Jose Rodriguez is a senior Central Intelligence Agency officer of the post-September 11 era and one of the figures most prominently named by John Kiriakou in his account of agency wrongdoing in connection with the enhanced interrogation program. Kiriakou identifies Rodriguez — alongside George Tenet, John McLaughlin, Michael Morell, and Rick Pavitt — as among the senior officials responsible for “a lot of crimes that were committed in the name of national security” during the agency’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation operations, and has separately named Rodriguez as one of the people he holds responsible for his own treatment.[1][2] Elsewhere Kiriakou calls him flatly “a stone cold killer,” naming him — as director of the Counterterrorism Center who went on to become CIA deputy director for operations — among his real detractors at the agency.[3]
Role in the EIT program
Rodriguez ran the operational deployment of Mitchell and Jessen’s enhanced interrogation techniques at CIA black sites. “Every time Mitchell and Jessen were put in charge of the interrogation sessions at the black sites, every FBI person in the country would leave.”[4]
Destruction of waterboarding tapes
Rodriguez is identified, in the cold-open montage of Dalton Fischer Podcast Part 1, as the official responsible for the destruction of “92 other tapes that … show Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Nashiri being waterboarded.”[5]
Kiriakou’s framing
Kiriakou’s recurring analysis is that Rodriguez and others of his rank operated under the conviction that they were doing right:
I’m confident that Jose Rodriguez thinks he’s the good guy and that James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen think they’re the good guys — no doubt in my mind.[6]
This is the foundation of his broader critique that the CIA’s personnel-selection process puts “sociopaths in positions of authority where they come to believe that they’re above the law, and that because they’re the good guys they can and should do anything that they want to do.”[7]
In post-2007 discussions of Kiriakou’s view of accountability, he draws a categorical distinction between Rodriguez (and the others above) and John Brennan: Brennan, in Kiriakou’s framework, “plotted against an elected president of the United States” — a different and, in Kiriakou’s view, more dangerous category of conduct than the EIT-era crimes.[1]
Acknowledged interview offer
In November 2023, Kiriakou stated publicly that he would welcome the opportunity to debate Rodriguez and James Mitchell on neutral ground: “I would like to have you in here just as I would like to have Jim Mitchell in here, Jose Rodriguez, sure — and decide for myself, and I hope the listeners do the same.”[8]
The Pakistan visit, contrasted with Cofer Black
Per John Kiriakou, Rodriguez visited Pakistan in early 2002 with Cofer Black, who had just been named Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism — Rodriguez was about to take Black’s old position at CTC. Kiriakou was their control officer. The contrast was stark. Black charmed the Pakistanis and joked with them constantly; Rodriguez “never spoke a word” through the meetings and the banquet.[9][10]
The Pavitt promotion Rodriguez tried to block
Kiriakou: “Jose Rodriguez was so mad at me he never forgave me for that. He actually passed me over for promotion. He said I displayed a shocking lack of commitment to counterterrorism — can you imagine — because I left the counterterrorism office to go up to the executive floor. So I didn’t care. And then the deputy director uh promoted me anyway over Jose’s objections.”[11][12] In other tellings, Kiriakou dates the episode to just one month after he led the capture of Abu Zubaydah: as chief of counterterrorism, Rodriguez told his promotion panel that he “displayed a shocking lack of commitment to counterterrorism” because he wouldn’t torture anybody — Kiriakou was promoted anyway.[13][14]
‘Don’t drop the soap’
A few days before Kiriakou reported to prison in 2013, Rodriguez — then CIA deputy director for operations — sent him a mocking tweet: “Don’t drop the soap,” a reference to sexual assault in prison. Kiriakou took an hour to calm down before tweeting back: “Jose, I am on the right side of history and you are not.”[15][16][17] Kiriakou notes that there are now arrest warrants for Rodriguez in every European Union country.[18] At a Strand Book Store event, an audience member observed that Rodriguez — who Kiriakou says probably illegally destroyed the torture tapes — went on to write a book about torture and received a $6 million book advance for it.[19]
The industrial grinder (News Beat)
John Kiriakou names Jose Rodriguez as the man who implemented the torture program and ordered the training for the torturers — and who, told by the White House Counsel not to destroy the tapes of the torture sessions, had them thrown into an “industrial grinder” and pulverized beyond recovery. Kiriakou calls him a “war criminal” who should face international charges.[20][21][22]