Hard Measures
How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives
Jose Rodriquez Jr. with Bill Harlow

Simon and Schuster
April 30th, 2012 / ISBN 9781451663471
Non-fiction/Government
Amazon

Reviewed by Elise Cooper

Jose Rodriquez Jr., the former Director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, has written a book with Bill Harlow, Hard Measures. The book begins by discussing his early career but quickly jumps into Rodriquez's arguments supporting the CIA's use of enhanced interrogation techniques and why they worked. He also discusses why the critics of the program were wrong and their subsequent false claims.

In the book Mr. Rodriquez wonders if the "C" in CIA should have stood for controversial. This is an understatement considering what he has had to endure as the Director of the Counterterrorism Center and the Deputy Director for Operations. He played a vital role in sending CIA operatives to capture terrorists and gain valuable intelligence. Throughout the book he is forced to defend himself, maintaining that the "tactics he oversaw were approved by the highest levels of the U.S. government, certified as legal by the Department of Justice, and supported by bipartisan Congressional leadership."

Today many people look at the enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) such as the insult slap done with an open hand, sleep deprivation, stress techniques, and water boarding and call them torture, including President Obama. Rodriquez makes a very compelling case that the terrorists were not tortured because they were not subjected to severe pain but were made to feel very uncomfortable and to experience a sense of hopelessness. Instead of describing the CIA as torturers they should be considered shields of protection for protecting Americans. He noted that the book was written because "after being the subject of a criminal investigation for three years I wanted to make my story public."

The book fascinatingly points out that only a few terrorists were subjected to EIT's, and that the CIA interrogators were very good at their job. He refers to one example in which a debriefer was able to tell when a detainee was lying by his habit of licking his lip beforehand. The reader is reminded of how a baseball pitcher tips his pitches by some mannerism. He also explained how KSM and other high detainees could not wait to tell how bad they were and how much they knew about operatives. He was described in the book as "the gift that kept on giving…(that) provided a wealth of information."

It was also interesting how he describes in the book then Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi's (D) convenient loss of memory when she stated at a news conference that she never was told about EIT's. He directly stated, "My inner thoughts at that time were if I or anyone of us was subpoenaed to testify and we lied before Congress we would be put in jail. Here the Speaker of the House at that time and a high-ranking Senator were basically lying about this issue. I know because I was there and I led the team that briefed her. As a matter of fact, no politician came to the CIA's defense except Cheney. I think he was the one stand-up guy that did. I never heard any support from anybody else. He came out strongly in our defense. I remember thinking, 'well at least Mr. Cheney is willing to because nobody else is.'"

The book ends on a somewhat sad note since he was given a letter of reprimand in 2011 for "failing to give the system 'one more chance' to do the right thing" and instead destroyed the videotapes of the interrogations to protect CIA officials. When asked how he felt, he sadly noted, "It's all about the issue of insubordination. Instead, the current leadership of the Agency should have said 'no. The man had been subjected to a three-year criminal investigation. Enough is enough.' There are still a lot of people at the Agency that continue to be hounded by their own government. The easy way out was to issue the letter of reprimand, done to placate the political forces. What about our future leaders who see what happened to me and say it's not worth it to make the hard decisions?"

Anyone who cares more about learning how and why the CIA protected Americans after 9/11, as opposed to caring about protecting terrorist's rights, should buy this explosive and gripping book. After reading this book people should realize that instead of having the men and women of the CIA, like Mr. Rodriquez, be maligned, they should be given a medal and considered a hero.