Just months after the 9/11 attacks, the United States appeared to have its biggest catch in the newly launched war on terror.
Abu Zubaydah, considered one of al Qaeda's senior lieutenants, lay in a pool of blood on a street in Faisalabad, Pakistan, having been shot three times during a U.S.-coordinated raid on a house where a group of suspected terrorists was building a bomb. CIA operative John Kiriakou, who helped plan the raid, rushed to the scene. But when he gazed down at the critically wounded man, it didn't quite look like the person he had seen in a 4-year-old passport.
In his new book, "The Reluctant Spy," Kiriakou gives an insider's view of his secret life as a spy and his role in fighting the war on terror.
Kiriakou said he was able to quickly verify Zubaydah's identity by sending a picture of his ear to CIA headquarters in Virginia. "I didn't realize until that night that no two people have the same ears. It's like a fingerprint," he said. The American spy was ordered by then-CIA Director George Tenet to do everything in his power to keep Zubaydah alive and to never let him out of his sight. That's exactly what Kiriakou did.
