like how does that hamper U.S. intelligence

efforts across the board when something like that major happens. Yeah, what you're referring to is kind of been reported in the media. And I can just say that it undermines our ability to do it. I'm not saying we can't do the job. It just makes it harder. It puts one arm behind your back, if you will. And these quote-unquote anonymous leaks, whether they're coming from the hill or the whatever you know one of the three branches of government and you know people get to

feel empowered like oh you know i get to see my you know a senior official i get to see my quote in the paper i mean it undermines what we're doing um and it there is there is a cost um there's an op you know we we we take opsec very seriously and um you know when there's a there's entities outside of the organization that are leaking and it just undermines our ability to do it. And it impacts everything. Like even your foreign partners, like, you know, you're in a liaison meeting and they're like, what the hell is this? Right. You know, and, you know, liaison work is hard.

And you have to invest in those relationships. And it undermines that too. So it does, it's, you know, I don't know a better way to say it other than there is definitely an impact. But, but it doesn't, you know, it doesn't stop what we do. Right. It just makes it. And you have to kind of adapt and work around it. That's interesting because, you know, we think about leaks in terms of leaks from, you know, inside the agency or whatever.

But really, we all know, you know, why the agency has so much oversight. and, you know, there are reasons for it and whatnot. But are there factors to mitigate like a staffer who thinks, who, you know, thinks they're doing the right thing or whatever, but is privy to this knowledge or maybe not even doing the right thing. They, like you say, they just want to see their quote in the headlines. Like, are there steps to mitigate that? Are there severe punishments?

Well, yeah, there's, so there's not steps that we can do. I mean, we have operations. steps that we do for OPSEC internally. Right. But when it comes to oversight committees, we have a responsibility to be transparent about what we do with those, you know, like whether it's covert action or any,

you know, we, there's very candid discussions, uh, with the oversight committees and the staffers about what we do. And, and look, they are,

you know, they, they are, um, vetted and red in and all the background checks on and everything. So they are cleared people to, do it. And I, you know, frankly, I don't know, I don't think they're necessarily the ones from the oversight committees that are, they're the most responsible. In my experience, those are the

people that we were most trusted with that I felt most comfortable talking to, frankly, because they did get, they were welcomed into our world and they understood, um, the consequences, more so than the member that wasn't on the oversight committee that's on the armed service committee or some of the committee. So they were brought in and part of, you know, under the tent. And so they, I was actually felt very comfortable talking to me. And we, you know, we have a, you know, a legal responsibility to keep them informed on what we're doing. And we do it.

We don't hide anything from them. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. It's a tough. I mean, we need transparency. We need freedom in this country. And there are obviously drawbacks at times to that.

Yeah, I think, you know, that's a great point because, you know, there's, you know, post-9-11, right? There's the one-side security, one-side's privacy, right? Right. And pre-9-11, you could say privacy was factored more than security. Post-9-11, you know, tip the balance the other way. Right? The Patriot Act, all these different things. And it gave us, it gave, it gave, you know, the enterprise of the intelligence community and the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security, a lot of additional authorities and space to operate to ensure there wasn't another attack on the homeland. Then you start having, you know, the Snowdens of the world and the leaks of the world. And suddenly there's this perception that, oh, no, the government is now big brother. The government has gone way too far. are. Let's take, let's bring back privacy over security. And, you know, that's a very complicated

question. And as someone is an intelligence professional, you know, I, you know, I looked at that and I said, I was very concerned with some of those changes that that came because some of the leaks brought certain things to life. And, you know, from my perspective, I was like, well, when there's another attack on the homeland, you know, don't say it was an intelligence failure, policy failure for changing the policy. So, you know, you're taking some of the teeth and the power out of our ability to, you know, be out in front and forecast and predict and prevent attacks. Just understand that. If you want your privacy over security, just understand that. I mean,

We also have to point out here that, you know, if you look at the hacking of what it was at the Office of Personnel Management and all of your guys's clearance information getting leaked out there, or just this last week, finding out that the backdoors at AT&T and Verizon and these big media companies, telecom companies, was hacked by a third-party intelligence service. I mean, our government itself cannot be trusted with our sensitive information. So I have to, I feel like I would be remiss to not point out that it's not that, it's not that I don't trust you, the CIA guy, but our government itself is, yeah. Yeah, you're spot on. And I couldn't agree. I'm in violent agreement with you. And, you know, we as a society probably give more access of our personal,

data to state companies. No, we should. Yeah. Or could ever be interested in or had access to, yet that's okay. Right. The government having that access, that type of information to protect us from a potential threat from a state actor or non-state actor. You know, there's concerns about that. And so to your point, yeah.

So after your Mesopotamia tour, you end up in some other parts. of the world, some base chief positions, elsewhere in the Middle East, and then going into national resources. You want to kind of walk us through what you're able to tell us about those years of your career? Yeah, sorry. Yeah, so, you know, I stayed after, I stayed in South, I went to South Asia again for another opportunity as a base chief, and it was during a really interesting time from 2010 to 2011, where, you know, there was a, you know, there was, you know, there was, you know,

it was the Obama administration, and there was a, you know, the threat was, you know, Al-Qaeda was still very active in South, in South Asia, and there was still massive concerns about potential threats to the homeland or in Europe.

and it was a really interesting time to be there as these long wars had just kind of continued and drifted along but it was also a time where we were at the peak of that methodology that I talked about early on my first time being in South Asia now several years later we had really that

line and block chart of al-Qaeda had went from very small to now we had expanded that and had great insight into that network, who the players were, their tradecraft, and we were able to start developing strategic cases that gave us unique insight. We developed our partnerships in the region with liaison to help us navigate and also understand that target and gain more information. insight and build capacity and capability in our liaison partners that we were able to leverage to support our ongoing CT efforts. So, you know, very different time from my first time in

South Asia to now this experience, you know, several years later. And it was a very interesting time. Obviously, that was the period of when the bin Laden raid was executed. And just a really really interesting time to be a part of kind of that mission set during that period and leverage all that. You know, again, the technology and the methodology had really developed and put us in a different position to prosecute those targets. Do you want to talk a little bit about NR? Because I think when we talk about misconceptions about the CIA, another one is that you guys operate domestically, which is really not the case, but there are, with there is an exception that working hand and glove with the FBI,

you are able to do some things in the United States. And there's been a tremendous amount of reporting on this. And after coming out of there, I did have the opportunity to come back and work in the domestic space and, you know, where under this DNI construct where, you know, the CIA station chief is the D&I chief overseas, right? Domestically, it's, it's really the FBI that is that, that serves that DNI role. And we are, you know, the level of coordination about what we're doing is very, you know, very close, not without conflict and disagreement. But really good people there.

You can imagine working in the NR field, I say that, domestic field, the tremendous home advantage that you have. Think of it through this lens. where you have foreigners living abroad, whether they're third world countries, I don't care where they're at. And typically the best of the best of their diplomats, of their intelligence officers,

are the ones that are awarded, right, with that cherry on their career, cherry on top of their career, to come back and work in the United States. Right. And so those people are usually connected people, people that have access, people that may or may not have been exposed,

previously been exposed to a Western lifestyle, haven't been exposed to democracy and the freedoms that we have to a capitalist society. And they come here and they're like, wow, wow, I get to live in Washington or New York or, you know, where consulates are all over the United States. This is very different. This is this.

I see. why people talk about the American dream. Right. This is great. This is great. I make more money here. You know, typically their host nation governments, their salary goes up. They have a better house.

They have a better lifestyle. What a great home court advantage to approach someone and ask them and work with them, you know, potentially target them for recruitment. Right. And so really, you know, you know, the domestic space gets a bad rap is like, that's not, not where the field work is, but I would argue some of our greatest successes come from here because of this tremendous home court advantage we have. Pat, can we rewind real quick? So when we talk about NR, we're talking about national resources. We're talking about the CIA, right? We're talking about the CIA in the United States. Can we talk about some of the misconceptions and the realities of the CIA? You know, like the hit teams that went after Bruce Willis and Red, you know, the assassins you guys have living all over the United States. Can we talk about some of the realities and misconceptions about the CIA in the U.S.?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of this has been reported in the open press, but there are different mandates that we have domestically than we have abroad. We can't break U.S. law here in the U.S. and the government at all. We don't. We don't break U.S. law abroad. We break the laws of foreign countries abroad, right, by what we're doing. But we're not breaking U.S. law, and we're certainly not doing it. And we're doing it in a much more coordinated fashion with our CIA, I mean, our FBI brothers and sisters.

And it's very controlled. And there are mandates, legal mandates in place to that, you know, that what we do is very narrowly focused on, you know, foreign targets operating in the United States. So we don't have the same mandate that we have abroad that we have here because of you. U.S. law. And that's, and it works. And it works. And, you know, there's, there's challenges. Yeah, absolutely. With different mission sets between the FBI and us, but, but, but we found a way to make it work. And I think, you know, the 9-11 highlighted how it didn't work, whatever was. And, you know, we, I think that was a game changer for us. And the relationships and how we operate and coordinate and share information changed because of 9-11.

It's not perfect, but it's changed and it's gotten a lot better. So just for clarity, you are saying that you don't have hit teams. No, I heard he's confirming. He's confirming the assassination teams. So, you know, for a lot of people who don't know, like the CIA doesn't have arrest authority. So, you know, so how does that work in partnership with the FBI in the United States? So the FBI has a counterintelligence mission, right? And that mission is to identify foreign agents that are operating in the United States to collect intelligence and any of the American cases that they are handling.

Right. So think of a, you know, a Russian or a Chinese or a foreign intelligence officer operating the United States, basically doing the CIA mission that we do abroad. doing it here, recruiting Americans trying to gain access to steal our secrets. So the FBI has a counterintelligence mission. The CIA has a counterintelligence mission as well as a foreign intelligence mission. So that counterintelligence mission merges, if you will, with the FBI. It's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's domestically, we work in parallel and in deep coordination with them to support that mission.

So how do identify foreign intelligence officers that are operating here? How do we create opportunities to potentially approach and recruit them? And when they go back to their foreign country, we are running them as an agent. That's kind of the game plan of the mission set that the domestic team has here. Pat, I'm trying to land the airplane, but we still have a few things here to talk about. Could you tell us about, I know you can't say where you were, but when the bin Laden raid happened, if you have any insights, what your visibility was at that time? Yeah, there's been a lot of this in the press and the reporting.

I think a couple of things. One, it was really interesting to see, like, the most compartmented secret mission, probably in the history of the agency leading up, you know, to that night, you know, May 1st, the United States, May 2nd in Pakistan, the, you know, the time frame. the most secretive, you know, very tightly compartmented planning, and people took it extremely serious because everyone who was involved recognized that this was the best chance that we have had. Like the intelligence, in my view, was that good.

So to me, you know, the, and how the next day, everything just went public after the raid. That, for me, was quite shocking. I mean, it was like everything just came out the next day. Yeah. So, you know, that looking back was a really interesting contrast to the whole thing. You know, the other thing that struck me was, you know, as I mentioned, in my view, I thought there was a pretty good, a lot of this has been public reported, and you've seen this where you've seen the president say it was a 50-50 call. And, you know, I think there was a, there was a, I thought in my, in my view that, you know, based on everything I've read and what's been an open source, you can make an fair assessment that the intelligence was so good that there was a consequence for not doing it.

Right. So that's a little bit, you know, that's kind of how I view it. And, you know, it was a very, it was a very proud moment. You know, it was, it was a lot of hard work from a lot of people, not just in South Asia, but, you know, over, I would say not just that year in South Asia, but over a period of time developing that network and fleshing it out and building it out. you know there was liaison partners that were contributing and they may not even know it known it you know how the putting this jigsaw puzzle together and um you know the the way that this thing came together with the different parts of the or you know one the enterprise kind of the technical side and the the the the the DO side combining that with you know the special mission unit side the way all that came together while maintaining the integrity of the operation and the obsec of the operation is is really interesting and a massive success that we were able to pull it off just because there was a history working in that part of the world where you know we would

lose custody of things because of the requirement to you know share the information with our liaison counterparts or develop it more before it reached a threshold to take action. And along the way, we would lose custody or something would happen. So the fact that we were able to build this intelligence picture in the manner in which we did it with outstanding operational security is really a testament to the professionals that were involved with it. It was, it was really, you know, it's once in a lifetime like operation. And I also want to ask you about, you know, one of the next positions you had was being an assistant to the deputy director and getting to see, you know, at a very high level in the CIA and the interagency process, how things come together.

You know, what you what you gleaned from that experience. Yeah, it was a great experience. I had a chance to be really a unique opportunity to be an assistant to the deputy director of the time was of Real Haynes, who's now the DNI. And it allowed me to kind of see how the sausage was made. Not just, you know, I was very, I had been limited to the DO really up into this point in my career. And I was a young, you know, GS-15, I think, at this point. and you suddenly get exposed, okay, this is how the enterprise works.

This is how the different directorates within the organization come together to the support, the technical side, the operational side, the analytical side. This is how this sausage is made to create this piece of paper of finished analysis that goes to the policymaker so that they can make their decision.

So you get to see that, process happen and then you get internally, the enterprise wise, and then you get to see the interagency and working with the executive branch, working with the legislative branch, and how the seventh floor, you know, the director and the deputy director, what their roles are, how they engage, you know, with the White House. It was fascinating. And it, you know, for me, as a, as an officer that was just coming into my own, I learned a lot about, about the business. of intelligence and how we support the policymakers. But more importantly, it also exposed me to this whole network of people,

you know, both domestically and traveling abroad with the deputy director and being in these meetings with very senior leaders of countries and intelligence services and just being in that world. And I was able to build this network of people that helped me as my career progressed down the road. But very fortunate, learned a lot. But, you know, they wanted me to come in and as a real, as a deputy director came in, brand new to the organization from outside, you know, she was first time working at CIA.

At the time, she was the most senior woman in the history of the CIA and, you know, help her understand the directorate of operations. But I think, you know, she helped me a lot more than I helped her. And I learned a tremendous amount from her. And then I got to ask you, like maybe, I don't know if you consider this the kind of capstone of your career, but I mean, there was a point in time afterwards where you were put in charge of all Russia operations at CIA. Yeah. I mean, that was a couple years later. After the, you know, I worked for the deputy director, I was fortunate enough to be a COS in Europe during a very volatile time from 2014 to 2017 where, you know, the massive, you know, I thought it was going to be. a chance to take my foot off the pedal and relax a little bit. But, you know, that was a time where the threat from Syria in Northern Africa had really

and immigration has really changed the landscape of Europe and, you know, the attacks in Paris and Belgium and, you know, the Christmas markets in Germany, the lights were flashing red. And coming out of that, you know, I was trying to find what my next assignment would be I knew I had to come back to headquarters and I had um when I was a CT guy and there was I there was several jobs that I was looking at and I saw that this the the running the Russian operations position which you know in our organization is a very um unique and wanted position but traditionally it goes to somebody who would come up through the rank in Central Eurasia division and served in Moscow and spoke the language.

And, you know, I had reached out to a mentor of mine on the seventh floor and said, hey, here's the five jobs I'm looking at. And they noticed the, you know, being the charge of all Russian operations around the world. And they're like, yeah, you don't want to, and this was, you know, 2017. And they're like, yeah, you don't want that job. We have to make a lot of changes there. It's not going to be pretty. You know, after the, you know, what the Russians did to undermine our elections in 2016,

we got to think about changing how we do business there. And I'm going to, and this person on the 7th floor is basically saying, I'm going to, you know, we're going to make massive change there. And it's not, it's going to be hard. People aren't going to want to change. So don't apply for that job. You know, look at these other ones. That was a little bit disappointed.

And we got off the phone. and then you know I was kind of I was kind of actually super interested in it I'm not why because I didn't have that background

I didn't have the Russian back moment I was like no that would have been a cool challenge anyway so I was a little disappointing I got a phone next day this guy from the seventh floor pinged me I was like hey call me

like hey what's up he's like hey I thought about it overnight and I want you to take that job change it and you're going to help me change it and you're going to help me change it And he's like, yeah, but I got interviews for these other four jobs. He's like, I'm assigning you to this position.

It's done. And that was that. That's how it happened. And it was a unique and great opportunity and loved it. And I learned a lot about that target set. But I also was, you know, that was 2017 when I assumed that position. And again, coming on the heels of 2016, where as we talked about, you know, the Russians really had learned this new kind of TTP of leveraging social media, you know, this active measures using social media, propaganda, misinformation, disinformation. And they kind of honed that skills in 2014 in Ukraine during the May Don.

and then realized how effective it could be and not very costly, you know, leveraging the internet, rather than social media. And they took that, you know, kind of the TTPs that they figured out and applied it to our election process from 2015 and through up to the election in 2016,

if you guys recall, you know, and all this came out in the Mueller report and, you know, talking about how they were sowing discord and undermining, our democracy through, you know, identifying these issues that are of, you know, really sensitive issues that are charged, whether it be race, whether it be gun rights, whether it be, you know, LGBTQ, and pouring gasoline on these issues with social media, leveraging social media and misinformation, you know, the Internet research agency,

led by Pergozen based out of St. Petersburg. Again, all this came out in the, and publicly in the Mueller report and how they used this tool, this instrument to, even though the Mueller report said they didn't change the outcome of the election, but they undermined our election

and so, and really eroded the trust that we have in our democratic institutions. So assuming that, in 2017 it was a really fascinating time where there was people were pissed off they wanted you to take the gloves off um that's let me frame it this way and i i i don't we viewed 2016 as a and i don't i want to show respect to 9-11 because of the lost souls and i do but a like not to the level of 9-11 but a

version of 9-11 where that's how deep it struck a chord what the Russians did, this covert action program that they did, which you can make the argument is still continuing to this day. I mean, if you look about the Russia collusion investigation that came out of that and how that polarized our politics and how that continues today, the Russians are just laughing about this and they are happiest and they are amplifying these divisions and continue to sow discord. So, so yes, there was a sense of, and, you know, in that position and leading and overseeing the Russian operations globally, the program globally, you know, I, you know, one of my responsibilities was to go to the oversight committees and work with all three branches of

government because of that position, you have a lot of interaction as far as driving the mission across not only the agency, but the IC. And it was interesting because there was uniformity on both sides of the aisle about getting off our back foot and getting on the front foot to ensure what happened in 2016 doesn't happen in our midterm elections in 2018. And more importantly, what do we do to make sure it doesn't happen again in 2020? Right. So I'm curious because from what you said that your mentor on the 7th 4 said, to me it sounded like, and correct me if I'm wrong, please. But to me it sounded like there was going to be some sort of house cleaning because, not necessarily because we didn't keep up with the Russian TTPs, but there were other issues involved. So how was it seen and how did how was it?

How did it change? Were there, I don't want to say were there failures. I would say, look, there's, look, the, you know, the magnitude of 2016 that we did not see that coming. Everybody felt across the government. Okay. So it wasn't necessarily a house cleaning. It was right about how do we change how we do business. to now keep up with the way the Russians are doing this.

Yeah, the rules are changing. Yeah, the rules are changing. So let's bring in somebody that doesn't know the old way. Right. And the old way was bad because the tradecraft standard of the folks that were doing it, I mean, it's just at a higher standard. Right. They're fantastic.

And their knowledge, the expertise they have is unique. But let's bring in a new face that has a different type of experience, using different methodology that we've learned in other parts of the world about putting people on the X, but let's put them on the X for FI purposes to recruit people. Right. Let's, let's bring in a fresh idea person to think about how we could do this different. And that's, so again, it's not a negative thing about the past. It's just like, hey, can we prosecute this in a different way?

And let's think about this, this, you know, how this mission set differently. That's, that was the impetus behind it. Are you able to talk at all about any of the changes that you implemented or that were brought to you? Look, I think, you know, there, it's been widely reported that there was a, there was a call to arms in, in different media outlets. And there was. And it was. And that to me instituted a change. It was a change of mindset, if you will.

And it was kind of harking back to what we had learned over the last, you know, 17 years in the long wars and applying that. And really similar to what we did post-9-11, where we did a call to arms to get people to deploy out to South Asia in the Middle East, that was the kind of thing like, hey, here's a call to arms. Look what happened in 2016. We, you know, the IC has a bloody nose over this and a black eye. And we have to make sure that we get on our front foot and don't let that happen again. And basically putting out a call to arms to say, come join up, come in. We are looking for different types of experiences and career tracks to change how we do business, leveraging, you know, technology, leveraging targeting, leveraging different things like that. That was really changing the mindset of how we

prosecute the mission. That's an interesting point, too, because, you know, obviously everybody, you know, has their hands and a few things, but I think typically, traditionally, you think of the CIA as a human-based organization. And when it comes to the SIGAN and cyber aspect, you know, you think of the NSA and more recently maybe CSA or whatever. But how does that all come together for like the CIA's mission, for collaboration, for things like that? So, I mean, great question.

I think, you know, depending on what the operational opportunity is, it comes together in a different way. You know, one of the things that has been reported and I think the New York Times had some recent reporting on this was that there was a sense of bringing, you know, start were in the past, you know, there was kind of this, we didn't want to, you know, due to the sensitivity of this mission set, we didn't always work with liaison now,

how do we approach our foreign partners that view the Russians as a compatible target? In other words, hey, we have a Russia program. You guys have a Russia program. What if we brought those Russia programs together to have a greater effect against this target was kind of the mentality that we had to start prosecuting, you know, how we did operations differently. And it worked. And we started to see differences. Yes, we learned some things along the way.

but we also kind of started building these, this coalition. Again, this was reported in some New York Times stuff just in the last year on kind of building this coalition of liaison Russia programs that proved to be very helpful leading into, obviously, in the last few years, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

We kind of plumbing in place and put that infrastructure in place so that the sharing of intelligence was already happening this target. So talk to us a little bit about retirement and where you're at today. Yeah, great question. I think I retired in November of 2020 and could have stayed longer. But we all have to kind of look ourselves in the mirror and say, you know, what's more important for me. You know, and it got to a point where, you know, I had some young kids, three daughters, three beautiful daughters,

and, you know, I needed to spend more time with them. And, you know, this organization, it's a fantastic place to work, but it can be all-consuming. And it's very hard on families. So I wanted to, you know, I came to the realization, It was time for me to maybe, you know, I achieved more than ever thought I would achieve. I'll tell you that. And I feel very fortunate and loved every moment of it.

And it would have been really easy to stay. But at the same time, I think the harder decision and the right decision was to get out and spend more time with the family and work on that. So I got out three years ago, got into the startup world for a few years, which was fascinating for me, had the opportunity to learn about, you know, and something I had no appreciation for where, you know, out of college, into the military, into the organization, you know, 20, almost 29 years of national security time, I never, you know, I was a civil servant. I didn't understand business. So I didn't have an MBA.

So it was almost a time to get, you know, a poor man's NBA, if you will, and kind of understand how to the business of a business, how to run a business, how to, how to, how to, how to, how to, how to, all those things about investment, everything, you know, all those different things, had a greater appreciation for that. And now transitioned out of that. and now I work for a strategic consulting firm that is really heavy in the OSCE space, doing all kinds of great things as far as training and have a great global presence, an international presence.

The company is called Orbis International and kind of helping them run their international section. So that's much more in my wheelhouse. I get the opportunity to support business opportunities and business development overseas, something I enjoy doing from my time at the agency. So it's been really good. Do we have questions for Pat? Just out of curiosity, you know, you left in 2020. What was your impression of the invasion?

Like being kind of, you know, away from it? You know, it was, it wasn't surprising. I think that there was a, in my view, so the things that I've read, But I think there was a, in one sense, we had really good intelligence where we were able to warn our partners of when the invasion was going to occur that's been widely reported. But I think we also overestimated the Russian capability and we underestimated the Ukrainian willingness to fight. And so I think, so that, you know, that miscalculation, if you will, I think also made the policy decisions coming soon after the invasion more difficult.

I think there was some tough policy decisions because they didn't fully understand, you know, again, the Russian capability. We overestimated that in my view. And the thing about the Russian target, I'll say this, and this isn't unique to this administration. Every administration has had this challenge is how do you change Russian behavior? behavior, Putin's behavior, without escalation. Right? And no one's really figured that out yet. So it's a challenge.

Yeah. You know, nobody wants to end up in a nuclear war, but at the same time, you know, the Russians are bad actors, and they do things very differently, and they, again, they go to dark places very quickly. Yeah. And they don't policy process to manage it like we do here. Yeah.

And last question before we get to their question. I love your insight in this because we have North Korea that we don't hear about a ton. We have China, Russia, and Iran. I want you to necessarily rank them as threats, but in terms of like threat pictures, what are we most concerned about with each of those players? Great question. I think one thing that we're concerned about that I think gets lost. I mean, they're all adversaries, right?

is their cooperation. They share intelligence. They share information. So if you're an intelligence or Western intelligence service and you're trying to do some sort of operation, you know, the Russians, the Chinese, they're going to share information with each other about what you're doing if they're able to uncover it

and then they're going to expose it. You know, where in the past there was more stove pipes between them. there's much more cooperation when it comes, you know, they view us as a common enemy. So they share information, they share intelligence. So that's one aspect of it. And that, you know, again, I'm not avoiding your question, but I think that's just something I wanted to frame for you guys that is not always talked about. I think, you know, if you look at each one of those, you know, I'm not a China hand, but I view them now that I'm out and, you know, what I read and what I see. I view them as the biggest threat right now to our strategic national security.

You know, from an economic standpoint, from a military standpoint, you know, they are, they are extremely aggressive, you know, when they're trying to steal our IP, hack into our networks, identify and uncover vulnerabilities. they're in the misinformation disinformation game they are putting out propaganda to maximize their influence and undermine ours you know we have this current policy with them where you know we have close they're our biggest trade partner and we can't decouple our relationship with them so how do we de-risk it you know and the challenge with someone who doesn't play by kind of the world rules, if you will. And so I view them right now is kind of the biggest threat, and they are actively pushing their sphere of influence throughout the Pacific.

Obviously, you know, we see it in Taiwan and throughout the region. We see it in Africa. We see it in Latin America. They are coming in heavy with money, purchasing, influence, buying infrastructure, bringing in their technology. It is a full court press. And if you talk to our FBI colleagues, they view them as the biggest counterintelligence threat.

And I tend to agree with that. So I would put them at the top. I would put Russia a second just because of who they are, what they stand for, their history. We see the leadership under Putin. You know, we see them being active in Ukraine. They're a nuclear threat. Economically, I don't think they're a threat to us,

but they've learned since the war started, the invasion state, and they're really good from an intelligence standpoint and from their industrial base where they've learned from their shortcomings, and they now have spun up that engine. And, you know, they, if you look at this problem set, attrition's a real thing. They just have more people that they can throw at the problem set than the Ukrainians do. And that's why I think the Ukrainians, I mean, in my view, in my opinion, from what, you know,

I would just say that based on everything that I've read and my understanding of the problem, in my view, the future of the Ukraine is directly tied to U.S. assistance, not European assistance, but U.S. assistance and our ability to support and provide them weaponry than they need to counter the Russians. It's like in 1936, I mean, the Russians got their teeth kicked in initially, but they have a very deep magazine. And once they got spun up, you know, it became a hell of a fight. And just the attrition rates.

I mean, you know, the longer this drags on, the more advantage it has to Russia, in my view. But the only thing that, and if we don't provide that, that supplemental support, Ukraine's going to be going to lose the war or epitulate and lose territory. Yeah. You know, I kind of view them as one and two in the world order as far as the biggest threats, the adversaries that are out there. You know, the CT threat is always going to be there. But frankly, it's been diminished greatly over, you know,

the last five or six years, great success in Syria and Iraq and other places. But it's still out there. Don't get me wrong. But it's not where it was in the, you know, mid-2000s, early 2000s. It's been significantly diminished. That said, we have to take the lesson. And there's the last thing I'll say on this is that, you know, when we were so focused on the CT war, you know, for the first 15 years of it leading up into the 2016 elections,

we were so focused as a country and as a nation on counterterrorism, The Russians and the Chinese were building capacity and capability, and we were downsizing our budgets against them, where they were increasing. So now it's flipped, where we increased our budgets on China, increased our budgets to counter Russia, and we can't take our eyes off the CT threat, because if we're not looking, that's going to grow. And obviously with what happened in Afghanistan, that's the safe haven that is available where, you know, depending on what happens, you know, that could be another opportunity for them to grow. Is the CIA big enough? Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think it's not if it's big enough. It's, is it funded appropriately?

You know what I mean? Yeah. And, you know, administrations come in with different priorities, you know, what's more important right now? I'll just throw this out there. The CT, putting billions of dollars towards CT, or should we put more money into stopping fentanyl coming in? I don't know. Yeah.

But, you know, in 2005, it was clear. The question was CT is the priority. Not Russia, not China, not fentanyl. You know, it was CT, CT, and then maybe CP counterproliferation. You know, that's what I'm saying. Right. So administrations are going to change based on their agenda and what's happening in the world. So I just think it comes down to funding and resources, really, to your point.

Thank you very much. And let's get to some of the viewer questions. Bjorn, thank you very much. How hard is it for case officers to become PMO's, especially if they don't have null background, Would they need a high-end federal LE experience or time in National Guard SF to pull off the move? Great question. Thanks, Bjorn. You know, it's not common for someone to get into the paramilitary cadre without at least eight to ten years of special operations experience.

I didn't work there. I worked with them, and I don't want to speak for them, but at least my experiences, you know, the, you know, like I did,

you know, I was an Intel officer that worked at J-Soc. If I would have said, I want to be a paramilitary officer, they would have said, hell no. Right.

Plus, I was Air Force, right? They would have laughed me out of the building. So they would have said my golf game is too good or something like that. But yeah, it's, it's one of those things where you have to have,

you know, You have to have serious special ops chops and not just have that, but be the best of that, you know, of that of your cadre to be considered. And times changed, right? So what they were looking for in 2001 was very different from what they were looking for in 2010 because you had a whole new pool of people with combat experience and time in to choose from. And I think to your point, like, you know, the pre-9-11 paramilitary guy was not a case officer.

The post-9-11 paramilitary person coming in is a paramilitary who is also a case officer. Yeah. You know, and that was good for business. And somebody had made a strategic decision to get the paramilitary officer's case officer trained, and that was smart. in a great strategic move that continues to pay benefit today. But they are an elite bunch, and I tell you what, I'm a big fan of our paramilitary cadre. You could drop them into any place in the world,

and they will figure it out and succeed. M. Corbyn, thank you very much. Do you find any of the changes the GRU has been implementing operation in Europe concerning? You know, they, if you're referring to kind of their TTPs of how, they do business, whether you're talking about the Skrapal incident or, you know, Little Green Men across the, you know, the border, the eastern border of Ukraine. He might be referencing some of the like sabotage events that have happened over the last, you know, six to eight months.

Yeah. You know, I, it's always concerning. It's a great question. It's always concerning. But it's not surprising. You know, as I commented just a few minutes ago, like they go to a very dark place. because they don't have those legal constraints and policy, you know, or that oversight that we have, right? And, you know, there's a cost for that, you know, undisciplined, you know, kind of covert operations that are happening that are not, you know, necessarily coordinated and approved, you know, by, you know,

You know, in conjunction and done in coordination with the government, with the whole of government like we do here, you know, poses a lot of risks to strategic relationships that they may want or have. And, you know, there's high consequence for that. So, yes, it's concerning, but it's not surprising because this is the way they operate. And, you know, I can't really go into more detail than that. Sure. But, yeah, it's a great question.

I wish I had a better answer that I could articulate, but I have guilty knowledge of things, and I can't go beyond that. Pat, if you were king of the United States, how would you, what do you think the appropriate response is? Because you mentioned how Russia will go dark, and they will do things that, you know, Western countries generally won't do.

But if you were king of the United States, what do you feel as an appropriate response to strategy or tactics like the Havana syndrome and things like that. Yeah, I mean, that's my question. Yeah, so on a macro level, I'll say, like, they are very much, you know, you always hear the zero-sum game with them, and it's true. Like, they will take pain. They are willing to consume pain if it hurts us.

And we don't approach the world that way. and how we do business. But I will say that they do respect power. So negotiating from a position of power is always going to benefit you with the Russians. Now, break, break, go back to what I said earlier, every administration is trying to figure out how to change the behavior with,

escalation. So what I just described before was to, you know, they respect power. So that's in conflict with, you know, with changing behavior without escalation. Because typically administrations will take a weaker position because they don't want to upset the Russians where they would, you know, where they would escalate if we are viewed as doing something too heavy-handed. So those two positions are in conflict. But if you do something over time and you see that it's not working where you're taking a weaker hand and maybe taking economic sanctions or backing off, taking, you know, doing things that you would normally do with other countries because you don't trust that Putin's going to act rationally, then you find yourself. always coming in weak.

Right. So what happens is you end up capitulating and allowing the Russians to do what they want to do and continue with their bad behavior. So the one thing I would say is we have to change our policy dynamic, our policy playbook on how we manage and address the Russians. We have to come in with a more powerful position using all the instruments of government. in my view I have avenging

oh sorry about that yeah there's the military there's the intelligence piece you have to bring all those things together and it's a challenge it's hard do we need do we need to appear strong

on the world stage in order to do that absolutely absolutely they you know he sees Putin sees weakness and he seizes on that you know

I think that's he saw an opportunity for Crimea. And you can make, you know, based on a lot of the stuff that's been reported, we were, our government at the time was really trying to cut a deal with the Russians in Syria, right, to stop the violence in Syria. The, you know, the Russians kind of, you know, bogarded their way to the negotiating table at the behest of Assad, if you, if you guys recall, that time frame was a very violent time with the Syrians use of chemical weapons, a lot going on. And we were trying to negotiate a deal. And it's almost as if we look the other way in Crimea

because we didn't want to upset the Russians or the opportunity to close that deal. And when we did, what was it, a week later, a couple weeks later, the Russians bombed a humanitarian convoy going into Syria and said, and that undermined and everything was off the table after that. Yeah. But again, I'm, you know, if again, look at the history of how the Russians operate. They respect power. Yeah. Kayla Davis or Carla, I'm not sure.

Thank you very much. And I'm going to ask her question, but obviously feel free to answer or don't answer. throwing hypotheticals or possibilities to your level of comfort are Ukrainian are Ukrainian soft really operating outside of Ukraine in the Middle East and Africa again I retired in

2020 yeah yeah I'll go ahead and feel that one no those are those are private groups it is not Ukrainian soft that's doing that any other questions That's it. I got a couple from Ed Bogan.

Okay. Uh-oh. Yeah. That time in Panama when you're, no. We had to, some stories, yeah. Back, he wants to go back to 9-11. Back to the day itself,

we were in operations training class that finished just before that. It was actually June of 2001. What did that moment represent for you? Yeah, what a great question. And it's not unique to me. I think a lot of people, it represented, you know, kind of the worst day in America.

It was a watershed moment. I remember, you know, I remember, you know, I remember, you know, the day it happened. And, you know, we were told to evacuate the building and get out. And if anybody's familiar where, you know, headquarters is, it's, there's two main roads. There's 123 that runs parallel and the GW Parkway, the George Washington Parkway, and both those run into Washington.

So it's the only two outlets to get out. And the parking lot, once, you know, 9-11 happened, all of Washington was trying to evacuate out of Washington. Cell phones didn't work. We were told to evacuate. So basically me and a couple of Ed and our classmates went out to our vehicles, and we couldn't leave the parking lot because the GW Parkway and 123, the two parallel roads, the only exit and entrance into the agency were parking lots. So you couldn't leave the parking lot of the agency because it was so backed up, everybody trying to get out. So everybody would just say, get away from the building, get away from the building.

There's more planes out there. and I just sat at my car with friends, with classmates, listening to the radio because you couldn't make any phone calls. And I just remember that moment how powerful it was, like we are under attack. The world just changed today. And the F-16s are flying over. The Pentagon was burning. The world train centers had fallen.

And my life and of my friends and my colleagues of Ed, everybody that worked there, it changed that day. and the stark difference, as I mentioned earlier, between that day and the next day coming into work, where suddenly there was offices, they were just saying, okay, you are no longer working, you know, pick your issue, counterproliferation, you're no longer working in Korea, you are now chopped a CT, there's mattresses in the hallway, and the, you know, the mindset changed, and people really took it personally, that this happened on our watch. And what do we do to make sure, one, it never happens again, and two, let's prosecute this now so that our kids don't have to do it.

So it changed the world, and it changed all of us that were working there. I'll tell you that. And, you know, Ed's a hero. You know, if you listen to his story, there's a lot he didn't say. I think he's waiting a little bit to get it out. But when he does tell his story, he's one of the true heroes in the post-9-11 hero. And, Ed, if you don't tell it here first, we're coming for you. Anything else there, Dee?

Yeah, we got one more from Ed. He's getting greedy. Going back to Coast, we had a lot of successes taking it to Al Qaeda in the first seven or so years of the GWAT, but admittedly not at the same level we would have in 2010 and 2011. Was Coast the wake-up call? How did Coast impact you as someone who was in the fight for years before and then after? Yeah, you know, Ed and I both had friends that were lost. in Coast.

So it was personal. You know, there was a sense of it being personal on 9-11. And then, you know, a few years later, when Coast happened, it was very personal. And, you know, that, you know, that drive to get to senior Al-Qaeda leadership was already there. But once Coast happened, it just, you know, put it up. it was like another round of steroid injections into the arm of CIA and specifically the counterterror center and the folks that were involved in that really took it to heart and ed frankly was the one driving that both from the main office and from the field and the there was

kind of a unwritten but personal you know I don't I'll say vendetta yeah to and I'm using that word purposely to get the folks that did that and we collect

we collectively did we'll have to have you and Ed on together maybe in studio sometime and if you guys haven't seen it please do watch Ed's episode as phenomenal it episode 22 on the team house Would you say

You know That happened in 2009 Right Would you say So you know The GWAT was You know There was obviously there were

With the military Specifically I don't know that there were Really firm goals About how we win What the definition of winning was And I think that everybody

Just kind of got into a I don't want to say a rut But a cycle Right Of just prosecuting targets. Would you say that the Chapman attack was, the Coast attack was a,

like a shot in the arm in terms of just getting out of the daily grind of it? It crystallized the mission even more. You know, there's always this, you know, mission creep combined with mission fatigue. Yeah. And I think that event, just crystallized the mission even more. And again, it was a shot in the arm.

And it affected our tradecraft, how we did business. You know, like I said, you know, when I was in South Asia, again, with all due respects, I did, we, people like me, people like Ed, we did that meeting 100 times over, where you were meeting with somebody that wasn't vetted, coming into the gate. or going outside the gate and meeting somebody like that because we were so desperately trying to find intelligence that would lead us up that pyramid to al-Qaeda leadership. So it was a risky business.

It just caught up with us in that one time. Yeah. But it was a stark reminder of, hey, let's take a step back. Let's think about our tradecraft a little bit. But at the same time, let's get after it. Let's exact revenge for the folks that did this and make sure that we're able to remove the people behind this from the battlefield as part of our process of working up the chain to bin Laden. So I want to let people know we'll be back on Tuesday with Chris, Army veteran, and he's the host of Task and Purposes YouTube channel. And then on Friday, we'll have Justin.

He's a fifth Special Forces Group guy. And then on Monday, the 21st is David McCloskey. We'll be here talking about his new book. So that's what's coming up the next couple episodes. Oh, I should also, I would be remiss if I didn't tell people, we defy the lost chapters of Special Forces history. My book is coming out December 9th. It is up on Amazon for pre-order now.

Please check it out if you haven't already. Pat, thank you for joining us this evening. I mean, is there any final thoughts or anything that you wanted to put out before we get going? No, thanks for the opportunity. Really an honor to be here to engage with you guys and talk with you guys. And, again, I go back to what I started first. Hopefully, there's something about my journey that might inspire folks or help people who are thinking about getting into the national security space and maybe it would help them want to raise their hand.

and join. But again, I'll say it's an honorable profession. There is a misperception of what is being portrayed on television and movies, but it's good people, honorable people with a tremendous amount of integrity who at the end of the day are trying to protect our homeland and our national security interests. Pat, if somebody's watching this, and let's say they're not, you know, some 18-year-old or 22-year-old college student, but let's say they're 30. Is there still a place for them in the agency? Yeah, there is. You know, the agency, depending on what you want to do, you know, the agency has carpenters,

plumbers, support people, tech people, software developers, people that make batteries, you know, people that do operations, people that do analysis, people, you know, that briefed the president, people that serve meals. you know it's a it's it is there's there's it's it's it's it's it's it's not just about you know being a case officer it really is a team effort um that is behind the machine that makes it all work so there's all there's all there's a lot of opportunity you know there's doctors psychologists yeah i forgot about those doctors there's psychologists great people lawyers yeah there's a lot of lawyers maybe too many lawyers but there's a lot of lawyers yeah yeah so hey if you apply to

to the CIA tell me you heard about it on the team house. Maybe we'll get it. Maybe we'll get a referral bonus. It's a referral fee. That's right. Yeah, it's a great place to work. Thank you for sharing your story with us, Pat. And we'd love to have you back some time.

No, thanks, man. I really enjoyed it. It was great talking to you guys. And wonderful conversation. You know, some of my friends were putting me up to this, like Mark Polymopolis and stuff. I'll have to ask him how I did. I was a little bit nervous coming into it,

but you guys make it easy and make it a conversation. So thank you. Yeah, absolutely, Pat. Really appreciate it, man. And so we'll see everybody on Tuesday and then again on Friday. Have a good weekend, everyone. We'll see you next time. All right.

Thanks, guys.