Experts on the Road
Jonathan Harvey
Jonathan Harvey has been a
Platoon Sergeant in the United States Army since 1997 and is currently serving
in the U.S. Army Reserve. A specialist in the psychological effects of warfare,
Harvey has lived in more than twenty-five countries, assisting in projects that
include progressive teaching and, leadership and management roles in academic
and military environments. He has received many honors during his military
career, including the Bronze Star Medal, seven Army Achievement medals, and an
Army Commendation Medal. He is also an experienced teacher, including work at Veteran’s
Upward Bound where he taught low-income military veterans basic skills to
prepare them for college classes. Harvey received his Bachelor of Arts in
philosophy, politics, and economics from the University of Pennsylvania, where
he is currently pursuing his Master of Liberal Arts.
Esam Pasha
Born in Iraq, Esam Pasha is a
translator, artist and journalist who has worked as an interpreter for the
British Embassy in Baghdad and the Coalition in Iraq, including military groups
such as the 101st Airborne and the Florida National Guard. Pasha has also been
an interpreter at publications such as The
Boston Globe and The Christian
Science Monitor. He was a freelance journalist for the United Nations
Integrated Regional Information Network and has written articles on art for
international journals such as The Art
Newspaper. Pasha, who is a well-known artist in Iraq, has also exhibited in
the United States and Europe. In 2003, he executed the first post-war mural in
Iraq, which is located in Baghdad.
Guest Experts at the New Museum
Sawsan Al-Dawodi
Sawsan Al-Dawodi was trained as an engineer at the University of Baghdad.
Al-Dawodi was the head of the first
feminist Iraqi delegation to the Secretary of Labor in Washington DC. After
that, she worked on a U.S. AID-sponsored project in Baghdad. Al-Dawodi and her family went into exile in Egypt.
While in Cairo, Al-Dawodi became
a volunteer in the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American
University, which offers legal aid, case advocacy, and referrals to
relevant service providers for Iraqi refugees in the resettlement process.
Because of her experience in a refugee camp in Egypt Al-Dawodi’s interests have
shifted from engineering to humanitarian causes. Al-Dawodi now lives in New
Jersey.
Khalid Rashid Al-Doori
Khlaid Rashid
Al-Doori has been an architect for sixteen years. He is currently based in New
York, but has participated in numerous building projects in Baghdad. Al-Doori
was a Senior Architectural Engineer for Associated Architects in Baghdad from
1999 – 2003 and the Project Manager for Dijlah Housing Company in Amman,
Jordan, from 2004 – 2006. He received his Bachelor of Science in
Architectural Engineering from the University of Baghdad in 1989 and his
Masters Degree of International Business in Tarragona, Spain.
Salam Al-Iraqi
Salam Al-Iraqi was born
in Baghdad and is a physician who specializes in general surgery. He graduated
from the Mosul College of Medicine in 2002 and has worked as a resident in
several hospitals in Baghdad since graduation. While working in one of the most
dangerous areas South of Baghdad between 2006 and 2007, Al-Iraqi treated Iraqis
who had been injured by terrorist attacks. He has worked together with American
forces to secure urban infrastructure and to fight corruption in Iraqi hospital
administration. He is currently writing an autobiography and a guide to Iraq.
Al-Iraqi left Iraq in 2007 and now lives in the U.S.
Nour Al-Khal
Nour Al-Khal is a translator from Baghdad.
Al-Khal holds a BA in English Literature from Baghdad University. In 2003, she
began working for the United States Agency for International Development as a
translator helping the local government in Basra. She also worked as a
translator for British and American reporters, one of whom was Steven Vincent. A death
squad kidnapped Al-Khal and Vincent in August 2005 in Basra. They were both
shot multiple times. Vincent died, Al-Khal survived. Al-Khal and Vincent’s
widow, Lisa Ramaci, co-edited Vincent’s book In the Red Zone: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq, which will be published
in September 2009.
Gil Anidjar
Gil Anidjar teaches in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures and in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. His latest book is entitled Semites: Race, Religion, Literature (Stanford University Press, 2008).
Kate Armel and Carrie Constantini
Kate Armel is the
wife of an active duty Marine artillery officer with 28 years' service. Last
March he returned from a one-year tour of duty in Baghdad. She is an IT metrics
analyst and in her spare time writes online and is a founding director and
treasurer of Honor Their Service, Inc., a non-profit organization devoted to assisting
wounded warriors and their families.
Carrie
Constantini
Carrie
Costantini has been a Marine Infantry wife for 23 years. In 2003, her husband
was deployed to Iraq and then again in 2004, as a battalion commander in charge
of over 700 families. Carrie was the advisor for the families' support network.
In 2008, her son was deployed to Iraq and again she was the advisor for her
son's family network. Carrie has been a case volunteer for a prestigious Marine
support organization since 2006. She has also been a director for hospital
outreach for the Marine Corps Family Foundation. Currently, she is the
president of Honor Their Service, Inc., a military support organization that
focuses on wounded service members and their families at Walter Reed, Bethesda,
Brooke, and Balboa medical centers.
Anthony
Arnove
Anthony
Arnove has written and contributed to numerous books about Iraq and other
political topics. He is currently co-producing a television adaptation of the
book he edited with Howard Zinn titled Voices
of a People’s History of the United States, which Jon Stewart calls “gut-wrenching”
and Salon.com describes as “compelling and indispensable.” Arnove also wrote Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal and was
the editor of Iraq Under Siege: The
Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War and Terrorism
and War, a collection of post–9/11 interviews with Howard Zinn. His
most recent book is The Essential Chomsky
(February 2008). He earned a PhD and MA from Brown University in Modern Culture
and Media Program, and a BA from Oberlin College in English and Religion. He
has traveled to Iraq, Palestine, and Israel. Arnove recently toured France,
Australia, Bosnia, Austria, and the United Kingdom as an antiwar speaker.
Carole Basri
Carole Basri is President of the Corporate Lawyering Group LLC and Adjunct Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in New York. Basri is also a film director and producer. Searching for Baghdad: A Daughter’s Journey, released in 2002, depicts the filmmaker’s quest for her Baghdadi heritage. In 2005, she completed The Last Jews of Baghdad: End of an Exile, Beginning of a Journey, which documents the escape of over 160,000 Iraqi Jews between 1940 and 2003. From July 2003 to July 2004, she was a member of the Iraqi Reconstruction Development Council of the Provisional Authority. Since then, she has given numerous talks about anti-corruption and transparency issues in Iraq and the Middle East.
Peter J. Buotte and Steve Mumford
Peter Buotte is
a sculptor and humanitarian efforts officer. He graduated in 2005 with an MFA
from Maine College of Art. Buotte has eighteen years of military experience and
has served two years in Iraq, in 2003 and in 2008. While in Iraq, Buotte
coordinated civilian affair projects that included hiring linguists, repairing
schools, and mentoring governance leaders in the Mahmudiyah region to the south
of Baghdad. He has participated in several panels and lectures about the Iraq
war. In his current sculptural work, an attempt to update the notion of classic
statuary, Buotte works with volunteer veterans who have been severely wounded
while deployed in Iraq.
Steve Mumford
Steve Mumford made his first
trip to Iraq in April of 2003 with a press pass from artnet.com, with the
intention of documenting the war through drawing. Since then he’s made five
more trips, embedded with military units as well as living in Baghdad outside
the Green Zone. In 2005, he published a book, Baghdad Journal (Drawn & Quarterly), featuring a collection of
his drawings, watercolors and essays originally published on artnet.com. Steve
has also drawn wounded and recovering soldiers at Walter Reed and the Brooke
Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Steve’s work is represented by Postmasters
Gallery in New York City. Steve has taught at the Cooper Union and Montclaire
State College, and lives with his wife Inka Essenhigh in New York City.
Marie-Hélène
Carleton
and Micah Garen
Marie-Hélène Carleton is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker, based in New York. She
has worked extensively overseas, including Pakistan, Lebanon, and Iraq and is
the co-founder of Four Corners Media, a documentary organization working in
photography, video and print media. Carleton co-authored American Hostage with Micah Garen, which is a memoir of Garen’s
experiences working in Iraq as a filmmaker and reporter and his subsequent
kidnapping. Author Evan Wright calls the book: "An astonishing read. What
unfolds from the terrifying drama of Micah Garen's kidnapping by Iraqi
militants is a complete surprise: a moving, sympathetic portrait of Iraq and
its people struggling against the chaos unleashed by the American liberation. American Hostage explores some of the
darkest terrain in the human condition and emerges with hope still
beating." Media outlets that have featured writing, photography, and films
by Carleton and Garen include The New
York Times, Associated Press, and
PBS.
David
Enders
David Enders is a freelance journalist and the author of Baghdad Bulletin (2005, University of
Michigan Press), a street-level account of the war that highlights its
complexity, including how it affects the daily rhythms of life in Iraq. The
book shares its name with the now defunct English-language news outlet Enders
co-founded in Iraq. He also has reported for the BBC and has co-produced pieces
for Al Jazeera English’s “People and Power” and PBS’s “Foreign Exchange.”
Enders has written for The Nation, Mother Jones, The Progressive, The
Washington Times, Rolling Stone,
and New York Magazine.
Ruthie
Epstein
Ruthie Epstein is the project coordinator of Iraqi refugee
advocacy at Human Rights First (HRF) and has traveled to Syria and Jordan to
undertake research on the humanitarian crisis facing displaced Iraqis. Previous
to this work, she was a program associate in HRF's Refugee Protection Program,
helping to run the pro bono legal representation program for asylum seekers.
She also worked for six years as a freelance copyeditor for several major
magazines in New York while performing on the downtown experimental dance
scene. Epstein holds a Master’s of International Affairs from Columbia
University and an AB from Washington University in St. Louis.
Don
Gomez
Don Gomez is a former Army Sergeant and a member of the Iraq
and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which is the country’s first and largest
non-profit, nonpartisan group for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He was deployed to Iraq in 2003, where he participated in the initial invasion
as a Team Leader, spending the remainder of his time participating in security
operations in Baghdad. He returned to Iraq in 2005 as a driver for the Deputy
Commanding General of Multi-National Corps. Gomez has received more than a
dozen military awards, including the Army Commendation Medal, a Presidential
Unit Citation, and a Joint Service Commendation Medal. He is currently studying
International Studies with a concentration in Middle Eastern Studies at the
City College of New York (CUNY).
Arun Gupta
Arun Gupta has written
extensively on the Iraq War for various publications and on his blog about the
Iraq War. He has been a writer and editor
for The Independent since 2000 and was the International News Editor for
the Guardian Newsweekly from
1989-1992. Gupta has also written for Z
Magazine, Left Turn, Common Dreams, and has been a frequent
guest on “Democracy Now!” He is currently working on a book about the history
of war. His most recent writings focus on the economy, especially commodity
prices and their connection to US involvement in Iraq.
Denis Halliday
After more than thirty years
of work at the United Nations Denis Halliday (who, at the time, was the
Assistant Secretary-General heading the U.N. humanitarian program in Iraq)
resigned in protest in 1998 when sanctions were put into place in Iraq. He had
started the “Oil for Food program” in Iraq, which allowed Saddam Hussein to
sell oil for humanitarian supplies. When he resigned, Halliday stated, “The
incompatibility with the spirit and the letter of the charter constitutes a
tragedy for the United Nations itself, and severely threatens to undermine the
U.N.’s credibility and legitimacy as a benign force for peace and human
well-being throughout the world.” Halliday has been nominated for a Nobel Peace
Prize and received the Gandhi International Peace Award. Since resigning from
the U.N., Halliday has lectured on international relations at Trinity College
(Dublin) and is a visiting professor for peace studies at Swarthmore College.
He has a Masters degree from Trinity College and an honorary PhD from
Swarthmore.
Yousif Ahmed Khalaf and Ali Muntasser
Yousif Ahmed Khalaf is a
translator from Iraq who recently moved to New York. He has translated for the
Washington Group Corp. in Iraq and was a cultural advisor and translator for
the U.S. Army and local citizens of Iraq for more than three years. Khalaf has
also worked with CPATT Instructors and local Iraqi trainees at Q-West IPA
(Iraqi Police Academy), translating documents and rosters. He received his BA
in English from Baghdad University in 2005.
Ali Muntasser
Born in Iraq, former interpreter for the U.S. Army.
Max Krafft
Max Krafft is a former U.S.
Army Sergeant. He enlisted in the army in June 2004 as member of the 389th Army
Brass Band. During the three years he served in the Army he has spent time in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar. The majority of his time in
Iraq was spent at Camp Anaconda, near Balad, with shorter trips to Baghdad,
Nasiriyah, and several small bases along the Iran/Iraq border. In 2007 he
published a letter in the Army Times,
in which he publicly revealed his sexual orientation and called for the end of
the Army’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. After his discharge from the Army he
returned to Wesleyan University where he is currently completing a Bachelor’s
Degree in English. Krafft has also written on music and has published a
photo-essay on his deployment to Iraq.
Brian Laguardia
A New York native, Brian
Laguardia joined the Army after graduating from the University of Chicago. He
soon found himself at the United Nations Security Battalion Joint Security Area
unit that maintained security in the demilitarized zone between North and South
Korea. Laguardia finished the first stint of his military service in 2000 and
returned to teaching for three years first in New York and then in South Korea.
Two years of working in non-profit organizations throughout Asia, including
Thailand and Nepal, followed. In 2005, the Army called him off of Individual
Ready Reserve and deployed him to Iraq. During his military service, Laguardia
became a Staff Sergeant and won numerous awards, including three Army
Commendation Medals, three Army Achievement Medals, and a Combat Action Badge.
He is currently working toward his Masters in Global Affairs with an emphasis
on Human Rights at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs.
Alaa Majeed
Alaa Majeed is a reporter,
producer, and translator. She received her BA from Al Mustansiriya University
in Baghdad. Majeed has co-produced segments for Al-Jazeera International and
PBS. She has also reported for United Press International, Pacifica Radio, the
BBC, National Public Radio, “60 Minutes,” and The Sunday Times (London). Her experience as a translator includes
work with news services, conducting/translating classes for Iraqi civil
servants, and a position with Nature Iraq, a non-governmental, environmental
organization. She is currently also working as a researcher, monitoring news
wires, documenting press freedom violations, and conducting investigative
interviews with journalists overseas for the Committee to Protect Journalists,
which is based in New York. In 2007, she received the International Courage in
Journalism award from the International Women’s Media Foundation.
Susan Meiselas
Susan Meiselas holds a BA
from Sarah Lawrence College and a MA in Visual Education from Harvard
University. She joined Magnum Photos in 1976 and has worked as a freelance
photographer since then. She is best known for her coverage of the insurrection
in Nicaragua and her documentation of human rights issues in Latin America. She
also contributed to the book El Salvador:
The Work of Thirty Photographers (1983) and edited Chile from Within (1991). Meiselas has co-directed two films: Living at Risk: The Story of a Nicaraguan
Family (1986) and Pictures from a
Revolution (1991). In 1997, she curated a photographic history of
Kurdistan, and integrated her own work into the book entitled Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History. In
connection to this project, she created an online archive of collective memory,
as well as an exhibition that traveled to venues in the United States and
Europe.
Nicholas Mirzoeff
Nicholas Mirzoeff is
professor in and director of the Visual Studies program at New York University.
He received his BA in Modern History from Oxford in 1980 and his PhD in art
history from the University of Warwick in 1990. He has written numerous books,
including Watching Babylon: The War in
Iraq and Global Visual Culture (Routledge, 2005), which was translated into
Italian. His Introduction to Visual
Culture (1999) has become a basic text for students in the field and has
been translated into Spanish, Korean, Italian, and Chinese. In the spring of
2009, Mirzoeff will be teaching a seminar that deals with war-related injuries.
Christian Parenti
Christian Parenti is a
correspondent for The Nation and has also written for Fortune, Playboy, Mother Jones,
and the Brooklyn Rail. He is author
of The Freedom: Shadows and
Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq (New Press, 2004), which received rave
reviews such as this one from the San
Francisco Bay Guardian: “When…historians of tomorrow start writing, they
will doubtless have copies of The Freedom
close at hand.” Parenti’s two previous books are The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America from Slavery to the War on
Terror, (Basic Books, 2003) and Lockdown
America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis, (Verso, 2000). Parenti
has a PhD in sociology from the London School of Economics. He has been a Soros
Senior Justice fellow and a Ford Foundation Fellow at the CUNY Graduate
School's Center for Place, Culture, and Politics.
Haider Hamza
24 year old Iraqi journalist Haider Hamza lived through the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. During major combat operations in 2003, he decided to join the mainstream media covering the events in his country. At the age of nineteen he worked as a full time TV producer and photo editor for Reuters, ABC News, and others. For months, Haider was embedded with U.S. military units covering combat operations throughout Iraq. He also covered the perspective of Iraqi armed resistance to learn more about their mindset and goals. While in Iraq, Haider was arrested, shot at, and held captive. He also lost several friends and family. He graduated from Baghdad University in 2006. One year later, he won a Fulbright scholarship and moved to the United States where he obtained a Master’s degree in Global Security and Media. New to America, Haider decided to travel across the U.S. to talk to people about the war in his country. He drove through 35 states setting up a mobile booth with a sign that says “Talk to an Iraqi.” His project was featured on Showtime, and was presented in over 300 cinemas nationwide.
Carne Ross
Carne Ross is a former British diplomat who resigned after giving then-secret evidence to an official inquiry into Iraqi WMD. His evidence stated that the intelligence the UK held on Iraq did not justify the government's claims that Iraq posed a threat. Ross’s evidence also stated that the UK and US had ignored available non-military alternatives to the 2003 invasion.
While a diplomat, Ross was responsible for Iraq and the Middle East on the British delegation to the UN Security Council (1998-2002). He has also worked as speechwriter to the British foreign secretary, and on issues including terrorism, climate change and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He now runs the world's first non-profit diplomatic advisory group, Independent Diplomat, based in New York, with offices in four other diplomatic centres. His book, Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite was published in 2007. He is currently working on a book about anarchism and the contemporary world.
Elizabeth Rubin
Elizabeth Rubin is a freelance reporter and regularly contributes to journals and newspapers including The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s and the New Republic. Elizabeth has a BA from Columbia University and a MPhil in Renaissance Literature from Oxford University. Since October 2001, she has reported extensively from Afghanistan on the overthrow of the Taliban, life and politics under President Hamid Karzai, the rise of the new Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and American counterinsurgency efforts. For the past decade she has worked as a foreign correspondent, writing from Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Russia, the Caucasus, the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. She won the Kurt Schork Award in International Journalism in 2003 and is currently the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Iman Saleh Iman Saleh was born in Baghdad and grew up between Manchester and
Baghdad. She is a translator and editor and has taught in Iraq and the U.S. In
2004 she graduated from the University of Baghdad with a major in English. She
was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and completed a Masters Degree in
Literature at SUNY Binghamton. Her master’s thesis examined intercultural
dialogues between Middle Eastern and Western cultures. Saleh is a member of the
Iraqi Independent Women’s Group, which is dedicated to securing the political,
professional, and economic rights of Iraqi women.
Zainab Saleh
A PhD student in the Anthropology Department at Columbia
University, Zainab Saleh is interested in issues of nationalism, identity, and
governance among Shiites in Iran and Iraq, including the unique dynamics and
networks specific to these groups. In addition to her PhD research, Saleh
contributed to the book Powers of the
Secular Modern: Talal Asad and His Interlocutors (2006), which was edited
by David Scott and Charles Hirschkind.
Salam Talib
Salam Talib is a journalist and computer engineer from Iraq who left Iraq in 2006 and attended graduate school in San Francisco. Independently and in collaboration with other freelance journalists, he has filed hundreds of stories with Free Speech Radio News-Pacifica Radio Network about the situation on the ground in Iraq. His writings have been featured in The Nation, Common Dreams, and Antiwar.com. Since the most recent invasion of Iraq began, Talib has also been actively designing databases for numerous NGOs, which work with disabled Iraqis. He recently worked to build a wheelchair factory in Iraq with an NGO cooperating with Whirlwind Wheelchair of San Francisco State University to help disabled Iraqis.
Amelia Templeton
Amelia Templeton is a refugee policy analyst at Human Rights First
(HRF). She works to advance policy solutions that address the plight of Iraqi
refugees. Her work includes research missions to Syria and Jordan as well as
government advocacy in Washington, DC. Amelia helped Human Rights First
pressure the Bush administration to appoint Senior Coordinators for Iraqi
refugees at the State Department and Department of Homeland Security. She led
the HRF campaign in support of the bi-partisan “Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act,”
which became law in 2008. Before coming to HRF, Amelia worked for Marketplace
radio and as a freelance journalist, contributing stories to American Public
Media and National Public Radio. Amelia also conducted a needs assessment of
Iraqi refugees for Mercy Corps. While a student at Swarthmore College, Amelia
helped found War News Radio, which focused on first-hand and civilian accounts
of the Iraq War.
Donny George Youkhanna
Donny
George Youhkanna is the former Director of the National Museum in Baghdad. He
received his PhD in Archeology from the University in Baghdad in 1995 and
participated in many excavations in Iraq since 1976. After his departure from
Iraq in 2006, he became a visiting professor at the Department of Anthropology
at SUNY Stony Brook and now teaches in the Department of Asian and Asian
American Studies. He wrote the foreword to The
Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad: The Lost Legacy of Ancient Mesopotamia
(2004) and has participated in many seminars in the U.S. and Europe on the
recovery of Iraqi antiquities.
