# Former CIA Targeter: Hunting Terrorists After 9/11 | Brittany Butler

An episode of [The Team House](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492797340), 23 May 2026, 1 h 15 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72121527/brittany_butler_cia_targerter_spreaker.mp3

Former CIA targeting officer Brittany Butler joins us to discuss her path from a small town in Georgia to the CIA, where she helped build target packages against extremist networks in Iraq and Afghanistan. She breaks down what targeting officers actually do, the realities of working with detainees and liaison partners, and how the fight evolved from AQI toward ISIS and Taliban senior leadership. Brittany also talks about burnout, leaving the agency to focus on family, her work supporting Afghan women, and how those experiences shaped her spy novels The Syndicate Spy and The Patriot’s Daughter. Grab Brittany's book here: https://a.co/d/0j2KhEeK Today's Sponsors: GhostBed ⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 10% off! Blue Chew ⬇️ https://bluechew.com/ Get 1 month free when you buy 2 of BlueChew Gold with code "HOUSECALL" Quince⬇️ go to: https://www.quince.com/house for free shipping and 365 day returns For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics...JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video -early access to shows -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ PRE ORDER JACK'S NEW BOOK "THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN" ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/803651/the-most-dangerous-man-by-jack-murphy/paperback/ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured __________________________________ Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 — Start / Britney Butler joins The Team House 02:06 — Growing up in Georgia and wanting a life overseas 02:39 — Embassy internship in Paris and first getting noticed by CIA 07:57 — Applying to CIA and going through the recruitment process 10:06 — Lifestyle polygraphs, clearance stress, and “confessing” too much 14:15 — From case officer track to CIA targeting officer 15:09 — The post-9/11 rise of targeting officers 16:16 — Training as a targeter and learning the job under pressure 19:09 — Iraq: building target packages against Sunni extremist networks 21:21 — Sitting across from detainees and calling out their lies 23:48 — Why people joined terrorist groups: coercion, money, and ideology 27:19 — AQI, Iraq, and seeing the threat evolve toward ISIS 28:22 — Moving to Afghanistan-Pakistan and targeting senior leadership 32:46 — Taliban safe haven, Pakistan, and why the war wasn’t going away 37:10 — Kill/capture, recruitment, drone strikes, and how targeting changed 37:46 — Liaison missions and high-threat meetings without U.S. security 41:44 — Marriage, family, and balancing CIA work with home life 45:25 — Burnout, maternity leave, and deciding to leave the agency 48:11 — Afghan women’s rights work and the start of her writing career 52:24 — The Syndicate Spy and writing women into power in the Middle East 55:46 — The Patriot’s Daughter, Russia, disinformation, and civil war fiction 59:16 — CIA tradecraft in fiction and publication review 01:01:00 — Book tour, where to find Britney, and closing questions 01:02:20 — Khost, UBL, fallen CIA officers, and final reflections Become a supporter of this podcast:…

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Hey, guys, I want to tell you tonight about my
[0:03] Speaker 1: new novel, The Most Dangerous Man, coming out June ninth.
[0:07] Speaker 1: I think, like a lot of you, I read in
[0:10] Speaker 1: high school the short story The Greatest Game, which is
[0:14] Speaker 1: almost a century old at this point, but it's the
[0:17] Speaker 1: classic premise of man hunting man for sport. This book
[0:22] Speaker 1: is based off of that a little bit, but also
[0:26] Speaker 1: on stories that I have heard over the years about
[0:29] Speaker 1: Safari guides that have actually taken hunting parties, wealthy people
[0:33] Speaker 1: hunting poachers in West Africa. That idea kind of cooked
[0:38] Speaker 1: off in my mind when I was asked to write
[0:41] Speaker 1: a novel and get back into writing fiction again. And
[0:44] Speaker 1: this book is about a ranger with the Ranger Reconnaissance
[0:47] Speaker 1: Company who's on a mission in West Africa and gets
[0:50] Speaker 1: kidnapped and hunted for sport by a group of wealthy
[0:53] Speaker 1: tech billionaires. I had a lot of fun writ in
[0:56] Speaker 1: this book, and I think you'll have a good time
[0:58] Speaker 1: reading it. It's quick, fast and furious, fast paced action
[1:04] Speaker 1: action novel, and I hope you all check it out.
[1:07] Speaker 1: It's up there. You can find it wherever books are sold,
[1:10] Speaker 1: the hard copy, the hardback, the soft cover, and also
[1:14] Speaker 1: the Kindle e book edition. We'll have some links down
[1:17] Speaker 1: in the description for you. The book comes out June ninth,
[1:21] Speaker 1: and I hope you all let me know what you
[1:23] Speaker 1: think of it. Hey, everyone, welcome to the Team House.
[1:36] Speaker 1: I'm Jack Murphy with today's guest, Brittany Butler. Brittany Butler,
[1:41] Speaker 1: the author of The Patriots' Daughter. Britney served in the
[1:46] Speaker 1: CIA as a targeter, as I recall, yea, and now
[1:50] Speaker 1: she writes spy novels. Yeah, this is your new one.
[1:54] Speaker 1: Is this out now?
[1:54] Speaker 2: This is out now the twenty first of April, so
[1:58] Speaker 2: brand new.
[1:58] Speaker 1: We'll have links down the description to the book and
[2:03] Speaker 1: get it out there, and we'll get to that in
[2:05] Speaker 1: a moment. But I sort of start off this interview.
[2:08] Speaker 1: I'll start asking I asked pretty much everybody. I can
[2:12] Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about kind of like where
[2:13] Speaker 1: you grew up, what your upbringing was like, and how
[2:15] Speaker 1: that sort of took you towards governmental service.
[2:19] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[2:19] Speaker 3: So I grew up in Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia, a little
[2:22] Speaker 3: small town called Snellville, And honestly, like I never had
[2:27] Speaker 3: a plan to go into the CIA or anything like that.
[2:29] Speaker 3: I thought I wanted to be a Foreign Service officer,
[2:31] Speaker 3: just purely because I wanted to travel. And so I
[2:35] Speaker 3: did an internship my junior year of college at the
[2:39] Speaker 3: American Embassy in Paris, cool and the consult section. And
[2:42] Speaker 3: I think that's kind of what got CIA interested in me,
[2:45] Speaker 3: the fact that I had that experience. I studied international
[2:49] Speaker 3: affairs at Florida State University and had some knowledge of
[2:52] Speaker 3: Arabic naming conventions, and so when I was working at
[2:56] Speaker 3: the consulate section at the Embassy in Paris, I was
[3:00] Speaker 3: able to pinpoint a guy that was trying to get
[3:02] Speaker 3: into the United States that really shouldn't be.
[3:04] Speaker 2: And my bosses.
[3:06] Speaker 3: At the time, I didn't notice that they were undercover
[3:08] Speaker 3: CIA officers, and they suggested to me, Hey, have you
[3:12] Speaker 3: ever thought about like applying to the CIA? And so
[3:16] Speaker 3: I did and just applied online and I was recruited
[3:20] Speaker 3: to be a case officer originally, but after going through
[3:24] Speaker 3: the interview process, I realized I probably wasn't ready to
[3:27] Speaker 3: go overseas.
[3:28] Speaker 2: For the first ten years of my career, I was
[3:30] Speaker 2: a little bit hesitant about that.
[3:32] Speaker 3: But the idea of like supporting operations, being operational, but
[3:36] Speaker 3: kind of doing it in a TDY fashion was more
[3:38] Speaker 3: appealing to me.
[3:39] Speaker 2: So that's why when the targeting officer wrote.
[3:42] Speaker 1: So, it's like you always had kind of a focus abroad,
[3:48] Speaker 1: that you saw yourself doing something internationally.
[3:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Yeah.
[3:53] Speaker 3: I mean I just being from a small town in Georgia,
[3:56] Speaker 3: I like no one really went anywhere or did anything.
[3:58] Speaker 3: It was like the same group with people that like
[4:01] Speaker 3: went to high school together, went to college together, they
[4:03] Speaker 3: all married each other, and like, nothing wold you further
[4:05] Speaker 3: from like what I wanted, And so I was like,
[4:08] Speaker 3: I gotta get the hell out of here. And so
[4:10] Speaker 3: I was like where can I How could I travel
[4:13] Speaker 3: for a living? And my two career paths that I
[4:15] Speaker 3: was thinking like okay, if I can't be a Foreign
[4:17] Speaker 3: Service officer, I'll be a flight attendant and so I
[4:22] Speaker 3: you know, thankfully the CIA worked out so I didn't
[4:25] Speaker 3: have to go either of those routes. But yeah, I
[4:27] Speaker 3: always wanted to do something internationally, and like I had
[4:30] Speaker 3: a I loved foreign languages. I spoke French and studied
[4:34] Speaker 3: French while in college, and so it was easier for
[4:37] Speaker 3: me to pick up other foreign languages because I knew
[4:39] Speaker 3: that one already. And yeah, and I also got really
[4:43] Speaker 3: fascinated with Islam and understanding Islam.
[4:46] Speaker 2: And you know, I went to college right after nine.
[4:48] Speaker 3: To eleven, and so it you know, once nine eleven happened,
[4:52] Speaker 3: it was like, you know, this big surge in counter
[4:54] Speaker 3: terrorism and everybody needed to know more about Islam and
[4:57] Speaker 3: how that impacted the like Islamic jihad movement. And so
[5:03] Speaker 3: I started studying that pretty intensely and at school, and
[5:06] Speaker 3: so that like aligned perfectly with what the CIA was
[5:09] Speaker 3: looking for at.
[5:10] Speaker 1: That time, right, right, So you should start taking some Arabic?
[5:14] Speaker 2: Yeah I did. I did.
[5:16] Speaker 3: I don't know about you your experience, but like, having
[5:20] Speaker 3: like worked in that field, I would say, even if
[5:22] Speaker 3: you do know Arabic, you probably should always rely on
[5:25] Speaker 3: your translator because there are cultural things that you're just.
[5:29] Speaker 2: Not going to pick up on even if you're fluent
[5:31] Speaker 2: in Arabic.
[5:32] Speaker 3: So while I could kind of get by, I never
[5:35] Speaker 3: I never just like relied on myself for like the Arabic.
[5:39] Speaker 3: I was always working with my translator that was local.
[5:44] Speaker 1: D That light is flickering? Is that it's obnoxious as hell?
[5:49] Speaker 1: But I mean is it coming up on? Okay, I'll
[5:53] Speaker 1: try I'll try to. No, No, you're you're good.
[5:56] Speaker 2: Okay, good.
[5:56] Speaker 1: I'm just like I have it right there.
[5:58] Speaker 2: Like yeah, I'm like okay, cool.
[6:03] Speaker 1: Uh so what was I going to ask? Uh? Okay,
[6:07] Speaker 1: So you're doing the internship at the embassy in Paris,
[6:11] Speaker 1: and like how did this internship kind of like I
[6:14] Speaker 1: guess you were like vetting green card or you know,
[6:18] Speaker 1: visa applications.
[6:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, just doing like traces on their names and
[6:25] Speaker 3: at the time, like people didn't really know about like
[6:27] Speaker 3: Arabic names, the fact that they use Kunya's like Abu
[6:31] Speaker 3: Mohammad al Baghdaddy for example, right that Abu met father
[6:36] Speaker 3: of was to get a visa. No it wasn't him,
[6:41] Speaker 3: but they just weren't. They weren't using their true names
[6:44] Speaker 3: when they were applying for these things, and so given
[6:47] Speaker 3: and I knew that, like that was just something that
[6:50] Speaker 3: I think drew the attention of these CIA officers. There's like, dude,
[6:54] Speaker 3: like this is something that we really need right now
[6:57] Speaker 3: as someone who like understands this and interested in this
[7:00] Speaker 3: and studying this.
[7:01] Speaker 2: So that's kind of got my foot in the door.
[7:06] Speaker 1: And yeah, so you found out I guess through that
[7:10] Speaker 1: experience that in an embassy there are uh CIA officers
[7:15] Speaker 1: obviously there, but they have an official cover that they're
[7:18] Speaker 1: there is, you know, the consulars secretary or whatever the
[7:21] Speaker 1: hell it is.
[7:21] Speaker 3: Yeah, like a foreign service officer, right right, Yeah.
[7:26] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[7:26] Speaker 1: Marty Peterson was sent to Moscow I think as a
[7:29] Speaker 1: secretary really in the nineteen she was like one of
[7:32] Speaker 1: the first. She was the first female case officer sent
[7:35] Speaker 1: to Moscow. Oh wow, yeah, yeah, she has her husband
[7:40] Speaker 1: was a paramilitary guy killed in Vietnam. I'm sorry and
[7:44] Speaker 1: laws actually anyway, Yeah, that's like that's another episode with
[7:49] Speaker 1: with Marty. Yeah, we talk about that another time. So
[7:56] Speaker 1: now you want to apply for the agency after that's
[7:59] Speaker 1: kind of been brought up to you. What was the
[8:02] Speaker 1: application process like?
[8:04] Speaker 2: Horrible? Yeah, I mean it's just like really invasive.
[8:08] Speaker 3: You know, you know, the application itself is pretty simple online,
[8:12] Speaker 3: or it was at that time.
[8:14] Speaker 2: It was like you filled out.
[8:15] Speaker 3: Some questions and you submitted your transcripts from college, and
[8:21] Speaker 3: I think that you had like some referrals and stuff
[8:24] Speaker 3: like that, but you didn't have to fill out the
[8:25] Speaker 3: security paperwork initially. So that that's when I was like,
[8:31] Speaker 3: when I went through the security Clarence process, I was like,
[8:34] Speaker 3: holy shit, this is a lot.
[8:36] Speaker 2: What am I getting into?
[8:39] Speaker 3: So?
[8:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, so I filled out the application.
[8:41] Speaker 3: They called me, I don't know, maybe like a couple
[8:44] Speaker 3: months later, I don't remember exactly, and they did like
[8:47] Speaker 3: an initial screening of like what my knowledge was of
[8:49] Speaker 3: foreign affairs, like can you describe the Israeli Palstadian conflict?
[8:53] Speaker 3: Can you draw you know, show it to me on
[8:55] Speaker 3: a map, like just a general knowledge of international relations.
[9:00] Speaker 2: And then the second interview was in person.
[9:03] Speaker 3: It's like I met somebody at a hotel and he
[9:07] Speaker 3: came up to me speaking French, to like test my
[9:10] Speaker 3: knowledge of speaking.
[9:12] Speaker 1: You have to knock shave and a haircut on the door.
[9:14] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah, so I did that, past that,
[9:20] Speaker 3: and then the next thing was what I actually met
[9:23] Speaker 3: with case officers, so like seasoned case officers that had
[9:26] Speaker 3: been doing it for years, and went through a couple
[9:29] Speaker 3: like scenarios with them in terms of they gave me
[9:32] Speaker 3: like cover story.
[9:33] Speaker 2: The interview process interesting, yeah, yeah.
[9:36] Speaker 3: To see like what how well I did like under
[9:40] Speaker 3: pressure and doing those things.
[9:42] Speaker 5: Uh.
[9:42] Speaker 3: And then came the contingent offer based on my getting
[9:47] Speaker 3: through the clearance process, so that I don't know, y'all
[9:51] Speaker 3: do polygraphs, right, like y'all in.
[9:53] Speaker 2: Your middle brain bright.
[9:54] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[9:55] Speaker 1: Not no, not unless you're on some special project. And
[9:59] Speaker 1: we the military normally doesn't do lifestyle pollies either.
[10:03] Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, that's a special kind of torture. Yeah yeah.
[10:08] Speaker 3: So yeah, I went through like the lifestyle Polly. So
[10:12] Speaker 3: that was an interesting process because I'm I'm a Catholic
[10:15] Speaker 3: and I kind of I treated.
[10:18] Speaker 2: It like it was confessional.
[10:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, and they definitely asked, Either're like, are you Catholic
[10:22] Speaker 3: by chance?
[10:23] Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, yeah, I am. How'd you know that?
[10:25] Speaker 3: And he was like, well, you're like confessing everything and
[10:29] Speaker 3: all I need to know is if you're a spy.
[10:31] Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, j yeah, just like stop it.
[10:36] Speaker 3: Stop telling us every little thing you ever did wrongs.
[10:39] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah exactly.
[10:41] Speaker 3: So yeah, so that and they, you know, they screwed
[10:44] Speaker 3: with me during that process, like they manipulated me a
[10:47] Speaker 3: little bit, and that there was like this one question
[10:51] Speaker 3: about I was in a wordy in college and I
[10:53] Speaker 3: drank and partied and everything, but I just never did drugs,
[10:56] Speaker 3: Like it just wasn't my thing. My brother, on the
[10:59] Speaker 3: other hand, was like really into pot, like huge pot head,
[11:02] Speaker 3: and one day I was like studying for a final
[11:05] Speaker 3: and I was just like so stressed about it. And
[11:07] Speaker 3: we went to college together and he came over to
[11:09] Speaker 3: like I don't know, say HWI or whatever, and he
[11:12] Speaker 3: was like, you need to chill the fuck out, and
[11:15] Speaker 3: he blew the pot smoke like in my face. And
[11:19] Speaker 3: so during the polygraph, I'm like thinking about that. I'm like, wait,
[11:23] Speaker 3: did I do drugs? I don't know, Like he blew
[11:25] Speaker 3: it in my face and like, I don't know, did
[11:27] Speaker 3: I inhale?
[11:28] Speaker 2: I don't remember? And they're like, you did drugs. We
[11:33] Speaker 2: know you did drugs.
[11:33] Speaker 3: You got to come clean about this is just like
[11:35] Speaker 3: eight hours into the polygraph, and I was like, oh
[11:38] Speaker 3: my god, just get me out of this room, get
[11:39] Speaker 3: me unhooked from all these things.
[11:41] Speaker 2: And they said, you know you're not telling the truth
[11:44] Speaker 2: about this. You know you're not.
[11:46] Speaker 3: We're going to walk out of the room and make
[11:47] Speaker 3: you really think about this. Think about what you're giving
[11:50] Speaker 3: up in terms of a career at the CIA.
[11:52] Speaker 2: If you don't come clean about the drugs.
[11:53] Speaker 1: It's like shaming a little kid, Like think about what
[11:55] Speaker 1: you've done.
[11:56] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[11:56] Speaker 3: Yeah, And at the time I was like, wait a second,
[12:01] Speaker 3: do I why and say I did it and then
[12:04] Speaker 3: I could get the job. And I'm like no, no, no,
[12:06] Speaker 3: that's what they want me to do, Like that's the
[12:08] Speaker 3: opposite of wanting to do here. So they came back
[12:10] Speaker 3: in the room and they're like, are you ready to
[12:12] Speaker 3: come clean? And I was like, I seriously never did drugs.
[12:16] Speaker 3: I have that one time my brother threw the you know,
[12:18] Speaker 3: blew the pot smoke in my face.
[12:20] Speaker 2: That's it. That's all I got for you.
[12:21] Speaker 3: And they're like, oh, sorry, like you didn't get your Clarence,
[12:25] Speaker 3: like you you know.
[12:27] Speaker 2: You failed.
[12:28] Speaker 3: And I walked out of there and I'm like, you know, upset,
[12:32] Speaker 3: you know, I've been through all of this process and
[12:34] Speaker 3: I'm like, oh my gosh, I failed it the end.
[12:36] Speaker 3: Two weeks later, I get a letter in the mail
[12:38] Speaker 3: saying congratulations, you have your Clarence.
[12:40] Speaker 1: It's like some Willy Wonka type shit, isn't it.
[12:43] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[12:43] Speaker 1: We're like, congratulations, Charlie, you passed the test. Yeah, you
[12:47] Speaker 1: gave me back the Everlasting gob Stopper.
[12:49] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
[12:50] Speaker 3: I was like like, really, you had to mess with
[12:52] Speaker 3: me thus much to get the Clarence. So I went
[12:56] Speaker 3: through a couple more of those, you know, throughout my
[12:57] Speaker 3: career at the CIA. Just give them the programs I
[12:59] Speaker 3: was working and they were a little less painful, but
[13:04] Speaker 3: just never anything I look forward to.
[13:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I've I mean we can we don't
[13:10] Speaker 1: have to belabor this. We move on to the next thing.
[13:12] Speaker 5: But yeah, sure.
[13:19] Speaker 3: Up, yeah, do my hair over here. Okay better, Okay, sorry,
[13:28] Speaker 3: but I.
[13:28] Speaker 1: Mean to opine a little bit. I think the polygraph
[13:32] Speaker 1: is nonsense. I don't think they should even give it
[13:33] Speaker 1: to people. Yeah, it's junk science. And there I was
[13:38] Speaker 1: having this conversation with someone the other day. Uh, there
[13:43] Speaker 1: are like some lecherous polygraphers out there that, like you said,
[13:47] Speaker 1: get very invasive with young women that come into that process.
[13:52] Speaker 3: They do I think they could take advantage sometimes of
[13:55] Speaker 3: like or like maybe a power trip or something. And
[13:58] Speaker 3: I'm like, like, they just like to see you sweat.
[14:01] Speaker 3: And these are the same guys who go out and
[14:04] Speaker 3: do it with our like sources.
[14:06] Speaker 2: Right, So they're interviewing terrorists and.
[14:09] Speaker 3: Then they come back and interview me and I'm like, ah, yeah,
[14:13] Speaker 3: this is not the same thing.
[14:14] Speaker 1: You gotta chill out, so you suffer through the polygraph
[14:20] Speaker 1: and now you're hired as a case officer. Yeah, and
[14:25] Speaker 1: now the next stop is the forum.
[14:27] Speaker 3: Yes, but I had some discussions with some very senior
[14:30] Speaker 3: case officers and they were, like, I expressed to them,
[14:35] Speaker 3: I had some reservations about going overseas for the first
[14:38] Speaker 3: ten years of my career. I grew up as like
[14:41] Speaker 3: a little southern girl and I wanted to get married
[14:43] Speaker 3: and have babies, and so I was like I and
[14:47] Speaker 3: I told them this like an idiot, and they're like, yeah,
[14:52] Speaker 3: maybe the case officer route isn't the right route.
[14:55] Speaker 1: Well, usually gave you some good advice on yeah, yeah.
[14:58] Speaker 3: They did, they did, and so yeah, the targeting officer
[15:03] Speaker 3: route was definitely the better fit for me, like personality wise.
[15:07] Speaker 3: And about what two thousand and six.
[15:10] Speaker 1: Two thousand and so this is when the is this
[15:13] Speaker 1: about the time that the agency is like drastically increasing
[15:16] Speaker 1: the number of targeters that they have.
[15:18] Speaker 3: I think that happened actually a little bit earlier, but yeah,
[15:22] Speaker 3: right around the time, like we surge in Iraq and
[15:24] Speaker 3: they're like they need this new position. They didn't have
[15:27] Speaker 3: targeting officers up until after nine to eleven, so.
[15:30] Speaker 2: It's a relatively new position.
[15:32] Speaker 3: So they were trying to like figure out what it
[15:34] Speaker 3: was and you know what the responsibilities were. Initially when
[15:38] Speaker 3: I was in Iraq Division, it was solely focused on
[15:42] Speaker 3: like the high value targets and we were developing the
[15:45] Speaker 3: targeting packages to send out to the field to nab
[15:48] Speaker 3: those guys. Then it kind of morphed more into this
[15:50] Speaker 3: like targeting for recruitment operations and then it was targeting
[15:55] Speaker 3: packages for that, right, like mapping out this is this
[15:57] Speaker 3: guy's you know, vulnerabilities, this is access, this is his background,
[16:02] Speaker 3: this is how you contact you know.
[16:03] Speaker 2: All the things.
[16:04] Speaker 1: You're essentially like developing leeds for the case.
[16:06] Speaker 3: Officer, yes, yes, or the paramilitary officer or the drone program.
[16:13] Speaker 1: Right, you know, so depending on what you want to do.
[16:15] Speaker 2: With yeah, exactly.
[16:18] Speaker 1: So tell us about the training that you go through
[16:20] Speaker 1: to become a targeting officer.
[16:22] Speaker 3: Yeah, So when I joined, it was relatively minimal. It's
[16:26] Speaker 3: changed now you now actually go to the farm and
[16:29] Speaker 3: you have like specific training courses.
[16:32] Speaker 2: They really just had us work like with.
[16:36] Speaker 3: A more senior targeting officer when I joined. So we
[16:39] Speaker 3: were at at that time, I think we were really
[16:41] Speaker 3: stretched in terms of we felt this need to do
[16:44] Speaker 3: all this work and to support the war in Iraq.
[16:47] Speaker 3: We were also in Afghanistan, we had you know, the
[16:50] Speaker 3: troops everywhere, you had special activities everywhere, so there was
[16:55] Speaker 3: this need to support those operations and do it fast
[16:59] Speaker 3: and do it effective. So they just had me train
[17:02] Speaker 3: under a senior targeting officer, so.
[17:05] Speaker 1: Like an apprenticeship.
[17:06] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[17:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, So he like kind of pulled me aside, and
[17:09] Speaker 3: he hadn't been doing it for that long.
[17:11] Speaker 2: I think it was like a year and a half
[17:12] Speaker 2: or something, and he.
[17:13] Speaker 3: Was like like just you know, gave me the ins
[17:17] Speaker 3: and outs about how we targeted people at that time.
[17:21] Speaker 3: And I just worked really hard and I you know,
[17:24] Speaker 3: there's there's a process when you send your operational lead out.
[17:28] Speaker 3: We have cables, right, it's like how we communicate with
[17:30] Speaker 3: the field, and there are like reviewers for those cables.
[17:36] Speaker 3: So it went through a process with like senior more
[17:39] Speaker 3: senior officers would review my work and push it back
[17:42] Speaker 3: to me and say you got to change this. And
[17:46] Speaker 3: but I did like training on like the applications that
[17:49] Speaker 3: we use for targeting. So you know, we've got different
[17:52] Speaker 3: gadgets and applications, computer programs that help us to target
[17:56] Speaker 3: people and that I received train on those, and then
[18:01] Speaker 3: of course before I went out to the field. I
[18:04] Speaker 3: got weapons qualifications, the operational security courses that we provide,
[18:10] Speaker 3: so but those were, like, you know, a couple of
[18:11] Speaker 3: weeks at a time. It wasn't like this long stint
[18:14] Speaker 3: where I went to the farm. But I believe that's
[18:17] Speaker 3: changed since I've laft.
[18:18] Speaker 1: There's some thought that they, I mean, you're going to
[18:21] Speaker 1: get deployed to a dicey area. But is there some
[18:24] Speaker 1: thought that targeting officers are actually going to kind of
[18:26] Speaker 1: end up in the phrase somewhere?
[18:29] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[18:29] Speaker 3: I think at that time, Yes, I think the charting
[18:33] Speaker 3: officer positions worked out so well for the agency that
[18:36] Speaker 3: they they're starting to put them in different places. It
[18:39] Speaker 3: used to be really just a counter terrorism type of position,
[18:43] Speaker 3: but now I think they're applying that to Russia, House, China, wherever.
[18:50] Speaker 3: But yeah, no, I think, I mean, I think it's
[18:53] Speaker 3: a good position.
[18:54] Speaker 1: I did it.
[18:55] Speaker 2: I mean, I really felt like the work was really
[18:57] Speaker 2: worthwhile for sure.
[18:59] Speaker 1: So for you it was OJT just on the job training. Yeah,
[19:04] Speaker 1: and where was your first stop after the training process?
[19:10] Speaker 2: A rock.
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[23:35] Speaker 1: at that time?
[23:37] Speaker 5: Uh so?
[23:38] Speaker 2: I was.
[23:39] Speaker 5: I was.
[23:40] Speaker 3: I can't say specifics obviously about like who we were
[23:43] Speaker 3: going after anything, but I was there to support operations
[23:46] Speaker 3: after a Sunny extremist group and I sent out an
[23:50] Speaker 3: operational lead that led to the roll up of a
[23:53] Speaker 3: lot of their senior commanders, and so I was asked
[23:56] Speaker 3: to go overseas and help to debrief them to get
[23:58] Speaker 3: to the next level of senior commanders. And I was
[24:02] Speaker 3: doing that a lot through working with our liaison partners
[24:06] Speaker 3: in the field, and so yeah, that was they really
[24:11] Speaker 3: threw me into the fire.
[24:12] Speaker 1: They're like, yeah, yeah, I mean Iraq was pretty hot
[24:15] Speaker 1: at that time.
[24:15] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
[24:17] Speaker 1: And so when I mean, I know there's probably some
[24:21] Speaker 1: restrictions on what you're allowed to say here, but how
[24:24] Speaker 1: did you go about rolling up that first batch of
[24:27] Speaker 1: you know, that leadership element in Iraq target packages?
[24:31] Speaker 3: You just like in terms of I personally did not
[24:34] Speaker 3: roll them up, right, of course, So I can't say
[24:37] Speaker 3: how that was that was. I mean, I've learned how
[24:39] Speaker 3: they do it, but I can't speak from experience or anything.
[24:43] Speaker 3: But it's a matter of bringing together the intelligence picture
[24:48] Speaker 3: on an individual or like a leadership structure and saying, Okay,
[24:54] Speaker 3: these tools that I'm using are leading me to believe
[24:58] Speaker 3: that he's utilizing these phones, these email dresses.
[25:02] Speaker 2: That's what it was all about. Back then.
[25:03] Speaker 3: It was like we were targeting mostly from a second perspective,
[25:07] Speaker 3: and so it was like if you got the phone number,
[25:10] Speaker 3: and you've got the MZ and you've got the stuff.
[25:12] Speaker 3: And you know, they caught on to us, right, and
[25:15] Speaker 3: so they started changing MZ's and started changing phones, you know,
[25:18] Speaker 3: the way they were communicating and stuff. But we caught
[25:21] Speaker 3: onto it too, and so we would just develop better
[25:24] Speaker 3: ways of kind of going after them. But yeah, it
[25:27] Speaker 3: was a matter of sifting through lots of intelligence reports,
[25:30] Speaker 3: sifting through databases where we housed a lot of like
[25:34] Speaker 3: the classified information about terrorists and how they communicate, and
[25:38] Speaker 3: then pulling that all together into something that was actionable
[25:42] Speaker 3: for the field. And so that's how we got those
[25:46] Speaker 3: senior guys.
[25:47] Speaker 1: And then they send you to be present for the interrogations. Yeah,
[25:51] Speaker 1: what was it like when you actually got like face
[25:53] Speaker 1: to face with these guys.
[25:56] Speaker 2: I mean they were like, who the fuck are you?
[25:58] Speaker 2: What are you doing here?
[25:59] Speaker 3: Like it took some work, you know, on the males
[26:03] Speaker 3: I was working with. Before I even came into the room,
[26:05] Speaker 3: they were like, listen, this is the expert from Washington.
[26:08] Speaker 2: Don't fuck around with.
[26:09] Speaker 3: Her, like we're right here, like and they had never
[26:13] Speaker 3: seen a woman with like light hair and light eyes
[26:16] Speaker 3: and they're just like, what is happening? So it took
[26:19] Speaker 3: some work, you know, and like so whenever I was
[26:23] Speaker 3: calling them out on their bullshit, because I as a
[26:26] Speaker 3: targeting officer, I was also the subject matter expert on
[26:28] Speaker 3: the terrorist group, right, so I knew who they knew
[26:32] Speaker 3: and I knew when they were bull shitting up. I
[26:34] Speaker 3: don't know, Yeah, I don't know that guy, don't like,
[26:37] Speaker 3: you know, push the picture over. I'm like, yeah, you do,
[26:40] Speaker 3: you know? So yeah, I mean that that was challenging.
[26:46] Speaker 2: That was challenging. But I worked with some guys that were.
[26:49] Speaker 3: Like, you know, particularly working with liaison, like they're like
[26:54] Speaker 3: those the detainees knew they better behave you know.
[26:58] Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And I can't imagine which liaison you're thinking of.
[27:01] Speaker 1: And I I actually was held by the political police
[27:06] Speaker 1: at one point, whoat trip.
[27:11] Speaker 2: Outside the Hook Okay, okay, wow, a.
[27:16] Speaker 1: Little little uh adventure there. It's just there's just.
[27:20] Speaker 2: A night, you know, oh my god, freak out.
[27:24] Speaker 1: They they had alleged that I was in Syria illegally.
[27:27] Speaker 1: There's no proof, that was never proven, but they were alleging.
[27:31] Speaker 1: So yeah, I think I know the people you're talking about.
[27:34] Speaker 1: And yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't screw with them.
[27:36] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[27:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, Like hold on a second, we're going to take
[27:40] Speaker 3: him somewhere. We're gonna turn off the TV, and then
[27:42] Speaker 3: we're gonna come back.
[27:43] Speaker 1: Yeah. Beyond that, I mean, it's kind of like a
[27:48] Speaker 1: unique experience, I think, to go from being like, you know,
[27:52] Speaker 1: a kid first that's studying the wider world to being
[27:56] Speaker 1: trained as a targeting officer and now you're in the
[27:58] Speaker 1: room actually sitting with these deed Like, hey, bro, what
[28:03] Speaker 1: was sort of your takeaway about like who these people
[28:05] Speaker 1: were and why they had become terrorists?
[28:10] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[28:10] Speaker 3: I think it was like different for each individual. I
[28:13] Speaker 3: mean some some had some stories that you actually like
[28:16] Speaker 3: could relate to, like where it was like they were
[28:19] Speaker 3: held at gunpoint and they were told they were going
[28:21] Speaker 3: to like their kids were going to die if they
[28:24] Speaker 3: didn't join up with this sunny extremist group and so
[28:27] Speaker 3: like in a way, you kind of start to feel
[28:29] Speaker 3: for that, right and you're like, well, gosh, if like
[28:31] Speaker 3: my kid's life is you know, compromise, then I could
[28:36] Speaker 3: see this, you know.
[28:37] Speaker 2: And so.
[28:39] Speaker 3: And then you work with the guys that are we
[28:42] Speaker 3: don't work with them. They they you can't convince them
[28:45] Speaker 3: to work with us. But the hardcore extremists that truly
[28:48] Speaker 3: are true believers, and I didn't, you know, I didn't
[28:53] Speaker 3: work with a lot of those because they don't have
[28:55] Speaker 3: any interest in working with the US government. I helped
[28:59] Speaker 3: with a recruitment operation in a rock that was extremely
[29:03] Speaker 3: successful in taking out like a big chunk.
[29:06] Speaker 2: With the leadership. And he was.
[29:11] Speaker 3: Just looking for a better life for his family, you know.
[29:14] Speaker 3: And I could see that he you know, he didn't
[29:20] Speaker 3: want to do the extremist thing anymore. And he never
[29:23] Speaker 3: really was like radicalized, right. I think he was doing
[29:25] Speaker 3: it for money, and and so it was relatively easy
[29:29] Speaker 3: to get him to like work with us to roll
[29:32] Speaker 3: up these guys.
[29:33] Speaker 2: So it just depends.
[29:36] Speaker 3: It really depended upon who we were meeting with and
[29:40] Speaker 3: what the circumstances were and what we were trying to
[29:42] Speaker 3: achieve with them.
[29:44] Speaker 1: I remember one of the stories I heard was about
[29:47] Speaker 1: this was an Afghanistan. It was a young girl. She
[29:50] Speaker 1: eloped with her boyfriend. So they disappear and take off.
[29:54] Speaker 1: They'ren hiding basically a terrorist group went to the brother
[29:59] Speaker 1: of the sister. He said, we're holding her. It will
[30:01] Speaker 1: kill her if you don't start doing terror operations, you know, bombings,
[30:05] Speaker 1: and so on. Right, and so you see like people
[30:07] Speaker 1: are like press ganged, you know, blackmailed into it at times,
[30:11] Speaker 1: but then there are hardcores, you know, the hobbyists and
[30:14] Speaker 1: so on or into that stuff. Yeah, and so did
[30:19] Speaker 1: that series of interrogations kind of lead you, like the
[30:22] Speaker 1: next rung up the ladder as far as going after
[30:24] Speaker 1: that network.
[30:26] Speaker 3: Yeah, in combination with other things, you know, like you're
[30:29] Speaker 3: building out a picture what the next tier looks like.
[30:32] Speaker 3: So it's like you get a little bit from the
[30:34] Speaker 3: detainee and then you get a little bit with your source,
[30:37] Speaker 3: and then you intercept the comms and then you've got
[30:40] Speaker 3: a better picture and you know, a more solid picture.
[30:44] Speaker 3: And you know, anytime we send out an operational lead,
[30:46] Speaker 3: like you need to make sure that everything's been corroborated
[30:49] Speaker 3: and stuff like, I don't want to just send our
[30:52] Speaker 3: operators out on like one bogus detainee saying something.
[30:56] Speaker 5: You know, was it.
[30:57] Speaker 1: Mostly the agencies guys? Or was it the military and
[31:00] Speaker 1: these dudes up?
[31:01] Speaker 2: Mainly it was mainly the task force, gotcha?
[31:03] Speaker 1: Yeah?
[31:03] Speaker 3: In I RACK, the Special Activities Division that I worked with,
[31:08] Speaker 3: they mostly did like kind of reconnaissance support. I mean
[31:11] Speaker 3: they could go out in the raids, and they would
[31:13] Speaker 3: a lot of times, but they were out, they were
[31:16] Speaker 3: running the sources too. They were you know, train case officers,
[31:19] Speaker 3: so they were doing the reconnaissance bit, but it was
[31:23] Speaker 3: really the action element. The task force us back up
[31:26] Speaker 3: guys that were rolling up the guys.
[31:29] Speaker 1: And it sounds like, uh, the agency kind of kept
[31:33] Speaker 1: you going back and forth to that same station, that
[31:36] Speaker 1: same area roughly in a couple of yeah as before
[31:43] Speaker 1: we move on to the next one. I mean, what
[31:45] Speaker 1: was sort of your impression about how these operations degraded
[31:50] Speaker 1: the you know, I'll use the term since we used
[31:53] Speaker 1: it in the press. We all used it Aqi al
[31:56] Speaker 1: Cada in Iraq. By the time you get two two
[32:00] Speaker 1: thousand and nine or so, AQI was kind of defeated.
[32:07] Speaker 1: And I mean, I imagine you must have got to
[32:09] Speaker 1: see some of that.
[32:10] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I did. And Israel Sun and andral Islam
[32:15] Speaker 3: was another group. There were a lot of other groups.
[32:17] Speaker 3: Are group kind of popping up places, and we definitely
[32:22] Speaker 3: grappled with what what is this developing into?
[32:26] Speaker 2: Is this developing into?
[32:27] Speaker 3: Isis you know, we were starting to see some of
[32:30] Speaker 3: the indicators that it was developing into something even more lethal.
[32:34] Speaker 3: And that was kind of discouraging as a targeting officer
[32:37] Speaker 3: because you're like, well, we just took out all the
[32:39] Speaker 3: leadership and now these other bad guys are popping up
[32:44] Speaker 3: and so that. But then it became like two thousand
[32:46] Speaker 3: and nine, it was like, why aren't we focus more
[32:48] Speaker 3: on Afghanistan? That's where the okay to senior leadership is,
[32:53] Speaker 3: or Pakistan. And so that's why I went over to
[32:58] Speaker 3: Afghanistan Pakistan vision was because I kind of like I
[33:03] Speaker 3: felt like things were kind of slowing down in a
[33:06] Speaker 3: Rock and I wanted to be like very much part
[33:09] Speaker 3: of the fight still. And at that time, Afghanistan Pakstand
[33:14] Speaker 3: division and the CIA's kind of tears and division was
[33:17] Speaker 3: actually a really like hard position to get. They only
[33:21] Speaker 3: took like the best targeting officers. And so I had
[33:26] Speaker 3: enough success in a Rock that I could apply, like
[33:29] Speaker 3: basically I had to apply, and I had been reviewed
[33:32] Speaker 3: and yeah, yeah, and so I was moved over to
[33:35] Speaker 3: that target set and I was there, let's see two
[33:40] Speaker 3: thousand and.
[33:44] Speaker 2: Twenty eleven through twenty fourteen.
[33:47] Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so I guess you were hitting it right again. Yeah,
[33:50] Speaker 1: And how did the Afghaanistan differ from Iraq as far
[33:54] Speaker 1: as being a targeting officer.
[33:57] Speaker 3: It was like set up as kind of boring bureaucracy
[33:59] Speaker 3: st but it was set up really differently in terms
[34:03] Speaker 3: of like the targeting element and the operational element. So
[34:07] Speaker 3: I was in a unique position because they made me
[34:09] Speaker 3: like kind of in charge of operations for the sources,
[34:13] Speaker 3: like operationalizing our intel from the sources and positioning them
[34:20] Speaker 3: in such a way to report on EQSL. There was
[34:24] Speaker 3: also like an entire targeting shop of officers, like a
[34:27] Speaker 3: big targeting unit that were focused from a different perspective.
[34:31] Speaker 3: They were focused on the target itself, so like using
[34:35] Speaker 3: other means to go after that target other than the sources.
[34:38] Speaker 1: Interesting.
[34:39] Speaker 3: But then I was also like kind of the intermediary
[34:43] Speaker 3: between the two and that I had to marry up
[34:45] Speaker 3: what the sources were doing with what the targets were doing.
[34:48] Speaker 3: So and there was a little bit like of infighting
[34:51] Speaker 3: and like weird.
[34:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, but.
[34:55] Speaker 3: I had a lot of success on one of the
[34:58] Speaker 3: operations I did in Iraq, and so that's why they
[35:00] Speaker 3: put me in this kind of tough position to do this.
[35:05] Speaker 3: And yeah, so the targeting was very different in the
[35:11] Speaker 3: sense that I was working a lot more with Special
[35:14] Speaker 3: Activities Division than I ever did in Iraq Division. Iraq,
[35:18] Speaker 3: it was like more like funneling to like the task force,
[35:21] Speaker 3: the military, and then in Afghanistan and Pakistan was more
[35:25] Speaker 3: like working with.
[35:29] Speaker 2: Working with SAD on what they had on the.
[35:32] Speaker 1: Ground and they had their Afghans and everything.
[35:34] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, marrying things up with what we're trying to
[35:37] Speaker 3: do there.
[35:38] Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine they could do a lot more. And
[35:40] Speaker 1: I mean Afghanistan is also like such a different country
[35:43] Speaker 1: where Iraq was more urban cosmopolitan by comparison to Afghanistan
[35:48] Speaker 1: rural and mountainous.
[35:50] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[35:50] Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're dealing with like kind of like almost
[35:53] Speaker 3: like farmers or country folk.
[35:55] Speaker 2: I don't know, it was just like a totally different vibe.
[35:59] Speaker 1: Was it harder to find people because of that? The
[36:01] Speaker 1: people that you were looking for?
[36:05] Speaker 2: No, Because.
[36:08] Speaker 3: We had developed so much in terms of our capabilities,
[36:13] Speaker 3: like not only our technology but our methodology of going
[36:16] Speaker 3: after these guys. We Iraq was kind of the training
[36:19] Speaker 3: ground and then we applied lessons learned to the target
[36:24] Speaker 3: in Afghanistan Pakistan. So you had a lot of like
[36:28] Speaker 3: targeters that worked Iraq and is like and then moved
[36:31] Speaker 3: back over. So initially, obviously everything was focused Afghanistan. After
[36:34] Speaker 3: nine to eleven, then we got involved in a Rock
[36:37] Speaker 3: and every the surge went over there and every everything
[36:42] Speaker 3: got kind of effed up over there in a Rock,
[36:44] Speaker 3: and then everybody searched back over to Afghanistan. So but
[36:49] Speaker 3: with that we brought some lessons that we learned about
[36:53] Speaker 3: going after these guys and what worked and what did it?
[36:57] Speaker 1: Are you allowed to say what worked and what didn't?
[37:01] Speaker 3: Not really because I might get more into like technology
[37:04] Speaker 3: and sources and methods.
[37:06] Speaker 1: Yeah, So how did Afghanistan kind of like from your perspective,
[37:14] Speaker 1: how did that conflict sort of shape over the four
[37:16] Speaker 1: years that you were in and out?
[37:21] Speaker 3: I think it became more and more parent, but sadly
[37:25] Speaker 3: the Taliban wasn't going anywhere. Yeah, and I was really focused.
[37:31] Speaker 3: Part of my job was really focused on Taliban senior leadership,
[37:34] Speaker 3: and so I had a really good understanding of what
[37:36] Speaker 3: was happening with them and how they were not we
[37:43] Speaker 3: weren't we weren't going to be able to like get
[37:46] Speaker 3: rid of them entirely. There were these negotiations going on
[37:49] Speaker 3: that were all in Doha that it was all like
[37:52] Speaker 3: really hush hush, but everybody kind of knew it was happening.
[37:55] Speaker 3: And it was weird because like the counter Terear the
[37:59] Speaker 3: chief Characterrorism at the time.
[38:03] Speaker 2: I don't know if he's out, he's been outed yet,
[38:06] Speaker 2: but he wasn't.
[38:08] Speaker 1: He was.
[38:09] Speaker 3: They did a really good job in zero dark thirty
[38:13] Speaker 3: with like his character and that that was the character
[38:16] Speaker 3: that I worked under.
[38:17] Speaker 2: And he was really hard, very hard on his officers.
[38:21] Speaker 2: The chief characters are you know I'm.
[38:22] Speaker 3: Talking about yeah, And I don't know if I can
[38:24] Speaker 3: say his name. I mean I know his name, but
[38:27] Speaker 3: he was really tough on everything.
[38:29] Speaker 1: He was a dude who was like the first one
[38:31] Speaker 1: in work every morning and knew everything about his office.
[38:34] Speaker 2: He converted to Islam. He was a chainsmoker.
[38:37] Speaker 3: He always und smoking, and he like when you had
[38:40] Speaker 3: to brief him, it was like you better know your
[38:42] Speaker 3: ship backwards and forwards. And I had to brief him
[38:45] Speaker 3: quite a bit. And I remember I had a brief
[38:48] Speaker 3: him on a reconnaissance mission and he was like.
[38:52] Speaker 2: Have you ever done reconnaissance?
[38:53] Speaker 1: Do you even know?
[38:54] Speaker 3: Like and I was like, well, I'm telling you, I'm
[38:58] Speaker 3: reporting what the what the operation are telling me.
[39:01] Speaker 2: That's that's what I'm here to do I'm not here
[39:03] Speaker 2: to like run a recon mission. Yeah, like that's not
[39:05] Speaker 2: my job. I'm target So yeah, it ended up going fine.
[39:10] Speaker 3: But yeah it was but he he got He's the
[39:14] Speaker 3: one who was like, I think this is like two
[39:17] Speaker 3: thousand and fourteen fifteen when he was like, you know
[39:21] Speaker 3: what really needed to go.
[39:22] Speaker 2: After Taliban senior leadership. We really need to think about
[39:24] Speaker 2: doing that.
[39:25] Speaker 1: I was going to ask you because for a long time,
[39:28] Speaker 1: the CIA, as I recall, as I know in Afghanistan,
[39:31] Speaker 1: was really focused on foreign fighters AQ back and more
[39:35] Speaker 1: so than the Taliban. And then that started to shift.
[39:39] Speaker 3: At what point, I would say, fourteen fifteen, Okay, this
[39:44] Speaker 3: is good, the Chief Carterism kind of got into his head,
[39:46] Speaker 3: you know, we really should be going after childban senior leadership.
[39:50] Speaker 1: And I remember during I mean this was in the
[39:52] Speaker 1: press that during the first Trump administration there was like
[39:56] Speaker 1: an official like some sort of actual policy change where
[40:00] Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, I mean it was reported anyway in
[40:03] Speaker 1: the media. Okay, maybe they were just reporting what had
[40:05] Speaker 1: already happened a year previously.
[40:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe, I don't know.
[40:08] Speaker 3: I got out in twenty fourteen, so like I've been
[40:11] Speaker 3: out there you long got you.
[40:12] Speaker 2: Yeah, so Trump is way out.
[40:15] Speaker 1: Not way after. But so what your impression again, I mean,
[40:22] Speaker 1: of the of the Taliban that they weren't going anywhere,
[40:25] Speaker 1: was that because they were just like such a solidified
[40:27] Speaker 1: part of the culture. They embedded themselves so deeply. I mean,
[40:31] Speaker 1: why did you think that we weren't going to be
[40:34] Speaker 1: able to defeat them completely?
[40:36] Speaker 3: Well, they got a lot of help from the Pakistanis,
[40:38] Speaker 3: Pakistani intelligence, right, so they kind of hid in Pakistan and.
[40:45] Speaker 2: We're funded too by the Pakistanis.
[40:48] Speaker 3: So it was really frustrating for us because like we
[40:50] Speaker 3: obviously couldn't go into Pakistan and nab them. I mean
[40:54] Speaker 3: we did, like we did do a couple of things,
[40:55] Speaker 3: you know, but like it, they went over there and
[40:59] Speaker 3: then they just came back, so they got safe haven
[41:02] Speaker 3: over there in Pakistan.
[41:03] Speaker 2: And then came back to Afghanistan.
[41:09] Speaker 4: Sorry, okay, I should stop.
[41:24] Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you, okay, all right.
[41:33] Speaker 1: And this was sort of a combination of targeting, Like
[41:37] Speaker 1: targeting can be a number of different things, as you explained,
[41:40] Speaker 1: like sometimes going after recruitment, sometimes kill capture missions, and
[41:43] Speaker 1: sometimes just drone strikes.
[41:45] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean, and I did all of it.
[41:50] Speaker 3: And the ability to do all of it, I think
[41:53] Speaker 3: was something that helped to hone your skills in going
[41:59] Speaker 3: after the target set and knowing what worked and what
[42:01] Speaker 3: didn't work, and sometimes we were trying all different things
[42:05] Speaker 3: in order to meet our objective.
[42:08] Speaker 1: Did you get sent anywhere else during your time there?
[42:11] Speaker 1: Where where else? Did you go some other Middle Eastern
[42:14] Speaker 1: vaguely speaking? Yeah, Mesopotamia?
[42:16] Speaker 4: Yeah?
[42:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, over there, over.
[42:18] Speaker 1: There, liaison with different partners, yeah.
[42:22] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
[42:22] Speaker 3: And I would say like those were probably the more
[42:24] Speaker 3: challenging missions because, like you know, in Afghanistan rock like
[42:28] Speaker 3: you have, I had the military all around me, so
[42:30] Speaker 3: I felt relatively secure even though we had grs, you know,
[42:35] Speaker 3: going with us onto places. But I didn't have GRS
[42:38] Speaker 3: in the Middle Eastern countries that they sent me to,
[42:41] Speaker 3: and so I had to really trust liaison that they
[42:44] Speaker 3: were like going to work with that they were working
[42:46] Speaker 3: with me, and that they were being truthful about things.
[42:49] Speaker 3: And so I would say that was probably more nerve
[42:52] Speaker 3: wracking for me because and also like the meetings I
[42:54] Speaker 3: would have with sources, they were terrorists, right, and I'd
[42:58] Speaker 3: show up to those meetings and I wouldn't know, is
[43:01] Speaker 3: this guy going to come with like a bombs drop.
[43:03] Speaker 2: To his chair.
[43:04] Speaker 1: Now you're actually going out into the field like a
[43:06] Speaker 1: case officer would meeting a guy in the suit or
[43:09] Speaker 1: whatever the case.
[43:10] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I was always with a case
[43:11] Speaker 3: officer and a translator, and like the translator was usually
[43:16] Speaker 3: like foreign ladies on and because that, the operational lead
[43:19] Speaker 3: would usually come from me as the targeter, and I
[43:22] Speaker 3: would have the expertise again on the target set, and
[43:25] Speaker 3: so I would be there calling the guys bullshit or
[43:28] Speaker 3: not while the case officer was doing the case officer thing,
[43:31] Speaker 3: you know, developing the rapport and everything, and I was
[43:34] Speaker 3: there to kind of a set. Yes, that's his his access,
[43:38] Speaker 3: So yeah, that was kind of my job in doing that.
[43:41] Speaker 1: Did you ever catch, you know, Liason partners trying to
[43:44] Speaker 1: hoodwink you guys? I did it, okay, So it was
[43:49] Speaker 1: a pretty good relationship.
[43:50] Speaker 2: At the end relationship.
[43:53] Speaker 3: I never had a bad experience. I really felt like
[43:57] Speaker 3: they were pretty upstanding with us at least, so I
[44:01] Speaker 3: never felt that way. I know, I definitely know stories sure,
[44:05] Speaker 3: but that hasn't always been the case. But I never
[44:07] Speaker 3: had a bad experience with them.
[44:09] Speaker 1: And during any of these like trips, were there any
[44:12] Speaker 1: like hairy experiences or dicey situations that you got into
[44:17] Speaker 1: let you and talk about.
[44:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like certainly like when I met with
[44:21] Speaker 3: when I had my first high high threat meeting, when
[44:25] Speaker 3: I sent out the operational lead that this terrorist he
[44:29] Speaker 3: had walked into the embassy at one point and said
[44:32] Speaker 3: I want to work with US government, and we had
[44:35] Speaker 3: his phone number and stuff, and it just so happened,
[44:39] Speaker 3: and his bureaucracy right that the stuff happens, but just
[44:42] Speaker 3: no one traced his phone number to like see if
[44:44] Speaker 3: he actually had the access that he did that he
[44:47] Speaker 3: was claiming to have. And I happened to trace his
[44:50] Speaker 3: phone number, and I was like, holy shit, he really
[44:52] Speaker 3: does know all these guys. And so I sent out
[44:55] Speaker 3: the lead to the case officer in the field and
[44:57] Speaker 3: I was like, oh, you might want to look at this, yeah,
[45:00] Speaker 3: and he.
[45:01] Speaker 2: Was like, oh, show we get a minor.
[45:03] Speaker 3: So that's when I flew out and I, you know,
[45:06] Speaker 3: went with him to this meeting. But it was in
[45:10] Speaker 3: like a dicey hotel in a Middle Eastern country. There
[45:13] Speaker 3: was no metal detectors, so like it just all was
[45:17] Speaker 3: like very shady, you know, And so I was nervous.
[45:21] Speaker 3: I was really nervous. It was totally different from Iraq,
[45:23] Speaker 3: where like I've got military right here, I've got the gors,
[45:27] Speaker 3: like we've got gun. I had my gun on me.
[45:29] Speaker 3: I didn't have any weapons on me. It's like there's
[45:32] Speaker 3: nothing I could do if this guy was a threat.
[45:35] Speaker 3: So I would say that was probably the diceiest situation
[45:40] Speaker 3: I was in. I mean, you're always scared when you're
[45:42] Speaker 3: like flying over a rock, you know, like or Afghanistan
[45:46] Speaker 3: and those cargo planes. I was always afraid we're gonna
[45:48] Speaker 3: go down. But but I would say, like operationally, that
[45:53] Speaker 3: was when I felt the most vulnerable.
[45:57] Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like Britney Butler, a consular report or officer.
[46:01] Speaker 2: On paper, Yeah, exactly like I.
[46:04] Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean not to pry too much and
[46:08] Speaker 1: shut me down anytime, but your your other desire to
[46:11] Speaker 1: have a family. Yeah, is that starting to like emerge
[46:14] Speaker 1: around this time? I mean, how are you kind of
[46:16] Speaker 1: balancing your CIA career with that?
[46:18] Speaker 6: Yeah?
[46:18] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[46:19] Speaker 3: So I met my husband in two thousand and seven,
[46:24] Speaker 3: so I was already like into it, you know, and
[46:28] Speaker 3: I was already deploying and stuff, and he had friends,
[46:32] Speaker 3: you know, DC is like a pretty small town in
[46:34] Speaker 3: the sense that like everybody knows somebody works at CIA,
[46:37] Speaker 3: and it just so happened that his really good friend
[46:41] Speaker 3: worked in the same division as I did in a
[46:44] Speaker 3: round yeah, and he so much we worked together so
[46:47] Speaker 3: closely that he was sitting at my desk one day
[46:50] Speaker 3: this his buddy and my then boyfriend now husband called
[46:56] Speaker 3: me at work and his buddy picked up and he
[47:01] Speaker 3: knew his buddy worked at CIA, and he was like, wait,
[47:05] Speaker 3: Brittany works there.
[47:06] Speaker 2: What And so it was funny they like had that
[47:11] Speaker 2: we had. We all had a good laugh about it.
[47:12] Speaker 3: But he like came to visit me at work, Like
[47:15] Speaker 3: it wasn't a big deal, Like he came. He couldn't
[47:17] Speaker 3: come into the vaults or anything, but he came. We
[47:20] Speaker 3: had coffee, we went to the Cara. Yeah, yeah, like
[47:24] Speaker 3: it was and like you really respect what I did,
[47:29] Speaker 3: and he thought it was awesome and he was really
[47:31] Speaker 3: proud of me. And so whenever I needed to like
[47:34] Speaker 3: go on these missions sometimes I'd have him drive me
[47:37] Speaker 3: to the airport. And of course this is a time
[47:39] Speaker 3: where we had like the unmarked planes at Dulles and
[47:43] Speaker 3: they were like kind of around the back of the
[47:45] Speaker 3: airport and he'd have to, like he would drive me
[47:48] Speaker 3: to this and I would just like walk up into
[47:51] Speaker 3: the airplane and he was like.
[47:53] Speaker 2: This is crazy.
[47:54] Speaker 3: I can't believe you're doing this, and he'd get dervius
[47:57] Speaker 3: and stuff, but he knew there was like no stopping me.
[47:59] Speaker 2: Like I was totally dedicated to what I was doing.
[48:03] Speaker 3: And yeah, we got married in twenty ten, had our
[48:08] Speaker 3: first kid twenty eleven.
[48:10] Speaker 1: Okay, so you're still in the agency.
[48:12] Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah. I was in the agency up until
[48:15] Speaker 3: we had our second son. With three sons.
[48:17] Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, that's no, that's great. There's a reminds me
[48:22] Speaker 1: of a story about one guy who's at the agency
[48:25] Speaker 1: goes out on a date with a woman in DC
[48:28] Speaker 1: and she's like, you know, what do you do. He's
[48:30] Speaker 1: allowed to say like, look, i was Force recon Marine,
[48:33] Speaker 1: i was Special Forces, I'm a CIA paramilitary guy. And
[48:37] Speaker 1: she's like, this guy's so full of shit. Yeah yeah,
[48:40] Speaker 1: But because it's DC and it's like you said, it's
[48:41] Speaker 1: a small world, she's able to call up her friend
[48:44] Speaker 1: that works at SAD right like, yeah, what do you said?
[48:48] Speaker 1: It's true?
[48:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I know. But there's also like
[48:52] Speaker 2: a lot of people like we had this one friend.
[48:54] Speaker 2: It was so hilarious.
[48:56] Speaker 3: So me and this other woman we both worked at CIA,
[48:59] Speaker 3: and we actually we happened to be dating buddies like
[49:02] Speaker 3: they were are. Both of our our boyfriends were buddies
[49:05] Speaker 3: and she was like a secretary. I was in operations,
[49:09] Speaker 3: and we had There was a guy within our friend
[49:11] Speaker 3: group that said he was CIA and wasn't.
[49:16] Speaker 2: And didn't know that we really were CIA.
[49:19] Speaker 1: It's like the worst place.
[49:20] Speaker 3: In the world to pretend to be a CIO wanted
[49:22] Speaker 3: to pretend to be that, and we would like ask
[49:25] Speaker 3: him questions.
[49:26] Speaker 2: We're like, what's it really like.
[49:28] Speaker 1: What's it like to kill a man?
[49:29] Speaker 4: Yeah?
[49:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And he would be like, well, we had
[49:34] Speaker 3: so much fun.
[49:35] Speaker 2: I don't know.
[49:35] Speaker 3: This guy's probably still saying it to try to get
[49:38] Speaker 3: women to sleep with them or something.
[49:41] Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I wish you had had a tape
[49:43] Speaker 1: recording of those conversations.
[49:45] Speaker 2: I know. Amazing, Yeah, totally.
[49:47] Speaker 1: So how are you juggling family in this CIA career
[49:52] Speaker 1: at this point?
[49:53] Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, not well.
[49:56] Speaker 3: I it was really hard on the family, hard on
[50:00] Speaker 3: me mentally. I was really exhausted all the time. I
[50:04] Speaker 3: was working ten twelve hour days. Granted I wasn't like
[50:07] Speaker 3: overseas all the time, but when I was at Langley,
[50:10] Speaker 3: they were still working me to death, and I felt
[50:13] Speaker 3: like I wasn't one hundred percent at either job, not
[50:16] Speaker 3: being a mom or being.
[50:19] Speaker 2: You know, a CIA officer.
[50:20] Speaker 3: So it got to a point and I had done
[50:23] Speaker 3: ten years by the time I had my second son
[50:26] Speaker 3: in the counter terrorism Center, and that's it's quite an
[50:29] Speaker 3: intense environment and especially like with targeting, and so I
[50:34] Speaker 3: was burnout.
[50:36] Speaker 2: I was I was really sick.
[50:39] Speaker 3: And I told my husband like, I don't care what
[50:42] Speaker 3: you have to do, you male jigglo.
[50:44] Speaker 2: For all I care, I'm not going back to work.
[50:47] Speaker 2: And he was like what, Like what are you saying?
[50:50] Speaker 3: Like we need both of our incomes to like have
[50:53] Speaker 3: this ouse and I'm like, I don't fue care figure
[50:55] Speaker 3: it out. And so I called and I told everybody
[50:59] Speaker 3: before I left, like I'm not coming back. I went
[51:03] Speaker 3: on an attorney leave and that's when I left, and
[51:06] Speaker 3: they're like, there's no way you are obsessed with what
[51:08] Speaker 3: you do. There's no way you can do this job.
[51:11] Speaker 3: You are going to be back here.
[51:13] Speaker 2: And I was like, Nope, nope, I'm not coming back.
[51:15] Speaker 2: I'm not coming back.
[51:16] Speaker 3: And when my materney leave expired, I called them and
[51:20] Speaker 3: I was like, yep, not coming back, and that like
[51:23] Speaker 3: they were completely shocked, but I really wasn't coming back.
[51:27] Speaker 3: And I got phone calls for a couple of years
[51:29] Speaker 3: after that like hey, like we could really use you
[51:32] Speaker 3: if this would be so great, like you were really
[51:34] Speaker 3: good at this, We need you.
[51:35] Speaker 1: For this, and they want you to come back as
[51:37] Speaker 1: like a green badger in contract.
[51:40] Speaker 2: No they didn't.
[51:41] Speaker 3: I mean, it was really what they wanted me to
[51:44] Speaker 3: do was like a specific thing that I was good
[51:49] Speaker 3: at and I can't get into specifics, but whether that
[51:53] Speaker 3: was a green or a blue, it wasn't really even discussed.
[51:56] Speaker 3: It was just like they were trying to they were
[51:58] Speaker 3: trying to sway me with the job, what it was
[52:01] Speaker 3: and what they were needing me to do.
[52:04] Speaker 1: And what did you do?
[52:06] Speaker 2: What do you mean?
[52:07] Speaker 1: I mean, you just hang it up and you tell
[52:10] Speaker 1: the CIA, no, I'm not coming back into the Yeah yeah,
[52:13] Speaker 1: what is like the next phase for yeah?
[52:16] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[52:16] Speaker 3: I just I told them like I can't come, I'm
[52:19] Speaker 3: not coming back, and then you just go and you
[52:21] Speaker 3: sign all the secrecy agreements saying you're not going to
[52:24] Speaker 3: say anything about you know, anything operational that you did.
[52:29] Speaker 3: You're not going to reveal sources and methods and yeah.
[52:33] Speaker 3: And so then I was a stay at home mom
[52:35] Speaker 3: and I worked because the last target set I worked
[52:39] Speaker 3: at Conacterism Center was Afghanistan Pakistan, and like I said,
[52:43] Speaker 3: I specialized in telebance senior leadership. I became very aware
[52:47] Speaker 3: of how they treated women, and I promised myself if
[52:50] Speaker 3: I ever left, that I would do something for women's
[52:54] Speaker 3: rights in Afghanistan. And so I joined an organization called
[52:57] Speaker 3: Women for Afghan Women, and at one time time we
[53:00] Speaker 3: helped provide funding for it was like forty five shelters
[53:03] Speaker 3: in Afghanistan for women and children fleeing domestic abuse situations.
[53:07] Speaker 2: So I was a full.
[53:09] Speaker 3: Time mom, but like I also kind of dabbled in
[53:11] Speaker 3: that not for volunteer yeah, yeah, volunteer work. And it
[53:16] Speaker 3: was because of that experience though, that I worked alongside
[53:19] Speaker 3: these really awesome Afghan women and they encouraged me to
[53:23] Speaker 3: write a book about.
[53:25] Speaker 2: Women empowerment in the Middle East.
[53:27] Speaker 3: And so that was my first novel, The Syndicate Spy,
[53:30] Speaker 3: that came out in twenty twenty three, and just found
[53:34] Speaker 3: that I loved writing, and I just wanted to keep
[53:36] Speaker 3: on doing it.
[53:37] Speaker 2: So that's that's where I am.
[53:39] Speaker 1: I want to ask you about the books, but I
[53:43] Speaker 1: think you know, we talk on the podcast a lot
[53:45] Speaker 1: about like the difficulty and transitioning out of the military,
[53:48] Speaker 1: and I'm sure the people like you have the same
[53:52] Speaker 1: version of that. Like what was it like transitioning from
[53:54] Speaker 1: being a targeting officer to like driving the kids to
[53:57] Speaker 1: school every day? Like you love to do it, of
[53:59] Speaker 1: course you want to be around your kids, but there
[54:01] Speaker 1: are difficulties in changing your mindset.
[54:05] Speaker 2: Absolutely well, I mean.
[54:08] Speaker 3: It it was really hard to not have that like
[54:13] Speaker 3: sense of purpose every day like that just like I
[54:16] Speaker 3: have a mission.
[54:19] Speaker 2: My work, Yeah, means something like I get up motivated.
[54:24] Speaker 3: And it just changes so much because like you don't
[54:27] Speaker 3: have that like mission anymore in your life, and you
[54:31] Speaker 3: like there's this intensity that I feel like I have
[54:35] Speaker 3: kind of an intense personality, and so like it's like,
[54:38] Speaker 3: how do I channel this? Like before I was channeling
[54:40] Speaker 3: it and targeting and going after bad guys, and now
[54:45] Speaker 3: I'm you know, changing diapers, Like how do I channel this?
[54:48] Speaker 3: How do I navigate this new life? And for me,
[54:53] Speaker 3: the writing element was a like form of therapy and like.
[54:57] Speaker 2: How to because I express yourself.
[54:59] Speaker 3: Express myself, my experiences, like kind of what that world
[55:03] Speaker 3: was like. I feel like it was really unique that
[55:05] Speaker 3: I was in like a young woman, you know, in
[55:08] Speaker 3: the Middle East doing these things, and so it's been
[55:11] Speaker 3: really therapeutic for me to write novels. And I'm not
[55:16] Speaker 3: sure if I didn't have that it would be as
[55:18] Speaker 3: easy to transition into normal civilian life. I mean I
[55:25] Speaker 3: was always a civilian, but you know what I mean,
[55:27] Speaker 3: like doing that kind of stuff.
[55:28] Speaker 1: And very very relatable. I mean I got out of
[55:32] Speaker 1: the army, started college the same year, started working on
[55:34] Speaker 1: a novel.
[55:35] Speaker 2: I mean yeah, yeah.
[55:37] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a way to like get this, get it
[55:39] Speaker 1: out out, yeah whatever, all this like weird stuff that
[55:42] Speaker 1: you know, you experience and you're carrying around. Yeah, and
[55:45] Speaker 1: then when you go in in your living suburban life
[55:47] Speaker 1: and normal life, it's very uh isolating because like who
[55:53] Speaker 1: can you talk to about this stuff? Like the stuff
[55:55] Speaker 1: we're talking about in this interview. You can't talk about
[55:57] Speaker 1: it at a PTA meeting.
[55:59] Speaker 3: Now now, And like half the time it's like my friend,
[56:03] Speaker 3: like my friends I've made after DC, after my work
[56:07] Speaker 3: at the agency.
[56:07] Speaker 2: They're like, wait, what did you used to do? What?
[56:10] Speaker 3: It's like they can't really believe it, you know, because
[56:12] Speaker 3: I just a'm like a soccer mom, you know. So
[56:15] Speaker 3: they're like, what, that's so bizarre that you did those things.
[56:18] Speaker 3: And even part of myself like I look at those
[56:21] Speaker 3: pictures and what I used to do, and I'm like, cool,
[56:23] Speaker 3: I can't believe I did that, Like wow, just from
[56:27] Speaker 3: like a stupidity, I'm like, wow, I was so stupid
[56:30] Speaker 3: to like put myself into such dangerous situations. I think
[56:35] Speaker 3: having had kids now, being older, a little bit wiser,
[56:38] Speaker 3: I hope, like, I'm not sure I would sign up
[56:41] Speaker 3: for those.
[56:41] Speaker 2: Same things today.
[56:43] Speaker 1: Yeah, you're a different place in life now.
[56:45] Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah.
[56:46] Speaker 1: Tell us about The Syndicate Spy. You said that book
[56:50] Speaker 1: was kind of an outgrowth of your work with Afghan women.
[56:53] Speaker 2: Yes.
[56:54] Speaker 3: Yes, So I really wanted to write a story about
[56:57] Speaker 3: what it would be like if women took over the
[56:59] Speaker 3: Middle East, because I feel like they've just been marginalized
[57:03] Speaker 3: for so long, and the women I worked with like
[57:06] Speaker 3: just refused to be victimized, and they were really strong
[57:10] Speaker 3: women and they just needed like a voice, and so
[57:13] Speaker 3: in my novel, I thought Hey, wouldn't it be cool
[57:16] Speaker 3: if like a female CIA case officer and let's say
[57:20] Speaker 3: a Saudi princess that you know, was born into this
[57:23] Speaker 3: family that like really put her down in terms of
[57:25] Speaker 3: like her rights and stuff.
[57:26] Speaker 2: But she wanted rights.
[57:28] Speaker 3: She wanted rights for women in Saudi Arabia and then
[57:30] Speaker 3: the rest of the Middle East. What if I partnered
[57:33] Speaker 3: them together and what if my CIA officer and her
[57:37] Speaker 3: team kind of helped her launch coup within the Middle East.
[57:40] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[57:41] Speaker 3: So I had so much fun with it, and there's
[57:45] Speaker 3: a lot of twists and turns in it, but it's
[57:48] Speaker 3: it's born of this idea that Afghan women, Arab women,
[57:53] Speaker 3: women that find them have found themselves in this situation,
[57:58] Speaker 3: that they really should not be seen as victims, and
[58:02] Speaker 3: that they're really powerful. And like, if you study Islam enough,
[58:05] Speaker 3: you know, like Mohammad's first wife was this really powerful
[58:09] Speaker 3: independent business owner and she is Fatima's from her name.
[58:16] Speaker 2: That's the ideal of the Muslim woman.
[58:20] Speaker 3: And it's interesting you talk to people who really understand
[58:24] Speaker 3: their faith, really understand Islam, that's what they refer back to.
[58:27] Speaker 3: It's like that example, and so I thought, Hey, how
[58:31] Speaker 3: cool would it be if I just like incorporate all
[58:33] Speaker 3: that into this novel and you know, gave it my
[58:36] Speaker 3: own little spin.
[58:37] Speaker 1: Did you ever look at the Kurdish women.
[58:40] Speaker 2: In Syria, not in Syria, but in Iraq?
[58:43] Speaker 1: That's it's a really interesting case study where the YPJ,
[58:49] Speaker 1: the female militia in northern Syria. Yeah, I mean the
[58:55] Speaker 1: way they just kind of took political power, like they
[58:58] Speaker 1: didn't really asked for permission for it, and it's like, yeah,
[59:00] Speaker 1: we're running things now, yeah, yeah, and you know, we're
[59:04] Speaker 1: going to have a council. There's going to be a
[59:05] Speaker 1: male council and a female council in every town, and
[59:08] Speaker 1: this is how it's going to work now. And the way,
[59:12] Speaker 1: like these ideas that we have about the Middle East
[59:14] Speaker 1: that you know, it can only work in this one
[59:17] Speaker 1: way that you know, the Isis was the epitome of
[59:19] Speaker 1: that that we're going back to the Middle Ages here, right,
[59:24] Speaker 1: But it was fascinating to travel around those areas and
[59:26] Speaker 1: see like once the Mullas were out of power and
[59:30] Speaker 1: this more secular organization came and seized political power, how
[59:35] Speaker 1: quickly all the norms changed, right, And you had a
[59:38] Speaker 1: Kurdish woman leading a battalion of arab Men. I mean
[59:41] Speaker 1: the things that would be like unthinkable. Wow uh previously.
[59:45] Speaker 1: It's just amazing how quickly that can change.
[59:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love stories like that.
[59:50] Speaker 3: That's awesome.
[59:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, I look up some stuff about that. But so
[59:57] Speaker 1: the Syndicate Spy came out, what You're three? Okay, So okay,
[1:00:02] Speaker 1: just a few years ago. And then how did the
[1:00:05] Speaker 1: next one come about? Had the Patriot's Daughter?
[1:00:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was actually contacted by the publisher to
[1:00:11] Speaker 3: write this book. So we share a publisher, and Matt
[1:00:17] Speaker 3: reached out to me and said, hey, I read The
[1:00:20] Speaker 3: Syndicate Spy and I loved it, and I've been following
[1:00:25] Speaker 3: you on social media. Would you think about writing like
[1:00:28] Speaker 3: a new Homeland series for us? So like the Carrie
[1:00:31] Speaker 3: mathieson type of deal. And I was like, yeah, get
[1:00:35] Speaker 3: paid to write, let's do it. And so we were
[1:00:39] Speaker 3: actually worked together on the outline for this book and
[1:00:42] Speaker 3: he had a good sense of Okay, this is what's selling,
[1:00:46] Speaker 3: and I he had the idea that you know, it
[1:00:51] Speaker 3: was harder for readers to grasp the Middle Eastern target,
[1:00:55] Speaker 3: So like to you and I, we like really understand
[1:00:58] Speaker 3: the Middle Eastern target. We understand them as the enemy,
[1:01:01] Speaker 3: the foreign adversary, but readers, I guess, for whatever reason,
[1:01:05] Speaker 3: it's easier for them to grasp onto like Russia as
[1:01:08] Speaker 3: the bad.
[1:01:09] Speaker 1: Guy, like getting into the SUNI Shia.
[1:01:11] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and Mohammad and Abu and that, you know,
[1:01:14] Speaker 2: all the.
[1:01:14] Speaker 1: Different names that it's a Russian guy twirling his mustache.
[1:01:17] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
[1:01:18] Speaker 3: And he was like, Okay, so bad guy needs to
[1:01:20] Speaker 3: be Russia, and we need it needs to end up
[1:01:23] Speaker 3: back in the homeland, needs to end up back in
[1:01:26] Speaker 3: the United States.
[1:01:27] Speaker 2: And that was all the guidance he gave me.
[1:01:29] Speaker 3: And then I just went for it and I started
[1:01:33] Speaker 3: to you know, at CIA, you're trained to look at
[1:01:37] Speaker 3: the threats and what are the upcoming threats. And so
[1:01:40] Speaker 3: two years ago, when I started brainstorming about this book
[1:01:43] Speaker 3: and writing outlines, I was looking at what was going
[1:01:46] Speaker 3: on in the media and social media in particular in
[1:01:50] Speaker 3: terms of like the disinformation that was occurring, the fact
[1:01:53] Speaker 3: that like when you pick up your phone every time,
[1:01:55] Speaker 3: it's not necessarily like when you look at it, most
[1:01:58] Speaker 3: people aren't like, is this it's true or not? You're thinking,
[1:02:02] Speaker 3: you're asking the question is does this align with my
[1:02:05] Speaker 3: belief system? Already and what that essentially was doing was
[1:02:09] Speaker 3: helping to create more and more of a divide in
[1:02:12] Speaker 3: the country. And what I saw that as as an
[1:02:16] Speaker 3: opportunity for a foreign adversary like Russia, that would create
[1:02:20] Speaker 3: the perfect opportunity for them to come in and basically
[1:02:23] Speaker 3: assert themselves as the new superpower. And so that's the
[1:02:26] Speaker 3: premise that the book is built on, that this disinformation
[1:02:30] Speaker 3: campaign that's divided the country has gotten so bad that
[1:02:34] Speaker 3: civil wars broken out and we think Russia is possibly
[1:02:38] Speaker 3: behind it. And so you encounter a young woman named Ava,
[1:02:43] Speaker 3: and she works for the CIA, and she's sent to
[1:02:45] Speaker 3: Moscow to put an end to this cyber campaign that's
[1:02:49] Speaker 3: tearing the country apart. And she's asked to recruit a
[1:02:53] Speaker 3: member of the SVR Russian intelligence and at the same
[1:02:57] Speaker 3: time she's grappling with her own internal stuff and that
[1:03:05] Speaker 3: her mom was also worked for the CIA when she
[1:03:08] Speaker 3: was young, when she was young, and she left on
[1:03:11] Speaker 3: a mission when Ava, the main character, was eleven years old,
[1:03:15] Speaker 3: and she never came home and she never knows what
[1:03:17] Speaker 3: happened to her mom. And so she goes to Moscow
[1:03:19] Speaker 3: not only to put a stop to the cyber campaign,
[1:03:21] Speaker 3: but also to find out what really happened to her mom.
[1:03:25] Speaker 1: Right right? Yeah, yeah, there's a personal stake in all this.
[1:03:27] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:03:28] Speaker 1: Yeah, I read as much of the book as I could,
[1:03:31] Speaker 1: and I mean towards the end, like things get really crazy.
[1:03:34] Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, that's a twist.
[1:03:36] Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, how much of I mean, whenever you write
[1:03:41] Speaker 1: a book like this, you put a lot of yourself
[1:03:43] Speaker 1: into it. How much of your personal experiences from the
[1:03:46] Speaker 1: agency did you have to draw into and reflect on
[1:03:50] Speaker 1: as you were writing the book.
[1:03:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, So it's interesting.
[1:03:52] Speaker 3: I had this conversation yesterday with Tracy Walder, who interviewed
[1:03:56] Speaker 3: me and Dallas, and she was like, the amount of
[1:04:00] Speaker 3: tradecraft that is in here, Like how did you get
[1:04:03] Speaker 3: this past the CIA's Publication review Board? And I was like, oh,
[1:04:06] Speaker 3: I didn't even realize I did.
[1:04:07] Speaker 2: I did?
[1:04:08] Speaker 3: I put so much tradecraft in there. So if you're
[1:04:12] Speaker 3: if you've ever wondered about the psychology behind how we
[1:04:17] Speaker 3: get people to work with us, there's a really great
[1:04:19] Speaker 3: chapter in here when Ava is meeting with her potential
[1:04:23] Speaker 3: SBR source named Constantine, and you're moving through it with
[1:04:28] Speaker 3: her in terms of how she convinces him to be
[1:04:32] Speaker 3: a spy, and that's like really how we do it,
[1:04:36] Speaker 3: and and yeah, I went through the CIA's publication review
[1:04:39] Speaker 3: board and they are totally fine with publishing it. But yeah, obviously,
[1:04:44] Speaker 3: like I couldn't write that without having the CIA. And
[1:04:48] Speaker 3: so I think that shines through on both the in
[1:04:51] Speaker 3: the Syndicate Spy and and the Patriot's Daughter, that tradecraft element.
[1:04:55] Speaker 3: If you're really curious about how it works with the
[1:04:57] Speaker 3: CIA and how that happened.
[1:04:58] Speaker 1: The agency didn't give you any guff about the book. Really,
[1:05:01] Speaker 1: they were just like they're like, it's good, that's awesome.
[1:05:04] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:05:04] Speaker 3: Yeah, I've gotten really good about talking around it, like.
[1:05:09] Speaker 2: I'm on Instagram, TikTok and stuff.
[1:05:11] Speaker 3: Kind of a necessary evil and publishing these days, and
[1:05:14] Speaker 3: I've gotten good about talking around things, and so I
[1:05:17] Speaker 3: think I was able to do that in the writing too.
[1:05:21] Speaker 1: And I right now you're kind of toring around with
[1:05:24] Speaker 1: the book right, going to the Thriller Fest here in
[1:05:27] Speaker 1: New York. What else is planned for?
[1:05:29] Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, so I did.
[1:05:32] Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I've done like I did five events
[1:05:35] Speaker 3: last week this week, I've done so I've I started
[1:05:40] Speaker 3: off in Washington, d C. At the Spy Museum was
[1:05:43] Speaker 3: like the big lunch I did Politics and Pros on
[1:05:46] Speaker 3: Connecticut Avenue.
[1:05:48] Speaker 2: I've done.
[1:05:50] Speaker 3: There's like Buxton Books, I've done the Village Bookseller and Charleston.
[1:05:55] Speaker 3: I did Texas last this past week where I visited
[1:06:00] Speaker 3: to buy the book in Houston, and then I went
[1:06:02] Speaker 3: to Interrabang Books in Dallas. Yeah, and now I'm here
[1:06:07] Speaker 3: in New York and this is kind of the end
[1:06:09] Speaker 3: right now. As far as upcoming events, I have a
[1:06:11] Speaker 3: couple more in South Carolina, like local stuff. I've won
[1:06:15] Speaker 3: in Florence at the Barnes and Noble there. I've hit
[1:06:17] Speaker 3: a bunch of Barnes and Nobles along the way, too awesome.
[1:06:21] Speaker 1: And so the Syndicate Spy and The Patriots Daughter are
[1:06:23] Speaker 1: both out now. Yeah, we'll have links in the description.
[1:06:28] Speaker 1: Where can people You mentioned TikTok Instagram? Where can people
[1:06:31] Speaker 1: find you online?
[1:06:32] Speaker 3: Yeah, so at Brittany Butler Books is my handle on
[1:06:35] Speaker 3: TikTok and Instagram.
[1:06:36] Speaker 1: Okay, cool, Yeah, yes, Dmitri.
[1:06:42] Speaker 6: So Brittany, you mentioned that you worked at on the
[1:06:44] Speaker 6: af pack desk and from twenty eleven to twenty fourteen,
[1:06:47] Speaker 6: so like two thousand and ninth the coast bombing happened. Yeah,
[1:06:50] Speaker 6: and we've had a ton of people on who've said, like,
[1:06:53] Speaker 6: after that went down, like the CEI really put the.
[1:06:57] Speaker 1: You know, the right up to the metal. Yeah, you know.
[1:07:00] Speaker 6: Also in twenty eleven, a little thing happened uh Osama
[1:07:03] Speaker 6: bin Laud and got smoked in Pakistan.
[1:07:06] Speaker 1: Did you work on that?
[1:07:07] Speaker 6: Were you anywhere near that?
[1:07:08] Speaker 2: I can't talk about that, Okay.
[1:07:10] Speaker 1: Great question Link twice, Link twice if you can. Great questions.
[1:07:14] Speaker 3: So I knew two of the officers that died in Coast,
[1:07:19] Speaker 3: Darren Labonte and the Jordanian case officer.
[1:07:24] Speaker 2: We worked together in Jordan, and.
[1:07:28] Speaker 3: Two months before Darren died, he and I worked on
[1:07:32] Speaker 3: an operation together and he was an amazing case officer.
[1:07:36] Speaker 3: And I was like, dude, like you were like rocking it,
[1:07:41] Speaker 3: like you're doing so great, Like you know, I'm learning
[1:07:44] Speaker 3: a lot from you.
[1:07:45] Speaker 2: And he was like, don't be like impressed by me.
[1:07:49] Speaker 3: I'm not a good husband, I'm not a good father,
[1:07:51] Speaker 3: And those are the two most important things. And if
[1:07:54] Speaker 3: I had to do it all over again, that's what
[1:07:55] Speaker 3: I would focus all my effort on. And you know,
[1:07:59] Speaker 3: a couple of months later he was dead, and he
[1:08:01] Speaker 3: had a two year old daughter, and I went to
[1:08:03] Speaker 3: the funeral in Arlington Cemetery and saw his daughter and
[1:08:08] Speaker 3: his wife and everything, and that stayed with me, especially
[1:08:13] Speaker 3: as I started to have my own family. I was like,
[1:08:15] Speaker 3: I can't.
[1:08:16] Speaker 1: Yeah, someone who's like super technically competent at their job,
[1:08:19] Speaker 1: but it's like there's there's like a trade off to
[1:08:23] Speaker 1: be made, you know when you live that kind of life.
[1:08:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
[1:08:26] Speaker 5: Yeah.
[1:08:27] Speaker 2: It was rough, but.
[1:08:30] Speaker 3: As far as like a crackdown and f PAC division,
[1:08:35] Speaker 3: I didn't really see that after Coast so we're taken risk, yeah,
[1:08:44] Speaker 3: because we hadn't gotten UBL yet.
[1:08:47] Speaker 2: So they were like, anybody got any idea.
[1:08:51] Speaker 1: Yeah, priority number one.
[1:08:52] Speaker 2: Let's go whatever we can do, let's figure this out.
[1:08:56] Speaker 1: And then the other interesting character, of course, is Zahwa Hiri,
[1:08:59] Speaker 1: this other guy we were looking for all the time.
[1:09:01] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[1:09:02] Speaker 3: Yeah, they finally nabbed him on my birthday. What a
[1:09:06] Speaker 3: couple of years ago. I was so excited. I was like,
[1:09:08] Speaker 3: I mean, I was way out of I was out
[1:09:10] Speaker 3: of the agency for years by then, and I was like.
[1:09:12] Speaker 2: Oh my god, what a great birthday present.
[1:09:14] Speaker 3: Well, and like that's the Coast bombing that the doctor
[1:09:19] Speaker 3: supposedly had intel on Zahwai hearing and that's so that
[1:09:24] Speaker 3: was like a really pivotal thing that we finally were
[1:09:28] Speaker 3: able to nab him.
[1:09:29] Speaker 1: I had a I mean, speaking of targeting, I had
[1:09:31] Speaker 1: an agency guy tell me we were never able to pin
[1:09:35] Speaker 1: down exactly where Zawiehi. He was to an area area
[1:09:40] Speaker 1: smaller than like Rhode Island they.
[1:09:43] Speaker 2: Like, and we ended up like getting him on his
[1:09:46] Speaker 2: balcony or something.
[1:09:47] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:09:49] Speaker 3: Crazy, yeah, yeah, obviously something true development of.
[1:09:55] Speaker 2: The technology and drones and stuff.
[1:09:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, or old fashioned trade craft. I mean, I really
[1:10:02] Speaker 1: don't know how they did how they eventually got them. Yeah,
[1:10:10] Speaker 1: there you go. So what's next? Is there another book
[1:10:14] Speaker 1: in the works?
[1:10:15] Speaker 3: Yeah, So everything depends on book one sales, and they're
[1:10:19] Speaker 3: going really really well. So it looks like there will
[1:10:21] Speaker 3: be book two, which I'm really pumped about. It's just
[1:10:24] Speaker 3: a matter of working out the details.
[1:10:26] Speaker 1: You think it's going to be like a direct sequel.
[1:10:30] Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, this will be a continuation of this story.
[1:10:32] Speaker 1: Yeah, very cool. Okay, Yeah, one more question.
[1:10:36] Speaker 6: Yeah, so you were you said you were chasing high
[1:10:40] Speaker 6: level Taliban guys. How frustrating on the level of one
[1:10:43] Speaker 6: to ten? Was it not being able to get and
[1:10:46] Speaker 6: smoke Hakani and his network, so.
[1:10:50] Speaker 3: That was actually a different target set from Yeah, the
[1:10:54] Speaker 3: Hakkani network was different from the Taliban Sai leaders that
[1:10:58] Speaker 3: we were going to work. That gives you an idea
[1:11:04] Speaker 3: little omar.
[1:11:06] Speaker 6: Nothing on, no walk in or anything.
[1:11:16] Speaker 1: Dmitri's gonna push you.
[1:11:19] Speaker 6: I've asked that too many CIA officeries, Like I asked
[1:11:22] Speaker 6: it to Mark poly Moropolis like early on, and he
[1:11:25] Speaker 6: gave me the which I'm sure just watch your Dark
[1:11:28] Speaker 6: thirty exactly like that.
[1:11:29] Speaker 1: That's how it happened.
[1:11:30] Speaker 2: I mean, seriously, come on, bring me, come on.
[1:11:33] Speaker 1: We keep the brass knuckles there in case you don't
[1:11:36] Speaker 1: like the question.
[1:11:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, like I saw those walking in.
[1:11:40] Speaker 1: I'm like, what, Yeah, that's what they're they're Therefore, if
[1:11:43] Speaker 1: you feel the need.
[1:11:45] Speaker 3: Yeah, watch Starr Dark thirty.
[1:11:50] Speaker 1: I don't want to.
[1:11:51] Speaker 2: But you've never seen it.
[1:11:53] Speaker 1: I think I saw it on an airplane.
[1:11:55] Speaker 3: It's literally like, I'm it's pretty accurate.
[1:12:00] Speaker 5: Really, oh yeah, and.
[1:12:02] Speaker 1: I thought we were doing well, come on, yeah, I
[1:12:06] Speaker 1: mean it's it suffers. I mean, I guess maybe some
[1:12:10] Speaker 1: of the same hollywoodization that like maybe black Hawk Down
[1:12:13] Speaker 1: does where they like combine all these characters. But I
[1:12:16] Speaker 1: get what you're saying like.
[1:12:18] Speaker 2: In essence, Jessica Chastain is a real person.
[1:12:22] Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, yeah, you've probably like I've.
[1:12:27] Speaker 1: Had to ask her things twise, I have no idea
[1:12:30] Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Jack, She's like, just watch the movie.
[1:12:36] Speaker 1: She didn't tell me that pretty close though. She's still
[1:12:39] Speaker 1: in no, No, she's retired. Yeah, so I hope people
[1:12:45] Speaker 1: will go and pick up The Patriot's Daughter. It is
[1:12:48] Speaker 1: available wherever books are sold. Brittany really appreciate you coming
[1:12:53] Speaker 1: in studio. I'm glad this worked out. Yeah, we were
[1:12:56] Speaker 1: initially going to do this remotely, but then when I
[1:12:58] Speaker 1: saw you were coming in for Thriller Fest as okay,
[1:13:00] Speaker 1: it all works out.
[1:13:01] Speaker 2: It's awesome. Yeah, thanks for having me.
[1:13:03] Speaker 1: Yeah, and feel free to reach out when the next
[1:13:05] Speaker 1: book comes out.
[1:13:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
[1:13:07] Speaker 1: I will, and anything else you want to plug or
[1:13:10] Speaker 1: tell people about before we get going, I think so
[1:13:13] Speaker 1: all right, so we'll see all of you guys next time.
[1:13:16] Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Hey, guys, I want to take
[1:13:22] Speaker 1: a moment to tell you about the Team House podcast newsletter.
[1:13:26] Speaker 1: If you go and subscribe, it's totally free, and what
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[1:13:41] Speaker 1: things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the
[1:13:44] Speaker 1: high Side, anything else that we have going on, books,
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[1:13:52] Speaker 1: and also you know, filtering in some fun stuff in
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[1:14:20] Speaker 1: the description passasassa

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