Speaker 1: I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a
Speaker 1: CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts
Speaker 1: in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.
Speaker 2: And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East
Speaker 2: and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive
Speaker 2: our adversaries.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories large and small. Could they be true?
Speaker 2: Or are we being manipulated?
Speaker 1: This is mission implausible.
Speaker 3: Hey guys, I wait, have either of you been to Syria?
Speaker 3: Have you spent time in Syria?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Yes, well I've crossed the borrier.
Speaker 1: Put my foot over all right, I have friends who've
Speaker 1: served in Syria for a long time. You know what's
Speaker 1: interesting about Syria When you talk to former agency get
Speaker 1: people about where they've been and where they like. It
Speaker 1: is amazing to me how many people say Syria is
Speaker 1: the favorite place they've been. They like the people the most,
Speaker 1: They liked the culture, the food.
Speaker 3: Like I loved Syria. I spent time in Damascus, time
Speaker 3: in Aleppo, not a ton of time, but a few weeks,
Speaker 3: and all of that. Like the people, the food, like
Speaker 3: the architect.
Speaker 1: Like the torture.
Speaker 3: No, I didn't like that so much. Yeah, and I
Speaker 3: was there long before I was there in two thousand
Speaker 3: and three, two thousand and four, that kind of timeframe,
Speaker 3: so well before the Civil War. So here's a question
Speaker 3: I had, like when suddenly the borders open, like I
Speaker 3: got into Iraq right when the borders opened, I have
Speaker 3: to assume I have a bunch of friends I haven't checked,
Speaker 3: who are like flooding into Syria right now? Are there
Speaker 3: CIA officers, people from other intelligence agencies? Are they just
Speaker 3: flooding into Syrian right now? Is that what happens? Because
Speaker 3: journal let me tell you what's happening right now with journalists,
Speaker 3: every war photographer, radio, war reporter, print reporter. They're calling
Speaker 3: each other, They're texting each other. How are you going in?
Speaker 3: Are you going in from Turkey? Are you going in
Speaker 3: from Lebanon? Are you going up from Jordan? Are you
Speaker 3: you know? Are you going in from the Kurdish areas?
Speaker 3: What roads are good? What hotels are safe?
Speaker 2: Hey?
Speaker 3: I got a guy in Holmes who I trust, you
Speaker 3: can stay with him. And they're all talking this through
Speaker 3: and they're figuring out and where should we go? Is
Speaker 3: there a spokesman like can we find like, who's somebody
Speaker 3: who can tell us what's going on? Oh? Are there
Speaker 3: a different regions? So that a lot of journalists are
Speaker 3: doing that, And generally the way journalists work is it's
Speaker 3: not like the editor of the New York Times and
Speaker 3: the editor. It's like a bunch of on the ground
Speaker 3: field reporters with experience trying to figure this stuff out.
Speaker 3: It's actually really fun, Like I loved figuring out all
Speaker 3: sorts of different routes into Iraq. And so what would
Speaker 3: be happening right now? What's your guests like at CIA?
Speaker 3: Are they sending a bunch of people in find out
Speaker 3: what's going on? Make contact?
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a need to be sending people
Speaker 1: in right away. We're not really reporting in that sense.
Speaker 1: But what will be happening and has been happening all
Speaker 1: along is CIA people who work with our partners in
Speaker 1: Israel and in Jordan and Turkey, and also we'd be
Speaker 1: talking to all the folks there that have knowledge specifically
Speaker 1: of people who should we contact, what do we know
Speaker 1: they're doing. Some of the issues that are going to
Speaker 1: be top of mind are okay, regime had chemical and
Speaker 1: biological facilities are they safe. What if the rebels get
Speaker 1: to them, does that matter who's staying there? Are they
Speaker 1: still secure? You saw it yesterday that the US military
Speaker 1: was hitting Isis areas to make sure Isis didn't flow
Speaker 1: in as part of this process. So it'll be a
Speaker 1: process very quickly. I'm trying to work with everybody who
Speaker 1: has interest in Syria and figure out what's the best
Speaker 1: way so that if we do need to contact very
Speaker 1: quickly someone who's going to be setting up a new
Speaker 1: security system there to talk through some of the key
Speaker 1: issues we're going to have to deal with in terms
Speaker 1: of keeping some facilities secure, or you know, what is
Speaker 1: your plan with the Russian and the Russian bases and
Speaker 1: those type of things. So it's going to be a
Speaker 1: busy time. But it isn't as if people are looking
Speaker 1: to rush across the border.
Speaker 2: No, So the question you've got is wrong, as we're
Speaker 2: not trying to get in to take a snapshot. The
Speaker 2: work to a certain extent has already been done. I've
Speaker 2: got to assume that we already have contacts with most
Speaker 2: of the various gorilla groups or with governments that have contact,
Speaker 2: and it's something that we have worked on for years Weirdly,
Speaker 2: if we have really good assets in Syria, like in
Speaker 2: the ASCID government, they're not really worth anything to us
Speaker 2: anymore because they're not in powers. And if we did
Speaker 2: our job, we should have structures already in place. We
Speaker 2: did in Afghanistan. I mean, we were talking to the
Speaker 2: Northern Alliance already, we were talking to to Dustin, We
Speaker 2: already had those pre existing relationships going in.
Speaker 3: I don't know her personally, but I do know of
Speaker 3: one of Asad's top agents. Although she's gonna be Ndi
Speaker 3: so or Day and I that Director of National tell.
Speaker 1: Us that would have been the perfect joke if you
Speaker 1: bummed that screwed it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, no, he's gonna have you know, a
Speaker 2: sod's gonna go. He's gonna have a condo next to
Speaker 2: Tulsi here in Kaylua.
Speaker 1: I think he's going to be in a high rise
Speaker 1: in Moscow with a big window and a big balcony
Speaker 1: that could be used.
Speaker 2: He may fall out of you.
Speaker 3: I mean, we'll see what happens. But what use is
Speaker 3: he That is interesting. But I have to assume Israel
Speaker 3: must have people all over like the villages Jordan, Turkey.
Speaker 3: They have like proper intelligence, they have.
Speaker 1: Relationships for They had a long time from Lebanon and
Speaker 1: the DRUS because it's their border and they've been paying
Speaker 1: attention to those issues. So there's going to be Those
Speaker 1: are people we're going to work with two figure out
Speaker 1: what are the key things that need to be done here.
Speaker 2: One other thing is we sort of tend to assume
Speaker 2: there's a plan. And my best get guess is the
Speaker 2: way this rolled out and talking to people who know
Speaker 2: a lot more about serious me is even the rebels
Speaker 2: were surprised at how fast. I don't think they know
Speaker 2: what their government's going to look like or what their policy.
Speaker 2: So we can't really collect on something that hasn't been
Speaker 2: decided yet. And we're not in the business of getting
Speaker 2: our crystal ball out and saying this is what's going
Speaker 2: to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, finding the plan when there is none is always
Speaker 1: a tough thing to do.
Speaker 3: And you've talked a lot about how CIA changed tremendously
Speaker 3: in the seventies, Like there was a time where CIA
Speaker 3: played a role in succession in Iran, in Honduras and
Speaker 3: in Guatemala. Do we do that anymore? Like we would?
Speaker 3: There are people we would really want not to take
Speaker 3: power in Syria.
Speaker 1: That would be a policy decision. So if the White
Speaker 1: House NSC sits down and says, okay, we have information
Speaker 1: that don't know there's nuclear weapons being made in Syria,
Speaker 1: the Ranians have been hiding there or something, and there's
Speaker 1: some issues that are of great concern, and we want
Speaker 1: the CIA to actually go in and find a way
Speaker 1: to get those out of there. That would be a
Speaker 1: covert action that the President would sign and brief to
Speaker 1: the Congress and ask the CIA to do so. Or
Speaker 1: they might say, listen, there is a faction there that
Speaker 1: we want to be in charge, and we want you
Speaker 1: to try to go in and work with them and
Speaker 1: help them and pay them. Conceivably, yes, they could ask
Speaker 1: the CIA to do those kind of things. I suspect
Speaker 1: at this point they're just trying to figure out what's
Speaker 1: going on first.
Speaker 3: I will say, having spent a little time as a
Speaker 3: reporter in immediate post crisis countries, literally nobody knows what's
Speaker 3: going on, and everyone who might tell you what's going
Speaker 3: on has a vested interest or so it just figuring out.
Speaker 1: That's why they we do conspiracies, right. Conspiracy is actually
Speaker 1: trying to put a pattern too randomness, right, So I
Speaker 1: can't accept that there's no story here. I need to
Speaker 1: create a narrative. I need to understand what's going on here.
Speaker 1: And essentially that's what we do in these things. Someone
Speaker 1: comes in and the first person who writes an article
Speaker 1: for the New Yorker, for the Russian posts, or here's
Speaker 1: what's happening, and then everybody sort of flows from that.
Speaker 1: It's not probably not clear to the people who were
Speaker 1: involved what's going to be happened.
Speaker 2: What often happens these certainly in the past, places like
Speaker 2: Afghanistan or when the Soviet Union fell, a lot of
Speaker 2: the like the newly independent countries wanted to reach out
Speaker 2: privately to the US and not go through diplomatic channels
Speaker 2: and chieve it as quiet as they could, and they
Speaker 2: often used CIA as a back channel to like, look,
Speaker 2: we want to talk to you, we want to keep
Speaker 2: it quiet, and oftentimes that's what we function as. It's
Speaker 2: just a way to communicate with these people. And then
Speaker 2: it's up to them do they want to put it
Speaker 2: up to the diplomatic level or do they want to
Speaker 2: maintain it, And often they do because they were often
Speaker 2: trusted and we do keep secrets.
Speaker 1: Yea, when the Soviet Union fell. Part it is true
Speaker 1: we did send people in to like knock on the
Speaker 1: doors of some of these security services and heads of
Speaker 1: state in these new countries and just say, okay, with
Speaker 1: the CIA guy, we're here, let's talk what your plan,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do, How can we help
Speaker 1: what kind of diplomatic connection do you want to have
Speaker 1: the United States.
Speaker 2: One thing CIA can do, really but we can do
Speaker 2: it is if we look at a guy who's like
Speaker 2: maybe the new head of the Syrian government, we can say, look,
Speaker 2: we can put your message on the desk of the
Speaker 2: President of the United States within twelve OZ. No one
Speaker 2: else can really do that, and oftentimes they don't want
Speaker 2: to say in public what they're really thinking.
Speaker 3: If I wanted to take over Syria, I think what
Speaker 3: I would do is just to talk about how awesome
Speaker 3: Trump is. I think that would be the smartest thing
Speaker 3: for a rebel leader to do, just to be like,
Speaker 3: that guy's awesome.
Speaker 1: Like the Aid family was in power for fifty four years.
Speaker 3: Like what I'm looking for, That's what I want exactly.
Speaker 2: The rebel group should be ordering golden sneakers and coins, coins,
Speaker 2: their Bible coins, the Bibles with the consenters to them.
Speaker 3: All right, we're going to get right back into that,
Speaker 3: but first let's hear this. All right, I really want
Speaker 3: an update on Havana syndrome because I know that there's
Speaker 3: some news. I don't actually understand what the news is.
Speaker 3: First off, remind us what Havana syndrome is.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, we did two episodes. We did one
Speaker 1: episode with John Lee Anderson from the New Yorker, and
Speaker 1: we did one with Mark Palmer Oppos, who was a
Speaker 1: former colleague of ours at CI who was hit by
Speaker 1: what was called Havana syndrome they're now calling anomalous health incidents.
Speaker 1: In other words, these look to be like beams of
Speaker 1: microwaves or acoustic ultrasound that were aimed at and shot
Speaker 1: at some of our diplomats and intelligence officials overseas, which
Speaker 1: created brain injuries. And the new news is just recently
Speaker 1: the Congress, the House Permanent Select Committee Intelligence put out
Speaker 1: an unclassified report last week that said that increasingly looks
Speaker 1: likely that a foreign adversary is behind these cases that
Speaker 1: we call Havana syndro and that the CIA, which had
Speaker 1: earlier written a report that they made public that said
Speaker 1: they did not think there was an adversary, probably the
Speaker 1: Russians behind this. The new Congression report says that the
Speaker 1: CIA report lacked analytic integrity. Senior staff at the NSC
Speaker 1: are now saying to some of these people who are
Speaker 1: involved with this that the CIA was wrong. You were right.
Speaker 1: It is a state actor. It looks like there is
Speaker 1: new information that suggests that someone is behind it, and
Speaker 1: that the CIA was not only incompetent but exhibited willful
Speaker 1: malfeasans in trying not to take this as serious as
Speaker 1: they should have.
Speaker 3: Why would the CIA do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so our analysts, certainly since WMD in Iraq, had
Speaker 2: been ultra conservative and they're unwilling to make any analytical leaps.
Speaker 2: And I think there are a lot of great people there,
Speaker 2: some of the smartest people I've ever met.
Speaker 1: And of course there's a fear here that if you're
Speaker 1: an analyst and you're going to send a report to
Speaker 1: the White House that says there is a foreign actor
Speaker 1: behind these attacks on American citizens, that's an act of war.
Speaker 1: If I'm going to send that to the White House
Speaker 1: and the White House is going to have to act
Speaker 1: upon that, you know, you're really getting involved in something
Speaker 1: that could create a war between two countries. Like Jerry said,
Speaker 1: there's going to be hesitancy in taking that seriously. So
Speaker 1: inside CIA, my understanding is there's been a friction between
Speaker 1: the operators, the people who live overseas and often suffered
Speaker 1: to these kind of attacks, and the analysts who have
Speaker 1: to put together the report to tell the White House
Speaker 1: that they believe it. So they may be patterns of
Speaker 1: information or something that they thought, but it wasn't enough
Speaker 1: to have strong evidence, and so they've hesitated to send
Speaker 1: it down. And the other piece is there's a concern
Speaker 1: here that if it looks like foreign diplomats and intelligence
Speaker 1: officers are putting themselves in their families at risk, it's
Speaker 1: going to be hard to find people to go out
Speaker 1: and do those things for the CIA. And everybody who's
Speaker 1: been in war zones who's got brain injuries or other
Speaker 1: things are now going to come forward and expect very
Speaker 1: high end health support for this. So if you agree
Speaker 1: that this has been happening, you're going to spend a
Speaker 1: ton of money on health things, and you're going to
Speaker 1: make it really hard for you to deploy people overseas,
Speaker 1: and you're telling the White House that it's an active war.
Speaker 1: Those three things would make any analysts very nervous about
Speaker 1: jumping on board.
Speaker 2: And it's probably important to add that it's not a
Speaker 2: black and white issue. It's probably complicated like who got
Speaker 2: hit under what circumstances, and they look at it all
Speaker 2: sorts of things, and so I suspect there's some there's
Speaker 2: some bureaucratic where people just don't see eye to eye,
Speaker 2: and if you can't come up with a consensus, it's
Speaker 2: hard to write something that is discreet and hard hitting
Speaker 2: and punching like this is it.
Speaker 3: I think it's a conspiracy. Definitely a conspiracy.
Speaker 1: It is a conspiracy. And if it's the CI is
Speaker 1: actually holding back information as.
Speaker 3: A conspiracy, so it actually, hey we got one, Yeah there.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 4: Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry O'shay, John Cipher,
Speaker 4: and Jonathan Stern. The associate producer is Rachel Harner. Mission
Speaker 4: Implausible it's a production of Honorable Mention and Abominable Pictures
Speaker 4: for iHeart Podcasts.