- John Kiriakou called India the filthiest country he has visited and hated his time there
- He described seeing people defecate openly on the streets during his visit to India
- Kiriakou criticized the caste system and how Indians treat one another as shocking
Former CIA officer John Kiriakou says his lasting memory of India is of people pulling down their pants and defecating on the streets before simply walking away.
Speaking on the One Night with Steiny podcast, Kiriakou called India the filthiest country he had visited and said he hated the few months he spent there.
"I've never been in a place as filthy as India," he said, suggesting that the country's enormous population was partly responsible for what he encountered.
Kiriakou then described seeing people defecate in public. "If they need to take a s**t, they'll just pull down their pants wherever they're walking down the street," he claimed. "Drop a pyramid, pull their pants up and just walk away."
The former intelligence officer said he had travelled to places that were poorer or more dangerous. However, what bothered him most about India was not the dirt but the way, in his view, people treated one another.
"The thing that I hate the most about India is the way Indians treat one another," he said, referring to the caste system. "It's shocking to me."
Kiriakou recalled spending about six weeks in Hyderabad, where a driver was assigned to him throughout the day. He described the driver as a "really sweet guy" with a wife and two young children who earned around $100 to $150 a month.
Before the trip ended, Kiriakou decided to invite the driver to lunch at the hotel where he was staying. His boss had warned him not to overtip the man because it would "ruin it for everybody else", but Kiriakou said he wanted to do something for someone who had remained available to him around the clock.
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The two agreed to meet at the restaurant at 1 pm. Kiriakou waited, but the driver did not come inside. When he went looking for him, he found him standing outside.
"I said, 'What are you doing out here? Come on in.' He said, 'I'm sorry, sir. They won't let me in,'" Kiriakou recalled. He presented the incident as an example of the class divide he believed shaped how Indians treated one another.
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Kiriakou served with the CIA from 1990 to 2004 as an analyst and counterterrorism operations officer. He later became known for publicly confirming the agency's use of waterboarding and calling it torture.
Asked how he felt about his time in India, Kiriakou offered a short answer: "I hated it."
