March 17, 2004
Speaker Biographies
Rend Rahim is the representative of the Iraqi Governing Council to the United States. She was a founding member and the executive director of the Iraq Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes democracy and human rights in Iraq, and serves the Iraqi community in the United States. In this capacity, she has worked extensively with the Iraqi community in northern Iraq and in exile and has traveled to the Kurdish region in northern Iraq on numerous occasions. Ms. Rahim was the editor of Iraqi Issues, the Foundation’s periodical from 1992-1998. She has published many essays and articles on Iraq, including a chapter titled “The Iraqi Opposition” in Iraq After the Gulf War (ZED Books, 1994); “Iraq: Race for the Finish Line” in Middle East Insight; and “The Iraqi Opposition and the Sanctions Issue” in Middle East Report. Her articles have appeared in the Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Boston Globe. She is the coauthor of a book titled The Arab Shi'a, published by St. Martin’s Press in February 2000.
Karlyn H. Bowman is a resident fellow at AEI and a senior editor of The American Enterprise magazine. She is a frequent television and radio commentator and regularly writes a polling column for Roll Call. She was the managing editor of Public Opinion magazine until 1990. Her most recent books include What’s Wrong: A Survey of American Satisfaction and Complaint; Public Opinion about Economic Inequality (both with Everett Carll Ladd); and Public Opinion on Abortion: Twenty-Five Years after Roe v. Wade. Ms. Bowman also writes regularly for Public Perspective and the Women’s Quarterly.
Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow at AEI and author of AEI's National Security Outlook. Before coming to AEI, he served as the director of strategic communications and initiatives at Lockheed Martin and deputy executive director of the Project for the New American Century. From 1995 to 1999, he was the policy group director for the Committee on National Security (now the Committee on Armed Services) in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Donnelly has also been the executive director of the National Interest, editor of the Army Times, and deputy editor of Defense News. He is the author of several books, including Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century (2000).
Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident scholar at AEI. An expert on Middle East affairs, he focuses on Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the former Soviet Union, as well as issues such as terrorism and intelligence. He is the author of Know Thine Enemy: A Spy’s Journey into Revolutionary Iran (1997) and a chapter on Iran in Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy (2000), as well as a regular contributor to the Weekly Standard, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and International Herald Tribune, among others. He is also currently working on a book titled For Their Eyes Only. Mr. Gerecht formerly held such positions as the director of the Middle East Initiative for the Project for the New American Century and as a Middle Eastern specialist for the Central Intelligence Agency.
Richard Perle is a resident fellow at AEI and cochairman of Hollinger Digital. He has codirected the Commission on Future Defenses, a group organized to explore the use of advanced technology to increase the productivity of the armed forces. Mr. Perle was the chairman of the Defense Policy Board and a consultant to the secretary of defense. He was the assistant secretary of defense for international security policy and the chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization High Level Defense Group from 1981 to 1987. Mr. Perle writes frequently for the op-ed pages of the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Daily Telegraph, and other publications. He is the editor of Reshaping Western Security (1991) and the author of Hard Line (1992), a political novel.
Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. Her research areas include the Middle East, South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), terrorism, and weapons proliferation. Before coming to AEI, she was a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1992 to 2002. Ms. Pletka also served as a staff writer for Insight Magazine, as well as an editorial assistant for the Los Angeles Times and Reuters in Jerusalem.
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