Iraq: Next Steps for U.S. Policy
Featuring a Luncheon Keynote Address by Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski
On the eve of the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion, Iraq is teetering on the brink of sectarian civil war. The recent bomb attack on a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra set off a cycle of brutal violence that continues to threaten stability in Iraq. Iraqi political leaders remain divided over who should form a new Iraqi government. Nearly three months into 2006, the year that the U.S. Senate deemed as a “period of significant transition” for Iraq, the United States faces difficult choices about how to best advance its national security interests. To explore these complicated questions, the Center for American Progress has invited a distinguished group of experts to discuss the situation in Iraq, the impact of the war on the U.S. military, and the next steps for U.S. policy.
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Thursday, March 16, 2006
Introduction: John Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for American Progress
First Panel: The Situation in Iraq and Policy Options for the United States
Jane Arraf, Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations and former CNN Baghdad Bureau Chief
Jonathan Finer, Baghdad correspondent, The Washington Post
Rob Malley, Director, Middle East Program, International Crisis Group
Jonathan Morrow, Lawyer and consultant in post-conflict legal development
Moderated by:
Brian Katulis, Director of Democracy and Public Diplomacy, Center for American Progress
Second Panel: The Impact of the Iraq War on the U.S. Military
Loren Thompson, Chief Operating Officer, Lexington Institute
Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis, Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychiatric Institute of Washington
Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, and Senior Adviser, Center for Defense Information
Moderated by:
Robert O. Boorstin, Senior Vice President for National Security, Center for American Progress
Luncheon Keynote Address: Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Counselor and Trustee, Center for Strategic & International Studies
Biographies
Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski is a trustee and counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Professor of American foreign policy at the School of Advanced International Studies, the Johns Hopkins University, Washington, D.C. From 1977 to 1981, Dr. Brzezinski was National Security Adviser to President Carter. In 1981, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his role in the normalization of U.S.-Chinese relations and for his contributions to the human rights and national security policies of the United States. Brzezinski was also a member of the President’s Chemical Warfare Commission (1985); member of the NSC-Defense Department Commission on Integrated Long-Term Strategy (1987-1988); and member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (1987-1989). In 1988, he was cochairman of the Bush National Security Advisory Task Force. Dr. Brzezinski is the recipient of numerous honors and awards. His most recent book is entitled The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership.
Jane Arraf is the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is currently on leave from CNN where she has been Baghdad Bureau Chief and Senior Baghdad Correspondent. Arraf joined CNN in 1998 as its first permanent Baghdad Bureau Chief. She moved to Istanbul, Turkey as CNN Bureau Chief in 2001, returning to Baghdad as Bureau Chief in 2002. Named Senior Baghdad Correspondent in 2004, she covered the bombing of the UN headquarters and the International Committee of the Red Cross in Baghdad and spent most of 2004 and 2005 embedded with the US Army and Marines in Iraq, where her coverage included the battles for Najaf, Samarra and Fallujah. Her current work examines Iraqi politics and the insurgency. Her expertise includes Iraq, Turkey, the media, cross-cultural issues and counter-insurgency.
Jonathan Finer has been a Baghdad correspondent for The Washington Post since May 2005. He previously served as the paper’s New England correspondent, based in Boston, and covered the 2003 invasion of Iraq while embedded with the U.S Marines. Before coming to the Post in 2002, he worked for a year as a reporter for the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong.
Robert Malley directs the Middle East Program of the International Crisis Group. Prior to that, he was a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Until January 2001, Mr. Malley was Special Assistant to President Clinton for Arab-Israeli Affairs and Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council. In this capacity, he served as a principal advisor to the President and the National Security Advisor at the White House on the Middle East peace process. Mr. Malley joined the National Security Council staff in August 1994 as Director for Democracy. He helped coordinate U.S. refugee policy and efforts to promote democracy and human rights abroad. Mr. Malley served as a law clerk to Justice Byron R. White of the United States Supreme Court in 1991-1992. Mr. Malley is a graduate of Yale University, Harvard Law School and Oxford University, England, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He is the author of The Call from Algeria: Third Worldism, Revolution and the Turn to Islam and, with Hussein Agha, of Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors; The Last Negotiation, and Three Men in a Boat.
Jonathan Morrow is a lawyer and consultant in the field of post-conflict legal development. From June 2004 to February 2006 he managed the US Institute of Peace’s Iraq constitutional program, traveling frequently to Iraq to work with Iraqi political and civil society leaders. Before joining USIP, he worked for the Kurdistan Regional Government in the negotiations for the Transitional Administrative Law, and advised the Asia Foundation and the government of Afghanistan on law reform and constitutional implementation. From 1999 to 2002, Morrow was a legal adviser to Sergio Vieira de Mello in the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, developing successful electoral laws and a constitution-drafting process. He earned his doctorate in the faculty of arts at Monash University, Melbourne, and has arts and law degrees from the University of Sydney. He has commented and published in several law journals, USIP reports and other publications including the Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Guardian, Australian, and Australian Financial Review.
Loren B. Thompson is Chief Operating Officer of the Lexington Institute, overseeing security studies, the institute’s largest project. For twenty years, Dr. Thompson has taught graduate-level courses at Georgetown University in military strategy, new technology, and the media. During the 1980s, he was Deputy Director of Georgetown’s Security Studies Program, part of the Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. He has also taught classes at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis served in the U.S. Army, as well as in academic medicine and clinical practice. He retired from the Army in 1998 at the rank of Brigadier General after having held many high-level positions, including Commanding General of the Southeast Regional Army Medical Command. He is currently the Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Psychiatric Institute of Washington. His recent work includes an examination the mental health impact of the war in Iraq on U.S. troops.
Robert O. Boorstin is the Senior Vice President for National Security at the Center for American Progress. Boorstin brings to American Progress more than twenty years experience in national security, political communications, research and journalism. Over seven years with the Clinton Administration, he worked as the President’s National Security Speechwriter; Communications and Foreign Policy Adviser to Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin; and Adviser on the Developing World to Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Earlier in his career, Boorstin was a reporter for The New York Times. He received his B.A. from Harvard College in 1981 and his M. Phil. in International Relations from Cambridge University in 1983.
Brian Katulis is Director of Democracy and Public Diplomacy on the National Security Team at the Center for American Progress. At the Center, his work examines U.S. national security policy in Middle East and democratization, with a focus on Iraq. Prior to joining the Center, Katulis lived and worked in the Middle East for the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, including projects in Egypt, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories. From 2000 to 2003, he worked as a senior associate at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research. His previous experience includes work in the Near East and South Asian Directorate of the National Security Council and the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State during the Clinton administration. He has published articles in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The Christian Science Monitor, among other publications. Katulis received a graduate degree from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs.
Lawrence Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Senior Adviser to the Center for Defense Information. Prior to joining the Center, he was a Senior Fellow and Director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to joining the Council, Mr. Korb served as Director of the Center for Public Policy Education and Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, Dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, and Vice President of Corporate Operations at the Raytheon Company.
John D. Podesta is the President and CEO of the Center for American Progress and visiting Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. Podesta served as Chief of Staff to President William J. Clinton from October 1998 until January 2001, where he was responsible for directing Congressional relations and staff activities of the White House. He coordinated the work of cabinet agencies with a particular emphasis on the development of federal budget and tax policy, and served in the President’s Cabinet and as a Principal on the National Security Council. Podesta has also held a number of positions on Capitol Hill including: Counselor to Democratic Leader Senator Thomas A. Daschle; Chief Minority Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittees on Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks, and Security and Terrorism; and Counsel on the Majority Staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Podesta is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and Knox College.