John Chris Kiriakou, an American whistleblower, author, journalist and former Operations Officer of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Centre, has stunned the international community by claiming that General Pervez Musharraf (August 11, 1943 – February 5, 2023), the former military ruler of Pakistan, had handed over his country’s nuclear arms control to the US!

In July 2025, Kiriakou had stated that the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan was under the control of the Pentagon (or the US Defence Department). He reportedly told the media: “The command and control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal has been placed under an American general by the Pakistani Government.” The former CIA official said that the move greatly reduced the risk of a nuclear war with neighbouring India.

Kiriakou made a similar claim on October 21, 2025 as he told the Asian News International (ANI) that the US had provided the Administration of President Musharraf with millions of Dollars to “purchase” his cooperation. “When I was stationed in Pakistan in 2002, I was told unofficially that the Pentagon controlled the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, that Musharraf had turned control over to the United States because he was afraid of exactly what you just described (nuclear weapons falling into terrorist hands),” he stressed.

Read: ‘Saudis Urged US to leave Pak nuclear scientist alone’

Kiriakou explained that the US “essentially purchased” the former Pakistani military ruler because it was easier to “work with dictators”. He told the Indian news agency: “Our relations with the Pakistani Government were very, very good. It was General Pervez Musharraf at the time. The US loves working with dictators. Because then you do not have to worry about public opinion, and you do not have to worry about the media anymore.”

The former US intelligence officer is of the opinion that the politics of financial aid worked well at that time. “We gave millions and millions and millions of Dollars in aid, whether it was military aid or economic development aid. And we would meet with Musharraf regularly, several times a week. And essentially, he would let us do whatever we wanted to do. Yes. But Musharraf also had his own people that he needed to deal with,” added Kiriakou. Meanwhile, the ex-CIA official has admitted that Islamabad has always denied this fact, stating: “The Pakistanis have said that it is not true. The United States has nothing to do with the Pakistani nuclear arsenal; that Pakistani generals are the ones who control it.”

Kiriakou also exposed General Musharraf’s double standard on the issue of terrorism, stressing that the former Pakistani military ruler had sided with the US on counterterrorism while allowing terror activities against India. “He had to keep the military happy. And the military did not care about al-Qaeda. They cared about India. And so, in order to keep the military happy and keep some of the extremists happy, he had to allow them to continue this dual life of pretending to cooperate with the Americans on counterterrorism while committing terror against India,” he told ANI.

Kiriakou, who served nearly 15 years in the CIA as an analyst and later as an expert in counterterrorism, has opined that Pakistan was “deep buried under corruption”, as leaders, like former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (June 21, 1953 – December 27, 2007), used to live lavishly abroad while her countrymen were suffering. He recalled: “When Benazir Bhutto was in exile in Dubai, I went to see her with another senior officer. I went as the note taker. And she lived in a USD 5 million palace on the Gulf. And we were sitting in the front room, the salon of the house, and we heard a car pull up. And she said, her exact words, so help me God, if he (Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of Bhutto and the current President of Pakistan) came home with another Bentley, I’m going to kill him!”

Commenting on corruption, Kiriakou stated: “Aren’t they (Bhutto and Zardari) ashamed of themselves? Like, how can they go back to Pakistan and look the Pakistani people in the face when their people do not even have shoes and enough food to eat? Like, I understand corruption is a problem there, but that level of corruption? Come on!”

It may be noted that Kiriakou was arrested in 2012 for leaking classified information which included the name of a covert officer involved in the enhanced interrogation programme. He pleaded guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. However, Kiriakou maintains his actions were a form of whistleblowing against illegal torture methods.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das