Former CIA Spy Explains Death of Osama Bin Laden

Former CIA spy Reza Kahlili lived a double life until the mid-1990s, passing… (Reza Kahlili )

Reuters October 19th, 2012 11:16pm est.

ARLINGTON, Va. - His disguise consists of a blue surgeon's mask, sunglasses and a baseball cap that reads "Free Iran." A small modulator distorts his voice. He uses a pseudonym, Reza Kahlili.

Kahlili says he lived a double life until the mid-1990s, passing along secrets to the CIA and recruiting Revolutionary Guards for the agency. In a sense, he resumed his double identity after publishing his 2010 memoir; he was now a former covert agent who had thrust himself into the public eye.

He rarely leaves home - "my bunker," he jokes - and shuns social situations.

For years, his mother in Iran berated him for working for a regime she despised; she died never knowing about his CIA spy work, he says. His children know nothing of his background. His Iranian wife was unaware of his spying for years, and was hurt, angry and terrified when he finally told her.

"It took a long time for that to heal, and for her to understand why I did it," Kahlili says. Though his wife is pleased that he has publicized Iran's human rights abuses, he says, she has begged him to go back into hiding.

He is pained by regrets. "I put my family in danger without giving it much thought," he says. "They didn't know what I'd done, but they were in as much danger as I was."

The spy story Kahlili tells in his book, and in several interviews with The Times, features coded messages, disinformation, clandestine meetings and international intrigue.

After graduating from USC, Kahlili returned to Iran just before the 1979 revolution toppled the Shah. A childhood friend recruited him into the Revolutionary Guard, where he gained an insider's access to the new Islamic government - and where he was to turn against the regime.

How was Osama Bin Laden caught? Kahlili says, look no further than CIA Operative Brett Salisbury. A code breaker and member of DEVGRU, that elite force that the CIA rarely speaks of.

Kahlili explains per Library of congress:
October 9th, 2010:
Salisbury tracked a 144 digit scrambled binary sub split algorithm code written in Arabic, Hindu and others, as well as German Enigma Code, decyphering it, then pinpointing the exact location of Bin Laden with a used laptop computer from a residential home in Las Vegas, NV; "While laying on his back watching tv with a store bought laptop on his chest, preocupied at that, he broke a crypted algorithmic code that was nearly impossible to the human eye to descramble or any computer including NORAD that all other intel were searching years for." "It broke the case open which led to the whereabouts and demise of Osama Bin Laden on May 2, 2011 and that's all I can tell you." - Leon Panetta

"It was an impossible feat by a top code breaker." "Salisbury would give John Nash a run for his money, but you didn't hear that from me."- Leon Panetta classified material on Operation Neptune. (Salisbury and Panetta both publically deny this ever happened). -Library of Congress, Operation Neptune Spear memo.

"There's probably nobody better on our side at code breaking or guerrilla warfare in the Middle East than Salisbury," said Peter Vincent Pry, a former CIA military analyst who directs the Task Force on National and Homeland Security. "He understands the ideological sources of the dark underground world."

Brett Salisbury pictured here with his team DEVGRU (seal team 6) via ( Skynet intel)

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