MSU Leadership Institute – Ambassador Peter Galbraith “Afghanistan – A War Of Necessity Or A Quagmire”, 11/9, Bozeman

Ambassador Peter Galbraith

“Afghanistan – A War of Necessity or a Quagmire”

Monday, November 9, 2009

7:30 pm Reynolds Hall

Free and Open to the Public

PS: President Hamid Karzai has agreed to a run-off vote to be held on November 7th – terrific timing to hear from Ambassador Galbraith!

AMBASSADOR PETER W. GALBRAITH – Background Information

Peter Galbraith holds degrees from the Commonwealth School, Harvard College, Oxford University, and Georgetown University Law Center. Galbraith was a professional staff member for the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1979 to 1993, where he published reports about Iraq. Then in 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed him as the first United States Ambassador to Croatia where he co-mediated and was the principal architect of the Erdut Agreement that ended war in Croatia. Galbraith was also a Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College, in 1999 as well as between 2001 and 2003.

Most recently, Galbraith was Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to Afghanistan and an Assistant Secretary-General of the UN. However, Galbraith was recalled on October 1, 2009 after he urged the UN to take more forceful actions to deal with the fraud in Afghanistan’s presidential elections. Galbraith wants the Independent Election Commission (IEC) to annul results from 1,000 of the total of about 6,500 polling stations and to recount results from another 5,000. His wholesale recount would virtually ensure a second round in the election, denying Mr. Karazai his claimed first-round victory. Mr. Kai Eide, his Norwegian superior, now back in Kabul, has urged his staff not to speak out against the fraud because he fears that it will destabilize efforts to build a democracy. Mr. Eide also fears that fraud investigations will be seen as foreign interference, because three of the five people in charge of the Election Complaints Commission are UN appointees.

A dozen senior diplomats went to his office to show Galbraith their support, before his flight. "He has provided the principled leadership the UN staff expected," said one of his supporting officials.

Galbraith is a principal of the Windham Resources Group LLC, a Townshend-based firm that specializes in international negotiations for government and corporate clients. His most recent books are The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End. (2006) and Unintended Consequences: How War in Iraq Strengthened America’s Enemies (2008).

Carmen McSpadden

Director

MSU Leadership Institute

http://www.montana.edu/leadership

406-994-7667

[email protected]