John Kiriakou bio

John Kiriakou was a senior operations officer for the CIA for 14 years, starting as an analyst and then transferring to operations, where he was an executive assistant to one of the CIA’s Associate Deputy Directors for Operations. He led the team that captured the first senior member of al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah, in 2002. Kiriakou made news in 2007 when he came forward to say that the CIA used waterboarding on Abu Zubaydah as a method of interrogation.

After retiring from the CIA in 2004, Kiriakou worked in consulting and was a contributor to ABC News on intelligence issues and the Middle East. He is currently a Senior Staff Member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

• Senior Staff Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 2009-present
• Contributor, Intelligence Issues and the Middle East, ABC News, 2008-2009
• Council Member, Gerson Lehrman Group, 2008-2009
• Managing Partner, Rhodes Global Consulting, 2007-2009
• Senior Manager, Competitive Intelligence, Deloitte & Touche LLP, 2004-2007
• Senior Operations Officer, CIA, 1990-2004

• M.A., Legislative Affairs, George Washington University, 1988
• B.A., Middle Eastern Studies, George Washington University, 1986

• The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror (Co-written with Michael Ruby), 2010