Delta Force Spy on 9/11, Benghazi & CIA's Tragic Mistake | Gary Harrington • 326
Julian Dorey · 5 Aug 2025 · 2h 21m
Guest: Gary Harrington · Host: Joey Def, Julian Dorey
This conversation continues a two-part sitdown with a former Delta Force operator turned CIA case officer, picking up his career after the early years in Afghanistan. He describes how the counterterrorism mission shifted as the war dragged on, how Afghans' early goodwill toward American forces eroded, and how postwar decisions handed influence to opium-linked power brokers despite obvious warning signs. He recounts leaving the Army to join the CIA, being placed in an unglamorous administrative track rather than fieldwork, and clashing with younger, more credentialed colleagues who doubted his experience. He walks through preparatory intelligence work ahead of the Iraq invasion, his own uncertainty about WMD claims at the time, and his memory of learning about 9/11 on the way to the airport. He details close calls in Kabul, including narrowly avoiding a suicide car bombing, and a tense unauthorized cross-border search for a wanted Taliban figure that nearly spiraled into an international incident. He also discusses the run-up to the 2009 Khost base bombing, arguing that eagerness for a high-value intelligence win led to corners being cut on vetting the double agent involved, and offers a similarly skeptical account of the security failures and political motivations he associates with the Benghazi attack and the Libya intervention. Throughout, he reflects on the personal costs of decades in war zones, including strained relationships with his children, and argues for a more limited, punitive rather than nation-building approach to future US military interventions.
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What comes up
Timestamps link into the episode on YouTube.
- Afghanistan mission shifting over the years
- Handing the country to drug traffickers
- US policy inconsistency and Taliban commander's grievance
- Joining the CIA and desk-job frustrations
- Prepping intelligence for the Iraq invasion
- Colin Powell's UN testimony and WMD beliefs
- Learning about 9/11 while driving to the airport
- Suicide bombing near the Kabul embassy
- Khost bombing and the double agent
- Failed cross-border op to capture a Taliban commander
- Benghazi attack analysis and Libya fallout
Said on this episode
Quoted from the auto-generated transcript, which mishears names and technical terms. podcite.com reports what a show said; it does not endorse or fact-check it.
“You realize that 10 years or more from now we're still going to be here.”
“That's not something that spontaneous rioters are going to be able to set up. So that's a linear ambush.”
“We will bomb you into the Stone Age. If you screw with us or an attack is facilitated from you again, we're not going to come in and fix your country.”