"Musharraf handed over control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal to US," claims former CIA officer John Kiriakou

New Delhi [India], October 24 : John Kiriakou, former CIA Officer, has said that the US threw millions of dollars to Pakistan under the leadership of former President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf, in a way 'purchased' him.

In an interview with ANI, Kiriakou said that Pakistan was deep buried under corruption that Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto led a lavish life in the Gulf while the common people starved.

Kiriakou, who served 15 years in the CIA, first as an analyst and later in counterterrorism, said, "Our relations with the Pakistani government were very, very good. It was General Pervez Musharraf at the time. And look, let's be honest here. The United States loves working with dictators. Because then you don't have to worry about public opinion and you don't have to worry about the media anymore. And so we essentially just purchased Musharraf."

He said that Musharraf then let the US do anything they wanted.

"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," he said.

Kiriakou said that Musharraf just kept the military 'happy,' and pretended to side with the US on counterterrorism while carrying out terrorist activities against India.

"He had to keep the military happy. And the military didn't 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 said.

"India-Pakistan were on the brink of war in 2002. December 2001 was when the parliament attack also happened. During that time," Kiriakou said.

Kiriakou said that he was worried that the Pakistani political issues could spill over, as they are known to get spun up in their own web of disagreements.

"I'm worried about continued disagreement in Pakistani politics that has the potential to spill into the streets because the Pakistanis have a tendency to get themselves spun up and people die during demonstrations and there are attacks against political figures and assassinations and the country is not known for its transformative leaders making positive decisions," he said.

In a similar vein, Kiriakou recounted a Marie Antoinette moment with Bhutto. She complained to him of Asif Ali Zardari, the President of Pakistan of buying a Bentley 'again'.

"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 this $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 came home with another Bentley, I'm going to kill him!" he told ANI.

On being asked, "Is that Zardari?"

"Yeah. Her husband."

"And I said to my boss afterwards, she makes $60,000 a year," he recounted.

Kiriakou rhetorically asked if these politicians meant to serve the people have no shame.

"She lives in a $5 million house and he has a collection of Bentleys. Aren't they ashamed of themselves? Like, how can they go back to Pakistan and look the Pakistani people in the face when their people don't even have shoes and enough food to eat? Like, I understand corruption is a problem there, but that level of corruption? Come on!" he said.

He bemoaned that the Pakistani public have to deal with such politicians!

"Well, those are the kinds of politicians that the Pakistani people have to deal with. Right. And so, you know, you talked about Benazir Bhutto, you talked about Zardari. Zardari is the current president over here," he said.

As per Al Jazeera, in Musharraf's autobiography, In the Line of Fire, he elaborated on how he decided to take a foreign policy U-turn by ending his support for the Taliban. Musharraf described how he first weighed the option of fighting the US.

"I war-gamed the United States as an adversary," he wrote, saying he assessed whether Pakistan could withstand the onslaught.

"The answer was no, we could not, on three counts," Al Jazeera quoted.

Pakistan's military would have been wiped out, its economy could not be sustained, and the nation lacked the unity needed for such a confrontation, Musharraf wrote.

Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor