Jose A. Rodriguez, Jr. (born October 21, 1948) is a former director of the National Clandestine Service (D/NCS) of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He was the final CIA deputy director for operations (DDO) before that position was expanded to D/NCS in December 2004.[1][2]
Born in Puerto Rico in 1948, Rodriguez attended the University of Florida, earning both a bachelor's degree and a law degree. He joined the CIA in 1976 and served for 31 years. According to Gen. (ret.) Michael Hayden, "Jose built a reputation for leadership in the field and here at headquarters, and he guided some of the agency's greatest counterterror victories. He has done much to protect our country by strengthening its Clandestine Service." Other colleagues cite him as "one of the best" field operatives in his time at the CIA.[3]...
In the aftermath of 9/11, this was the focal point within the Agency to orchestrate the global campaign against Al Qaeda. In this capacity, Rodriguez was responsible for driving the CIA operations and the targeting analysis necessary to uncover terrorists in the Al Qaeda network.[10] In the time period that Rodriguez stepped in, the Counterterrorism Center grew sharply. The number of analysts quadrupled, and the number of operations officers doubled.[11] In 2004 Rodriguez advised the organizers of the 2004 Olympics in Athens, including the chief organizer, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, on security matters and counterterrorism. "The actions we took in the aftermath of 9/11 were harsh but necessary and effective. These steps were fully sanctioned and carefully followed. The detention and interrogation of top terrorists like Abu Zubaydah, Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, and Abu Faraj al-Libbi yielded breakthroughs which have kept this country safe," Rodriguez said in a press release.[12]...
Like many officers in the Latin American Division, during the Iran–Contra affair, Rodriguez was questioned by the FBI about his role in the scandal after allegations of CIA involvement emerged.[15] No charges or actions were brought against him in connection with Iran–Contra.
Much later, in 1997, Rodriguez interceded in the drug-related arrest of a friend in the Dominican Republic, trying to get the Dominican government to drop the charges.[16] According to the New York Times, the CIA's inspector general criticized Rodriguez for a "remarkable lack of judgment."[17]...
In 2005, while head of the Clandestine Service, Rodriguez ordered that videotape recordings of two 2002 CIA interrogations be destroyed.[18] CIA officials initially stated that the recordings were destroyed to protect the identity of the interrogators, after they were no longer of intelligence value to any investigations.[19] "He would always say, 'I'm not going to let my people get nailed for something they were ordered to do,'" said Robert Richer, Rodriguez's deputy recalling conversations with his boss about the tapes.[20] It was later revealed that the deputy to Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, then executive director of the CIA, wrote in an e-mail that Rodriguez thought "the heat from destroying is nothing compared with what it would be if the tapes ever got into public domain—he said that out of context they would make us look terrible; it would be 'devastating' to us."[21]...
After an exhaustive three-year investigation into the destruction of the videotapes of the interrogations (including pictures of the interrogators), the Justice Department announced in November 2010 it would not pursue any charges against Jose Rodriguez.[27...
After reportedly being heavily recruited to join the international security firm Blackwater, Rodriguez instead joined the privately owned National Interest Security Company in Fairfax, Virginia, which combined several formerly independent companies.[33][34][35] In NISC, Rodriguez was made a senior vice president in Edge Consulting, an intelligence assessment and strategy consulting group.[36][37]Edge Consulting (now a part of IBM) was founded by Chris Whitlock and Frank Strickland to assess intelligence performance with special emphasis on Iraq and Afghanistan, while also working issues in the broader intelligence community.[38][39] NISC was purchased by IBM in March 2010.[40] ...
In 2012, Rodriguez's book "Hard Measures" was published....
