WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:07.120 The team House with your hopes, Jack Murphy and David Bark. 2 00:00:12.279 --> 00:00:15.199 Hey, everybody, welcome to episode three hundred and sixty eight. 3 00:00:15.800 --> 00:00:19.640 I am Dave. Here with me tonight is d Our Fearless, 4 00:00:19.640 --> 00:00:23.719 producer and sometimes hosts and the host of Ayzon. Our 5 00:00:23.760 --> 00:00:26.640 guest tonight again is Jonathan Hackett. If you didn't see 6 00:00:26.640 --> 00:00:30.359 his first episode, it was three point fifty one. Tonight, 7 00:00:30.359 --> 00:00:31.960 we're going to talk a little bit more about his 8 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:35.799 Marine Corps background, and we're also going to talk about 9 00:00:35.799 --> 00:00:39.759 his book, which I oh have right here. Phenomenal book, 10 00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:44.200 Iran's Shadow Weapons. I'm used to being able to just 11 00:00:44.200 --> 00:00:47.119 hold it up in the cameras here Iran Shadow. So 12 00:00:47.560 --> 00:00:49.520 welcome back, Jonathan. We really appreciate it. 13 00:00:49.759 --> 00:00:51.399 Yeah, thanks for having me. It's great to see you guys. 14 00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:53.640 Not in the studio this time, but still good see it. 15 00:00:54.240 --> 00:00:56.560 Yeah, we're having some technical issues at the studio, so 16 00:00:56.600 --> 00:00:57.600 we're doing this old school. 17 00:00:57.960 --> 00:00:59.679 Hey, what's up, guys. I want to thank our sponsor 18 00:00:59.759 --> 00:01:04.200 p IAVPN. That's private Internet access. You guys ever been 19 00:01:04.719 --> 00:01:06.760 at a coffee shop connected to their Wi Fi and 20 00:01:06.799 --> 00:01:08.959 wonder just how secure you are? Turns out you're not 21 00:01:09.040 --> 00:01:11.280 very secure at all. It's like sending a private text 22 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:13.359 message to a group chat. Everyone can see it. 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Just 51 00:02:39.520 --> 00:02:42.879 head back over to pia vpn dot com Slash Teamhouse. 52 00:02:42.919 --> 00:02:45.840 You get eighty three percent off plus four months free. 53 00:02:46.199 --> 00:02:48.840 That's two dollars and three cents a month, and there's 54 00:02:48.840 --> 00:02:50.960 a thirty day money back guarantee, so there's no risk 55 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:53.919 at all. Protect your life. And thank you for supporting 56 00:02:53.960 --> 00:02:56.080 the show to all the fans out there, and thank 57 00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:58.960 you Pia vpn for supporting the show as well. Thanks guys, 58 00:02:59.000 --> 00:03:00.159 appreciate it. 59 00:03:01.439 --> 00:03:04.360 So, Jonathan, can you give us kind of a brief 60 00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:08.240 summary of your Marine Corps history? And then there are 61 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:09.919 a couple of things that we'd like to talk about 62 00:03:10.039 --> 00:03:12.240 that we didn't get an opportunity to last time before 63 00:03:12.280 --> 00:03:13.199 we get into the book. 64 00:03:13.879 --> 00:03:16.560 Sure, I'll just give you guys wavetops. So I was 65 00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:18.800 in the Marine Corps for twenty years. I started out 66 00:03:18.800 --> 00:03:23.680 doing signals intelligence, which is collecting on foreign signals, you know, 67 00:03:23.719 --> 00:03:27.000 communications and things like that, went into cryptography, which is 68 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:29.960 a little bit a more niche area of SIGAN, moved 69 00:03:29.960 --> 00:03:32.520 over to the National Security Agency headquarters in Fort Meade. 70 00:03:32.919 --> 00:03:34.360 I worked there for a couple of years on some 71 00:03:34.360 --> 00:03:38.039 special projects, kind of like tailored access operations and things 72 00:03:38.039 --> 00:03:41.719 for very specific outcomes. After that, I realized I was 73 00:03:41.759 --> 00:03:43.879 kind of getting too deep into the skiff sometimes a 74 00:03:43.919 --> 00:03:46.960 skiff within a skiff, and I needed to get outside, 75 00:03:47.039 --> 00:03:49.759 and so I moved into the kind of intelligence human 76 00:03:49.759 --> 00:03:54.120 intelligence world and went to training for that in Damn Neck, Virginia, 77 00:03:54.879 --> 00:03:59.039 and went over immediately to Afghanistan after that for over 78 00:03:59.080 --> 00:04:02.960 a year doing human first, and then as the mission change, 79 00:04:02.960 --> 00:04:05.879 we moved into CI a lot more and then came 80 00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:07.919 back and I went right over to Marsac twenty thirteen 81 00:04:08.599 --> 00:04:10.840 and I was there for five years because we were 82 00:04:10.840 --> 00:04:13.319 only allowed to stay for five years, so I stayed 83 00:04:13.360 --> 00:04:16.519 for it was four months or four years, eleven months, 84 00:04:16.600 --> 00:04:18.160 and I think it was like twenty nine days that 85 00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:20.800 I was there, And then had to go, so I 86 00:04:20.839 --> 00:04:23.879 went over to Dia and I did three years there 87 00:04:23.959 --> 00:04:27.040 at the US Embassy in Jordan. I'm on Jordan, where 88 00:04:27.079 --> 00:04:30.759 I worked on not only Jordan issues in the overt capacity, 89 00:04:30.800 --> 00:04:32.439 but we also worked on a lot of other clandestine 90 00:04:32.439 --> 00:04:35.920 things going on around the region, most importantly was Syria, 91 00:04:36.040 --> 00:04:38.319 because Syria doesn't have a US embassy in it, so 92 00:04:38.319 --> 00:04:40.079 there were a lot of the Syria activities we had 93 00:04:40.120 --> 00:04:42.079 to handle from Jordan and from Turkey also in some 94 00:04:42.120 --> 00:04:45.399 other places, so I had some things to do with that. 95 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:48.480 And then after that ended, I went to go be 96 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:50.879 an instructor in dan Nek, teaching the Marine Corps how 97 00:04:50.879 --> 00:04:54.519 to do special activities on the counterintelligence human intelligence side, 98 00:04:54.839 --> 00:04:57.439 all the way up from starting from like very basic, 99 00:04:57.480 --> 00:05:01.600 you know, debriefing things, through interrogations, through handling, through surveils, 100 00:05:01.639 --> 00:05:04.519 detection routes, all the way up to principal Asian operations 101 00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:08.079 where the students do run full phase tonight area activities 102 00:05:08.079 --> 00:05:10.040 and get certified on that and become kind of children's 103 00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:13.000 human intelligence specialists for the Marine Corps. And then I 104 00:05:13.040 --> 00:05:17.240 retired and just started up as an unemployed student at 105 00:05:17.319 --> 00:05:20.639 Yale Law School now where I'm just getting inundated with 106 00:05:20.639 --> 00:05:22.319 stuff to read, so I took a little break to 107 00:05:22.319 --> 00:05:23.439 come talk to you guys. 108 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:26.519 Well, I mean I can tell you read a lot, 109 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:32.120 because about a fifth of your book is references. It's amazing. 110 00:05:32.360 --> 00:05:35.519 Yeah, that's something left behind from like the human side, 111 00:05:35.560 --> 00:05:38.839 where you have to source everything. You should never claim 112 00:05:38.879 --> 00:05:41.319 anything without something backing it up, because your opinion is 113 00:05:41.360 --> 00:05:43.680 kind of worthless without something backing it up. And as 114 00:05:43.680 --> 00:05:46.600 you saw probably there's like multiple citations on each piece, 115 00:05:46.759 --> 00:05:48.720 you know, kind of converging to show like, hey, this 116 00:05:48.759 --> 00:05:53.839 isn't my opinion, this is what's actually happening, right right, So. 117 00:05:53.759 --> 00:05:55.519 Can you tell us some of the things that we 118 00:05:55.560 --> 00:05:58.879 didn't get a chance to get to about your career 119 00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:01.759 while you're in there was a strike, there were a 120 00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:04.800 couple of things that you know, we didn't have an opportunity. 121 00:06:05.439 --> 00:06:06.839 Yeah, we talked a lot about my kind of SIG 122 00:06:07.120 --> 00:06:10.079 background and just a little bit about MARSOK. But there 123 00:06:10.120 --> 00:06:12.319 were some parts we didn't get to, especially the Iraq 124 00:06:12.399 --> 00:06:16.160 deployment twenty sixteen, when ISIS was really entrenched and the 125 00:06:16.240 --> 00:06:19.160 US and coalition partners are about to retake Western Iraq 126 00:06:19.240 --> 00:06:21.839 from ISIS. This is after all the masacers going on 127 00:06:21.920 --> 00:06:24.399 all that stuff, and I was on a Special Operations 128 00:06:24.399 --> 00:06:27.600 Task Force eighty one out there, and our job was 129 00:06:27.639 --> 00:06:31.040 to do in part work with the tribes in Syria 130 00:06:31.079 --> 00:06:34.439 Eastern Syria and the Kurds in Northeastyria and other groups 131 00:06:34.480 --> 00:06:38.040 in Western Iraq to start building this kind of ring 132 00:06:38.199 --> 00:06:41.519 around Mosul, which was the heart of ISIS or dish 133 00:06:41.639 --> 00:06:44.759 in Western Iraq and actually Iraq generally. And we were 134 00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:47.079 doing that because the plan was for the counter terrorism forces, 135 00:06:47.079 --> 00:06:50.040 which was the Kurdish and Iraqi forces, they would come 136 00:06:50.079 --> 00:06:54.560 in later and actually retake Moscil with conventional strike gigantic operation. 137 00:06:54.639 --> 00:06:56.360 He was the eighty second airborne came in there. He 138 00:06:56.399 --> 00:06:59.040 was a huge thing. That was after we left. So 139 00:06:59.079 --> 00:07:02.160 my mission there was to prepare the environment by doing 140 00:07:02.199 --> 00:07:05.959 air strikes or controlling air strikes, running really intense human 141 00:07:06.160 --> 00:07:09.279 source network. I had, For example, I had one principal agent. 142 00:07:09.319 --> 00:07:11.480 A principle agient is basically a source that works for you, 143 00:07:11.839 --> 00:07:15.000 that has a subsource network under him doing things for you. 144 00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:17.800 So basically there's a level of separation between you and 145 00:07:17.839 --> 00:07:20.920 the actual people doing the thing, and that's for safety reasons. 146 00:07:21.079 --> 00:07:23.759 That's also to protect the operational security of the mission 147 00:07:23.800 --> 00:07:26.360 and things. And we had a very intense network like 148 00:07:26.399 --> 00:07:29.360 that throughout Western Iraq, and one of my principal agents 149 00:07:29.399 --> 00:07:32.800 had fifty two sub sources working for me, which is 150 00:07:32.839 --> 00:07:35.759 a lot to keep track of, especially during combat operations. 151 00:07:36.439 --> 00:07:38.439 A lot of validation going on to make sure that 152 00:07:38.439 --> 00:07:40.560 what those people were saying was true and all that. 153 00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:43.639 And at the same time, that particular task force that 154 00:07:43.680 --> 00:07:46.800 I was on hadn't done any human triggered strikes yet. 155 00:07:46.800 --> 00:07:49.680 And the human triggered strike is when basically you have 156 00:07:49.720 --> 00:07:52.639 a human being sitting across the street is typically how 157 00:07:52.639 --> 00:07:55.120 it works watching a building saying, hey, that building has 158 00:07:55.120 --> 00:07:57.240 got one bad guy in it or eighty bad guys 159 00:07:57.240 --> 00:08:00.000 in it. These are their names. We go and monitor 160 00:08:00.199 --> 00:08:02.639 that facility for up to eight hours, because that's the 161 00:08:02.680 --> 00:08:04.439 requirement at the time that we had to have eight 162 00:08:04.439 --> 00:08:06.800 hours of what do you call soak on the target 163 00:08:06.839 --> 00:08:08.319 before we could strike it, to make sure women and 164 00:08:08.399 --> 00:08:10.519 children don't come in are out, so that we understand 165 00:08:10.519 --> 00:08:13.560 the risk profile of the strike. And I'd have one 166 00:08:13.560 --> 00:08:16.199 of my subsources sitting across the street and he'd be 167 00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:19.399 giving me information. I'd be passing information along. I would 168 00:08:19.399 --> 00:08:22.319 get B fifty two s or F eighteen's up in 169 00:08:22.319 --> 00:08:25.000 the sky, and whenever the moment was right, I'd be 170 00:08:25.040 --> 00:08:27.800 the one coordinating that bomb hitting that building, and I 171 00:08:27.800 --> 00:08:29.800 would hear it right through the phone because my source 172 00:08:29.800 --> 00:08:33.200 would be watching it happen. And the interesting thing is 173 00:08:33.240 --> 00:08:35.240 to make sure the asset validation was going correctly. We 174 00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:37.279 would never tell them that we were planning to strike. 175 00:08:37.720 --> 00:08:39.320 We always had to kind of string them along, so 176 00:08:39.360 --> 00:08:41.720 they weren't quite sure what was about to happen or 177 00:08:41.720 --> 00:08:43.080 when was it going to happen. You've got kind of 178 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:45.279 an idea, especially after they see their first one, they 179 00:08:45.360 --> 00:08:48.360 know this will probably happen, but they're always shocked in 180 00:08:48.399 --> 00:08:51.799 surprise the moment that bombs drop on the building. And 181 00:08:52.759 --> 00:08:55.320 one that stands out to me was Abu Omar al Shashani, 182 00:08:55.519 --> 00:08:57.840 who was the equivalent of like the Minister of Defense 183 00:08:57.919 --> 00:09:02.080 for ISIS. All of ISIS, and we have been tracking 184 00:09:02.120 --> 00:09:04.919 some lower level guys, especially my source network, have been 185 00:09:04.919 --> 00:09:07.000 monitoring some like finance guys and some other things. And 186 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.679 we're doing some smaller strikes, you know, killing twenty people 187 00:09:09.679 --> 00:09:13.080 thirty people at a time. And we got this new 188 00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:16.799 piece of technology called Gorgon Stare. Gorgon Stare is like 189 00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:19.240 it's a series of pieces of equipment that are able 190 00:09:19.279 --> 00:09:23.200 to monitor almost everything happening based on a single target. 191 00:09:23.240 --> 00:09:24.519 And what I mean by that is, let's say you 192 00:09:24.600 --> 00:09:27.919 have a funeral for one of the bad guys we killed. Well, 193 00:09:27.960 --> 00:09:30.360 isis the way they do their funerals, especially during Ramadan. 194 00:09:30.840 --> 00:09:33.600 They don't bring the women and children. It's only the fighters, 195 00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:35.440 you know, like the guys that were there that knew him. 196 00:09:36.120 --> 00:09:38.320 So what you can do is start tracking all those 197 00:09:38.360 --> 00:09:40.519 individuals at that funeral, and when they go home, you 198 00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:43.200 can turn Gorgon Stare on and it will monitor each 199 00:09:43.240 --> 00:09:44.879 of those individuals where they go and on a heat 200 00:09:44.919 --> 00:09:47.240 map and you can basically see these like little legs 201 00:09:47.279 --> 00:09:49.639 coming out and it will continue monitoring all of them, 202 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:52.679 building this gigantic pattern of life. Well, that's a new 203 00:09:52.799 --> 00:09:56.799 stack of targets to start looking at, and we really 204 00:09:56.919 --> 00:09:59.480 started maximizing the use of that, and as we did that, 205 00:09:59.559 --> 00:10:02.360 we started getting way more careful about which targets we picked. 206 00:10:02.399 --> 00:10:03.720 There were a lot of targets at the time. There 207 00:10:03.759 --> 00:10:05.879 was something like thirty thousand isis spiders active like with 208 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:08.200 weapons strapped to their bodies at any time at that time, 209 00:10:08.519 --> 00:10:10.440 so we really could have hit you know, you could 210 00:10:10.480 --> 00:10:12.000 have throw a rock and hit an Isis guy across 211 00:10:12.039 --> 00:10:14.960 the four line of troops. They were everywhere. But we 212 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:19.039 don't want to waste time and resources and mission momentum 213 00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:22.240 by just striking whoever, So what I started to do 214 00:10:22.399 --> 00:10:26.279 was trace particular activities. One in particular was when we 215 00:10:26.360 --> 00:10:28.799 hit a certain building. The way that people reacted to 216 00:10:28.879 --> 00:10:31.559 that strike started telling me something. And there was one 217 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:33.799 strike in particular. We blew the building up, killed like 218 00:10:33.840 --> 00:10:37.879 forty guys, and instead of coming to recover bodies, we 219 00:10:37.919 --> 00:10:40.039 saw them clear everybody out from the street away from 220 00:10:40.039 --> 00:10:42.399 the building, and they started sending guys in with plastic 221 00:10:42.600 --> 00:10:45.240 garbage bags, black garbage bags and coming out with them 222 00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:48.000 over their shoulder like Santa Claus carrying out whatever. It 223 00:10:48.159 --> 00:10:50.559 was very heavy, and we figured out that that was 224 00:10:50.600 --> 00:10:54.960 actually gold because we had struck the bank. And then 225 00:10:55.039 --> 00:10:57.159 they took a lot of that gold to another place 226 00:10:57.960 --> 00:11:00.399 that was very important to them, and we began tracking 227 00:11:00.480 --> 00:11:01.759 that place. It was a lot of these like thing 228 00:11:01.840 --> 00:11:03.799 after thing, with the domino effect of them kind of 229 00:11:03.879 --> 00:11:08.039 revealing to us. Based on a very early instigation toward them. 230 00:11:08.240 --> 00:11:10.440 That sets off all these patterns that we can follow. 231 00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:12.240 And I'm leaving out a lot of details obviously to 232 00:11:12.320 --> 00:11:15.000 protect operational security, but this is kind of the gist 233 00:11:15.039 --> 00:11:17.840 of it. And it turns out that one night in Ramadan, 234 00:11:18.480 --> 00:11:20.720 one of my subsources told me that, hey, there's an 235 00:11:20.759 --> 00:11:23.759 ID factory in this place. And you know, back during 236 00:11:23.799 --> 00:11:26.080 the Iraq War, like the early years, you think ID factory, 237 00:11:26.080 --> 00:11:28.159 it's a couple of guys with some cans and you know, 238 00:11:28.240 --> 00:11:31.679 some explosives. This was like an industrial factory. I mean 239 00:11:31.720 --> 00:11:34.080 it was actually a factory converted, like it had conveyor 240 00:11:34.120 --> 00:11:37.759 belts and everything converted to produce IDs on an industrial scale. 241 00:11:37.759 --> 00:11:40.639 It was insane and I was able to figure out 242 00:11:40.679 --> 00:11:42.799 who ran that facility, and there's some other buildings around there, 243 00:11:43.759 --> 00:11:46.360 and the way that they had set up the security 244 00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:48.759 around this place, only there was only one way out. 245 00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:50.919 I was actually able to get a B fifty two 246 00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:53.279 from Syria to fly into Iraq and blow this place up. 247 00:11:53.320 --> 00:11:55.799 And there was something like three thousand rocket tails that 248 00:11:55.799 --> 00:11:57.639 we were able to count from the footage afterwards. I mean, 249 00:11:57.679 --> 00:11:59.399 this thing was insane, and the way it blew up, 250 00:11:59.399 --> 00:12:02.200 I mean you could for miles around. People thought that 251 00:12:02.320 --> 00:12:04.039 it was our strike that made the explosion. 252 00:12:04.039 --> 00:12:04.679 It was just it was not. 253 00:12:04.799 --> 00:12:07.360 It was the explosives in the building that cooked off 254 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:11.360 after the smaller, relatively smaller bombs. But then the guys 255 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:13.879 exited that one way out and we followed that and 256 00:12:13.960 --> 00:12:16.279 come to find out, they went over to go notify 257 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:20.360 Abu Omar al Shashani's deputy that we had been kind 258 00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:22.000 of moving up the food chain because he doesn't use 259 00:12:22.039 --> 00:12:24.600 a cell phone. That's very important. The smart guys don't 260 00:12:24.679 --> 00:12:27.440 use his cell phone. But we still could get him anyway. 261 00:12:27.720 --> 00:12:31.039 And there was another night during Ramadan, like three days later, 262 00:12:31.159 --> 00:12:33.360 we've been watching this location that we thought it was 263 00:12:33.399 --> 00:12:37.799 actually Abu Bakrel Baghdadi's summer house, which was where this 264 00:12:37.960 --> 00:12:40.759 other gentleman was at Abu Omar, who's chechen by the way, 265 00:12:40.799 --> 00:12:44.440 al Shashani, and we were able to start monitoring the 266 00:12:44.519 --> 00:12:47.480 location and we counted eighty six guys going in there 267 00:12:47.879 --> 00:12:50.279 throughout the evening and none of them coming out. And 268 00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:53.840 one of my subsources contacts me through my principal Asian 269 00:12:53.840 --> 00:12:55.639 and lets me know that this is in fact one 270 00:12:55.679 --> 00:12:57.960 of those meetings, and it wasn't in just one building. 271 00:12:58.039 --> 00:13:00.919 It was like multiple compounds around and as we're going 272 00:13:00.919 --> 00:13:04.000 through the eight hours required soak of the target, the 273 00:13:04.200 --> 00:13:07.360 sub sources reporting to me on who's in which building, 274 00:13:07.440 --> 00:13:09.879 So I've got multiple high level names of who's in 275 00:13:09.960 --> 00:13:13.960 what building, and then eventually we're able to get aircraft 276 00:13:14.080 --> 00:13:16.480 up there. And then the one star general in charge 277 00:13:16.519 --> 00:13:19.240 of authorizing these strikes had to wake up a bunch 278 00:13:19.279 --> 00:13:21.159 of other generals that sit around a table basically and 279 00:13:21.200 --> 00:13:24.440 make decisions. Because the building that Shani was in was 280 00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:28.000 a religious building. In order to strike one of these buildings, 281 00:13:28.039 --> 00:13:30.120 we have to get certain level of concurrence that's different 282 00:13:30.159 --> 00:13:33.679 than even striking a house, which also requires its own concurrence. 283 00:13:34.120 --> 00:13:36.399 It's called a Category one removal, which means there's this 284 00:13:36.519 --> 00:13:38.799 list called Category one targets that we're not allowed to 285 00:13:38.840 --> 00:13:41.000 touch and we have to get the target removed off 286 00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:43.399 category one to be able to strike it. And so 287 00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:45.960 it was something like four o'clock or three o'clock in 288 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:48.679 the morning we were able to finally get approval from 289 00:13:48.679 --> 00:13:50.639 four or five generals that had to all give their 290 00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:54.799 cut on it. And there were other wrinkles in this. 291 00:13:55.279 --> 00:13:57.879 For example, there was a US person in one of 292 00:13:57.960 --> 00:14:00.519 these buildings who was a legal permanent resident States, but 293 00:14:00.559 --> 00:14:03.559 he was a naturalized US person, which required even higher 294 00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:06.000 level approval to continue moving forward to strike. So there's 295 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:08.480 a lot of risk analysis going on, but also the 296 00:14:08.639 --> 00:14:13.159 optics were being analyzed throughout this strike process. And I 297 00:14:13.240 --> 00:14:14.799 was under a lot of pressure because we knew that 298 00:14:14.840 --> 00:14:16.960 those guys would vacate around six am as soon as 299 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:19.240 the sun came up, because they were there for Sohor dinner, 300 00:14:19.639 --> 00:14:22.480 which is the meal you eat during Ramadan to break 301 00:14:22.720 --> 00:14:24.320 right before you break your fast in the morning. It's 302 00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:28.240 that smaller meal right before if Tar, and minutes were 303 00:14:28.320 --> 00:14:30.480 taken away. It was almost it was almost sunrise, and 304 00:14:30.559 --> 00:14:32.480 I'm getting worried, you know, And finally we get to 305 00:14:32.519 --> 00:14:35.200 go ahead and we blew it up and turned out 306 00:14:35.320 --> 00:14:38.120 it was eighty seven guys in they're dead, and one 307 00:14:38.200 --> 00:14:39.399 of them was Shashani. 308 00:14:42.159 --> 00:14:45.440 It's amazing, And how did you guys verify that? I mean, 309 00:14:45.480 --> 00:14:47.519 so you can't send a team to do bda? 310 00:14:47.759 --> 00:14:50.960 Right? Yeah, So at the time, there were actually civilian 311 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:54.080 hospitals and there were ISIS hospitals. These ISIS hospitals were 312 00:14:54.080 --> 00:14:56.480 for IIS fighters only they had like their own separation 313 00:14:56.679 --> 00:14:59.320 between you know, they don't want their fighters being exposed 314 00:14:59.360 --> 00:15:02.000 to the regular people. And we had sources inside of 315 00:15:02.039 --> 00:15:04.639 all these hospitals, and I had two particular sources that 316 00:15:04.679 --> 00:15:06.519 were very good that were in one of the hospitals 317 00:15:06.519 --> 00:15:08.519 that they usually took the higher level guys to. And 318 00:15:08.600 --> 00:15:10.960 every time a bodybag went in, that person was there 319 00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:14.559 verifying with everybody and letting me know. And the thing is, 320 00:15:14.639 --> 00:15:17.679 they don't know who I'm looking for. I'm only asking 321 00:15:17.679 --> 00:15:19.279 them for the names of every single person that comes 322 00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:22.159 in there. And nobody on the ground knew what targets 323 00:15:22.159 --> 00:15:25.000 we were after at any time. And we never gave 324 00:15:25.080 --> 00:15:27.000 him feedback like, oh, yeah, we did kill that guy, 325 00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:29.720 you know, Jim Bob, we don't do that because we 326 00:15:29.720 --> 00:15:32.120 don't want it to muddy up the process, right, And 327 00:15:32.200 --> 00:15:35.320 so sure enough, next morning we got confirmation from that 328 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:37.240 person that it in fact was him. 329 00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:44.159 It's amazing any other like kind of big stories from 330 00:15:44.600 --> 00:15:46.240 that part of your career that you want to talk 331 00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:48.200 about that we didn't get a chance to touch. 332 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:53.639 On, nothing like that. That's that's such a longer thing. 333 00:15:53.720 --> 00:15:59.039 Really, Yeah, what what was it like going from you know, 334 00:15:59.240 --> 00:16:00.759 singing into human For you? 335 00:16:02.759 --> 00:16:05.919 It was an interesting transition because working at the National 336 00:16:05.960 --> 00:16:08.759 Security Agency, we are told that we have you know, 337 00:16:08.799 --> 00:16:10.720 the highest clearances and the most access and all this, 338 00:16:10.840 --> 00:16:15.000 and you know, to some measure that's true. But going 339 00:16:15.039 --> 00:16:17.559 into the human intelligence world, I didn't. I didn't know 340 00:16:17.679 --> 00:16:21.480 that there were a completely separate connection of control systems 341 00:16:21.559 --> 00:16:23.879 and ways of handling information. And that was a big 342 00:16:24.039 --> 00:16:26.799 learning curve for me because of the way intelligence information 343 00:16:26.919 --> 00:16:29.759 is handled from san derived information is very different than 344 00:16:29.799 --> 00:16:32.919 how it's from human controlled systems and from from source 345 00:16:33.159 --> 00:16:35.879 handling of human beings very different, and the trade craft 346 00:16:35.919 --> 00:16:39.480 is obviously completely different. With sigent you're kind of protecting 347 00:16:39.559 --> 00:16:43.440 the instruments and the methods of using those instruments, whereas 348 00:16:43.480 --> 00:16:46.279 with human beings you're trying to protect them and the mission. 349 00:16:46.799 --> 00:16:50.679 It's more it's obviously more human like, which requires a 350 00:16:50.759 --> 00:16:54.080 lot more security considerations. It's much more difficult, it's much 351 00:16:54.120 --> 00:16:57.279 more in some cases more expensive, especially if you're working 352 00:16:57.320 --> 00:17:00.480 with cover. If you've got you know, cover Marcial cover, 353 00:17:00.639 --> 00:17:05.160 for example, it's extremely expensive and it may never get 354 00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:07.759 you anything depending on how you set it up. And 355 00:17:08.279 --> 00:17:10.039 that's part of the game, is that some of this 356 00:17:10.160 --> 00:17:13.279 never produces anything. Some of it produces gold mines, whereas 357 00:17:13.319 --> 00:17:16.079 with set you kind of know, like that's that guy's phone, 358 00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:19.640 that's what he said the end. You know, where a 359 00:17:19.720 --> 00:17:22.400 human you've got to because the human elements there. These 360 00:17:22.440 --> 00:17:24.039 guys might not be telling the truth, they might not 361 00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:27.559 know that what they said was wrong. Want money, ideology 362 00:17:28.079 --> 00:17:30.400 they might have, they might be under coercion, they might 363 00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:32.000 be doing it for excitement. You know, there's a lot 364 00:17:32.039 --> 00:17:34.279 of things you have to control. Sometimes you're like a 365 00:17:34.359 --> 00:17:36.000 therapist with them and you have to learn a lot 366 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:38.319 of this stuff that might be frustrating to some people 367 00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:39.640 at times, like well why do I have to listen 368 00:17:39.680 --> 00:17:42.200 to this how this guy feels about his spouse. It's like, well, 369 00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:44.599 that's really important because you're going to use those things 370 00:17:44.640 --> 00:17:47.200 as buttons to push in the future when you really 371 00:17:47.240 --> 00:17:49.880 need them. And that's kind of simplifying it. But that 372 00:17:50.039 --> 00:17:52.319 is a little bit difficult, especially from a singant background, 373 00:17:52.640 --> 00:17:55.119 but it's true from any background that doesn't deal with people. 374 00:17:55.440 --> 00:17:56.839 You know, you could be an infantry guy and still 375 00:17:56.839 --> 00:17:58.480 have and have to learn those same things in the 376 00:17:58.519 --> 00:18:00.799 same difficult way because that doesn't makes sense for where 377 00:18:00.839 --> 00:18:01.319 you came from. 378 00:18:01.480 --> 00:18:05.640 You know, Yeah, it's interesting. Well, you know, with your 379 00:18:05.799 --> 00:18:09.200 background and you know your operational experience, your experience both 380 00:18:09.279 --> 00:18:12.160 in you know, SIG and cyber and in human that 381 00:18:12.559 --> 00:18:16.319 you seem like the perfect person to write this book 382 00:18:17.359 --> 00:18:21.920 because you you already had your experience in different fields 383 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:25.799 that you covered. So I think I imagine it probably 384 00:18:25.880 --> 00:18:28.000 gave you a better depth of understanding when you were 385 00:18:28.400 --> 00:18:32.200 you know, reading the reports and and and all the 386 00:18:32.279 --> 00:18:33.440 various sources and stuff. 387 00:18:34.319 --> 00:18:34.559 It is. 388 00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:39.200 It's an incredible book. It I mean, I'm surprised how 389 00:18:39.359 --> 00:18:45.240 much information is in this book, especially considering, uh, you know, 390 00:18:45.400 --> 00:18:49.920 how closed off Iran is, you know, and and I 391 00:18:50.039 --> 00:18:53.400 imagine that it's a very hard country to penetrate and 392 00:18:53.480 --> 00:18:54.400 get information on. 393 00:18:55.559 --> 00:18:58.920 Well, it's interesting because all that that is true, but 394 00:18:59.559 --> 00:19:01.799 there is so much resistance to the regime, which you 395 00:19:01.880 --> 00:19:04.599 see in the book. M h. Just like those those 396 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:07.400 buttons we were talking about earlier with human sources, there 397 00:19:07.480 --> 00:19:10.960 are plenty of buttons on Iranian targets to push to 398 00:19:11.039 --> 00:19:14.319 get information about what's going on behind that walled garden, 399 00:19:14.720 --> 00:19:17.160 you know. Yeah, And it's because of what the regime 400 00:19:17.240 --> 00:19:18.839 does to its people. It's not because of what Israel 401 00:19:18.839 --> 00:19:20.480 does to Iran. It's not because of what the US does. 402 00:19:20.799 --> 00:19:25.000 It's because the regime oppressing their own people so extremely 403 00:19:25.519 --> 00:19:27.480 that suddenly there are a lot of people that are 404 00:19:27.519 --> 00:19:30.119 willing to do things they never would do before because 405 00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:30.759 of this pressure. 406 00:19:31.599 --> 00:19:33.440 And that's one of the things that I found interesting 407 00:19:33.559 --> 00:19:39.359 is you mentioned that the populace is act. The Iranian 408 00:19:39.440 --> 00:19:44.279 populace is actually the number one target of Iranian intelligence and. 409 00:19:44.359 --> 00:19:47.920 It has been since nineteen eighty. Yeah. Yeah, there's never changed, 410 00:19:48.039 --> 00:19:48.839 It's never been a moment. 411 00:19:50.519 --> 00:19:52.440 How did you get interested in Iran? 412 00:19:53.880 --> 00:19:58.079 Well, my very first interaction with Iran in intelligence context 413 00:19:58.720 --> 00:20:02.400 was in Afghanistan and I was doing some counterintelligence activities 414 00:20:02.440 --> 00:20:04.920 there to protect some of our aircraft that we had. 415 00:20:05.680 --> 00:20:08.519 And I didn't really know much about Iran and a 416 00:20:08.599 --> 00:20:10.640 tactical level at that time, or like they're what they 417 00:20:10.720 --> 00:20:12.759 were doing. I knew a lot of the higher level 418 00:20:12.839 --> 00:20:14.960 things because when I was work at the National Security Agency, 419 00:20:15.480 --> 00:20:19.400 I worked on strategic issues like Russia nuclear stuff, the 420 00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:23.319 North Korea stuff, China stuff, all in the nuclear level, 421 00:20:23.720 --> 00:20:25.839 and then with Iran and on some other things related 422 00:20:25.839 --> 00:20:27.759 to that, so I knew that big picture, you know, 423 00:20:27.920 --> 00:20:30.359 this was a threat, but I'd never seen them in action. 424 00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:33.240 And I don't think most people actually have. And I 425 00:20:33.440 --> 00:20:35.880 was there in the desert at a very remote base 426 00:20:36.160 --> 00:20:40.799 down by the Iran Pakistan Afghanistan Triborder area which is 427 00:20:40.839 --> 00:20:44.960 called Baluchistan, and suddenly I look up and there's this 428 00:20:45.039 --> 00:20:47.160 thing that looks like a skateboard flying around in the 429 00:20:47.200 --> 00:20:50.200 sky and kind of up ahead of us. And actually 430 00:20:50.200 --> 00:20:51.759 a pilot came running over to me and he pointed 431 00:20:51.759 --> 00:20:53.079 out to me too. He's liked, you see that thing. 432 00:20:53.119 --> 00:20:55.519 I'm like, yeah, what is that? And we started taking 433 00:20:55.519 --> 00:20:58.519 photos of it and sent it over to some of 434 00:20:58.559 --> 00:21:01.599 the CIA guys that we were connected to, and there said, 435 00:21:01.640 --> 00:21:05.440 you know, that's a that's an Iranian mohadre for UAV. 436 00:21:07.160 --> 00:21:09.240 But what was happening It was going in like a 437 00:21:09.279 --> 00:21:12.400 square holding pattern because whoever was controlling it it had 438 00:21:12.480 --> 00:21:14.559 gotten too far outside of their control because at the 439 00:21:14.599 --> 00:21:16.440 time they didn't have one way attack and all this stuff. 440 00:21:16.480 --> 00:21:19.880 It was very much more rudimentary, and it had lost 441 00:21:19.880 --> 00:21:22.039 control and went to a holding pattern over the GPS 442 00:21:22.279 --> 00:21:24.359 grid of where it was supposed to be monitoring. So 443 00:21:24.440 --> 00:21:26.079 we're just watching it go in a square over the 444 00:21:26.160 --> 00:21:28.759 base and somebody knocked it down and we took it, 445 00:21:28.880 --> 00:21:31.759 But that was my first introduction to like an actual 446 00:21:31.839 --> 00:21:35.559 Iranian threat happening in front of me, which, as I said, 447 00:21:35.559 --> 00:21:37.559 it's kind of unusual to see because usually people think 448 00:21:37.559 --> 00:21:39.000 of it like behind the scenes and the shadows and 449 00:21:39.039 --> 00:21:41.799 all that. Maybe not so much today now, but for 450 00:21:42.000 --> 00:21:44.079 much of the time, that's how it was viewed. And 451 00:21:44.319 --> 00:21:46.119 that kind of like piqued my interest a little bit. 452 00:21:46.160 --> 00:21:50.119 And then when I went to places like Senegal, for example, 453 00:21:51.000 --> 00:21:53.680 I found out that two streets over from our diplomatic 454 00:21:53.720 --> 00:21:57.640 facility or our team house in Dakar was a Hesbala 455 00:21:57.839 --> 00:22:01.799 teamhouse in Dakar that was working with cocaine shipments from 456 00:22:02.119 --> 00:22:05.240 South America into Dakar, which is the largest The port 457 00:22:05.240 --> 00:22:07.519 of Dakar is the largest import point for cocaine in 458 00:22:07.640 --> 00:22:09.519 all of Africa. It's fifty four countries in Africa and 459 00:22:09.599 --> 00:22:13.000 that's the biggest important location. Wow. And it was just 460 00:22:13.079 --> 00:22:14.839 kind of interesting because like, we weren't fighting with each other. 461 00:22:15.480 --> 00:22:17.440 We were both there for different things, which is kind 462 00:22:17.440 --> 00:22:19.200 of interesting, like, well, why are we here like this, 463 00:22:19.240 --> 00:22:20.720 Why aren't we fighting each other? You know, So there's 464 00:22:20.720 --> 00:22:22.039 there's a lot more going too, So I was trying 465 00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:24.519 to like figure out what's going on here, like higher 466 00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:27.000 level it's not just it's not just war, you know, 467 00:22:27.079 --> 00:22:30.079 there's more to it. It's politics involved. Are those politics? 468 00:22:30.200 --> 00:22:31.960 And those are the kind of questions I started asking 469 00:22:32.039 --> 00:22:34.640 That kind of got me down that pathway, you know. 470 00:22:34.799 --> 00:22:40.480 And so going starting into the book, because you talk 471 00:22:40.519 --> 00:22:48.759 about the politics, you talk about the three talentisms, you know, 472 00:22:48.880 --> 00:22:53.880 and a lot of misconceptions people have about Iran's motives 473 00:22:54.839 --> 00:23:00.200 and how that colors the intelligence that they collect and 474 00:23:00.319 --> 00:23:02.440 how they perceive that intelligence. Can you kind of go 475 00:23:02.559 --> 00:23:04.160 into those ideas. 476 00:23:04.640 --> 00:23:07.359 Yeah, And actually I call them sacred talismans because that's 477 00:23:07.400 --> 00:23:11.200 actually borrowed from Klauswitz, who was kind of talking down 478 00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:14.200 on other military theorists like Jominy at the time, which 479 00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:16.839 was a French Napoleonic theorist who had these like grand 480 00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:18.519 ideas about the world that were all based on what 481 00:23:18.599 --> 00:23:20.160 they thought the world was and it was like a 482 00:23:20.240 --> 00:23:21.920 thing that could never be questioned and it can only 483 00:23:21.960 --> 00:23:24.839 be this way. And he was saying, like, that's not true. 484 00:23:24.880 --> 00:23:26.839 I mean, you go to war over here, it's different 485 00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:28.279 than going to war over here. You can't just say 486 00:23:28.319 --> 00:23:31.319 that the same thing. And so he called those ways 487 00:23:31.319 --> 00:23:34.160 of thinking sacred talismans. And that's why I call these 488 00:23:34.240 --> 00:23:38.960 things sacred talismans, because in my opinion, they're flawed at best, 489 00:23:39.920 --> 00:23:43.200 perhaps mistaken, it's better way to describe it. The first 490 00:23:43.240 --> 00:23:45.839 one is Israel versus Iran, and I mean, even looking today, 491 00:23:45.960 --> 00:23:48.160 like everyone's like, oh, yeah, obviously that's what's going on. 492 00:23:48.799 --> 00:23:50.480 But if you start peeling it back in which I 493 00:23:50.559 --> 00:23:53.160 do in the book, it's not so clear cut that 494 00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:55.519 it's Israel versus Iran. I mean, who's the one doing 495 00:23:55.519 --> 00:23:57.880 the bombings, who's the one killing people? Who's like I mean, 496 00:23:58.559 --> 00:24:00.920 I could just go on and on about the facts 497 00:24:00.960 --> 00:24:03.279 and how lopsided one side is versus the other, and 498 00:24:03.359 --> 00:24:07.319 also about the reaction to those things. It's not what 499 00:24:07.400 --> 00:24:09.400 you would expect if it was actually a conflict between 500 00:24:09.480 --> 00:24:12.559 two states as it's described. And a lot of times 501 00:24:12.640 --> 00:24:16.680 that particular talisman's described as an ideology against ideology, which 502 00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:19.839 again I think is naive. It's political, especially if you 503 00:24:19.839 --> 00:24:22.799 look at political realism. You know, states are black boxes 504 00:24:22.920 --> 00:24:27.039 operating to survive against other states and to keep their 505 00:24:27.079 --> 00:24:30.079 interests alive. And the regime doesn't care about the state 506 00:24:30.119 --> 00:24:33.400 of Iran. The regime cares about the regime. So that's 507 00:24:33.440 --> 00:24:35.680 like a black box within a black box making decisions 508 00:24:35.680 --> 00:24:38.799 about securing itself, and then an Israel same thing. I mean, 509 00:24:38.839 --> 00:24:43.440 you have the Likud party keeping itself alive as strongly 510 00:24:43.480 --> 00:24:45.519 as we can, as long as it can, you know. 511 00:24:45.599 --> 00:24:48.519 So there's these political decisions that look like ideology, but 512 00:24:49.200 --> 00:24:52.640 to someone who's actually if you removed the names off 513 00:24:52.680 --> 00:24:54.640 of the parties, it would be hard to actually make 514 00:24:54.680 --> 00:24:56.559 the same judgments we might make if the names are 515 00:24:56.599 --> 00:25:00.599 on the parties. That's the what I call the blue talisman. 516 00:25:01.480 --> 00:25:04.079 Then there's the red talisman, which is exporting the revolution. 517 00:25:04.880 --> 00:25:07.039 That idea came up and you hear it in discourse 518 00:25:07.039 --> 00:25:09.359 A lot people say, like, oh, Iran's exporting the revolution. 519 00:25:09.480 --> 00:25:13.400 There's this crime terror nexus in Bolivia, or like whatever. 520 00:25:14.319 --> 00:25:16.160 But really, I mean those are those are drug trafficking 521 00:25:16.200 --> 00:25:19.440 operations that generate income the end. I mean, they're not 522 00:25:19.519 --> 00:25:21.839 over there with guns shooting people. They're over there with 523 00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:26.519 dollar counters and bubble wrap wrapping up bales of cocaine 524 00:25:26.559 --> 00:25:28.240 to ship it to Africa to make money so they 525 00:25:28.279 --> 00:25:31.240 can survive because they're heavily sanctioned and they can't access 526 00:25:31.279 --> 00:25:33.279 the banking system and they're cut off from the swift system, 527 00:25:33.799 --> 00:25:36.000 so how else are they kind to move their money 528 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:38.799 around and make more money? Yeah, it's illegal, but I 529 00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:41.759 mean that is that a terror nexus? I don't know. 530 00:25:42.400 --> 00:25:45.000 Maybe if they're actually doing terror, what does that mean? 531 00:25:45.759 --> 00:25:48.480 And these might be like off putting questions to people, 532 00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:51.880 But you have to be able to question anything because 533 00:25:51.880 --> 00:25:54.960 if you cannot question an idea, this is no longer 534 00:25:55.119 --> 00:25:58.400 a fact based idea now it's an emotion based idea. 535 00:25:58.440 --> 00:26:00.480 We have to be factual about how we appro stuff, 536 00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:03.200 especially things that bring up as many emotions as Iran 537 00:26:03.279 --> 00:26:07.279 and Israel as we just talked about. Then I get 538 00:26:07.319 --> 00:26:10.319 down to something called the Black Talisman, which is realism, 539 00:26:10.519 --> 00:26:13.720 which I kind of alluded to, where these actors are 540 00:26:14.319 --> 00:26:17.519 generally rational and when I say rational, actually Mahre de Gan, 541 00:26:17.599 --> 00:26:21.119 who is one of the Masad directors, said Iran is rational. 542 00:26:21.200 --> 00:26:23.720 They may not be our rational, but they are rational, 543 00:26:23.839 --> 00:26:25.240 which I think is a great way to describe it, 544 00:26:25.279 --> 00:26:27.039 because it doesn't matter how we see the world. It 545 00:26:27.119 --> 00:26:29.200 matters how the actor sees the world. And if it's 546 00:26:29.240 --> 00:26:31.119 in their interest to do what they think is right, 547 00:26:31.200 --> 00:26:33.319 they're going to do it, even if it's crazy. And 548 00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:35.720 hurts people, They're still going to do it because that's 549 00:26:35.720 --> 00:26:37.440 what they think they need to do to survive, especially 550 00:26:37.480 --> 00:26:39.640 when they feel like they've been backed up against the wall. 551 00:26:40.319 --> 00:26:43.119 So that's my perspective. When I look at this book, 552 00:26:43.119 --> 00:26:45.559 I look at it from a realist perspective, asking, you know, 553 00:26:46.440 --> 00:26:49.119 there's this thing. John Rawls is a philosopher that wrote 554 00:26:49.119 --> 00:26:50.519 a lot in the seventies and eighties, and he said 555 00:26:50.559 --> 00:26:52.759 that there's this thing called the veil of ignorance where 556 00:26:52.799 --> 00:26:54.839 if someone dropped you down in the society and didn't 557 00:26:54.839 --> 00:26:57.319 tell you where in that society you fell high class, 558 00:26:57.359 --> 00:27:00.240 middle class, low class, labor, or rich person. If you 559 00:27:00.319 --> 00:27:02.240 didn't know which of those things you fell into, how 560 00:27:02.279 --> 00:27:05.160 would you make the laws. You'd make them much differently 561 00:27:05.480 --> 00:27:07.880 than you would if you knew where you were, you know. 562 00:27:08.440 --> 00:27:10.000 And that's kind of the approach that I take with 563 00:27:10.079 --> 00:27:12.279 this is instead of like labeling everything, let me just 564 00:27:12.359 --> 00:27:14.720 look at the facts and see what the facts say. 565 00:27:15.440 --> 00:27:17.279 And when I talk about facts, I don't just mean 566 00:27:17.359 --> 00:27:18.960 like looking at the news and things like that. As 567 00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:21.160 you said in the back of the book, there are 568 00:27:21.359 --> 00:27:25.160 hundreds of declassified American intelligence documents that were top secret, 569 00:27:25.480 --> 00:27:29.680 secret noebeign and a whole trove of Iraqi documents that 570 00:27:29.720 --> 00:27:31.960 were top secret and secret that had never been seen before. 571 00:27:33.119 --> 00:27:36.319 These things are not for the public. These are internal 572 00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:41.720 political documents, basically our intelligence process feeding political decisions of 573 00:27:42.119 --> 00:27:44.519 facts that were collect on the ground through human intelligence 574 00:27:44.640 --> 00:27:49.039 SIGAN and other collection methodologies, with some other information to 575 00:27:49.079 --> 00:27:50.839 help back it up to put into context for people 576 00:27:50.880 --> 00:27:53.079 to understand. So that's kind of a long way of 577 00:27:53.119 --> 00:27:56.200 saying what these talismans are. But it's important to question 578 00:27:56.440 --> 00:27:59.240 all of them, including my own assertions. People should question 579 00:27:59.359 --> 00:28:02.000 what I say to and not in a combative way, 580 00:28:02.039 --> 00:28:04.039 but instead questioning, well, where did you get that, What 581 00:28:04.119 --> 00:28:06.240 does that mean? What does that mean to me? Because 582 00:28:06.279 --> 00:28:08.000 I think people don't ask those kind of questions, and 583 00:28:08.039 --> 00:28:10.440 that's how we end up twenty years in Afghanistan, fighting 584 00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:13.440 the same war, one year at a time for twenty years. 585 00:28:14.279 --> 00:28:17.359 Hey guys, our show is sponsored by ghost Bed. 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Thanks guys. 632 00:30:44.440 --> 00:30:47.920 So, uh, can you tell us a little a little 633 00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:53.559 bit about them the about the intelligence apparatus of Iran, 634 00:30:53.960 --> 00:30:59.079 we have the vaja uh theurgy see codes and then 635 00:31:00.200 --> 00:31:01.680 well you go ahead and tell us please. 636 00:31:02.279 --> 00:31:04.440 Yeah. So a lot of people, even in the intelligence 637 00:31:04.480 --> 00:31:06.680 community in the United States, and I've seen this, they 638 00:31:06.720 --> 00:31:09.599 don't know what vaja is. This is a new term 639 00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:12.960 for a lot of Westerners. This is what Iran calls 640 00:31:13.000 --> 00:31:17.279 their intelligence service, the equivalent of the CIA, their human 641 00:31:17.319 --> 00:31:20.640 intelligence service. In the West, we call it the Ministry 642 00:31:20.640 --> 00:31:23.279 of Intelligence. It's not called the Ministry of Intelligence. Why 643 00:31:23.319 --> 00:31:25.119 are we calling it that? So that's something I start 644 00:31:25.160 --> 00:31:26.640 out with, like, why are we using these things that 645 00:31:26.720 --> 00:31:28.160 we think are true that are not true? So let's 646 00:31:28.200 --> 00:31:32.680 start with what they call themselves va ja vaja, and 647 00:31:33.000 --> 00:31:36.319 that is their actual human element that started out as 648 00:31:36.359 --> 00:31:40.359 their strongest component or their entity. In two thousand and nine, 649 00:31:40.359 --> 00:31:43.119 there was something called the Green Revolution in Iran when 650 00:31:43.160 --> 00:31:45.240 the country was almost overthrown. It was the most serious 651 00:31:45.920 --> 00:31:48.839 moment of overthrow since nineteen seventy nine in the country, 652 00:31:49.680 --> 00:31:52.559 and the way the regime saw this was as a 653 00:31:52.599 --> 00:31:57.400 failure of VAJA to suppress the people enough to force 654 00:31:57.440 --> 00:31:59.319 them not to rebel. This is how it was viewed. 655 00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:02.960 What they did was they basically reduced the power of VOJA, 656 00:32:03.119 --> 00:32:05.480 subordinated it to the IERGC. And this is where the 657 00:32:05.519 --> 00:32:09.240 IRGC Intelligence Organization came out to become a thing. Before that, 658 00:32:09.319 --> 00:32:11.880 it was a department. An agency is a smaller thing 659 00:32:11.960 --> 00:32:14.079 with less remit. It was not meant to be inside 660 00:32:14.119 --> 00:32:17.440 the country doing things. But from that moment forward until today, 661 00:32:17.720 --> 00:32:21.200 it became this massive intelligence apparatus that now is the 662 00:32:21.359 --> 00:32:24.759 premier intelligence apparatus in Iran and outside of Iran. And 663 00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:28.839 VAJA has been relegated to kind of this political intelligence 664 00:32:29.279 --> 00:32:32.000 gatherer for looking at whatever, what are foreign diplomats doing? 665 00:32:32.039 --> 00:32:35.359 You know, like nothing that you would expect today's CIA, 666 00:32:35.440 --> 00:32:38.680 for example, to be doing. All the cover activity is IERGC. 667 00:32:38.839 --> 00:32:41.720 Now there's very small components that VAJA still does, but 668 00:32:41.839 --> 00:32:46.240 it's minuscule. It's mostly the IERGC and underneath that, and 669 00:32:46.240 --> 00:32:47.960 in the book I have a pretty good diagram of 670 00:32:48.000 --> 00:32:50.720 that there are many different things underneath that. There's like 671 00:32:50.799 --> 00:32:54.119 forty different departments underneath that. It's it's extremely complex and 672 00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:56.519 part of what the regime And when I say the regime, 673 00:32:56.519 --> 00:32:59.599 I don't mean the entire Irunnan government, although they're all complicit. 674 00:33:00.079 --> 00:33:03.160 I mean that small kernel of decision makers who have 675 00:33:03.279 --> 00:33:06.240 absolute control over what happens, which is a very tiny 676 00:33:06.359 --> 00:33:08.519 number of people. The rest of the people in the government, 677 00:33:08.519 --> 00:33:10.039 which is about one percent of the ninety two million 678 00:33:10.079 --> 00:33:12.480 people in the country, are just following along because it's 679 00:33:12.519 --> 00:33:14.839 in their interest to follow along, you know. But there's 680 00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:17.839 maybe between one hundred to one thousand named individuals that 681 00:33:17.920 --> 00:33:20.640 are that are the regime that's actually doing this stuff. 682 00:33:21.200 --> 00:33:23.519 And the IRGC is not designed to protect i running 683 00:33:23.519 --> 00:33:25.759 of people. It's designed to protect that small group of people, 684 00:33:26.039 --> 00:33:28.960 that small kernel of people. And you can see it 685 00:33:29.079 --> 00:33:34.839 because the Iotola's son, for example, can go freely outside 686 00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:37.559 the country. He can go to Washington, d C. If 687 00:33:37.599 --> 00:33:40.440 he wants to. Why because he has a black diplomatic passport. 688 00:33:41.480 --> 00:33:43.319 Why does he have that? Why does he need that? 689 00:33:43.599 --> 00:33:45.079 And if you look at who in the regime are 690 00:33:45.160 --> 00:33:47.200 these named individuals that are the powerholders, they all have 691 00:33:47.319 --> 00:33:52.799 black diplomatic passports. Cost some sole money had two diplomatic passports. Smelgani, 692 00:33:52.839 --> 00:33:55.839 the current Good Sports Commander, has four black passports. I mean, 693 00:33:55.880 --> 00:33:57.599 these guys are able to come and go as they please. 694 00:33:58.039 --> 00:34:02.400 The Iran Central Bank Director, who's the sanctioned bank, you know, 695 00:34:02.519 --> 00:34:05.039 that is the bank target of the West, has a 696 00:34:05.079 --> 00:34:07.160 black passport and he's come and gone to Washington, DC 697 00:34:07.319 --> 00:34:12.239 to World Bank meetings. I mean, these people are heavily protected, 698 00:34:12.239 --> 00:34:13.480 and they know how to use the system. They know 699 00:34:13.519 --> 00:34:15.119 how to use the Vienna Convention, which is the thing 700 00:34:15.199 --> 00:34:19.679 that grants diplomatic community. And they initially relied on VAJA 701 00:34:19.920 --> 00:34:22.800 to ensure that. And now it's the IERGC that is 702 00:34:22.960 --> 00:34:25.960 providing that, and it's providing it so that the Iranian 703 00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:28.920 people remain shut down while these small elites are able 704 00:34:28.960 --> 00:34:32.360 to have the maximum freedom. They're basically monopolizing freedom at 705 00:34:32.400 --> 00:34:33.800 the cost of everybody else. 706 00:34:34.360 --> 00:34:37.519 Right, And I mean there's there's a lot of wealth 707 00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:39.960 at the top there too, isn't. 708 00:34:39.760 --> 00:34:43.239 There There is? Actually, when the Shaw fled Iran in 709 00:34:43.320 --> 00:34:46.559 nineteen seventy nine, he had something like six billion dollars 710 00:34:47.440 --> 00:34:50.360 in today's dollars, not in nineteen seventy nine dollars, a 711 00:34:50.519 --> 00:34:52.440 very small amount of money. It's about the same as 712 00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:55.960 Donald Trump claims to have. And he had that much money. 713 00:34:56.039 --> 00:34:57.599 That was the Shaw that was run out of the 714 00:34:57.639 --> 00:35:00.800 country for having too much wealth, for being too opulent. Right, well, 715 00:35:00.880 --> 00:35:05.199 now the Iatola, today's Iotola, how many he has as 716 00:35:05.320 --> 00:35:09.199 much money as Jeff Bezos, but his assets are liquid. 717 00:35:09.400 --> 00:35:11.559 Jeff bezos assets are not liquid. They're tied up in 718 00:35:11.599 --> 00:35:15.000 equity in his businesses. Elon Musk's something like ninety percent 719 00:35:15.039 --> 00:35:16.760 of his money is tied up in equity in his businesses. 720 00:35:16.800 --> 00:35:19.159 If he pulled it out, his businesses would collapse. Not 721 00:35:19.400 --> 00:35:23.480 so for the Iatola. And actually that wealth grew dramatically 722 00:35:23.880 --> 00:35:26.159 after two thousand and seven, which is when the IRGC 723 00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:28.400 was first sanctioned by the United States, and there were 724 00:35:28.440 --> 00:35:30.880 these series of sanctions that grew from that period forward. 725 00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:32.800 And that if you took a graph and showed the 726 00:35:32.880 --> 00:35:35.000 sanctions increasing and put it right next to wealth of 727 00:35:35.079 --> 00:35:38.760 these top elites increasing, they're positively correlated, which means they 728 00:35:38.800 --> 00:35:42.559 grow together. And especially after twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, when 729 00:35:42.599 --> 00:35:45.360 we put the maximum pressure campaign on Iran, there's a 730 00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:48.199 dramatic spike and growth of wealth in these top leaders 731 00:35:48.239 --> 00:35:51.239 in Iran, and a dramatic decrease in general wealth for 732 00:35:51.320 --> 00:35:53.079 the population of the people in Iran. In fact, that 733 00:35:53.239 --> 00:35:56.880 same year that the Iatola's money exponentially grew is the 734 00:35:56.960 --> 00:35:59.400 same year that there were lines outside of grocery stores 735 00:35:59.440 --> 00:36:02.960 because there were chicken rations in Iran because there was 736 00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:05.719 not enough chicken to feed people. There were gas rations 737 00:36:05.840 --> 00:36:08.679 in a country that's petroleum rich at the same time 738 00:36:08.760 --> 00:36:11.079 that the Ayatola was one of the richest human beings 739 00:36:11.119 --> 00:36:13.000 on earth. And that just kind of illustrates to you 740 00:36:13.119 --> 00:36:15.679 that this is not a democracy. It's not a country. 741 00:36:15.760 --> 00:36:18.440 It's not a capitalist country that reacts to capitalist measures 742 00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:21.840 like sanctions, right ins said, it's just it's enriching elites 743 00:36:22.440 --> 00:36:23.239 handover fist. 744 00:36:25.639 --> 00:36:29.239 It's amazing. And you know later in the book you 745 00:36:29.320 --> 00:36:31.760 go into like the sanctions and the effects, and we'll 746 00:36:31.800 --> 00:36:36.480 get into that. So with the IURGC, we have the 747 00:36:36.519 --> 00:36:41.519 IGCCI their cyber space, their EW and cyber defense. And then, 748 00:36:41.840 --> 00:36:44.320 like you said, underneath that, there's just tons and tons 749 00:36:44.440 --> 00:36:47.840 of like different departments. Is there a lot of competition 750 00:36:48.239 --> 00:36:52.039 between IRGC and VAJA, and then within the IRGC itself. 751 00:36:52.599 --> 00:36:55.159 There was between VUDGE and IRGC before two thousand and nine. 752 00:36:55.280 --> 00:36:59.639 After that no more. But when IRGC grew, the regime 753 00:36:59.679 --> 00:37:02.239 actually forced it to get so large that it would 754 00:37:02.239 --> 00:37:04.199 be too large to be controlled by a single individual 755 00:37:04.280 --> 00:37:06.840 besides the Iatola kind of like a check and balance 756 00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:11.320 in an authoritarian way, because the IOGC is extremely powerful. 757 00:37:11.320 --> 00:37:13.079 I mean, even if you took the Iotola out, the 758 00:37:13.079 --> 00:37:15.320 IRGC could run the country. Right now, they control something 759 00:37:15.400 --> 00:37:17.280 like forty percent of the entire black market or the 760 00:37:17.400 --> 00:37:20.719 entire economy, which is mostly a black market thing. Like 761 00:37:20.719 --> 00:37:22.880 if you want an iPhone in Iran, it has to 762 00:37:22.960 --> 00:37:25.199 be purchased from an IRGC supplier, and there are many 763 00:37:25.239 --> 00:37:27.800 iPhones in Iran. There are many Western products in Iran 764 00:37:27.800 --> 00:37:29.360 that you would think like, oh, there's sanctioned. They can't 765 00:37:29.360 --> 00:37:31.239 get that. Now you can get it. It's just four 766 00:37:31.280 --> 00:37:34.880 thousand dollars, you know. And the IRGC was designed that 767 00:37:34.960 --> 00:37:37.639 way where there isn't one person cost some soul money. 768 00:37:37.679 --> 00:37:39.760 For example, even when he was, you know, the big guy, 769 00:37:40.199 --> 00:37:42.360 he couldn't run all of the IRGC. He was in 770 00:37:42.360 --> 00:37:45.239 the Kods force. He was a lower relatively lower in 771 00:37:45.360 --> 00:37:47.280 stature compared to the others. Even though he had some 772 00:37:47.440 --> 00:37:49.280 direct line to the Iotola and was able to get 773 00:37:49.320 --> 00:37:51.519 tasking from him directly, and a lot he'd get away 774 00:37:51.519 --> 00:37:53.760 with a lot more than the other two star generals. 775 00:37:54.159 --> 00:37:56.320 There's only like fifteen two star generals in the entire 776 00:37:56.360 --> 00:37:59.760 country of Iran, very few, and they're designed that way. 777 00:38:00.079 --> 00:38:03.079 And actually the Ministry of Defense is actually it's separated 778 00:38:03.159 --> 00:38:05.760 from the IRGC and it's subordinate to the IRGC. So 779 00:38:05.800 --> 00:38:08.639 the IRGC has a two star general commander. The Ministry 780 00:38:08.639 --> 00:38:10.880 of Defense is led by a one star So if 781 00:38:10.880 --> 00:38:12.519 the Ministry Defense, which you would think would be able 782 00:38:12.519 --> 00:38:15.400 to upset defense policy, sets a policy, the urgency can 783 00:38:15.440 --> 00:38:17.480 ignore it, and they do ignore it. They have ignored it, 784 00:38:17.880 --> 00:38:19.639 which is kind of an interesting tension that it was 785 00:38:19.719 --> 00:38:21.599 designed that way. And there's a lot of these designs 786 00:38:21.639 --> 00:38:25.000 where there's these tensions built throughout this system, which is 787 00:38:25.119 --> 00:38:28.760 again not a democracy, but was created from an authoritarian 788 00:38:28.880 --> 00:38:31.639 mind of how do how do we keep that authoritarian 789 00:38:31.719 --> 00:38:34.039 in power? And they're doing a pretty good job of it, 790 00:38:34.920 --> 00:38:35.960 yeah for sure. 791 00:38:36.760 --> 00:38:42.360 So you know, in about keeping them in power. Who 792 00:38:42.400 --> 00:38:46.760 are the top targets for Iranian intelligence operations? 793 00:38:47.679 --> 00:38:50.480 The number one target is the Mujahadi and ihalk m 794 00:38:50.559 --> 00:38:53.639 Ek or the People's Mujahideen, which has been a thorn 795 00:38:53.679 --> 00:38:55.960 in their side since nineteen seventy nine. That Mujahidin has 796 00:38:55.960 --> 00:39:00.119 existed for a long time before nineteen sixties. It's some 797 00:39:00.239 --> 00:39:02.960 would argue that it's a Marxist organization. Some would vehemently 798 00:39:03.159 --> 00:39:05.199 argue against that. There was a divide between them in 799 00:39:05.239 --> 00:39:07.960 the eighties, but in any case, they were the main 800 00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:10.239 target and they remained the main target. In fact, when 801 00:39:10.519 --> 00:39:15.440 in June when Israel's war on Iran started, most if 802 00:39:15.519 --> 00:39:18.280 not all of the action at the actual action, people 803 00:39:18.400 --> 00:39:20.199 in Iran doing the stuff that we were seeing like 804 00:39:20.559 --> 00:39:23.880 lasing targets and doing target reconnaissance and actually setting off 805 00:39:24.039 --> 00:39:29.280 devices were not Israeli operatives. Those were Iranians that most 806 00:39:29.320 --> 00:39:32.519 of them worked for Mujahadini Cup, the NEK. If you 807 00:39:32.599 --> 00:39:35.480 remember back in the early two thousands when it was 808 00:39:35.559 --> 00:39:38.639 released that Iran had a nuclear weapons program that was 809 00:39:38.679 --> 00:39:42.719 released through the Mujahidini Cup. And there's another set of 810 00:39:42.800 --> 00:39:46.199 targets which is the Aziris, not Azerbaijan in the country, 811 00:39:46.239 --> 00:39:49.679 but Azerbaijan province in section of your on northwest iron 812 00:39:51.079 --> 00:39:53.400 those nuclear documents that were taken a few years ago 813 00:39:53.400 --> 00:39:55.280 that Benjaminuttyaw who held up and said, look, we have 814 00:39:55.320 --> 00:39:56.960 all the proof. Now we stole it was something like 815 00:39:57.239 --> 00:39:59.519 I think it was a ton of paper from this 816 00:39:59.639 --> 00:40:04.559 bunker that was a ZII assisted theft out of the country, 817 00:40:05.320 --> 00:40:08.400 and actually they gave Israel overflight out of Azerbaijan the 818 00:40:08.480 --> 00:40:11.639 country to take those documents to Israel. And there's a 819 00:40:11.639 --> 00:40:14.360 lot of these groups that they've been against the government, 820 00:40:14.880 --> 00:40:17.719 any Iranian government for a very long time. So before 821 00:40:17.840 --> 00:40:20.400 there was the regime, there was the Shah, and before 822 00:40:20.440 --> 00:40:22.599 the Shah there was his father, and before that there 823 00:40:22.679 --> 00:40:25.039 was the Kajars, so it is a long history. But 824 00:40:25.159 --> 00:40:28.559 the Kurds, for example, the Aziris, the Baluchis, the Ahvazis, 825 00:40:28.559 --> 00:40:30.840 which are an Arab arab iised group of Iranians in 826 00:40:30.840 --> 00:40:32.480 the southwest of the country and the border of Iraq. 827 00:40:32.920 --> 00:40:37.079 These are all separatists aligned people, not all of them are, 828 00:40:37.280 --> 00:40:39.960 but they're typically an area you can go to if 829 00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:42.159 you want to do something in Iran. These are the 830 00:40:42.199 --> 00:40:44.800 people you work with as an outsider to do things 831 00:40:44.840 --> 00:40:47.599 against the regime, which means these are the people the 832 00:40:47.679 --> 00:40:51.400 regime wants to get rid of for control, severely controlled, 833 00:40:51.440 --> 00:40:52.920 and in some cases that's what they do. They just 834 00:40:53.000 --> 00:40:55.480 go and you know, reduce the amount of resources they have, 835 00:40:55.639 --> 00:40:58.039 they reduce the freedom of action. In other cases they 836 00:40:58.119 --> 00:40:59.880 go round them up and kill them, like they did 837 00:40:59.920 --> 00:41:03.519 the Mujahideen in nineteen eighty eight. If you remember President Rayisi, 838 00:41:03.599 --> 00:41:07.440 who died mysteriously in a helicopter last year, he was 839 00:41:07.480 --> 00:41:10.519 considered the hanging judge. He signed off on something like 840 00:41:10.599 --> 00:41:14.199 three thousand execution orders that Mujahdini Kak were most of 841 00:41:14.239 --> 00:41:17.519 the people that were executed under his basically by decree 842 00:41:17.920 --> 00:41:19.840 saying like, yeah, that guy's guilty, no trial, needed to 843 00:41:19.880 --> 00:41:22.039 go kill him. And he did that in nineteen eighty eight, 844 00:41:22.239 --> 00:41:26.159 three thousand people again, Mujahidin people. And so there's this 845 00:41:26.599 --> 00:41:29.360 tension between these groups that don't feel like they are. 846 00:41:30.159 --> 00:41:33.159 They don't feel Persian, they don't feel Iranian. Sometimes they do, 847 00:41:33.320 --> 00:41:37.159 sometimes they don't, but they certainly feel I'm Asiri, I 848 00:41:37.280 --> 00:41:40.800 am Ahbasi, I am Baluchi, I am Kurdish, you know, 849 00:41:41.400 --> 00:41:43.639 and especially when you look at the Curds. There's thirty 850 00:41:43.639 --> 00:41:47.079 five million Kurds. That's the largest stateless group, stateless ethnic 851 00:41:47.159 --> 00:41:52.000 group in the world period, and they're split up between Turkey, Syria, Iraq, 852 00:41:52.039 --> 00:41:55.639 and Iran. And Iran has one called the p Jack Pjak, 853 00:41:55.800 --> 00:41:58.760 which is a Kurdish separatist group in Iran that has 854 00:41:58.800 --> 00:42:00.880 been a constant thorn in their side that they've been 855 00:42:01.039 --> 00:42:04.519 blowing up, you know, routinely, sometimes the Turkey's help. And 856 00:42:05.320 --> 00:42:06.719 these are just a summary of some of them, but 857 00:42:06.800 --> 00:42:09.280 there are smaller groups too, and the thing they all 858 00:42:09.320 --> 00:42:11.679 have in common is that they disagree with the regime, 859 00:42:12.039 --> 00:42:15.280 but there's no democratic mechanism for them to change anything 860 00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:18.639 with the regime, so instead of having that democratic mechanism, 861 00:42:18.719 --> 00:42:20.039 they have to resort to violence. 862 00:42:21.719 --> 00:42:26.000 The other target you mentioned that we've seen is the 863 00:42:26.239 --> 00:42:31.000 Salafi the Salafis, the you know, Salafi Jihadis. And what 864 00:42:31.119 --> 00:42:32.960 I thought was interesting as you mentioned that in the 865 00:42:33.079 --> 00:42:39.280 nineties that Iran actually notified Western intelligence about the cooperation 866 00:42:39.480 --> 00:42:41.360 between the Taliban and AH. 867 00:42:42.280 --> 00:42:44.400 Yes, they were actually helping us quite a bit. And 868 00:42:44.559 --> 00:42:48.840 that relationship was built in Bosnia because during the wars 869 00:42:48.920 --> 00:42:52.639 in Bosnia and Albania and Kosovo, the Coastal Liberation Army 870 00:42:53.000 --> 00:42:56.679 and some of the Bosniac groups which are Muslim Bosnians, 871 00:42:57.280 --> 00:42:59.239 we're working with the IRGC and actually that was the 872 00:42:59.360 --> 00:43:02.639 QUDS force first overseas deployment to do un conventional warfare 873 00:43:02.800 --> 00:43:06.440 was in Bosnia and we were there also the I 874 00:43:06.599 --> 00:43:09.360 four and later on the KFO were there. Then Operation 875 00:43:09.400 --> 00:43:12.960 Allied Force was there continuously. There was US Western presence 876 00:43:13.000 --> 00:43:15.960 there with Yukon, and we built relationships with them at 877 00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:17.239 the time. And actually you can read some of the 878 00:43:17.239 --> 00:43:20.320 stuff in the book about Clinton. Clinton did a green 879 00:43:20.400 --> 00:43:22.840 light and actually allowed Iran to ship weapons in there 880 00:43:22.920 --> 00:43:26.360 to arm the KLA through Croatia. And that was a 881 00:43:26.480 --> 00:43:29.039 very interesting revelation that most people probably don't know, is 882 00:43:29.079 --> 00:43:31.599 that the US was not necessarily working hand in hand, 883 00:43:31.639 --> 00:43:34.119 but we weren't holding the back. And because we were 884 00:43:34.320 --> 00:43:37.159 diging that relationship, they took it upon themselves to share 885 00:43:37.199 --> 00:43:38.840 with us something they knew about what was going on 886 00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:42.400 in Afghanistan, and that was the Taliban housing al Qaida. 887 00:43:42.920 --> 00:43:44.519 And if you look at some of those targets that 888 00:43:44.599 --> 00:43:47.599 we struck when Bill Clinton authorized strikes in the late nineties, 889 00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:50.480 some of those targets were alerted to us by Iran. 890 00:43:52.880 --> 00:43:56.039 So, you know, you break the book down into the 891 00:43:56.159 --> 00:43:59.039 official well, I mean into the three different sections, but 892 00:43:59.159 --> 00:44:01.840 under this talk about like the official cover, the non 893 00:44:01.920 --> 00:44:07.320 official cover, and then the UW aspects. Can we talk 894 00:44:07.320 --> 00:44:09.599 about the official cover because you've already mentioned the Black 895 00:44:09.639 --> 00:44:13.000 passports and the diplomatic community. How effective is that and 896 00:44:13.119 --> 00:44:17.800 what are some of their greatest abuses of that system. 897 00:44:18.719 --> 00:44:21.760 Yeah, official cover is very interesting because it's something that 898 00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:24.559 every country does and no one likes to talk about. 899 00:44:25.360 --> 00:44:29.000 And there are some obviously good uses of it, and 900 00:44:29.159 --> 00:44:32.400 then there are some abuses of the diplomatic passport. Is 901 00:44:32.440 --> 00:44:35.119 what I mean, diplomatic community. This stuff all comes from 902 00:44:35.119 --> 00:44:38.400 the Vienna Convention of nineteen sixty one that basically says 903 00:44:38.480 --> 00:44:40.519 that you're allowed to do things in a country as 904 00:44:40.599 --> 00:44:43.360 an agent of that sovereign power, and that means you're immune, 905 00:44:43.400 --> 00:44:46.599 you're inviolable, which means you cannot be searched. If you 906 00:44:46.679 --> 00:44:49.000 have a pouch which could be a backpack, a box, 907 00:44:49.639 --> 00:44:52.239 a cargo container with a sticker on it that says 908 00:44:52.280 --> 00:44:55.159 this is a diplomatic pouch that is unvilable. It cannot 909 00:44:55.159 --> 00:44:57.880 be searched. And as I said, every country does this. 910 00:44:58.000 --> 00:45:00.440 So when we are wagging our finger at Iran, we 911 00:45:00.480 --> 00:45:02.840 should remember all the times that we've done the exact 912 00:45:02.880 --> 00:45:04.880 same thing and every other country does. I mean, this 913 00:45:05.039 --> 00:45:10.159 is part of what diplomatic status is for. Without getting 914 00:45:10.159 --> 00:45:12.079 into all the details of what the West does with it. 915 00:45:12.480 --> 00:45:17.400 Iran has stations overseas, and that doesn't necessarily mean VAJA stations. 916 00:45:17.480 --> 00:45:20.119 They have VAJA stations and they have IERGC stations, and 917 00:45:20.239 --> 00:45:24.159 sometimes those IRGC stations are huge. And actually one of 918 00:45:24.159 --> 00:45:26.599 the very first IRGC stations that we have evidence of 919 00:45:26.719 --> 00:45:30.679 on the intel side was in Vienna before the Soviet 920 00:45:30.760 --> 00:45:33.800 Union collapsed, and they had a small little Kods Force 921 00:45:33.840 --> 00:45:35.599 element and there it wasn't called Kuods Force yet, it 922 00:45:35.679 --> 00:45:38.199 was called the Office of Liberation Movements. They had a 923 00:45:38.239 --> 00:45:40.960 little typist in there that was sending codes out, you know. 924 00:45:41.519 --> 00:45:43.960 But they were there on diplomatic cover. They were there 925 00:45:44.039 --> 00:45:49.079 as a foreign ministry representative, not as an intelligence officer. Again, 926 00:45:49.159 --> 00:45:51.440 this is what many countries do, but Iran has certainly 927 00:45:51.480 --> 00:45:54.000 abused it. At Dubai is a common location where they 928 00:45:54.039 --> 00:45:57.960 do abuse this, where they'll move cargo containers, gigantic containers 929 00:45:58.039 --> 00:46:00.159 like off of a ship with a little stick on 930 00:46:00.239 --> 00:46:01.920 it that says this is a diplomatic pouch. You can't 931 00:46:01.960 --> 00:46:04.320 touch it, and inside of that our weapons and money 932 00:46:04.400 --> 00:46:08.320 and whatever you need to put in there to escape scrutiny. Right. Actually, 933 00:46:08.480 --> 00:46:10.519 just side note, we had a Saudi prince in Lebanon 934 00:46:10.559 --> 00:46:12.599 when I was deployed there that tried to do the 935 00:46:12.639 --> 00:46:15.280 diplomatic pouch thing with his jet. He actually pouched his 936 00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:17.400 jet and it was full of ecstasy. It had like 937 00:46:17.480 --> 00:46:19.480 two million ecstasy pills in it. But when he landed, 938 00:46:19.519 --> 00:46:20.920 the door open and they kind of all came out 939 00:46:20.960 --> 00:46:23.039 and it became like a now we see it thing. 940 00:46:23.119 --> 00:46:24.800 So he kind of messed that up. But that was 941 00:46:24.880 --> 00:46:30.639 a little side note. But of it, for sure, Yeah, 942 00:46:30.719 --> 00:46:33.199 for sure. But they use it for other reasons too. 943 00:46:33.280 --> 00:46:36.280 So in New York, for example, there's something like twenty 944 00:46:36.320 --> 00:46:39.400 five accredited Iranian diplomats living there right now that are 945 00:46:39.400 --> 00:46:42.079 allowed to live there, and they're on a range restriction. 946 00:46:42.119 --> 00:46:44.039 They're not allowed to leave a certain area of the city. 947 00:46:44.400 --> 00:46:46.079 But the area that they're in, it's a good part 948 00:46:46.119 --> 00:46:47.960 of the city. You can do a lot of things there, 949 00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:50.639 which means you can meet with other people, perhaps sources 950 00:46:50.960 --> 00:46:54.559 or perhaps handlers if you're being handled. You know, that's 951 00:46:54.559 --> 00:46:56.280 a place where everybody gets to go together. So it 952 00:46:56.280 --> 00:46:58.119 could be Israel. He's talking to Iranians, it could be 953 00:46:58.159 --> 00:47:02.719 Iranians talking to who knows what it is. It's happening 954 00:47:02.800 --> 00:47:05.519 all the time. They also had an office in Washington, 955 00:47:05.599 --> 00:47:09.159 d C outside run out of the Pakistani embassy. So 956 00:47:09.239 --> 00:47:11.280 that let's say you're an Iranian citizen studying in the 957 00:47:11.400 --> 00:47:14.199 United States and you lose your passport, Well you need 958 00:47:14.239 --> 00:47:15.519 to get a new one. But how are you need 959 00:47:15.519 --> 00:47:17.280 to get that if you don't have an Iranian embassy 960 00:47:17.280 --> 00:47:19.639 in the United States. Well there's a guy in the 961 00:47:19.679 --> 00:47:22.760 Pakistani embassy whose job it is and he is he 962 00:47:22.920 --> 00:47:27.119 is an Iranian diplomat in the Washington d C. That 963 00:47:27.159 --> 00:47:29.480 will get you a new passport. This is this is 964 00:47:29.559 --> 00:47:31.000 the way, you know, this is the good way that 965 00:47:31.079 --> 00:47:33.119 this works. This is how it's helpful. Right, And that's 966 00:47:33.159 --> 00:47:37.360 not cover, that's that's declared on the cover side. Especially 967 00:47:37.360 --> 00:47:40.880 with commercial cover, it's a whole other animal because think 968 00:47:40.880 --> 00:47:43.199 about all their shipping lines are sanctioned, all the port 969 00:47:43.360 --> 00:47:46.159 entries are sanctioned, all their goods are sanctioned. Like I 970 00:47:46.239 --> 00:47:47.840 just said, the iPhone. How do you get that into 971 00:47:47.880 --> 00:47:50.559 the country on industrial scale, Well you have to have 972 00:47:50.639 --> 00:47:53.519 commercial cover, and you have to have companies all over 973 00:47:53.559 --> 00:47:56.239 the world that look like one thing, but there's something else. 974 00:47:56.559 --> 00:47:59.360 And that is what they mostly make their money off 975 00:47:59.400 --> 00:48:01.800 of of how they they enrich the regime and how 976 00:48:01.840 --> 00:48:05.039 they move people and goods and equipment around the world 977 00:48:05.519 --> 00:48:07.400 very easily and with very little notice. 978 00:48:08.400 --> 00:48:10.400 Yeah, you went into that quite a bit in your book, 979 00:48:10.440 --> 00:48:20.480 The The Banyan Banyans Banyard's Bonyards. Yeah. So you know, 980 00:48:21.079 --> 00:48:24.079 when we talk about things that Iran is doing under 981 00:48:24.360 --> 00:48:26.920 you know, diplomatic cover, we're talking about a lot of 982 00:48:27.199 --> 00:48:30.039 known bad actors. Like we know that these people are 983 00:48:30.159 --> 00:48:32.360 bad actors, how can they just don't get P and 984 00:48:32.480 --> 00:48:33.400 GT from everyone? 985 00:48:34.480 --> 00:48:37.760 So that's something called reciprocity. If you start kicking out 986 00:48:38.159 --> 00:48:41.000 person from country X, person from country X will start 987 00:48:41.039 --> 00:48:42.760 kicking you out. And we saw this a lot during 988 00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:45.280 the Obama administration when we were having some escalatory actions 989 00:48:45.320 --> 00:48:48.239 with Russia where we kicked some Russian diplomats out of 990 00:48:48.239 --> 00:48:50.159 the United States. Well, the next day Russia kicked the 991 00:48:50.199 --> 00:48:52.960 exact same number of diplomats out of Russia. And you know, 992 00:48:53.079 --> 00:48:55.760 we close a Chinese diplomatic facility in Texas. Well, the 993 00:48:55.840 --> 00:48:58.320 next week there's a US diplomatic facility closed in China. 994 00:48:58.840 --> 00:49:01.480 So there's a huge risk of if we interrupt this 995 00:49:01.599 --> 00:49:04.960 process that we all know is going on, the costs 996 00:49:04.960 --> 00:49:07.960 are higher than the benefits. So sometimes it might be 997 00:49:08.039 --> 00:49:10.760 better to actually, rather than neutralize, it might be better 998 00:49:10.840 --> 00:49:14.000 to exploit that thing, Which is exactly the confluence of 999 00:49:14.079 --> 00:49:17.159 human intelligence and counterintelligence where you get to make the choice, 1000 00:49:17.199 --> 00:49:18.760 do I want to just cut this thing off and 1001 00:49:18.800 --> 00:49:21.119 stop it. You know, if there's a drug vessel full 1002 00:49:21.159 --> 00:49:23.719 of drugs and we see it off the coast of Venezuela, 1003 00:49:23.760 --> 00:49:25.280 do we want to blow it up? Or do we 1004 00:49:25.320 --> 00:49:27.119 want to capture the guys and interrogate them and find 1005 00:49:27.159 --> 00:49:28.519 out where they came from, where they're going and all 1006 00:49:28.559 --> 00:49:31.840 this other stuff. Well, that's a choice between exploiting and neutralizing. 1007 00:49:32.159 --> 00:49:35.159 And neutralizing has a lot of immediate shock value that 1008 00:49:35.199 --> 00:49:39.000 looks good politically and in the news. But exploiting typically 1009 00:49:39.079 --> 00:49:42.440 doesn't get known to anybody. It's a secret, and it 1010 00:49:42.519 --> 00:49:44.480 goes on for a long long time, and it can 1011 00:49:44.559 --> 00:49:47.639 have a huge payoff if you're smart about it. And 1012 00:49:47.719 --> 00:49:50.000 of course that's my bias because I did those things 1013 00:49:50.400 --> 00:49:53.079 and I know how they work, But I will advocate 1014 00:49:53.159 --> 00:49:54.800 for the high value and high impact that they have 1015 00:49:54.920 --> 00:49:56.840 over a very long time that if rather than just 1016 00:49:56.880 --> 00:49:59.719 shutting these things down or kicking these diplomats out, wouldn't 1017 00:49:59.719 --> 00:50:01.960 it be a better to recruit that diplomat as a 1018 00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:03.960 double agent, and then have him work for you for 1019 00:50:04.079 --> 00:50:07.039 thirty years and then recruit his own assets for you 1020 00:50:07.079 --> 00:50:09.199 as a principal agent that you could then further gather 1021 00:50:09.320 --> 00:50:11.800 defectors to keep them defectors in place. I mean, the 1022 00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:14.920 possibilities are endless, the value is endless. Rather than just 1023 00:50:15.280 --> 00:50:17.320 kicking that one guy out and making the country kick 1024 00:50:17.360 --> 00:50:19.840 one of your people out, you know, to me, it's 1025 00:50:19.840 --> 00:50:20.719 a no brainer. 1026 00:50:21.800 --> 00:50:25.360 When we talk about some of the things that you know, 1027 00:50:25.519 --> 00:50:28.559 Iran does in foreign countries and in particularly the United States, 1028 00:50:28.679 --> 00:50:31.039 and they do a lot of this stuff everywhere. Can 1029 00:50:31.079 --> 00:50:35.039 we talk about ms see Elena Jodd. 1030 00:50:35.519 --> 00:50:38.760 Yeah, Masulia Nojod is actually very interesting person. She wrote 1031 00:50:38.760 --> 00:50:40.440 her own book called The Wind in My Hair, which 1032 00:50:40.480 --> 00:50:42.440 I recommend if anyone's interested in Iran, Like what it's 1033 00:50:42.519 --> 00:50:45.679 like to be a person in jail in Iran, political jail, 1034 00:50:45.880 --> 00:50:48.639 Evan prison, getting tortured. She wrote a book about it. 1035 00:50:49.440 --> 00:50:51.400 The regime has been trying to kill her for a 1036 00:50:51.559 --> 00:50:54.599 very long time. They've tried multiple times the first time. 1037 00:50:54.840 --> 00:50:57.960 She lives in New York actually, and she's under FBI 1038 00:50:58.079 --> 00:51:00.840 protection now. But when she came to the US, she 1039 00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:03.119 started talking way more than she used to talk when 1040 00:51:03.119 --> 00:51:04.880 she was in Iran, because now she had some distance. 1041 00:51:04.960 --> 00:51:07.360 But the regime caught up to her. They tried to 1042 00:51:07.360 --> 00:51:10.960 assassinate her once by recruiting some Chechen guys who were 1043 00:51:11.039 --> 00:51:13.719 kind of this high jinks group of guys that were 1044 00:51:13.760 --> 00:51:16.079 pretty sloppy. They did a lot of physical surveillance on 1045 00:51:16.159 --> 00:51:19.599 her home. They were looking at the way that she 1046 00:51:19.760 --> 00:51:21.840 was walking to understand her behavior, and so they're doing 1047 00:51:21.840 --> 00:51:24.559 a lot of early collection activity to see how this 1048 00:51:24.639 --> 00:51:28.960 target looked. And they were interdicted. One of them had 1049 00:51:28.960 --> 00:51:30.920 an AK forty seven in his car. They were using 1050 00:51:30.960 --> 00:51:33.039 their phones way too much. In fact, most of the 1051 00:51:33.079 --> 00:51:34.519 reason we able to catch them is because of what 1052 00:51:34.559 --> 00:51:37.400 they said on their phones. It was very obvious what 1053 00:51:37.480 --> 00:51:41.960 they were doing. So we neutralized them. And a few 1054 00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:44.440 years later the regime still wanted to kill her, but 1055 00:51:44.519 --> 00:51:46.400 they had a more elaborate plan this time. This time 1056 00:51:46.440 --> 00:51:49.599 they wanted to kidnap her in New York, bring her 1057 00:51:49.800 --> 00:51:52.199 to a port in New York, put her on a speedboat, 1058 00:51:52.719 --> 00:51:55.360 take the speedboat to Venezuela, and then take her to 1059 00:51:55.440 --> 00:51:57.880 Iran so they could do a show trial and execute 1060 00:51:57.920 --> 00:52:00.639 her or torture her so that she would recamp and 1061 00:52:01.000 --> 00:52:03.280 make this negative message about what she was saying on 1062 00:52:03.360 --> 00:52:06.400 the media. We were able to catch that as well. 1063 00:52:07.400 --> 00:52:09.920 But there have been some others as well. R. Bob 1064 00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:13.119 cr who's Iranian living in Texas, who is a used 1065 00:52:13.119 --> 00:52:17.320 car salesman. He was recruited by the IRGC to assassinate 1066 00:52:17.360 --> 00:52:20.400 the Saudi ambassador who was in DC at the time, 1067 00:52:20.480 --> 00:52:23.039 eating at a very nice restaurant, and he got very 1068 00:52:23.079 --> 00:52:25.360 close to actually doing it. But there was a confidential 1069 00:52:25.400 --> 00:52:27.519 informant that we had in the drug cartels because he 1070 00:52:27.599 --> 00:52:30.360 was actually buying his weapons from the Zeta's cartel. And 1071 00:52:30.480 --> 00:52:32.320 we actually had a recruited guy in the Zetas cartel 1072 00:52:32.360 --> 00:52:35.000 recruited for something else obviously, who was like, hey, there's 1073 00:52:35.039 --> 00:52:37.119 this Iranian stuff going on. You guys should look into this, 1074 00:52:37.239 --> 00:52:40.079 and so DEA and FBI looked into it. Sure enough, yes, 1075 00:52:40.159 --> 00:52:42.280 he had done quite a few things. He was ready 1076 00:52:42.320 --> 00:52:44.599 to go, and we were able to capture him too. 1077 00:52:45.280 --> 00:52:47.280 But a lot of these are very interesting when you 1078 00:52:47.320 --> 00:52:50.840 look at them, because it's not an Iranian case officer 1079 00:52:51.079 --> 00:52:54.960 or IERGC guy doing this, it's whoever they can get 1080 00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:57.360 their hands on to do it. Because they have such 1081 00:52:57.480 --> 00:53:00.360 few resources available to do these things in States and 1082 00:53:00.400 --> 00:53:03.079 in other countries that they're just kind of grasping at 1083 00:53:03.079 --> 00:53:06.480 straws to see what sticks. They've recruited Hell's Angels guys 1084 00:53:06.519 --> 00:53:10.199 before to organize some assassination attempts more recently. You know, 1085 00:53:10.239 --> 00:53:12.559 they're a very interesting thing to look at about how 1086 00:53:12.559 --> 00:53:14.639 they recruit these guys in Canada and then they have 1087 00:53:14.800 --> 00:53:17.360 illegally entered the United States and then go do their 1088 00:53:17.400 --> 00:53:19.039 target reconstants that they're going to do and then go 1089 00:53:20.719 --> 00:53:23.159 figure out when the time is right. But again, confidential 1090 00:53:23.199 --> 00:53:25.559 informant helps with that and we're able to capture those 1091 00:53:25.599 --> 00:53:27.960 people too. So it's very interesting to see how they're 1092 00:53:28.000 --> 00:53:29.679 doing things in the United States because they're very different 1093 00:53:29.679 --> 00:53:31.519 than how they do them in other countries where they 1094 00:53:31.599 --> 00:53:34.039 have more ability to move. And that goes back to 1095 00:53:34.079 --> 00:53:37.199 the diplomatic thing. So if you look at Iran, which 1096 00:53:37.239 --> 00:53:41.320 countries can Iran go to Iranians without a visa? This 1097 00:53:41.440 --> 00:53:43.039 is an important question to ask. You should away if 1098 00:53:43.039 --> 00:53:44.800 you're an intelligence analysts should always ask, you know, my 1099 00:53:44.920 --> 00:53:47.719 target country, what countries can they go to without a visa? 1100 00:53:47.800 --> 00:53:49.280 Because that means those are countries they can go to 1101 00:53:49.360 --> 00:53:53.920 into a source meeting without being easily noticed. Countries might 1102 00:53:54.119 --> 00:53:58.320 surprise you. For example, Ecuador and say Sheelles and Singapore, 1103 00:53:59.000 --> 00:54:03.320 they can go there without a VA Thailand, Georgia, Armenia. 1104 00:54:03.800 --> 00:54:05.880 So there's a lot of countries that are not Muslim 1105 00:54:05.920 --> 00:54:08.280 countries that they can go to and do the activities 1106 00:54:08.360 --> 00:54:10.119 need to do their third country meetings so that way 1107 00:54:10.119 --> 00:54:11.960 they're not meeting the source and the sources home country 1108 00:54:12.119 --> 00:54:14.199 or in Ron, they're doing it in a kind of 1109 00:54:14.239 --> 00:54:16.719 safer area. This is how they kind of do things 1110 00:54:16.840 --> 00:54:19.079 outside of the United States. In the United States, they're 1111 00:54:19.119 --> 00:54:21.360 using a lot of cyber activity where they're and also 1112 00:54:21.400 --> 00:54:25.119 in Israel where they're recruiting their assets through Facebook, sometimes 1113 00:54:25.199 --> 00:54:29.079 posing as lovers and other kind of things. And when 1114 00:54:29.079 --> 00:54:30.880 we see these things exposed, we kind of chuckle at it, 1115 00:54:30.920 --> 00:54:32.320 but I also have to ask, like, why aren't they 1116 00:54:32.559 --> 00:54:35.679 throwing more resources at this stuff? You know, But it's 1117 00:54:35.719 --> 00:54:38.280 because they're more concerned about their survival at home than 1118 00:54:38.320 --> 00:54:40.159 they are about anything else outside the country. 1119 00:54:41.760 --> 00:54:45.840 Something you mentioned like that was surprising to me because 1120 00:54:46.280 --> 00:54:49.360 most people I think of an age are aware of 1121 00:54:49.480 --> 00:54:53.719 Solomon Rushdi and the fetway against him. I did not 1122 00:54:53.960 --> 00:54:56.639 know you mentioned that that over three dozen people have 1123 00:54:56.760 --> 00:55:00.880 been killed trying to kill him and it's still going on. Yeah, yeah, 1124 00:55:00.960 --> 00:55:04.519 just got and there's basically there's basically a fund for 1125 00:55:05.199 --> 00:55:07.519 his death. There was just an increase. 1126 00:55:08.280 --> 00:55:10.719 Yep, it was adjusted for inflation, you know, because it's 1127 00:55:10.719 --> 00:55:11.159 been around for. 1128 00:55:11.159 --> 00:55:15.119 A while, so right right, three point three million. And 1129 00:55:15.480 --> 00:55:19.320 it's crazy to me that that there's just basically like this, Hey, 1130 00:55:19.360 --> 00:55:21.760 if you if you get himmering these people like you 1131 00:55:21.880 --> 00:55:22.519 get a piece of this. 1132 00:55:23.119 --> 00:55:25.880 Yeah, it's basically a beef that the original Ayatola had 1133 00:55:26.239 --> 00:55:28.920 and he is now dead and a beef has survived him. 1134 00:55:31.440 --> 00:55:33.639 Can we also talk a little bit about Merchant, because 1135 00:55:33.679 --> 00:55:39.079 that's pretty recent that it was an assef Merchant. 1136 00:55:40.320 --> 00:55:43.079 Who was that Uh the wasn't he? 1137 00:55:43.199 --> 00:55:49.559 The Pakistani? The gentleman who was uh gonna who is 1138 00:55:49.599 --> 00:55:51.800 gonna try and the Pakistani who's gonna try and kill Trump? 1139 00:55:52.880 --> 00:55:54.679 Oh oh yeah, yeah, there's been a few of those. 1140 00:55:55.440 --> 00:55:57.039 I don't know how much stock I put into that. 1141 00:55:57.280 --> 00:55:59.239 I have an I have a theory that these are 1142 00:55:59.320 --> 00:56:02.400 not like coming from high level ERGYC people. Even the 1143 00:56:02.519 --> 00:56:04.679 r BOBSI are one that I mentioned, the Saudi into 1144 00:56:04.880 --> 00:56:08.960 twenty thirteen assassination project. I think these are lower level 1145 00:56:09.159 --> 00:56:11.400 ergyc This is my theory is I'd had no fact 1146 00:56:11.440 --> 00:56:13.800 to back this up, but I think these are lower 1147 00:56:13.880 --> 00:56:17.039 level ways of trying to do what they can with 1148 00:56:17.119 --> 00:56:19.880 what they can. If the same thing with John Bolton 1149 00:56:19.960 --> 00:56:23.320 and Pompeo and Trump, these are like really low level, 1150 00:56:23.360 --> 00:56:27.039 amateur hour type things that have almost no resources attached 1151 00:56:27.039 --> 00:56:29.400 to them, something like that coming from If it was 1152 00:56:29.480 --> 00:56:31.480 coming from the top levels of the government, I feel 1153 00:56:31.480 --> 00:56:34.320 like there would be more risk analysis in there, some 1154 00:56:34.480 --> 00:56:37.079 more thought about how it looks and how to do it. 1155 00:56:37.320 --> 00:56:39.599 You know, these things and if you compare them to 1156 00:56:39.679 --> 00:56:43.400 other assassination operations that the regime has done, especially against Iranians, 1157 00:56:44.000 --> 00:56:46.719 those are far more advanced methodical. They put a lot 1158 00:56:46.760 --> 00:56:49.000 more thought into it. They still failed a lot, but 1159 00:56:49.079 --> 00:56:51.360 they succeeded a lot. And it wasn't this kind of 1160 00:56:51.599 --> 00:56:53.920 like pie in the sky, like oh, let's just go 1161 00:56:54.079 --> 00:56:56.320 after that guy and go kill them. You know, they 1162 00:56:56.440 --> 00:56:58.000 really thought through how do they do it, where's the 1163 00:56:58.039 --> 00:56:59.519 right place to do it, what resources do we need, 1164 00:56:59.559 --> 00:57:01.280 what country should it be, and who should we recruit. 1165 00:57:01.880 --> 00:57:03.440 In Denmark there were a few of these where they 1166 00:57:03.519 --> 00:57:06.199 killed some MUJA hitting guys and some as MLA guys 1167 00:57:06.639 --> 00:57:10.239 with very methodical ways of doing it even recently. So 1168 00:57:10.360 --> 00:57:12.639 I question, you know, where are these orders coming from? 1169 00:57:13.239 --> 00:57:17.360 And I don't know if those are officially sanctioned things 1170 00:57:17.599 --> 00:57:20.800 like even again back to the r Bob Ziar case, 1171 00:57:21.760 --> 00:57:25.159 when you look at the Treasury sanctions that detail, you 1172 00:57:25.239 --> 00:57:27.440 know what was going on with that case. They implicate 1173 00:57:27.519 --> 00:57:30.079 cost some solo money and two high level IRGC guys 1174 00:57:30.119 --> 00:57:31.559 in addition to the one guy that was on the 1175 00:57:31.599 --> 00:57:34.840 phone with ar BOBZR. But there's no there's no link 1176 00:57:34.920 --> 00:57:37.719 between that low level basically a lieutenant colonel and the 1177 00:57:37.760 --> 00:57:40.400 IRGC and cost some solo money like that doesn't really 1178 00:57:40.440 --> 00:57:44.079 make sense to me, you know. I again, theorizing that 1179 00:57:44.159 --> 00:57:46.840 it's probably someone lowered down the ranks who's like, I'm 1180 00:57:46.840 --> 00:57:48.480 going to make a name for myself and get this 1181 00:57:48.599 --> 00:57:50.960 big hit and then I'm going to be important, that's 1182 00:57:51.199 --> 00:57:52.679 probably more likely. 1183 00:57:54.239 --> 00:57:57.679 Makes sense. So you know, then you go into COVID action. 1184 00:57:58.239 --> 00:58:01.880 Can we talk about the Iran Experts Initiative. 1185 00:58:02.840 --> 00:58:06.559 Yeah, it's very interesting, more recent actually since the Biden administration. 1186 00:58:07.679 --> 00:58:09.840 This is kind of a classic example of and many 1187 00:58:09.880 --> 00:58:13.039 countries do this Russia does this, China does this with 1188 00:58:13.119 --> 00:58:19.199 their Confucius institutes, where countries will use their academic credentials 1189 00:58:19.519 --> 00:58:22.440 to do intelligence things. And again this is not a 1190 00:58:22.559 --> 00:58:27.159 new surprising thing. This is very common in countries, but 1191 00:58:27.239 --> 00:58:29.920 it was kind of surprising because of how close these 1192 00:58:30.000 --> 00:58:33.559 individuals were to the Biden administration, specifically to the Iran 1193 00:58:34.400 --> 00:58:37.679 team working for President Biden and the Syria team working 1194 00:58:37.719 --> 00:58:39.559 for President Biden. And there was in fact one individual 1195 00:58:39.639 --> 00:58:43.079 on the Iran team, the envoys team, that was telling 1196 00:58:43.119 --> 00:58:47.239 the envoy advice. That advice was coming directly from Sarif 1197 00:58:47.400 --> 00:58:50.800 through emails to that person, which is kind of interesting 1198 00:58:50.840 --> 00:58:53.079 that emails are now in the public domain, so if 1199 00:58:53.119 --> 00:58:56.159 people want to go research them, they can. And all 1200 00:58:56.280 --> 00:58:58.880 the people that were involved in this Iran Experts initiative 1201 00:58:58.960 --> 00:59:01.440 claimed to be the one that we're providing. They said 1202 00:59:01.480 --> 00:59:03.519 that the access they had to the regime was only 1203 00:59:03.599 --> 00:59:05.760 for academic purposes, so that they could help inform the 1204 00:59:05.920 --> 00:59:10.679 US government on the JCPOA. My thought, as an intelligence 1205 00:59:10.679 --> 00:59:13.039 collector and a handler, well that's probably how it started 1206 00:59:13.039 --> 00:59:16.280 out for you, and that the regime kept pushing down 1207 00:59:16.400 --> 00:59:18.440 that button and kept you on and now you're working 1208 00:59:18.480 --> 00:59:19.960 for them, even if you don't know that you are. 1209 00:59:21.159 --> 00:59:23.039 So sometimes you know, ignorance is not an excuse for 1210 00:59:23.119 --> 00:59:25.679 intelligence collection, and we've seen that many times with how 1211 00:59:25.760 --> 00:59:28.719 people believe they're providing something to one country and it's 1212 00:59:28.719 --> 00:59:30.519 a false flag and they're providing it to somebody else, 1213 00:59:30.920 --> 00:59:33.000 or they think is something completely separate, And if you 1214 00:59:33.079 --> 00:59:34.760 look at what they collected and what they did and 1215 00:59:34.840 --> 00:59:37.400 what they said, this is a very clear cut influence 1216 00:59:37.440 --> 00:59:41.679 operation that actually affected how are Iran envoy operated in 1217 00:59:41.760 --> 00:59:44.639 the world. And when you're doing negotiations with a country, 1218 00:59:44.719 --> 00:59:47.000 let's say you're on you have a limited information so 1219 00:59:47.119 --> 00:59:49.599 the information you do have is extremely valuable and you're 1220 00:59:49.679 --> 00:59:53.519 using it to reduce uncertainty and increase your decision advantage. Well, 1221 00:59:53.559 --> 00:59:55.760 the other side wants to take control of that process 1222 00:59:56.440 --> 00:59:59.159 to their own advantage, and we would be ignorant to 1223 00:59:59.159 --> 01:00:01.639 think that they were not, And unfortunately at the time, 1224 01:00:02.079 --> 01:00:04.119 we were ignorant to think that they were not, and 1225 01:00:04.360 --> 01:00:06.559 they did do it. So again, I go in a 1226 01:00:06.599 --> 01:00:08.079 lot of detail on it. I have the actual names 1227 01:00:08.079 --> 01:00:09.920 of the people in there and everything, but it is 1228 01:00:10.000 --> 01:00:11.639 kind of interesting to think about how many other times 1229 01:00:11.639 --> 01:00:13.000 does this happen? You know, that's a question mark this 1230 01:00:13.079 --> 01:00:15.400 should come up that people for future research should be 1231 01:00:15.440 --> 01:00:17.559 looking into, and in the intelligence community should be looking 1232 01:00:17.559 --> 01:00:20.480 at what other things that look benign are not benign 1233 01:00:21.159 --> 01:00:23.280 because that's a that's a great intelligence operation when it 1234 01:00:23.320 --> 01:00:26.440 looks benign. That's what Clandesta's activity is. The activity looks 1235 01:00:26.480 --> 01:00:29.519 like it's something else, you know, right. 1236 01:00:30.760 --> 01:00:35.639 And then you know there's So we're briefly going over 1237 01:00:35.679 --> 01:00:37.599 all this stuff. There are so many great examples in 1238 01:00:37.639 --> 01:00:40.599 this book. I highly highly recommend everybody read this. It's 1239 01:00:40.639 --> 01:00:45.800 Iran's shadow weapons. But let's move into cyber because cyber 1240 01:00:45.880 --> 01:00:48.440 has been Oh the link is going to be in 1241 01:00:48.559 --> 01:00:53.679 the description. Let's move into cyber because cyber has been 1242 01:00:53.760 --> 01:00:59.159 something that you know, Iran was nothing and then we 1243 01:00:59.280 --> 01:01:02.599 hit him or they were hit with stucksnet stucknet, and 1244 01:01:02.719 --> 01:01:06.840 then they became something. And it's been a real evolution 1245 01:01:07.000 --> 01:01:07.679 for them, hasn't it. 1246 01:01:08.519 --> 01:01:10.960 It's really fascinating. Actually, I'm not aware of another country 1247 01:01:11.039 --> 01:01:14.519 having this similar evolution. As you said, they were nothing 1248 01:01:15.199 --> 01:01:18.320 before like two thousand and seven, at a maximum, they 1249 01:01:18.360 --> 01:01:22.519 were defacing websites. Fast forward ten years and they are 1250 01:01:22.760 --> 01:01:26.920 overturning billions of dollars of ransomware and banks and destroying 1251 01:01:27.159 --> 01:01:31.519 giant pieces of infrastructure and SCATA systems, which are industrial 1252 01:01:31.559 --> 01:01:34.360 control systems, like they just they accelerate. Well, how do 1253 01:01:34.400 --> 01:01:37.800 they do that where they get information? Well, as you mentioned, 1254 01:01:38.239 --> 01:01:43.559 stucksnet happened, and they ran immediately reverse engineered stucksnet and 1255 01:01:43.599 --> 01:01:45.679 saw how it was made, and they made their own 1256 01:01:46.239 --> 01:01:49.519 piece of malware that they used that now they knew 1257 01:01:49.519 --> 01:01:51.239 this new information. Well, then they said, well, what if 1258 01:01:51.239 --> 01:01:53.320 we're under threat by other things, let's start investing a 1259 01:01:53.360 --> 01:01:55.719 ton of money in this. And they started recruiting these 1260 01:01:55.880 --> 01:01:59.719 civilian entities, which is actually not unlike the US. The US, 1261 01:01:59.760 --> 01:02:03.280 a lot of our cyber expertise is not uniform service 1262 01:02:03.360 --> 01:02:08.599 members or gs civilians at cybercom. It's contractors, companies that 1263 01:02:08.719 --> 01:02:11.639 have experts in them that the government hires to produce 1264 01:02:11.880 --> 01:02:15.079 tailored items Collard malware. This is the way it actually works. 1265 01:02:15.719 --> 01:02:17.280 There's a couple of really interesting books on it, like 1266 01:02:17.360 --> 01:02:19.559 Countdown to Zero Day, which I recommend by Kim Zetter, 1267 01:02:20.320 --> 01:02:22.199 which goes into how stocks and that was actually made. 1268 01:02:22.239 --> 01:02:24.079 It was not made by the government, It was made 1269 01:02:24.119 --> 01:02:27.480 by other companies that were sold to the government and 1270 01:02:27.559 --> 01:02:29.760 same thing with Israel, Like they have Pegasus that's made 1271 01:02:29.760 --> 01:02:33.199 by a civilian company that's not made by Unit eighty 1272 01:02:33.239 --> 01:02:35.119 two hundred, their second organization. Right. 1273 01:02:36.000 --> 01:02:38.280 Wait, are you saying that the government is not on 1274 01:02:38.360 --> 01:02:44.199 the leading edge of development and conception of of skin, 1275 01:02:44.880 --> 01:02:45.199 they're on. 1276 01:02:45.199 --> 01:02:48.800 The leading edge of anything money to give to those people, Yeah, right, 1277 01:02:49.320 --> 01:02:51.440 because they'll pay a lot of money, a lot of money, 1278 01:02:52.559 --> 01:02:54.639 you know. And the regime does the same thing. And 1279 01:02:54.719 --> 01:02:57.559 they did the same thing. And actually, when Israel wiped 1280 01:02:57.599 --> 01:03:00.800 a bunch of servers in Iran using a white or malware, 1281 01:03:01.119 --> 01:03:04.440 Iran reverse engineered that and turned it into something called Shammoun, 1282 01:03:04.760 --> 01:03:07.320 which they then put on Saudi Aramco and erased all 1283 01:03:07.320 --> 01:03:10.480 of Saudi Aramco's data, which is incredible because, as I said, 1284 01:03:10.760 --> 01:03:13.320 even two years before that, the regime could only deface 1285 01:03:13.360 --> 01:03:15.840 a website. And now they're wiping out the entire oil 1286 01:03:15.880 --> 01:03:18.719 infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, not all of it, but almost 1287 01:03:18.719 --> 01:03:20.920 all of the huge, huge amount. And it wasn't just 1288 01:03:21.320 --> 01:03:23.639 a one hit thing. They had carefully planned it. They 1289 01:03:23.800 --> 01:03:25.960 chose a day during Ramadan when they knew no on 1290 01:03:25.960 --> 01:03:28.719 would be at the place, like everything was carefully thought through. 1291 01:03:28.760 --> 01:03:31.280 It was very deliberate, which is a huge change before 1292 01:03:31.480 --> 01:03:33.679 when they looked like this ragtag group of little hackers 1293 01:03:33.719 --> 01:03:36.280 which they call Sabiri's that were just hired off the 1294 01:03:36.320 --> 01:03:38.920 street to go do forum blasts and you know, take 1295 01:03:39.000 --> 01:03:41.840 websites down with didas attacks. So you see this evolution 1296 01:03:42.039 --> 01:03:45.719 not as their innovation at the beginning, more their reaction, 1297 01:03:45.920 --> 01:03:47.960 but as they reacted to it. They just took everything 1298 01:03:48.000 --> 01:03:49.519 that hit them and then they turned it into their 1299 01:03:49.559 --> 01:03:52.320 own weapon and they use it against us, which is 1300 01:03:52.440 --> 01:03:56.800 the West, Israel, European countries especially like Denmark, Netherlands, other 1301 01:03:57.079 --> 01:04:00.599 countries as well to their advantage. And for that first 1302 01:04:00.679 --> 01:04:03.800 few years, then they rapidly accelerated producing their own things 1303 01:04:04.159 --> 01:04:07.440 that are now novel that would never have existed if 1304 01:04:08.159 --> 01:04:10.960 things hadn't happened before to them that pushed them in 1305 01:04:11.000 --> 01:04:13.639 that direction, which is kind of fascinating, you know, revisionist 1306 01:04:13.679 --> 01:04:15.199 history of like what would have happened if we didn't 1307 01:04:15.239 --> 01:04:17.559 do stuck net or if they didn't discover stuck net. 1308 01:04:18.239 --> 01:04:22.440 Right, And you also mentioned that when Israel used Wiper 1309 01:04:22.519 --> 01:04:26.360 that they uncovered a much more valuable and essay loitering 1310 01:04:26.480 --> 01:04:27.360 tool that. 1311 01:04:28.000 --> 01:04:31.719 Yeah, that wasn't like for the NSAY. Yeah, so the 1312 01:04:31.840 --> 01:04:34.719 NSA tool was hidden and had been hidden and was 1313 01:04:34.760 --> 01:04:38.039 totally unknown, and that tool was extremely advanced and was 1314 01:04:38.079 --> 01:04:40.719 capable of pretty much destroying the entire nuclear program and 1315 01:04:40.719 --> 01:04:44.280 a lot of other infrastructure, including much of their non 1316 01:04:44.400 --> 01:04:48.920 nuclear defense infrastructure. And when Israel did that wiper activity, 1317 01:04:49.800 --> 01:04:51.719 it did it in the same kind of area of 1318 01:04:51.960 --> 01:04:55.880 the memory of system that this other malware was. And 1319 01:04:55.960 --> 01:04:57.840 when the regime went to go look, they found both 1320 01:04:58.440 --> 01:05:02.440 and the US unfortunately lost this extremely advanced tool that 1321 01:05:02.679 --> 01:05:04.000 now is no longer functional. 1322 01:05:05.400 --> 01:05:07.119 Yeah, I have a question. 1323 01:05:07.239 --> 01:05:11.599 Can I ask a question see their cyber operations, what 1324 01:05:11.840 --> 01:05:14.400 is like the percentage between like them going out there 1325 01:05:14.440 --> 01:05:17.679 trying to make money for the regime to like offensive 1326 01:05:17.719 --> 01:05:22.119 operations against state actors and stuff like that, whether it's Israel, 1327 01:05:22.239 --> 01:05:24.000 the US, or any Denmark. 1328 01:05:24.800 --> 01:05:28.400 The money part was earlier and it has really dramatically decreased. 1329 01:05:28.480 --> 01:05:30.480 And in fact, the last time they did a major 1330 01:05:30.679 --> 01:05:33.519 financial operation, they did two that were like really huge. 1331 01:05:34.039 --> 01:05:37.360 One was against a Las Vegas company because the owner 1332 01:05:37.400 --> 01:05:40.960 of the company was Jewish and made a statement about Iran, 1333 01:05:41.400 --> 01:05:43.920 and to retaliate they caused him several one hundreds of 1334 01:05:43.920 --> 01:05:47.119 millions of dollars of damage to his infrastructure. They didn't 1335 01:05:47.119 --> 01:05:50.039 get any money from that though. Then in Georgia, the 1336 01:05:50.119 --> 01:05:52.480 state in the United States or Georgia, they attacked a 1337 01:05:52.639 --> 01:05:55.559 municipal infrastructure and were able to do some ransomware attack 1338 01:05:55.599 --> 01:05:59.159 there After that, which is like more than ten years ago. 1339 01:05:59.480 --> 01:06:01.760 They have drifted away from that and they're mostly focusing 1340 01:06:01.800 --> 01:06:03.079 on offensive cyberactivity. 1341 01:06:03.280 --> 01:06:06.480 Yeah, it's wild that they now have like five advanced 1342 01:06:06.880 --> 01:06:10.000 persistent threats, at least five that are associated with them. 1343 01:06:10.400 --> 01:06:12.360 Can you talk a little bit about the twenty twenty 1344 01:06:12.400 --> 01:06:13.960 three attacks on US ships? 1345 01:06:15.199 --> 01:06:18.000 Do you recall that which ones are you talking about? 1346 01:06:18.920 --> 01:06:23.079 The ballast they are relutely yes. 1347 01:06:23.199 --> 01:06:25.679 This is from a group called Shahid Kave, which is 1348 01:06:25.800 --> 01:06:30.119 a very elite cyber unit inside of one of their 1349 01:06:30.159 --> 01:06:31.880 elite cyber units. So you can think of it as 1350 01:06:32.639 --> 01:06:36.119 you know, inside a cybercom there is an elite national 1351 01:06:36.199 --> 01:06:38.800 mission Force, the Cyber Mission Force. You can think of 1352 01:06:38.840 --> 01:06:42.000 Shahid Kaves as a team inside of that cyber mission Force. 1353 01:06:42.039 --> 01:06:44.920 It's kind of analogous. And what Shahid Kave did was 1354 01:06:44.960 --> 01:06:48.960 they were able to actually steal through malware activity. They 1355 01:06:49.079 --> 01:06:51.400 use these things called remote access trojans or rats to 1356 01:06:51.480 --> 01:06:53.599 get this stuff. So they create a rat inside of 1357 01:06:53.840 --> 01:06:57.920 a computer system, trafted the designs for these ballasts, and 1358 01:06:58.280 --> 01:07:00.320 if they wanted to, they could have basic hit a 1359 01:07:00.360 --> 01:07:03.119 button and turn these ballasts off, which would have caused 1360 01:07:03.119 --> 01:07:06.599 these cargo vessels to eventually sink after their machinery broke 1361 01:07:06.639 --> 01:07:09.880 down and things. But the interesting part about that is 1362 01:07:10.000 --> 01:07:12.519 that these were not operations they were going to do. Instead, 1363 01:07:12.599 --> 01:07:14.719 this was a menu of options that they presented to 1364 01:07:14.960 --> 01:07:18.000 the IATOLA, and this was their job, was to basically 1365 01:07:18.039 --> 01:07:20.079 come up with all kinds of ways that if the 1366 01:07:20.119 --> 01:07:25.639 IATOLA wanted to, they could attack the US with cyber tools. Interestingly, 1367 01:07:25.679 --> 01:07:29.000 they haven't used them to our knowledge, not just this tool, 1368 01:07:29.039 --> 01:07:32.679 but other tools. And that kind of goes along with 1369 01:07:32.760 --> 01:07:35.760 what they do, not just in cyber but in intelligence generally, 1370 01:07:36.320 --> 01:07:38.360 where they take a lot of things and put them 1371 01:07:38.360 --> 01:07:40.960 on the shelf and they wait till there's a time 1372 01:07:41.000 --> 01:07:44.400 when they really want to use the thing. That's kind 1373 01:07:44.400 --> 01:07:46.639 of interesting because there's been a lot of opportunities that 1374 01:07:46.719 --> 01:07:48.639 you might think would be a good reason for them 1375 01:07:48.719 --> 01:07:51.000 to use those things. You could think of like June 1376 01:07:51.039 --> 01:07:53.000 for example, as one of those times and they didn't 1377 01:07:53.039 --> 01:07:55.960 do it, And that's kind of an interesting question of 1378 01:07:56.039 --> 01:07:58.719 like why didn't they destroy the ballasts on all of 1379 01:07:58.800 --> 01:08:02.559 the ships in the golf in June? You know, but 1380 01:08:02.639 --> 01:08:04.719 it probably goes toward the more political question of well, 1381 01:08:04.760 --> 01:08:06.239 if they did that, what would happen next? And what 1382 01:08:06.280 --> 01:08:08.760 would that mean for me? You know. So they're probably 1383 01:08:08.880 --> 01:08:11.079 they probably have a lot of things on the shelf 1384 01:08:11.159 --> 01:08:13.840 that they'll never ever use that are probably very powerful. 1385 01:08:14.119 --> 01:08:16.000 But it would mean that their own destruction may be 1386 01:08:16.079 --> 01:08:17.600 invited from using these things. 1387 01:08:17.920 --> 01:08:23.079 Right, Yeah, where where it turns into basically an act 1388 01:08:23.119 --> 01:08:28.680 of war. Yes, and let's talk about you know, we 1389 01:08:28.800 --> 01:08:32.239 talk about these capabilities, but let's talk about like they're internal, 1390 01:08:32.439 --> 01:08:35.520 like they have they're pretty devious with their own population, 1391 01:08:36.159 --> 01:08:39.119 you know, in terms of like the the apps that 1392 01:08:39.279 --> 01:08:44.720 they create, the software you know that they create where well, 1393 01:08:44.800 --> 01:08:48.479 they they'll put out, hey, here's a censorship. Here's a 1394 01:08:48.520 --> 01:08:51.439 way to circumvent censorship. But it's actually put out by 1395 01:08:51.479 --> 01:08:51.960 the government. 1396 01:08:52.640 --> 01:08:56.000 Yeah, and actually this is all because their internet. It's 1397 01:08:56.039 --> 01:08:58.279 not like our internet. You know, we think like, oh 1398 01:08:58.319 --> 01:09:00.159 I can put a VPN on and I can I 1399 01:09:00.199 --> 01:09:04.359 can use proton whatever. Well, the problem in Iran is 1400 01:09:04.399 --> 01:09:06.439 that they don't have an open Internet. They have something 1401 01:09:06.479 --> 01:09:09.560 called the National Information Network, which is given to them 1402 01:09:09.600 --> 01:09:12.159 by China. This is a Chinese technology about how to 1403 01:09:12.199 --> 01:09:15.159 create a you know, China's Great Firewall, which is pretty successful. 1404 01:09:16.039 --> 01:09:18.199 They gave that to Iran and Iran implemented it, which 1405 01:09:18.239 --> 01:09:21.199 means that people in Iran cannot access the Internet like 1406 01:09:21.239 --> 01:09:24.199 we do. There are entire sections of the Internet that 1407 01:09:24.239 --> 01:09:27.760 they can never reach. There are some VPNs that do 1408 01:09:27.920 --> 01:09:30.239 work there, but they're not always working, and they kind 1409 01:09:30.239 --> 01:09:31.680 of come up and down, and there's a lot of 1410 01:09:31.720 --> 01:09:35.239 volatility there. But within that special ecosystem that they've created, 1411 01:09:35.600 --> 01:09:37.399 as you said, they've got all kinds of little things 1412 01:09:37.439 --> 01:09:39.840 in there that are ready to hook you. And especially 1413 01:09:39.960 --> 01:09:43.119 during times of protest or unrest, there's a lot of 1414 01:09:43.199 --> 01:09:47.600 things that are designed to trick you, track you, or 1415 01:09:47.680 --> 01:09:50.359 catch you or figure out where you are, you know, 1416 01:09:50.760 --> 01:09:53.319 because what their goal is to stop protests that they 1417 01:09:53.319 --> 01:09:54.960 don't want them happening, and they'll go to any length 1418 01:09:55.000 --> 01:09:56.800 to do it. They were at the time during the 1419 01:09:56.920 --> 01:09:59.840 masa Amini protests few years ago, they were throwing girls 1420 01:09:59.840 --> 01:10:02.279 off for roofs because the girls were posting on Instagram 1421 01:10:02.720 --> 01:10:04.800 and were at the actual protests. They were shooting girls 1422 01:10:04.840 --> 01:10:06.720 walking home from school that had no part in the 1423 01:10:06.760 --> 01:10:09.760 protest just because they were there. Lots and lots of 1424 01:10:09.800 --> 01:10:12.840 people were killed during this protest with live rounds. And 1425 01:10:12.920 --> 01:10:15.880 at the heart of it was the Internet, because how 1426 01:10:15.920 --> 01:10:19.279 else can you in a country so oppressed and so controlled, 1427 01:10:19.279 --> 01:10:21.840 how else can you communicate that this protest is going 1428 01:10:21.880 --> 01:10:24.560 down right now at this location. And they have to 1429 01:10:24.640 --> 01:10:27.800 use the Internet. And the problem is they can't access Instagram, 1430 01:10:27.920 --> 01:10:29.680 They can't access a lot of social media that we 1431 01:10:29.800 --> 01:10:33.079 can unless you're a regime person. They have special access 1432 01:10:33.159 --> 01:10:35.199 in the network to be able to go onto Instagram 1433 01:10:35.239 --> 01:10:37.960 and post their pictures and things. But that means that 1434 01:10:38.000 --> 01:10:40.399 people have to use all these little tools and software. 1435 01:10:40.439 --> 01:10:41.760 And if you remember, like back in the nineties when 1436 01:10:41.760 --> 01:10:43.319 you were trying to download music, I wasn't doing it 1437 01:10:43.319 --> 01:10:45.199 because it was illegal, of course, but for those who 1438 01:10:45.239 --> 01:10:47.880 were doing it, you sometimes would download a movie or 1439 01:10:48.119 --> 01:10:50.439 a song and it was actually full of viruses, right 1440 01:10:50.920 --> 01:10:53.239 because they have no way of like verifying like what 1441 01:10:53.319 --> 01:10:55.960 am I downloading? Because it's all nothing's official, and in 1442 01:10:56.039 --> 01:10:58.119 Iran it's like that, and the regime puts a lot 1443 01:10:58.159 --> 01:10:59.920 of stuff out there, like, oh, this is the VPN 1444 01:11:00.079 --> 01:11:02.399 that you can use to get outside the country, But 1445 01:11:02.520 --> 01:11:04.880 it turns out it's actually a government controlled BPM that's 1446 01:11:04.880 --> 01:11:08.439 accessing your entire phone. And that's one small example, but 1447 01:11:08.520 --> 01:11:10.880 that's how the entire system is designed, is to have 1448 01:11:11.079 --> 01:11:13.520 total knowledge of what is every person this country doing 1449 01:11:13.800 --> 01:11:15.720 so we can stop them from rebelling against us. 1450 01:11:17.439 --> 01:11:18.119 It's insane. 1451 01:11:18.800 --> 01:11:21.119 And actually, during during the June War, they shut the 1452 01:11:21.279 --> 01:11:24.560 entire Internet off for two days, not because it wasn't 1453 01:11:24.640 --> 01:11:27.359 Israel that did that, it was the Iranian government because 1454 01:11:27.399 --> 01:11:30.399 they recognize how weak they were during that conflict, like 1455 01:11:30.479 --> 01:11:32.039 that was a great moment if the people wanted to 1456 01:11:32.039 --> 01:11:34.239 stand up and take the country over, that was if 1457 01:11:34.279 --> 01:11:36.800 ever it was then. And so the regime noticed that 1458 01:11:36.920 --> 01:11:40.000 and they turned the entire Internet off. Zero Internet that 1459 01:11:40.079 --> 01:11:42.119 you couldn't make, you couldn't call on WhatsApp, you couldn't 1460 01:11:42.119 --> 01:11:44.479 do anything. And that was a very scary time because 1461 01:11:44.479 --> 01:11:47.760 imagine there's bombs falling all around in big cut cities, 1462 01:11:48.359 --> 01:11:50.960 Israeli bombs and US bombs, and you don't know what 1463 01:11:51.000 --> 01:11:52.359 they're going to hit next, because you don't even know. 1464 01:11:52.359 --> 01:11:54.720 They can't even see the news. You don't know if 1465 01:11:54.880 --> 01:11:56.760 this is the start of an invasion, right, I mean, 1466 01:11:56.760 --> 01:11:58.319 you have no idea. So these people are like living 1467 01:11:58.359 --> 01:12:01.560 in complete fear and darkness, and that's what the regime 1468 01:12:01.680 --> 01:12:04.479 wanted them to feel, which is crazy because their own 1469 01:12:04.479 --> 01:12:06.960 country was under attack and they were trying to increase 1470 01:12:07.039 --> 01:12:09.000 the fear of their own people during that time. 1471 01:12:09.479 --> 01:12:12.920 We talked a little bit about sanctions earlier and how 1472 01:12:13.239 --> 01:12:18.199 their wealth continues to shoot up even with the sanctions. 1473 01:12:18.680 --> 01:12:23.399 Can and you know, and and you know, you have 1474 01:12:23.680 --> 01:12:26.920 some great graphs in there detailing like the vineyards and 1475 01:12:27.279 --> 01:12:30.199 the shipping lanes or you know, all the interest, but 1476 01:12:30.319 --> 01:12:34.319 can you kind of talk about how they circumvent these 1477 01:12:34.399 --> 01:12:37.600 sanctions and why they continue gaining more and more wealth. 1478 01:12:38.680 --> 01:12:40.520 There's a couple of different ways. One of the most 1479 01:12:40.840 --> 01:12:43.520 tried and true methods is something called the huala, which 1480 01:12:43.600 --> 01:12:46.560 is an unofficial mechanism for moving money that doesn't actually 1481 01:12:46.600 --> 01:12:49.319 physically move. So basically, I have a ledger and you 1482 01:12:49.439 --> 01:12:51.880 have a ledger, and on my ledger I say minus 1483 01:12:51.920 --> 01:12:53.880 one hundred dollars, and I sent a note to you 1484 01:12:54.000 --> 01:12:56.520 that says hey, on your ledger, right, plus one hundred dollars. 1485 01:12:57.079 --> 01:13:00.960 One hundred dollars never existed. This money is moving theoretically, 1486 01:13:01.279 --> 01:13:04.319 but this is a very common it's illegal system. It's 1487 01:13:04.359 --> 01:13:06.560 not illegal, it's legal in many countries in the world 1488 01:13:07.159 --> 01:13:09.960 because this is how they've traditionally used done bankings for 1489 01:13:10.279 --> 01:13:13.640 several thousand years. The regime relies quite a bit on jualas, 1490 01:13:13.720 --> 01:13:15.760 especially for some of the earlier steps in their money 1491 01:13:15.800 --> 01:13:19.439 movement process. So that because there's no trace from my 1492 01:13:19.560 --> 01:13:21.520 book to your book except from the person who said 1493 01:13:21.560 --> 01:13:23.439 that that money moved. So let's say I want to 1494 01:13:23.439 --> 01:13:25.399 move some money to Dubai, Well, I can do the 1495 01:13:25.479 --> 01:13:29.319 juala to Dubai. Then in Dubai there is money. Well, 1496 01:13:29.359 --> 01:13:30.920 there's a lot of banks in Dubai, and in fact, 1497 01:13:30.960 --> 01:13:34.119 something like a third of the Dubai permanent population are 1498 01:13:34.159 --> 01:13:37.119 actually Iranians. And that's because of the banking system in Dubai, 1499 01:13:37.279 --> 01:13:40.960 which is hugely designed to facilitate money movement, not just 1500 01:13:41.039 --> 01:13:43.119 for Iran but for many countries. That's one of the 1501 01:13:43.199 --> 01:13:45.600 things that Dubai kind of uses a selling point is 1502 01:13:45.640 --> 01:13:47.239 that hey, you can do banking here and we don't 1503 01:13:47.279 --> 01:13:49.359 care what you do. And a lot of the banking 1504 01:13:49.479 --> 01:13:51.560 is based out of those banks there's also a lot 1505 01:13:51.600 --> 01:13:55.079 of banks in Switzerland and banks in South America, and 1506 01:13:55.239 --> 01:13:59.239 in China. There's also a lot of goods for cash 1507 01:13:59.600 --> 01:14:03.159 or good for services activity where for example, if Iran 1508 01:14:03.279 --> 01:14:08.640 brings a cargo boat with millions of barrels of oil 1509 01:14:08.680 --> 01:14:10.600 on it, they can do a ship to ship transfer 1510 01:14:10.680 --> 01:14:12.960 to China, and China does something very similar to the 1511 01:14:13.000 --> 01:14:15.920 whola system where they give them goods in kind for 1512 01:14:16.159 --> 01:14:18.880 that oil, and there's a lot of other ways they 1513 01:14:18.920 --> 01:14:19.479 can do it too. 1514 01:14:21.279 --> 01:14:24.039 Yeah, it was, like I said, you go into great depth. 1515 01:14:26.359 --> 01:14:29.800 So let's talk about you know, and you mentioned Solomoni. 1516 01:14:29.880 --> 01:14:33.319 Let's talk about what Iran got up to after the 1517 01:14:33.439 --> 01:14:38.039 invasion of Iraq. You mentioned that there were thirty one 1518 01:14:38.159 --> 01:14:41.640 transactions between two thousand and four and two thousand and eight, 1519 01:14:42.359 --> 01:14:47.479 and those were large transactions for weapons systems or ied systems. 1520 01:14:47.800 --> 01:14:47.920 You know. 1521 01:14:48.520 --> 01:14:51.319 You know, we saw the the EFPs out there that 1522 01:14:51.399 --> 01:14:55.119 were Iranian generated. Can you go into that a little bit. 1523 01:14:56.079 --> 01:14:57.760 Yeah. So, the kind of the shocking part of that 1524 01:14:58.079 --> 01:15:01.560 is many of those actuators hearts were either made in 1525 01:15:01.600 --> 01:15:03.720 the United States or made in the United Kingdom. So 1526 01:15:03.840 --> 01:15:05.960 like the radios, the Harris radios made in the United Kingdom. 1527 01:15:06.239 --> 01:15:08.600 The actuators were made in the United States, those companies 1528 01:15:08.640 --> 01:15:11.039 had no clue that that's what was happening. But the 1529 01:15:11.119 --> 01:15:14.239 way that the regime does its movement of money and material, 1530 01:15:14.880 --> 01:15:16.880 you're not going to know that you're selling your actuators 1531 01:15:16.920 --> 01:15:18.800 to an Iranian agent, you know. And so what they 1532 01:15:18.800 --> 01:15:20.199 would do is they'd have a guy in the United 1533 01:15:20.239 --> 01:15:22.560 States that would purchase it as a legitimate company, usually 1534 01:15:22.600 --> 01:15:26.199 a cover organization commercial cover, shift that stuff to Dubai 1535 01:15:26.439 --> 01:15:28.159 or to another country. There's a couple of countries that 1536 01:15:28.159 --> 01:15:31.079 I've listed in there, like Malaysia as another example. Then 1537 01:15:31.159 --> 01:15:33.560 move it to another location in that same country, and 1538 01:15:33.640 --> 01:15:35.800 then mark the goods as something else, which is kind 1539 01:15:35.800 --> 01:15:37.680 of tried and true method to do it. Just slap 1540 01:15:37.760 --> 01:15:40.359 a new paper on there that says grain and then 1541 01:15:40.640 --> 01:15:42.560 ship it over to the Straits of Horror Moves or 1542 01:15:42.720 --> 01:15:45.159 to wherever you want to bring it, and then take 1543 01:15:45.199 --> 01:15:46.960 it out of the packages and start making IDs with it. 1544 01:15:47.439 --> 01:15:49.399 It sounds crazy and like super easy, but you have 1545 01:15:49.439 --> 01:15:51.920 to think about these shipping lanes we're talking about are 1546 01:15:52.119 --> 01:15:54.520 some of the busiest places on the planet, especially the 1547 01:15:54.600 --> 01:15:58.000 bab Al mundav Straight, the Persian Gulf, and if you 1548 01:15:58.079 --> 01:16:01.760 go further east in Indonesia the Straights at Malacca. Something 1549 01:16:01.840 --> 01:16:03.720 like sixty percent of the world's goods pass through the 1550 01:16:03.720 --> 01:16:06.479 Straits of Malacca on ships. So there's no way that 1551 01:16:06.520 --> 01:16:08.880 you could stop every ship and look in every cargo container, 1552 01:16:09.560 --> 01:16:11.760 especially if you're paying off people at the ports in 1553 01:16:12.880 --> 01:16:15.439 name your country in Singapore for example, to just not 1554 01:16:15.520 --> 01:16:17.119 even look at what the document says, like they're not 1555 01:16:17.359 --> 01:16:18.840 they don't know what's in the thing. They don't care 1556 01:16:18.880 --> 01:16:20.800 what's in the thing. It's kind of like you know 1557 01:16:20.840 --> 01:16:22.880 the New York Port Authority in the nineteen seventies, right, 1558 01:16:22.920 --> 01:16:24.800 like they don't care what's going over there. They they 1559 01:16:24.920 --> 01:16:26.720 just want the cargo to move and put the money 1560 01:16:26.760 --> 01:16:30.000 in their pocket. Right, It's business, and that's what was 1561 01:16:30.039 --> 01:16:32.880 happening where the regime was clandesseminly moving these Western produced 1562 01:16:32.880 --> 01:16:35.199 pieces of equipment over to the Middle East and then 1563 01:16:35.640 --> 01:16:39.840 killing our own soldiers with these US produced pieces of equipment. 1564 01:16:40.920 --> 01:16:47.239 Yeah, yeah, it's you know, I regards to what people's 1565 01:16:47.279 --> 01:16:50.640 political opinions about Solomony or the effectiveness of the strike, 1566 01:16:51.000 --> 01:16:53.239 I know a lot of veterans saw it as as 1567 01:16:54.199 --> 01:16:59.479 you know, come up and you know, so let's talk 1568 01:16:59.520 --> 01:17:02.479 a little bit about their unconventioned warfare capabilities. You have 1569 01:17:02.640 --> 01:17:05.399 the is it the sabourine, the patient ones. 1570 01:17:05.840 --> 01:17:09.239 Yep, that's kind of the white soft unit. And then 1571 01:17:09.279 --> 01:17:11.760 there's the more black soft type units as well that 1572 01:17:11.840 --> 01:17:12.000 they have. 1573 01:17:13.119 --> 01:17:15.159 And so what are some of the white soft and 1574 01:17:15.239 --> 01:17:18.640 then some of the BLACKSAFT up to these days or 1575 01:17:18.960 --> 01:17:21.079 you know, in the last say fifteen to twenty years. 1576 01:17:21.800 --> 01:17:24.199 It's a really important distinction with Iran's military is that 1577 01:17:24.239 --> 01:17:26.800 they don't have one military they have two. They have 1578 01:17:26.880 --> 01:17:30.920 the Arteesh, which is the like our DoD. Then they 1579 01:17:30.960 --> 01:17:34.279 have the IRGC, which is a completely separate military organization, 1580 01:17:34.319 --> 01:17:37.479 which is larger than the ARTEESH. They're about similar in size, 1581 01:17:37.520 --> 01:17:40.800 but the IRGC is roughly larger. The IRGC's mission is 1582 01:17:40.840 --> 01:17:43.880 to protect the Ayatola and the regime around him. The 1583 01:17:44.039 --> 01:17:46.720 rteche mission is to protect the sovereignty of Iran like 1584 01:17:46.800 --> 01:17:50.039 any other army would be. And a lot of outsiders 1585 01:17:50.039 --> 01:17:52.439 don't understand that distinction. There's a lot of Arteesh people 1586 01:17:52.680 --> 01:17:55.600 that if there was a rebellion right now, they would 1587 01:17:56.039 --> 01:17:57.960 turn their weapons on the regime. They don't want to 1588 01:17:58.000 --> 01:18:00.319 be in this situation. They're just kind of regular people. 1589 01:18:00.560 --> 01:18:03.279 I largely see people are different, right, and that's a 1590 01:18:03.399 --> 01:18:05.840 huge distinction that needs to be made. The Sabaregn you 1591 01:18:05.920 --> 01:18:08.399 mentioned are on the Artes side, and there's a lot 1592 01:18:08.399 --> 01:18:11.760 of Artes whitesft that do the traditional like visit board 1593 01:18:11.800 --> 01:18:14.960 search and seizure of a vessel for example. They'll you know, 1594 01:18:15.079 --> 01:18:19.000 train foreign partners across a border another example. The biggest 1595 01:18:19.039 --> 01:18:21.960 deployment of the Artes though, was in the nineteen eighty 1596 01:18:22.079 --> 01:18:25.720 nineteen eighty eight Iran Iraq War. Since eighty eight, the 1597 01:18:25.880 --> 01:18:28.920 Artes never deployed more than a company size element outside 1598 01:18:28.920 --> 01:18:32.000 of Iraq, which is crazy because you think like those 1599 01:18:32.079 --> 01:18:34.520 units need real experience at least not just with the combat, 1600 01:18:34.560 --> 01:18:37.800 but with like perception staging armored movement integration, like moving 1601 01:18:37.840 --> 01:18:40.239 to another country physically. It takes a lot of practice 1602 01:18:40.239 --> 01:18:42.000 and training. They didn't have that from nineteen eighty eight 1603 01:18:42.399 --> 01:18:45.279 until twenty sixteen. The reason they got that in twenty 1604 01:18:45.399 --> 01:18:48.520 sixteen is because of ISIS in Syria. That was the 1605 01:18:48.600 --> 01:18:51.680 first time the regime deployed Artesh as a military force 1606 01:18:51.800 --> 01:18:54.279 outside of Iran since the Iran Iraq War, which is 1607 01:18:54.359 --> 01:18:56.359 kind of interesting because we had the whole conflict in Iraq. 1608 01:18:56.520 --> 01:18:59.239 The US did. There was many other conflicts between nineteen 1609 01:18:59.239 --> 01:19:02.199 eighty eight in twenty sixteen that could have invited the army. 1610 01:19:02.359 --> 01:19:04.800 They didn't send them, which is just to me, it's 1611 01:19:04.880 --> 01:19:06.520 kind of interesting, like why wouldn't you send your army 1612 01:19:06.560 --> 01:19:09.079 to go do something, but didn't until twenty sixteen, and 1613 01:19:09.119 --> 01:19:13.880 they actually had brigades, entire brigades deployed to Syria. Then 1614 01:19:13.960 --> 01:19:16.920 the iurgyc what they're up to. They focus a lot 1615 01:19:16.960 --> 01:19:20.119 on unconventional warfare. Are in the ring of countries around Iran. 1616 01:19:21.079 --> 01:19:23.960 But the way that they do unconventional warfare rit large. 1617 01:19:23.960 --> 01:19:26.880 They separate it by portfolio or file. So there's like 1618 01:19:26.880 --> 01:19:29.560 an Africa file, there's a South America file, there's a 1619 01:19:30.119 --> 01:19:33.279 Middle East file specifically focused on Afghanistan. There's another file 1620 01:19:33.359 --> 01:19:36.800 spoke specifically on Iraq. There's one for Turkey, there's one 1621 01:19:36.880 --> 01:19:39.239 for the Balkans. Like the Bosnia deployment I mentioned, it 1622 01:19:39.359 --> 01:19:42.239 is part of one element of the KODS force going there. 1623 01:19:42.239 --> 01:19:44.319 It's not the whole CUDS force going, it's a group 1624 01:19:44.359 --> 01:19:45.960 that specializes it, kind of like in the US we 1625 01:19:46.039 --> 01:19:48.920 have Fifth Group of Special Forces. They focus on the 1626 01:19:48.960 --> 01:19:52.159 Middle East. They're not deployed to South America, right, And 1627 01:19:52.239 --> 01:19:54.800 that's the IERGC and CUDS Force has a very similar 1628 01:19:55.039 --> 01:19:57.600 mindset and actually cost some solo Moni was the architect 1629 01:19:57.640 --> 01:19:59.880 of that because before he took over in the late nineties, 1630 01:20:00.840 --> 01:20:02.920 there was only one file and that was the Balkans 1631 01:20:03.359 --> 01:20:05.760 because that was their only deployment. But as the US 1632 01:20:05.840 --> 01:20:08.079 started moving and saber rattling about the Middle East and 1633 01:20:08.119 --> 01:20:10.560 then we invaded nine to eleven, happened like, hey, we 1634 01:20:10.640 --> 01:20:13.319 need to do something around this country and separate it 1635 01:20:13.399 --> 01:20:17.039 by task, organization of specialty. The Afghanistan guys, you guys 1636 01:20:17.079 --> 01:20:19.880 are only going to be Afghanistan. And actually smel Gani, 1637 01:20:20.680 --> 01:20:24.159 the current Coulds Force commander, was an Afghanistan file guy, 1638 01:20:24.359 --> 01:20:27.359 Like he only did Afghanistan his entire career, and then 1639 01:20:27.399 --> 01:20:30.560 when Solimani was killed, Ghani was elevated to that position. 1640 01:20:31.279 --> 01:20:33.359 So he's kind of an interesting example of that that 1641 01:20:33.680 --> 01:20:34.640 file mentality. 1642 01:20:36.399 --> 01:20:42.560 Something that you mentioned in the book that did I 1643 01:20:42.640 --> 01:20:46.479 forgot to mention earlier. I didn't know that Iran almost 1644 01:20:46.680 --> 01:20:47.920 invaded Afghanistan. 1645 01:20:48.520 --> 01:20:52.760 Yeah, forgotten moment of history. Yeah, yeah, that was actually 1646 01:20:52.840 --> 01:20:55.239 Masari Sharif. There were some Iranian diplomats there and a 1647 01:20:55.319 --> 01:20:57.840 journalist and then some other Iranians that weren't affiliated with 1648 01:20:57.840 --> 01:21:01.800 the government, and the Taliban killed them. And this was 1649 01:21:01.840 --> 01:21:03.880 a huge problem inside of Iran because they had just 1650 01:21:03.960 --> 01:21:06.840 come out of the Aaron Iraq War. They were bloodied 1651 01:21:06.880 --> 01:21:09.800 and beaten. Their only deployment overseas in the last decade 1652 01:21:09.800 --> 01:21:12.239 before this happened, which I think was ninety seven, was 1653 01:21:12.359 --> 01:21:14.439 to Bosnia. Like I mentioned, that was a very tiny thing. 1654 01:21:14.800 --> 01:21:16.640 They didn't want to be involved with anything outside of 1655 01:21:16.680 --> 01:21:18.600 the country at the time. They were licking their wounds 1656 01:21:18.640 --> 01:21:20.399 and trying to focus and clamp down the country and 1657 01:21:20.479 --> 01:21:23.119 just like get back to normal. And then this thing 1658 01:21:23.199 --> 01:21:27.359 happens with these diplomats in Masuri Sharif, and there's an 1659 01:21:27.399 --> 01:21:31.079 element of the IRGC that wants to invade Afghanistan. Immediately 1660 01:21:31.560 --> 01:21:33.479 they had a whole brigade ready to go and they 1661 01:21:33.479 --> 01:21:35.600 headed division also getting spun up. They went all the 1662 01:21:35.640 --> 01:21:38.079 way up to the border, and there's this National Security 1663 01:21:38.119 --> 01:21:41.359 Council like element in the Iranian government that includes Ayatola, 1664 01:21:41.359 --> 01:21:42.960 and they kind of were sitting around thinking like, well, 1665 01:21:43.000 --> 01:21:45.279 what happens if we do this, what's next? And the 1666 01:21:45.399 --> 01:21:49.760 reason they did not invade Afghanistan is interesting. It's because 1667 01:21:50.039 --> 01:21:52.640 Ahmed Shah Masud, who was part of the Northern Alliance 1668 01:21:53.199 --> 01:21:56.279 that we were allied with, would be in danger if 1669 01:21:56.319 --> 01:21:59.760 Iran invaded Afghanistan. Well why is that important? Well, because 1670 01:22:00.039 --> 01:22:02.560 Ron was also helping the Northern Alliance because inside the 1671 01:22:02.600 --> 01:22:05.359 Northern Alliance were a lot of Hazara Shia folks who 1672 01:22:05.439 --> 01:22:07.439 were threatened by Taliban and still are threatened by the 1673 01:22:07.479 --> 01:22:12.319 Taliban now, and Iran didn't want to damage that those 1674 01:22:12.399 --> 01:22:14.479 people that they saw as people they wanted to protect, 1675 01:22:15.000 --> 01:22:18.279 and that went into their calculus of why they didn't invade. Again, 1676 01:22:18.279 --> 01:22:20.800 another revisionist history question, like what would have happened if 1677 01:22:20.800 --> 01:22:23.359 they had invaded because this was again like nineteen ninety 1678 01:22:23.359 --> 01:22:25.800 seven ish, we hadn't bombed Camp Feruk yet, which was 1679 01:22:25.880 --> 01:22:28.119 the assamb Bin Laden, one of the training camps, Like 1680 01:22:28.159 --> 01:22:30.800 we hadn't done any of that stuff yet. How different 1681 01:22:30.840 --> 01:22:32.760 would things be if if they had invaded? Wow? What 1682 01:22:33.039 --> 01:22:33.640 a different world? 1683 01:22:34.520 --> 01:22:38.079 Yeah, Yeah, it's fascinating and it's interesting to you where 1684 01:22:38.600 --> 01:22:41.680 you know, you talked about the intelligence quartet, you know, 1685 01:22:42.319 --> 01:22:46.039 sharing intelligence with other countries about Daish, you know, isis 1686 01:22:48.279 --> 01:22:53.800 Daish and and I'm curious. You know, Isis was a 1687 01:22:55.000 --> 01:22:58.920 you know, they were the enemy of everybody, but the 1688 01:22:59.119 --> 01:23:03.079 teams still formed to fight them, you know, separate teams 1689 01:23:03.199 --> 01:23:07.119 still formed. Like this wasn't this global war on Isis. 1690 01:23:07.720 --> 01:23:10.279 You know, it was you know, individual efforts, I take it, 1691 01:23:10.920 --> 01:23:14.560 or not individual, but kind of group efforts. But we 1692 01:23:14.600 --> 01:23:16.600 didn't want to get too chumming with Iran or Russia 1693 01:23:16.640 --> 01:23:18.079 or anybody else. During the year. 1694 01:23:18.119 --> 01:23:20.199 I'll tell you, we were actually doing a strike in 1695 01:23:20.239 --> 01:23:24.239 Iraq and we had the target was soaked for a 1696 01:23:24.319 --> 01:23:26.880 few hours. We had aircraft getting ready to go, like 1697 01:23:26.920 --> 01:23:29.000 we were going to blow this target up. And as 1698 01:23:29.039 --> 01:23:32.640 we're watching it through ISR this team that looks highly 1699 01:23:32.840 --> 01:23:36.159 trained and like clearly a special forces team, not our team. 1700 01:23:36.279 --> 01:23:38.439 And we have the test force, like we know who's here, 1701 01:23:38.520 --> 01:23:41.039 and we see this team coming up out in the 1702 01:23:41.159 --> 01:23:43.600 infrared and we're like, who is that? And we were 1703 01:23:43.640 --> 01:23:45.840 making calls, making calls, trying to figure this out. It 1704 01:23:45.920 --> 01:23:49.159 turns out it was the Germans. Because the Germans didn't 1705 01:23:49.159 --> 01:23:50.880 want to say they were deployed there and they didn't 1706 01:23:50.880 --> 01:23:53.039 want to be part of our coalition, and they were 1707 01:23:53.079 --> 01:23:55.159 doing a raid on a compound and didn't tell anyone, 1708 01:23:55.479 --> 01:23:57.399 or at least didn't tell us, and we were about 1709 01:23:57.399 --> 01:23:59.840 to blow that compound up like minutes, like as they 1710 01:23:59.880 --> 01:24:01.680 were going in there, we would have killed them. And 1711 01:24:01.760 --> 01:24:03.680 it was crazy to me, like how how even on 1712 01:24:03.800 --> 01:24:06.720 the western side we were not fully integrated like you 1713 01:24:06.800 --> 01:24:09.079 were saying like it was, it wasn't a coalition by 1714 01:24:09.159 --> 01:24:09.560 any means. 1715 01:24:09.680 --> 01:24:15.760 Yeah, that's crazy. So, you know, there's so much to 1716 01:24:15.840 --> 01:24:17.479 the book, and I hope I haven't left out any 1717 01:24:17.560 --> 01:24:21.159 Have I left out anything major in our discussion? 1718 01:24:23.039 --> 01:24:25.000 I mean, there's so much stuff about the different countries 1719 01:24:25.039 --> 01:24:27.119 that the IRGC works in, but I don't want to 1720 01:24:27.119 --> 01:24:29.159 spoil it because it's that was one of my favorite 1721 01:24:29.199 --> 01:24:31.439 parts to research because it's so interesting to see, like 1722 01:24:31.600 --> 01:24:33.680 in Yemen for example, like how did they get to 1723 01:24:33.760 --> 01:24:35.880 where they are today? And do the who thies even 1724 01:24:35.960 --> 01:24:38.680 care about Iran which is a big question because I don't. 1725 01:24:38.920 --> 01:24:41.039 I would argue that they don't care as much as 1726 01:24:41.079 --> 01:24:43.920 we think they do. Yeah, same with Hesbola, which I 1727 01:24:43.960 --> 01:24:45.960 also go into a lot of detail about where Hasbola 1728 01:24:46.039 --> 01:24:48.920 came from and how it formed and Iran came in later. 1729 01:24:49.279 --> 01:24:51.640 It wasn't you know, like it's a very interesting kind 1730 01:24:51.640 --> 01:24:53.560 of thing that we just take for granted. And as 1731 01:24:53.600 --> 01:24:55.359 we talked about the beginning of the show, there's a 1732 01:24:55.399 --> 01:24:56.640 lot of these things that we just say, like, oh, 1733 01:24:56.680 --> 01:24:59.159 that's the way it is. We should ask is that 1734 01:24:59.239 --> 01:25:00.680 really how it is? Is that? How would have got 1735 01:25:00.720 --> 01:25:03.199 that way? Because if we're using the wrong information and 1736 01:25:03.239 --> 01:25:05.720 we're making decisions with the wrong information, we're gonna end 1737 01:25:05.760 --> 01:25:08.079 up with really bad results that keep ending with failures 1738 01:25:08.119 --> 01:25:10.279 over and over again because we keep using these biases 1739 01:25:10.319 --> 01:25:11.640 every time we try to make a decision. 1740 01:25:13.000 --> 01:25:15.600 Yeah, no, it's it is. I don't want to say 1741 01:25:15.640 --> 01:25:18.159 it's a dense book because that, you know, makes it 1742 01:25:18.239 --> 01:25:22.319 sound dry. It's not dry. It's just packed with information. 1743 01:25:23.000 --> 01:25:27.439 I mean packed with information. And I said earlier about 1744 01:25:27.479 --> 01:25:31.319 a fifth of this book is references and sources. It 1745 01:25:31.520 --> 01:25:38.800 is exceptionally well I'll show I'll show everybody. So the 1746 01:25:38.920 --> 01:25:43.159 sources start here. If you guys can the sources, can 1747 01:25:43.199 --> 01:25:45.079 you guys see this all right? Start here? 1748 01:25:45.279 --> 01:25:46.560 Like it's massive. 1749 01:25:46.800 --> 01:25:50.079 It's uh. I was shocked by the amount of information 1750 01:25:50.199 --> 01:25:50.560 you had. 1751 01:25:50.520 --> 01:25:51.039 In this book. 1752 01:25:51.600 --> 01:25:53.640 I wanted to write it like an Intel report, where 1753 01:25:54.039 --> 01:25:56.159 if you want to get more info on that thing, 1754 01:25:56.479 --> 01:25:58.239 you can get it instead of like, well how did 1755 01:25:58.279 --> 01:26:00.159 he come to that conclusion? You know, which is on 1756 01:26:00.279 --> 01:26:03.319 Intel report. You don't do that, and Intel report reports 1757 01:26:03.319 --> 01:26:05.319 are facts, they're not opinions. 1758 01:26:06.239 --> 01:26:09.840 Yeah, no, that's fantastic. Well if that's if that's it, 1759 01:26:10.319 --> 01:26:12.279 as long as we haven't left anything out DP. 1760 01:26:13.439 --> 01:26:19.560 So when Israel hit Iran with the that wipe program 1761 01:26:20.279 --> 01:26:24.439 and Iran came across the NSA program that we had there, 1762 01:26:25.279 --> 01:26:28.760 I mean, what's it like when we find out that 1763 01:26:29.039 --> 01:26:33.039 a big important program that we have had there for 1764 01:26:33.159 --> 01:26:36.239 a long time gets exposed. 1765 01:26:36.800 --> 01:26:38.359 I'll tell you what. The guys in the watch floor 1766 01:26:38.439 --> 01:26:42.359 were pissed. So this program is called Flame and it 1767 01:26:42.479 --> 01:26:44.479 was like a multi tool you could call it, where 1768 01:26:44.520 --> 01:26:47.079 it doesn't just do one thing. It's like a launch 1769 01:26:47.159 --> 01:26:50.239 pad two that's clandestimly there that you can put a 1770 01:26:50.279 --> 01:26:51.920 bunch of things inside of and then we'll do a 1771 01:26:52.039 --> 01:26:54.960 ton of different functions. Right, And these different functions can 1772 01:26:55.039 --> 01:26:59.079 do pretty much anything to a system. Offensively, defensively. They 1773 01:26:59.159 --> 01:27:01.760 can manipulate to make things look real that aren't real. Like, 1774 01:27:01.840 --> 01:27:04.640 it's incredible what I could do. If you're talking about 1775 01:27:04.680 --> 01:27:08.119 the bureaucrats, they cared about the dollars because the programs 1776 01:27:08.199 --> 01:27:10.840 like Flame are worth millions of dollars. Like I said, 1777 01:27:10.840 --> 01:27:13.239 they weren't developed by people in the Remote Operation Center, 1778 01:27:13.279 --> 01:27:15.640 which is where this came out of at NSA. These 1779 01:27:15.680 --> 01:27:19.000 were developed by civilian companies that are hired for the 1780 01:27:19.039 --> 01:27:21.279 specific purpose, like I need you to make me this 1781 01:27:21.640 --> 01:27:24.039 thing that can do these things. And then you'll get 1782 01:27:24.079 --> 01:27:25.439 multiple companies that are like, oh, I can do that 1783 01:27:25.560 --> 01:27:26.920 and this other companies like I can do that too. 1784 01:27:27.000 --> 01:27:30.119 Here's better, but I'll charge you three million dollars for that, 1785 01:27:30.880 --> 01:27:33.800 you know, And this is how this game works, right, Well, 1786 01:27:33.840 --> 01:27:36.439 we just dumped a bunch of money in this program, 1787 01:27:36.680 --> 01:27:39.640 and this program is extremely expensive, and now it's gone. 1788 01:27:39.800 --> 01:27:42.319 And the problem is if you take Flame apart and 1789 01:27:42.399 --> 01:27:45.479 see how it's made, you can figure out how we 1790 01:27:45.560 --> 01:27:49.039 might access other things with similar analogous methods, which means 1791 01:27:49.039 --> 01:27:51.119 if we had other stuff like in Russia, for example, 1792 01:27:51.199 --> 01:27:54.119 or in China or North Korea, all those are done too. 1793 01:27:54.600 --> 01:27:58.000 So you're talking about like worldwide ramifications. And this was 1794 01:27:58.039 --> 01:28:00.960 because Israel went in there and wanted to delete data. Again, 1795 01:28:01.199 --> 01:28:04.159 this is this is the conflict between exploit versus neutralized. 1796 01:28:04.880 --> 01:28:08.239 When wanted to exploit. Israel wanted to neutralize, which they 1797 01:28:08.319 --> 01:28:10.880 frequently do. That's their frequent approach is to just destroy 1798 01:28:10.920 --> 01:28:13.399 the thing. How much more value can you get if 1799 01:28:13.479 --> 01:28:16.319 you exploit instead? I mean it's immeasurable. 1800 01:28:18.960 --> 01:28:25.560 Yeah, And it's not as if, you know, the different signals, 1801 01:28:25.600 --> 01:28:30.000 intelligence apparati apparatus are checking in with each other to say, hey, 1802 01:28:30.039 --> 01:28:33.199 we're getting ready to attack these guys. You got anything 1803 01:28:33.279 --> 01:28:35.239 hanging out there that you don't want exposed? 1804 01:28:36.239 --> 01:28:38.960 Yeah, And actually with stucks net, it's unique because there 1805 01:28:38.960 --> 01:28:41.119 were five different countries involved with stucks net that were 1806 01:28:41.159 --> 01:28:43.039 coordinating with each other about it, and they weren't the 1807 01:28:43.079 --> 01:28:45.520 five BY partners, you know, it was it was the 1808 01:28:45.680 --> 01:28:48.680 US was the five I partner in that partnership. And 1809 01:28:49.319 --> 01:28:51.199 it was kind of like an interesting collection of people 1810 01:28:51.279 --> 01:28:55.119 working together on this singular purpose, which was timed to 1811 01:28:55.239 --> 01:28:58.960 happen right before the twenty fifteen nuclear agreement, so that way, 1812 01:28:59.159 --> 01:29:01.119 if the nuclear agreement didn't work out, we had this 1813 01:29:01.239 --> 01:29:04.600 covert operation that would destroy the nuclear program anyway. But 1814 01:29:04.720 --> 01:29:08.439 it was discovered right Typically it doesn't happen like that, 1815 01:29:08.640 --> 01:29:13.920 typic were the other countries, so it was Denmark, Netherlands, Israel, 1816 01:29:14.199 --> 01:29:18.479 United States and Germany, which is interesting because the US 1817 01:29:18.560 --> 01:29:20.199 and Germany were two of the countries that were part 1818 01:29:20.199 --> 01:29:22.439 of the original P five countries that were negotiating with 1819 01:29:22.560 --> 01:29:28.359 Israel on Earth with Iran on the twenty fifteen JCPOA, and. 1820 01:29:28.479 --> 01:29:32.439 Germany has a history of helping Iran at times, training 1821 01:29:32.560 --> 01:29:35.119 them in you know, in different things. 1822 01:29:35.720 --> 01:29:39.720 Yeah, in the early nineties too. Yeah. Actually, all the 1823 01:29:39.960 --> 01:29:43.680 the things that were destroyed, the parts of the centrifuges 1824 01:29:43.720 --> 01:29:48.600 that were exploited by stuck Stent were Semens produced components. 1825 01:29:49.159 --> 01:29:52.239 And how did we know how those Semens components work. Well, 1826 01:29:52.239 --> 01:29:54.399 they're made in Germany, and the German government was able 1827 01:29:54.439 --> 01:29:57.079 to obtain access to all that material, you know. But 1828 01:29:57.159 --> 01:29:59.560 in the nineties they were training them on regular espionage, 1829 01:29:59.600 --> 01:30:02.159 like human espionage, teach them how to use cameras, take 1830 01:30:02.159 --> 01:30:05.960 clandestine photography, do surroualitsy detection routes. Russia was also training 1831 01:30:06.000 --> 01:30:09.199 them too, but Germany actually gifted them a bunch of 1832 01:30:09.239 --> 01:30:13.079 computers and cameras to do espionage and with the knowledge. 1833 01:30:13.079 --> 01:30:15.399 And it's interesting because France also with Germany in this 1834 01:30:15.479 --> 01:30:18.479 time period the early nineties, they knew that Iran was 1835 01:30:18.479 --> 01:30:22.279 going to use this stuff to assassinate Iranians in Europe, right, 1836 01:30:22.800 --> 01:30:26.359 Like Bond Station was being used as a platform for 1837 01:30:26.399 --> 01:30:29.039 assassinations and Paris Station was being used for the same thing. 1838 01:30:29.399 --> 01:30:31.600 But the agreement was as long as you don't kill Frenchmen, 1839 01:30:31.840 --> 01:30:33.960 as long as you don't kill Germans, you can use 1840 01:30:34.000 --> 01:30:35.960 those locations to do that stuff. And here's some cameras 1841 01:30:36.000 --> 01:30:37.000 and computers to help you do it. 1842 01:30:37.079 --> 01:30:42.199 Wow, Wow, Jesus, it's crazy. 1843 01:30:43.319 --> 01:30:45.239 And again that's all in the intel reports, that's not 1844 01:30:45.359 --> 01:30:47.920 in the media. So like that goes to the sourcing 1845 01:30:48.000 --> 01:30:50.039 of like this is stuff people have never seen or 1846 01:30:50.359 --> 01:30:53.159 heard of before probably or like that's not possible. They're 1847 01:30:53.319 --> 01:30:56.279 not friends. Well guess what in the intelligence community, there's 1848 01:30:56.319 --> 01:31:02.119 no friends. There's only interests, right right, Well, Jonathan, is 1849 01:31:02.159 --> 01:31:02.640 a great book. 1850 01:31:02.720 --> 01:31:04.600 We really appreciate you. Thanks for coming back. 1851 01:31:04.920 --> 01:31:09.920 Got to questions actually on questions, Yeah from JJ Can 1852 01:31:10.000 --> 01:31:12.760 mister Hackett share anything about the US funneling arms through 1853 01:31:12.760 --> 01:31:14.840 the Iranians during the Civil war in Bosnia? 1854 01:31:15.560 --> 01:31:17.720 That's super interesting. Actually, there's a whole section in the 1855 01:31:17.720 --> 01:31:20.319 book about that, and some of it is public and 1856 01:31:20.439 --> 01:31:22.439 some of it I have in there from intelligence reports 1857 01:31:23.000 --> 01:31:27.279 and what the Iranians were doing. They were supporting the Bosniacs, 1858 01:31:27.760 --> 01:31:30.960 which Bosniact with a K is the Muslim group that 1859 01:31:31.119 --> 01:31:34.359 was being targeted by still bit On Melosovich and other 1860 01:31:34.720 --> 01:31:37.960 genocidal leaders there and the regime at the time. Remember 1861 01:31:38.039 --> 01:31:40.399 this was like late eighties, early nineties, when the regime 1862 01:31:40.479 --> 01:31:42.479 was trying to help Muslims worldwide, like that was kind 1863 01:31:42.479 --> 01:31:45.399 of their banner, like, let's help these oppressed, that was 1864 01:31:45.520 --> 01:31:47.720 what they were doing. And they saw the Bosniacs as 1865 01:31:47.720 --> 01:31:50.239 oppressed because they were They're being massacred, I mean like it. 1866 01:31:50.520 --> 01:31:53.560 It was horrific, and so the regime went there and 1867 01:31:54.119 --> 01:31:56.960 brought weapons there, trained them. They also taught the intelligence 1868 01:31:57.000 --> 01:32:00.680 service of the Bosniaks how to do intelligence collection. And 1869 01:32:00.760 --> 01:32:04.399 this is where the clash came between US helping Bosnias 1870 01:32:04.479 --> 01:32:06.680 and Iran helping Bosniaks, because there was a group of 1871 01:32:06.720 --> 01:32:08.960 them that we both were helping, and there was a 1872 01:32:09.000 --> 01:32:11.079 group of them that Iran was helping that was harming us. 1873 01:32:11.560 --> 01:32:14.119 And there was actually an ID factory that was discovered 1874 01:32:14.520 --> 01:32:17.119 later on in the war that IF discovered, which is 1875 01:32:17.159 --> 01:32:21.199 the international force there that was IDs to attack IF. 1876 01:32:22.159 --> 01:32:24.159 Which is interesting because at the exact same time we 1877 01:32:24.239 --> 01:32:27.920 were allowing the regime to provide weapons to people in 1878 01:32:28.159 --> 01:32:31.560 Bosnia that were fighting against the Serbs. So there was 1879 01:32:31.640 --> 01:32:35.520 this like overlaying of friend and enemy in the same space. 1880 01:32:35.640 --> 01:32:39.039 Because similar to Isis, where everybody was against the serves 1881 01:32:39.079 --> 01:32:41.680 what they were doing at the time, and some of 1882 01:32:41.720 --> 01:32:43.800 them were against them in different ways, some of those 1883 01:32:43.840 --> 01:32:46.760 ways overlapped. It wasn't clear cut like oh that's my enemy, 1884 01:32:46.840 --> 01:32:49.680 that's my friend. Sometimes it doesn't work like that. Even 1885 01:32:49.720 --> 01:32:51.640 in Iraq, Like again back when I was talking about ISIS. 1886 01:32:51.680 --> 01:32:54.720 When I was there, we actually were careful not to 1887 01:32:54.800 --> 01:32:58.119 strike targets where we knew IRGC people were meeting in 1888 01:32:58.479 --> 01:33:01.439 Iraq because we knew that the sources they were working 1889 01:33:01.520 --> 01:33:04.439 with were fighting against ISIS. So those are kind of 1890 01:33:04.479 --> 01:33:06.920 like off limits places. We never sent them letters or 1891 01:33:06.960 --> 01:33:08.359 anything and told them like, hey, guys, we're not going 1892 01:33:08.439 --> 01:33:09.880 to touch you, but it was like an understood thing, 1893 01:33:09.960 --> 01:33:11.600 like we're going to leave these people alone over here, 1894 01:33:11.880 --> 01:33:13.640 because the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and 1895 01:33:13.800 --> 01:33:16.119 we care more about ISIS right now than we do 1896 01:33:16.279 --> 01:33:18.840 about killing a couple of RGC guys that who knows 1897 01:33:18.880 --> 01:33:19.359 what they're doing. 1898 01:33:19.920 --> 01:33:24.239 We got a couple more from Dunk and Idaho. As 1899 01:33:24.319 --> 01:33:26.199 far as I know, there have been ops on US 1900 01:33:26.279 --> 01:33:29.359 soil sponsored directly by Iran, and there have been proxy 1901 01:33:29.399 --> 01:33:32.760 group ops in a few other Western countries, but there 1902 01:33:33.239 --> 01:33:36.640 haven't been proxy group ops on US soil. Is that correct? 1903 01:33:36.720 --> 01:33:37.039 If so? 1904 01:33:37.319 --> 01:33:41.000 Why so? This is an intelligence thing where we don't 1905 01:33:41.079 --> 01:33:44.279 know the answer completely. And actually the FBI has come 1906 01:33:44.319 --> 01:33:47.600 out with competing reports from their own organization at some 1907 01:33:47.760 --> 01:33:51.000 times saying there's like two thousand Hesibla fighters in America 1908 01:33:51.119 --> 01:33:53.520 ready to go at any time. Other reports coming out 1909 01:33:53.520 --> 01:33:55.279 and saying no, the greatest threat in the United States 1910 01:33:55.439 --> 01:33:58.000 is you know, other groups. I won't get into that. 1911 01:33:58.119 --> 01:34:00.359 But then they say, but the hesible threats not that big, 1912 01:34:00.960 --> 01:34:03.600 or they'll say, well, the connections here are tenuous. They're 1913 01:34:03.600 --> 01:34:06.000 actually like relatives of hesbal of people that Hesbola could 1914 01:34:06.000 --> 01:34:08.640 push a button to, like push on them emotionally and 1915 01:34:08.760 --> 01:34:10.840 force them to do something. There's not a lot of 1916 01:34:10.880 --> 01:34:13.800 consensus about exactly what is going on here. And actually 1917 01:34:13.880 --> 01:34:16.720 I was reading a report recently about in the United 1918 01:34:16.760 --> 01:34:19.960 States Iran and Hesbela, how many of them actually came 1919 01:34:20.000 --> 01:34:24.039 across the border during the Biden administration, which is an 1920 01:34:24.039 --> 01:34:26.479 interesting question. I saw one report that said it was like, 1921 01:34:26.720 --> 01:34:30.039 I don't know, six hundred guys or something. That's a tiny, 1922 01:34:30.119 --> 01:34:32.520 tiny percentage of the total people that came across. How 1923 01:34:32.560 --> 01:34:34.479 do we even know it was six hundred? What were 1924 01:34:34.560 --> 01:34:36.279 they doing? Are they doing money laundering? Are they doing 1925 01:34:36.359 --> 01:34:38.800 drug stuff? Are they actually doing plots? Because a lot 1926 01:34:38.840 --> 01:34:41.399 of times when you look at pre attack planning, it 1927 01:34:41.479 --> 01:34:43.560 looks a lot like other types of attack or other 1928 01:34:43.640 --> 01:34:47.119 types of planning. Surveillance, for example, if you don't know 1929 01:34:47.199 --> 01:34:49.520 why they're doing the surveillance, it could look like pre 1930 01:34:49.640 --> 01:34:52.359 attack surveillance. It could also look like surveillance, so you 1931 01:34:52.399 --> 01:34:54.720 could go do an intelligence activity like a source meeting. 1932 01:34:55.000 --> 01:34:57.640 It could also look like a drug deal, like surveillance 1933 01:34:57.720 --> 01:34:59.760 for to find a location that's good for a drug deal. 1934 01:35:00.239 --> 01:35:02.640 You don't really know until the thing actually happens, unless 1935 01:35:02.720 --> 01:35:05.720 you've got recruitment of someone involved in that network, or 1936 01:35:05.800 --> 01:35:08.000 you've got sigan or something else like that. So that's 1937 01:35:08.079 --> 01:35:10.680 kind of a challenge where like with the FBI, for example, 1938 01:35:11.479 --> 01:35:14.880 how are they without doing source operations or having it's 1939 01:35:15.039 --> 01:35:18.279 very tough to know exactly what is the threat. Like 1940 01:35:18.319 --> 01:35:19.760 we might be able to say, like hey, that guy 1941 01:35:20.000 --> 01:35:23.119 I know he is a member of HESBLA. Okay, what 1942 01:35:23.239 --> 01:35:25.439 else do you know? Well, it's hard to know, you know, 1943 01:35:25.880 --> 01:35:27.800 So it's kind of an ambiguous answer to that. But 1944 01:35:27.880 --> 01:35:29.520 it's important to kind of take it with a measured 1945 01:35:29.560 --> 01:35:32.000 approach of like what exactly is this guy doing? That 1946 01:35:32.079 --> 01:35:33.600 way you can ask the right questions and do the 1947 01:35:33.720 --> 01:35:36.680 right intelligence collection to actually figure it out instead of 1948 01:35:36.760 --> 01:35:39.199 just assuming like, oh, he's a drug dealer. Well, if 1949 01:35:39.239 --> 01:35:40.640 we make the assumption that he's a drug dealer but 1950 01:35:40.680 --> 01:35:43.520 he's actually a bad guy terrorist, we've made a bad assumption. 1951 01:35:44.039 --> 01:35:45.720 Same vice versa. If we say like, oh, he's here 1952 01:35:45.760 --> 01:35:47.720 to do terror attacks and we're ignoring all the drug 1953 01:35:47.800 --> 01:35:50.800 dealing he's doing, that's another problem. Right, So we need 1954 01:35:50.880 --> 01:35:53.600 to come at this question objectively, which I trust that 1955 01:35:53.880 --> 01:35:56.199 counter intelligence FBI kind of intelligence is probably doing it 1956 01:35:56.279 --> 01:35:58.640 really well. It has been doing it really well. But 1957 01:35:58.760 --> 01:36:00.640 it's tough. It's really tough, not just in the United 1958 01:36:00.680 --> 01:36:02.199 States but any country. Even when you have a lot 1959 01:36:02.239 --> 01:36:04.439 more ability to do stuff, it's really hard to figure 1960 01:36:04.479 --> 01:36:06.479 out what is that guy doing because you can't see 1961 01:36:06.479 --> 01:36:07.119 inside their brain. 1962 01:36:07.960 --> 01:36:10.960 One more from v how much or any of the 1963 01:36:11.079 --> 01:36:13.960 operations that they have overseas have been self funded, and 1964 01:36:14.039 --> 01:36:16.640 he wrote IRGC sexy car Watch fundraiser. 1965 01:36:19.399 --> 01:36:20.640 Well, the thing is they have a lot of money. 1966 01:36:21.359 --> 01:36:22.960 They can put a lot of money at it. But 1967 01:36:23.079 --> 01:36:26.600 what they typically do to fund the overseas stuff is 1968 01:36:26.800 --> 01:36:30.079 use money that's not from Iran, so that means drug money, 1969 01:36:30.479 --> 01:36:35.560 black market stuff, other criminal activity financing that generates income 1970 01:36:35.680 --> 01:36:38.680 from those activities. Especially in Europe for example, a lot 1971 01:36:38.720 --> 01:36:42.039 of illegal immigration fund things that they'll help do human 1972 01:36:42.039 --> 01:36:44.199 trafficking and move people and get money from that, or 1973 01:36:44.279 --> 01:36:46.720 they'll move drugs like Captagon out of Syria into the 1974 01:36:46.800 --> 01:36:48.720 Gulf Arab countries and make a ton of money off that. 1975 01:36:49.399 --> 01:36:51.159 A lot of that money is used to finance these 1976 01:36:51.159 --> 01:36:53.479 activities because again it's really tough to move the money 1977 01:36:53.520 --> 01:36:57.119 out of Iran physically, like take dollars out of Iran 1978 01:36:57.199 --> 01:36:58.840 and bring them outside the country. You can do it, 1979 01:36:59.600 --> 01:37:01.560 but you want to do it for what matters, And 1980 01:37:01.600 --> 01:37:04.119 if an attack has a risk of being discovered, you 1981 01:37:04.159 --> 01:37:06.000 don't want to use your dollars for that. You want 1982 01:37:06.039 --> 01:37:08.399 to use your drug money for that, because that's something 1983 01:37:08.439 --> 01:37:09.840 that you can stand to lose. You know. 1984 01:37:12.279 --> 01:37:14.640 I have one more question about something you mentioned before, 1985 01:37:15.039 --> 01:37:18.720 about your career specifically, when you mentioned you were in 1986 01:37:18.880 --> 01:37:21.640 damn neck training, most people think of damn Neck as 1987 01:37:21.760 --> 01:37:25.239 like we're sealed Team six is. Want to just clarify 1988 01:37:25.319 --> 01:37:27.039 a little bit of what that, you know, I don't 1989 01:37:27.039 --> 01:37:28.800 want people to be as so as your shield Team 1990 01:37:28.880 --> 01:37:30.399 six in the comments and stuff. 1991 01:37:30.800 --> 01:37:32.680 It's funny because people are upset that that you're calling 1992 01:37:32.680 --> 01:37:34.479 me an operator the other day, even though that's the 1993 01:37:35.239 --> 01:37:38.600 of my job. But yeah, it was. It was the 1994 01:37:38.680 --> 01:37:41.199 counter intelligence human intelligence course, which is the Marine Corps 1995 01:37:42.680 --> 01:37:47.039 Intelligence Plandestine Intelligence Activity Training pipeline. So we are a 1996 01:37:47.159 --> 01:37:51.039 validated CIA training organization that CIA comes down there every 1997 01:37:51.039 --> 01:37:53.840 six months to valuate our training, and we also issue 1998 01:37:53.840 --> 01:37:56.600 a counter intelligence credential. So it's the only the Marine 1999 01:37:56.640 --> 01:37:58.039 Corps is the only one that does this. The other 2000 01:37:58.439 --> 01:38:01.800 DTY branches do not combine intelligence human intelligence, and they 2001 01:38:01.840 --> 01:38:05.000 also don't train up to Category one intelligence collection, which 2002 01:38:05.000 --> 01:38:09.039 is the highest level of intelligence collection that clandestine intelligence 2003 01:38:09.039 --> 01:38:11.720 collection that exists. So it's kind of we chose that 2004 01:38:11.760 --> 01:38:13.479 place because it's a good place to do it, obviously 2005 01:38:13.520 --> 01:38:16.239 because the base has a lot of you know, got 2006 01:38:16.279 --> 01:38:20.159 a good fence, and we also transform the area around it. 2007 01:38:20.279 --> 01:38:22.880 The Damn Neck area, the Norfolk and Virginia Beach area 2008 01:38:23.000 --> 01:38:26.399 into a training zone where it's it's a foreign country essentially, 2009 01:38:26.680 --> 01:38:28.880 very similar to how the farm does it, and the 2010 01:38:28.920 --> 01:38:30.479 guys have to go out there and operate as if 2011 01:38:30.479 --> 01:38:32.640 they're in a foreign country and do other ops out 2012 01:38:32.720 --> 01:38:34.840 in downtown Norfolk, you know, in the middle of the night, 2013 01:38:35.039 --> 01:38:36.720 which is sometimes more dangerous than doing it in a 2014 01:38:36.760 --> 01:38:37.319 foreign country. 2015 01:38:41.800 --> 01:38:45.680 No more questions from Patreon, All set, All. 2016 01:38:45.640 --> 01:38:49.279 Right, Hey Jonathan, thank you once again. Thanks for you know, 2017 01:38:49.520 --> 01:38:52.319 thanks for the book, thanks for you know, taking the 2018 01:38:52.359 --> 01:38:55.159 time to write that, and thanks for joining us tonight. 2019 01:38:55.399 --> 01:38:56.920 Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm glad to talk about it. 2020 01:38:56.920 --> 01:38:58.319 I think it's super important. 2021 01:38:58.000 --> 01:39:01.520 Topic and ever thank you for joining us and we 2022 01:39:01.600 --> 01:39:02.359 will see you soon. 2023 01:39:04.279 --> 01:39:06.119 Hey, guys, it's Jack. 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