Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreigner than welcome back to going underground. Broadcasting all around the world from the UAE on Israel's National Remembrance Day for the 2023 October 7 attacks by Hamas in retaliation for decades of illegal Israeli brutality, occupation and concentration camps. It would lead to NATO nation armed genocide in Gaza, millions displaced and bombing of countries from the Mediterrane to the Gulf to the Indian Ocean. It coincides with the 20 year anniversary of Julian Assange's WikiLeaks which published thousands of documents on Israel, such as the 2008 leaked cables revealing Israel told US officials in 2008 it would keep Gaza's economy on the brink of collapse. And the 2011 cables revealing the extent of CIA Mossad cooperation with Israel pressuring the US against Iran. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would be rewarded by years of British torture in London as covered on this program. WikiLeaks also published files exposing false flag preparation by the CIA, notably the 2017 Vault 7 files, the largest ever publication of CIA confidential documents. They detailed CIA cyber tools used to hack devices and anti forensic tools designed to insert foreign languages into malware's source code to falsely blame NATO official enemies like Russia, China and Iran. Joining me from Nashville, Tennessee is a former senior operations officer who was at the CIA for almost 20 years. Charles Finfrock is also former senior manager of Tesla's insider threat program and is now founder and CEO of Vigilance, a private intelligence and security firm. Charles, thanks so much for coming on Going Underground. Normally I'd like to ask you about Tesla's what was it, what was the program called?
Sounded far more interesting but the threat program, but the world is such a mess. Obviously I'm not gonna have time to talk to you about Elon Musk's company and everything is moving so fast. With what with the fly Dubai plane in the past few days and the other events in Britain.
What do you make of the British story? I mean obviously it is moving quite fast.
Although now the suspects that were initially thought to have been trying to place a bomb at the US Air Force base in Britain, RAF Fairford, what do you make of the whole story as it's unraveled? Trump of course said we have them under view for a long time just before they were all released on bail.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Yeah, that, that story has been quite interesting to follow the different twists and turns of it.
I was, I was very surprised when they released the five suspects, all British nationals, 23 to 25 when they released them on bail.
I wasn't surprised by the broad strokes of the contours Iran has used unconventional warfare and surrogates to conduct attacks. You know, for years, particularly in Europe.
Iran fired, you know, ballistic missiles at Guam. They have attacked all of the other nations that are supporting the offensive against Iran and they have warned the UK that if, if they continue to support the operations by allowing us basing rights out of, out of the UK that that would be a legitimate military target. So if everything sort of lines up looking like a traditional surrogate based operation.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just looking up the Iran Guam attack that you mentioned because I've not seen any evidence whatsoever of any Iranian attacks on foreign soil. But I have seen the threats subsequent to the February 28th bombardment and killing of their leaders.
Then I saw that and a local press reports were saying these are people, it is related to the war in Iran because the price of diesel has gone up. And these were teenagers or they were 20 year olds, 20 something year olds sealing diesel to sell on the black market.
And that's what they were up to.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. For me there's a lot of ways that you could look at this. I would say 23 to 25 year old men, we would call those military age males would be right in that zone where, you know, of great warfare, where the Iranians have recruited people like that to act as survivors. There were no explosive operations around Europe.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: There were no explosives.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Absolutely. And there's a couple, like I said, there's a couple of loose ends on that. Right. That no explosives, although there was gasoline involved. And what these people actually knew they were doing or who they were doing it on behalf of. I think that's been the most interesting thing of the gray zone operations. Whether it's Russians or Iranians recruiting surrogates online that they've never met, never trained, that may or may not know who they're doing something on behalf of.
So this, this one has a lot of questions. I've got a lot of questions about this one.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: I mean obviously because you were at the CIA for nearly 20 years, I got to ask you whether it has all the hallmarks not of Russian, Iranian and all the rest of it, whether it's actually just a false flag because one of the people called the police himself.
We had so many cases after 9, 11 of Agilent provocateur cases in the United States and in Western Europe.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, it's interesting you mentioned that because there's some aspects of this that remind me of a really successful internal security operation where they've penetrated the cell where they're following the investigation, following the operation very closely, and they stop it before it can become dangerous.
And, you know, the FBI has done this wonderfully several times in the US where they're able to put somebody inside and stop something like this before it even gets close to being active. And so I don't see it as a false flag.
I wouldn't see what the benefit of a false flag there would be.
But this, to me, strikes me as a real operation that had been covered well on both sides of the Atlantic. And now we're trying to get our story straight about explaining how much we knew about it and when and where and why.
And sometimes these things that you've seen, they come off looking very ham handed. Because we've been so involved in the investigations, we don't let it evolve to the point of actually having a working bomb. But again, that's all, you know, just
[00:06:25] Speaker A: like everyone, and they all get released on bail anyway.
You were at the CIA then, as I said, for nearly 20 years. Tell me about all the false flags that happened at the CIA while you were there.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting. We're not really into false flags. You know, false flags that would engender some kind of operation. That's just not something we do. You know, we collect information. Yes, we run counterintelligence operations and we conduct covert action at the direction of the President, but that's generally not.
The goal of our covert action is to influence a foreign audience, you know, certainly not a five eyes.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, obviously, I mean, historically, at last, the CIA has admitted so many false flags.
Clearly. I mean, they. They've admitted the Iranian Operation Ajax. They admitted in 2013 when they overthrew the government of Iran. They.
They still.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: That was.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Yeah, these are historical ones. Cuba, Operation Northwoods, Gulf of Tonkin, of course, Vietnam.
Operation Gladio. They still haven't admitted to the Piazza Fontana or Bologna station bombings, but they have, I think some officers have said they were responsible for bombings across Europe, to blame on left wing groups. And of course, we have Vault 7 software. You were at the CIA in March 2017.
This software that was to hack computers and implicate Russia, China and Iran by putting the source code in different languages to make it look like it was, say, Iranian.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah, so I'm familiar with the Vault 7 disclosures. I mean, that was an insider that stole and leaked that material from us.
And it's normal for any sophisticated cyber actor to work in different languages to help cover the operations you're conducting. So to the extent that it had Chinese language capability or Russian language capability. Trying to pin blame on an operation for them isn't necessarily the goal. The goal is to hide the operation and make it so that it doesn't appear that you know you are behind it, but not necessarily to expose it. I mean, the goal of a cyber operation like that's not to expose it.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: So it wasn't to use it to make people go, look, it's obviously an Iranian terror plot or Iranian hack cyber attack.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: Exactly, yes. Yeah, something along those lines.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: It can be seen both ways, obviously, because that's circumstantial. It can be used the other way. You were there, of course, when the sarin attack in Ghouta in Syria and the chlorine attack in Douma. Seymour Hirsch, friend of the show, exposed that the Syria sarin attack in Ghouta was a CIA operation amidst the time that the CIA was taking weapons from Libya and giving it to Al Qaeda in Syria, 2013.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: I mean, so much to unpack there. Look, Seymour's never met it. Seymour's never met a conspiracy, an unfounded conspiracy that he doesn't love. And every once in a while he's right. Like a broken clock. Right. Every once in a while, twice a day. You're right.
The fact that, or the allegation that the CIA would have conducted a false flag sarin attack in Syria is frankly ridiculous. That we would have transferred weapons that we seized from Libya to Al Qaeda or extremist people in Syria to use against the government as a false flag. It's ridiculous. That would never stand up in any reasonable discussion.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: I mean, you were stationed in the Middle East.
You surely knew the CIA was helping Al Qaeda in Syria.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: We were working with a lot of disparate elements to try to.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: No, is it.
Come on. You were working with Al Qaeda. You were working with Al Qaeda.
Not disparate elements. You must have been working with them.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: And like I said, we were working with a lot of disparate elements there. And obviously our goal wasn't to work with any sworn Al Qaeda members. You know, as you're working with a lot of different organizations, there's going to be some people coming in, but we spent a lot of time screening anybody that we were working with to make sure that they didn't have that extremist affiliation. Now, as you know, the Syrian civil war is exceptionally complicated matter where people were, you know, the, the, the, the, the players that were involved. You know, there were people that were supported and people that weren't supported. And sometimes the support may, may slip between Lines, but certainly not wittingly working with any Al Qaeda members for any objective in Syria or anywhere else for that matter.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: I mean, that doesn't, that doesn't really square, though, with Jake Sullivan writing to Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State, saying Al Qaeda is on our side in Syria.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Well, let's step that back. Right. What was Al Qaeda's goals in Syria or the Islamic extremist goals in Syria were to get rid of Assad. Right. So Jake Sullivan. And again, I don't know the context of that email, but Jake Sullivan saying, look, these guys are on our side, not that we're supporting them, not that we're working with them, but we've got aligned goals.
That would make sense. But I would say to suggest that we were on the side of or working with Al Qaeda is completely different than we have common interests. We've had common interests with people that we have no common interest with at all in the past. That's not unusual.
But that's a far cry from us providing support and direction and guidance and weapons to them.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: I guess it makes it all difficult, doesn't it, to believe when an incident at RAF Fairfield happens or an incident on a flyby fly, Dubai aircraft happens immediately. One thinks, given all of the history, as you say, of working with the USA's enemies, because your enemy's enemy is your friend, people are gonna. People are gonna suspect things.
I mean, were you based mainly in the Middle east, not in the European theater?
[00:12:08] Speaker B: I was based mostly in the Middle east with time in Europe and Southeast Asia.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: I mean, what do you make of all those allegations about CIA involvement in the Maidan in Ukraine, in Kiev, the shots that were coming from the hotel Ukraine?
Obviously these preceded the famous leaked phone call of Victoria Nuland to Jeffrey Pyatt, choosing who is to lead Ukraine and basically a US takeover of that country.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I certainly know from the Russian perspective that they credit us with the Maidan incident and the colored revolutions.
Look, it's long been the US policy to support democracy overseas, but not at the point of taking a peaceful demonstration and firing rounds into a crowd or something like that.
That's not a US government policy. Hell, I'm thinking about going blind with the paperwork. If anyone we were associated with was involved in that kind of activity, not under our direction. The congressional inquiries and the legal steps that we would have to go through, that's just not. It's not. It's not what we do.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: Well, yeah, it's not a democracy at the moment anyway, but. Charles Finfrock, I'LL stop you there. More from the former CIA senior operations officer after this break.
Welcome back to GOING underground. I'm still here with the former CIA senior operations officer Charles Finfrock. Charles, let's get on to the war here in this region by the time this is being broadcast because we don't know how hostilities are going to develop since everything seems very fluid and very dangerous just at the moment. What's your understanding of how destroyed all the US Bases are in this region? I mean we know reports of massive damage of Patriot complexes, radar complexes, F15s, entire bases in the region have been destroyed in GCC countries. What's your understanding of the destruction?
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, citing the comments of the Secretary of the Navy and of centcom, it sounds like it's been pretty significant destruction of our bases in the region.
Now a million years ago I was actually stationed at Naval Support Activity, Manama, Bahrain. And so seeing the missiles hitting I knew, you know, could see where that was and the impact of that.
I certainly think we've suffered quite a bit of damage at our forward deployed bases and not just to the bases but also to the material that was there, to the aircraft that were there, to the weaponry that were there.
There's been some significant damage to our
[00:14:47] Speaker A: forward deployed bases and there's nothing that the Americans can do to hide that presumably. Do you believe that one of the war aims was from Israel's perspective, to get the US Bases out of this region? That's what Tucker Carlson told Donald Trump just a couple of days before the Minab School massacre and the assassination of Khamenei. Was that the Israeli war in to get the US Bases out of the gcc?
[00:15:18] Speaker B: No, I can't imagine that would been. I mean the Israeli war effort was the same as our war effort and that is to deny the Iranians nuclear weapons right to degrade their defenses. Now yes, they struck our bases and our bases have suffered some losses. But if you compare it to the losses that have been suffered by the Iranians, to their navy that's at the bottom of the ocean, to their aircraft that are decimated, to their ballistic missile, to their nuclear program, we've got money and we'll rebuild. You know, we're going to have to reconsider whether we want to put the bases of potential harm. But we're, you know, we're in the process of rebuilding and the Iranians not so much, but they're not.
[00:15:52] Speaker A: No, I don't think there's any rebuilding going on at the moment and I don't know what the countries in the region think about them.
Not so much offering protection but as making their countries targets. Surely. But you just did mention nuclear and I'm sure you've ignoring what Tulsi Gabbard said about Iran not having a nuclear program, but nuclear weapons program.
But if you were advising the Iranians right now, would you be advising them to urgently get nuclear weapons from their partners, North Korea? I mean, the North Koreans can destroy Washington D.C.
or Los Angeles in 30 minutes with a Huang 17. Do you think Iran right now should ultimately should be getting a nuclear weapon?
[00:16:42] Speaker B: You know, if I'm Iran right now, if I'm advising the Iranian leadership, I'm going to ask, I'm going to, I'm going to advise that they book tickets like Bashar Al Assad did and try to get to Russia or try to get somewhere else because it's not going to end. And if they, if they attempted to obtain a nuclear weapon from North Korea, which they wouldn't, that wouldn't make any sense for the North Koreans. I don't know, maybe for the Iranians, but not for the North Koreans.
That would justify everything that we've said and the fact, you know, the Tulsi Gabbard saying that they didn't have an active nuclear weapon. I've said this before and I'll say it again. That's like saying I don't have an active program to build a vehicle, to build a car. I'm working on the brakes, I'm working on the turn signal, I'm working on the bumper. They have no other use.
But I'm not actively building a car. Well, all evidence to the contrary, and you look at it from the Iran perspective, I would also advise the Iranian government. I would say, listen, we are rich in oil resources, in natural gas. The only reason we've been under sanctions and under pressure, in addition to our
[00:17:41] Speaker A: abhorrent human rights, the United States has
[00:17:43] Speaker B: record is our pursuit of the nuclear weapons.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: Have a nuclear, civil nuclear program.
The point is, I mean, you talk about the leadership. We saw the largest funeral in human history for Ali Khan. And there's never been anything like it in the history of humanity. We saw the people on the streets. We saw people that I know have come back from there saying that people who oppose the government now of course, rally around the flag. This is a country of 90 million. The largest car manufacturer in the Middle east, global top 10 steel producer, the biggest iron producer except India. The second largest refining capacity in OPEC, 16% of global gas reserves. The Largest shopping mall in the world. This is, this is Iran. And you're telling that country the leadership should just escape to Russia.
I don't understand how, how that would be the response given they're under the nuclear threat from Israel. Israel has nuclear weapons. How can, how can Iran. I mean, that's why I'm asking you as an advisor to their government, hypothetically.
Surely what they need is mutually assured destruction and some kind of deterrent. Nuclear deterrent.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Well, you know, a couple of things with the facts that you cited, I wouldn't say the Emiratis there, particularly in Dubai, would have a question about the biggest mall in the world.
Having been there myself, it's a beautiful mall. I think they, you know, the petroleum.
Yeah, the petroleum refining capability. I can't imagine it's still, you know, rated where you said it is. You know, now what it was before. But no, what I'm saying is we have an opportunity to be a responsible. This is me as an Iranian. We have the opportunity to be responsible member of the, of the community. You know, you used to say, remember back in the good old days when Iran was a great country where Iran cooperated with the US and with the Israelis against the Soviets. When this was a great.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: You're not talking under the brutal Shah and the brutal death squads of savak.
Anyway, let's not get too historical. I don't think anyone, anyone except, I don't know, a few Iranian exiles in LA would probably think that we talked
[00:19:58] Speaker B: about the greatness of this funeral and how many people were there. I just read an article out of Iran yesterday. I'm a Persian speaker, read an article out of Iran yesterday about the, the Basij and the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRG setting up their bases and their motorbikes to start ready to respond to protests and respond unrest. You know, they've been doing this for the last handful of years, suppressing their own citizenry. And so, you know, I look at it like the Iranian government has had this opportunity.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: I mean, I spoke to journalists who just returned and that's not the case. I used to live there.
I mean, they didn't have the flock cameras that are going up in D.C. arguably. But so, you know, you, you really, you said, be part of the global community. As you know, Iran and the UAE representatives were in Delhi recently to sign the BRICS Delhi declaration together.
One aspect of the war, do you believe, has been that no one cares about US sanctions. US sanctions that have killed 38 million people around the world since between 1971 and 20, 21, 38 million have been killed by US sanctions. And finally, the Iran war means no one cares about them. India is saying we'll import, we'll keep our relations with Iran. And of course, countries are only too happy to do business with Russia.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Yeah, well, look, I would say that, hey, that's great. You've got a choice. Would you rather do business with Iran or the United States?
Previous administrations may have been a little softer on that.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: You know what China is. You know what China.
That's not. That's not the question, is it? That's not what Trump asked Xi Jinping in the White House.
Because China is doing business, lots of business with Iran.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: Yeah, look, again, this is. The countries have this choice, right? They can side with the Iranians or they can side with the Western liberal democracies. That's it. And, you know, we're good either way. We're good either way. You know, the, the crippling economic sanctions on Iran are working because the vast majority of the international community supports our efforts.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: Sanctions never work.
[00:22:01] Speaker B: Supports our efforts. They wreck.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: Name what. I mean, tell me where sanctions worked.
Yeah, well, sanctions, that's the Lancet study. They've killed 38 million. They hurt the poorest, and they don't work. We know sanctions don't work.
What about actually, because Russia is the most sanctioned country in the world at the moment. You were at the CIA when the Nord Stream pipeline was destroyed.
You mentioned Seymour Hersh. Derogatory. He's been on this show.
He came on this show to tell us that his sources had told him that CIA operatives were involved in the destruction of the pipeline supplying Germany. There's, of course, misery this winter in Western Europe. Their economies are collapsing and all those countries sanctioning the sanctions are boomeranging back on them. Russia is now the most powerful, powerful economy in Europe. By bpp. Was the CIA involved in the Nord Stream attack?
[00:23:00] Speaker B: No, I, I don't have any inside knowledge. I actually believe I was out of the CIA at that when that attack happened. But, but again, there's no scenario that I could imagine that the CIA would have a benefit from conducting that, that attack.
Another aspect, it doesn't make any sense to me.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Another aspect of that war is Trump has anyway said we could remove all our soldiers from Europe. He said in Ankara at the NATO summit. What do you think? There are more reports in the past few days about troop withdrawals from Western Europe. Time to bring the boys home.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: You know, for me, President Trump has taken on something that presidents have seen for the last 50 years. And that is NATO is over reliant on us for the security blanket and for defending them against the Soviet Union. We spent all of our money on the military. You know, we spent a tremendous amount of money on that. President Trump is trying to say, Europe, step up. Right.
Contribute to your own defense. We're still going to be there to support you. But we at a certain point have to look to realign our own resources. You know, I mean, you've probably seen we've got a smidgen of a debt issue going on in the US So to the extent that we can be everywhere, all the time, at once with no one else contributing and sharing that burden, I think for me, the chances of us completely withdrawing from Europe are practically zero.
I think that is a effort to get Europe again to increase defense spending and increase their own armaments and to stand on their own two feet against the threat of Russia.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: Will Trump have any. I mean, as you said, many American presidents must have realized this, but the power of different lobbies in Washington militate against it.
Do you think it's a case of more talk from Trump? He too, will be defeated by the same forces in Washington that destroy any strategic positioning time and time again in the United States.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that is one of the challenges of a liberal democracy with the free press that they, you know, they
[00:24:56] Speaker A: can, I'm talking vested interests in Washington that are against it. Yeah, not the, not the people.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: No, I'm saying. Well, look, yeah, but, but look, proof's in the pudding, right? From the time that Trump engaged on this issue, from his first administration until now, not only have almost all of the NATO allies hit their 2% GDP requirement in accordance with the treaty, but they've also upped it to 4%. And so we're seeing Europe rearm. We're seeing it finally invest in its own defense. And so whether he gets all the way there or not, it would be hard to argue that he hasn't moved the ball in the right direction in helping Europe rearm. And the same military industrial complex that wants to support US Adventurism overseas is going to fund and support and equip the Europeans as well as. So whether we've got US Troops that have US Equipment in Europe or we've got European countries and European troops, they're going to need to buy weapons from somewhere. And last time I checked, we're still advanced technology. Yeah.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: But European leaders will continue going. We can only do this for a year or so. And look at their economies. They are, because they've done what Trump wanted them to do, less than what he wanted to do. Their economies are absolutely collapsing. They're having to in Britain, just as a new unelected leader who just said they're scrapping the triple lock on pensions for their old people.
I mean, do you see, does the United States care that the Western Europe is falling apart economically?
[00:26:23] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And this is us trying to encourage innovation. This is us trying to encourage economic development. I think there's a lot of things going on in Europe that were happening in the US as well. We can look at immigration, we can look at a lot of things that are drawing and pulling at that Social Security net, the social net that they have set up in Europe. Europe's going to have to make some hard decisions, as all countries are. In a perfect world, none of us would have to spend money on military intelligence, any of these kind of things. But countries have to balance their priorities and no longer are they going to be able to just rely on us wholeheartedly to take care of their military and defense spending for them. Just very briefly, it's not fair to us.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Just very briefly, how close do you think the Ukraine conflict is going to, is coming close to anything nuclear?
[00:27:09] Speaker B: Oh, I, I don't necessarily see it as nuclear, only because, as you'd mentioned before, mutually assured destruction. Right. Ukraine is not part of NATO. However, if Russia would use nuclear weapons against Ukraine or would use some kind of provocation with nuclear weapons, I hope that never happens. But certainly we've had, you know, what, boy 54, we've, you know, since two powers have had the weapons, we've had a long period of not breaking that particular international taboo.
I don't see that as a big threat. It's not a threat, obviously, but I don't see that as the most existential thing that's happening in Europe right now.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Charles Finfrock, thank you.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: And that's it for the show. Our condolences to all those of you bereaved or affected by Washington's wars of aggression. We'll be back on Saturday with a brand new show. Until then, keep in touch with all our social media, if it's not censored in your country, and head to our channel, going underground TV on rumble.com to watch new and old episodes of Going Underground. See you Saturday.
