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.
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"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
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