After Saying India Would Win War, Ex-CIA Officer Claims He Sent PTI Blistering Reply

21st November 2025 at 3:00 PM

1 minute read

Karachi : Former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou has ignited a fresh storm after revealing how Imran Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, tried to pressure him into apologising for saying something he insisted was his assessment of the conventional military powers of Delhi and Islamabad. John Kiriakou spent 15 years with the CIA, first as an analyst and later as chief of counterterrorism operations in Pakistan after the 9/11 terror attacks.

Kiriakou, in the aftermath of the four-day India-Pakistan mini-war, had said that India would easily defeat Pakistan in a conventional war. Kiriakou, speaking to news agency ANI, said that, Nothing, literally nothing good will come of an actual war between India and Pakistan because the Pakistanis will lose. It’s as simple as that. They’ll lose. And I’m not talking about nuclear weapons. Kiriakou’s comment in October triggered a wave of online abuse from Pakistanis.

Then came the letter from the president of the Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, according to Kiriakou. Since March 2023, former Punjab CM Chaudhry Parvez Elahi has been leading the party. I said, in a conventional conflict, India would beat Pakistan because it has five times the people. The death threats… I’ve lost count of how many death threats I received. And then the best of all—like my lawyer is like, got to keep a low profile, just be aware of your surroundings. So I got a letter from the president of Imran Khan’s political party, right? Whatever it’s called, the Pakistan… whatever… party.

So my lawyer is like, just throw it away, just throw it away. So I didn’t throw it away. I sent him an email and I said, ‘In regards to your demand for an apology, I wipe my a** with your demands for an apology.” And I hit send and that’s how I left it and I haven’t heard back from them,” Kiriakou revealed in the podcast uploaded on November 18. Former CIA officer Kiriakou spent years working in South Asia during his time at the intelligence agency and later wrote extensively on Pakistan’s internal security apparatus and Western Asia (or the Middle East).