Peter Galbraith

Peter W. Galbraith
1st United States Ambassador to Croatia
In office June 28, 1993 – January 3, 1998
President	Bill Clinton
Succeeded by	William Dale Montgomery
Personal details
Born	December 31, 1950
Nationality	American
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Anne O'Leary; Div. Tone Bringa
Relations	John Kenneth Galbraith, father; James K. Galbraith, brother
Alma mater	Harvard University (A.B.) Oxford University(M.A.) Georgetown University (J.D.)
Profession	diplomat, public servant, professor, writer

Peter Woodard Galbraith (born December 31, 1950) is an author, commentator, policy adviser and former United States diplomat. In the late 1980s he helped uncover Saddam Hussein's gassing of the Kurds; in the early 1990s he served as the first U.S. Ambassador to Croatia. He has also been an adviser to U.S. policymakers on Iraq, and has been a strong advocate for independence for the Kurdish provinces of Iraq. In November 2009, it was revealed that Galbraith had financial interests in Kurdish oil fields and stood to reap hundreds of millions of dollars under laws he helped to draft.

Early life and education

He is the son of John Kenneth Galbraith, one of the leading economists of the 20th century, and Catherine (Kitty) Merriam Atwater and the brother of economist James K. Galbraith. After attending the Commonwealth School, he earned an A.B. degree from Harvard College, an M.A. from Oxford University, and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.

Career

Public service

Galbraith was a professional staff member for the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1979 to 1993, where he published many reports about Iraq and took a special interest in the Kurdish regions of Iraq. In 1987, he uncovered Saddam Hussein's systematic destruction of Kurdish villages and a year later wrote the "Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988" which would have imposed comprehensive sanctions on Iraq because of the gassing of the Kurds. The bill unanimously passed the Senate but was opposed by the Reagan Administration as "premature" and did not become law.

In 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed Galbraith as the first United States Ambassador to Croatia. In 1995, he was the co-mediator and principal architect of the Erdut Agreement that ended the war in Croatia by providing for the peaceful reintegration of Serb-held Eastern Slavonia.

From 2000 to 2001 he served with the United Nations in East Timor, where he was head of the UNTAET political section and Cabinet Member for Political Affairs and Timor Sea in East Timor's first Transitional Government. He was East Timor's lead negotiator for maritime boundaries with Australia and produced two agreements, including the 2002 Timor Sea Treaty, that effectively quadrupled East Timor's share of the petroleum resources between the two countries.

He was also a Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College, in 1999 and between 2001-2003. In 2003, he resigned from the U.S. government service after 24 years.

Later career

Involvement in Iraq and Iraqi-Kurdistan Politics

Galbraith favors the independence, real or de facto, of the northern region of Iraq known as Iraqi Kurdistan, and has advised U.S. policy makers including Joseph Biden and John Kerry on the splitting of Iraq. In 2005, he was instrumental in drafting and obtaining approval for a constitutional for the Kurdish provincial government which gave it gave it full control over its oil profits.

His 2006 book The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End, advocates acceptance of a "partition" of Iraq into three parts (Kurd, Shiite, and Sunni) as part of a new U.S. "strategy based on the reality of Iraq" (pp. 4, 12, 222, 224). He argued that the U.S.'s "main error" in Iraq has been "wishful thinking." He has also written extensively on Iraq in the pages of the New York Review of Books.

In November, 2009, it was revealed that he had a financial interest in the oil fields and stood to reap hundreds of millions of dollars due to constitutional provisions he helped draft and the close relationship with the government of Iraqi-Kurdistan. After playing a key role in enabling the invasion of Iraq, Galbraith first became one of a handful of U.S. officials who worked on writing the Iraqi Constitution, and after he resigned from the government, he then continuously posed as an independent expert on the region and, specifically, an "unpaid" adviser to the Kurds on the Constitution. Galbraith was an ardent and vocal advocate for Kurdish autonomy, arguing tirelessly in numerous venues for such proposals -- including in multiple Op-Eds for The New York Times -- and insisting that Kurds must have the right to control oil resources located in Northern Iraq. Throughout the years of writing those Op-Eds, he was identified as nothing more than "a former United States ambassador to Croatia," except in one 2007 Op-Ed which vaguely stated that he "is a principal in a company that does consulting in Iraq and elsewhere." When he participated in a New York Times forum in October, 2008 -- regarding what the next President should be required to answer -- he unsurprisingly posed questions that advocated for regional autonomy for Iraqis generally and Kurds specifically, and he was identified as nothing more than the author of a book about the region.

What Galbraith kept completely concealed all these years was that a company he formed in 2004 came to acquire a large stake in a Kurdish oil field whereby, as the NYT put it, he "stands to earn perhaps a hundred million or more dollars." In other words, he had a direct -- and vast -- financial stake in the very policies which he was publicly advocating in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and countless other American media outlets, where he was presented as an independent expert on the region.

Vermont politics

On January 17, 2008 Galbraith announced that he was considering a run for the governorship of Vermont. He would have run as a Democrat against the incumbent Republican governor Jim Douglas and Progressive Anthony Pollina in the 2008 elections. On May 13, he announced that he would not be running and said he would back former House Speaker Gaye Symington instead.

Deputy Envoy to Afghanistan

Galbraith was announced as the next United Nations' Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan on March 25, 2009. He is considered a close ally of Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan.

However, Galbraith abruptly left the country in mid September 2009 at the request of UN Special Representative to Afghanistan Kai Eide following a dispute over the handling of the reported fraud in the 2009 Afghan presidential election. On September 30, the UN announced that he had been removed from his position by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In response to his firing, Galbraith told The Times, "I was not prepared to be complicit in a cover-up or in an effort to downplay the fraud that took place. I felt we had to face squarely the fraud that took place. Kai downplayed the fraud."

Other activities

Galbraith is a senior diplomatic fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

Personal Life

He and his wife, a Norwegian social anthropologist, Tone Bringa, have three children and a home in Townshend, Vermont. Two previous marriages ended in divorce.

Galbraith was a good friend of the twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, dating back to their student days at Harvard and Oxford Universities, and was instrumental in Bhutto's release from prison in Pakistan for a medical treatment abroad during the military dictatorship of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.

Writings

• Galbraith, Peter (2006), The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War without End; Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0743294238
• Galbraith, Peter W. (2008), Unintended Consequences: How War in Iraq Strengthened America's Enemies; Simon & Schuster. ISBN 1416562257

External links

• Peter W. Galbraith - New York Review of Books profile
• Profile - Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
• Galbraith Accuses the U.N. of Helping Cover Up Electoral Fraud by Afghan President Karzai - video by Democracy Now!
• BBC Hard Talk Interview - Sacked UN diplomat speaks out, October 14, 2009.