Armand Cucciniello

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Armand Cucciniello III (born December 7, 1979) is a political commentator, foreign policy and national security expert[1], and communication executive. Cucciniello is a former American diplomat and a former news reporter.[2] He has appeared on CNN,[3] National Public Radio, One America News[4], opining on geopolitical issues. He has written for Dow Jones Newswires, TIME magazine, USA Today, The Daily Caller, HuffPost, The Hill, and HipNewJersey.com. Cucciniello's work has been featured in RealClearPolitics, The Week, and The Economist.

Cucciniello was a spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Baghdad from 2006 until 2010. He was the longest-serving spokesperson and public affairs official for the Iraq war.[5] Cucciniello served as an adviser to the U.S. military in Iraq and Pakistan. He is currently an adviser to the United Nations Command and United States Forces Korea.[6]

Cucciniello's work has been used and cited by think-tanks such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies;scholars and authors writing about foreign policy,[7][8] law,[9] South Asia,[10][11] and the Middle East;[12] the U.S. government, and the U.S. military.[13]

Education[edit]

Cucciniello is a graduate of Boston University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2002.[14] He subsequently attended The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University where he earned a Master of Arts degree. and was a Foreign Language and Area Studies National Resource Fellow.[15] Cucciniello attended high-school from 1994–1998[16] and is a graduate from Seton Hall Preparatory School.

Career and Professional Life[edit]

India[edit]

Cucciniello lived in India twice – first in 2001 as a student in Mysore at the Dhvanyaloka Centre For Indian Studies; and subsequently working as a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires in New Delhi and Mumbai.[15]

While in Mysore, Cucciniello was a student of Indian archaeologist and epigraphist M.S. Nagaraja Rao; and scholar H.V. Nagaraja Rao, a leading authority on Sanskrit.[17] Aside from studying archaeology, South Asian languages, and contemporary political science Cucciniello conducted primary research in southern India on the then-nascent and budding information technology (IT) industry, which had been mostly forming in and around nearby Bangalore and Hyderabad. Cucciniello's work was noticed by Indian journalist and head of Dow Jones India Mr. Suman Dubey, who was a very close friend of the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his wife, the Italian-born politician Sonia Gandhi. In 2003 Dubey invited Cucciniello to come work in New Delhi as a reporter for the newswire to cover IT, among other topics. From Mumbai, Cucciniello was one of the first to report internationally on India as a thriving, global hub for what became known as business processing outsourcing, or simply "outsourcing."[18] He also reported[19][20] on political affairs, macroeconomics, agriculture, and the textile industry.

Iraq[edit]

Armand Cucciniello III in Baghdad, Iraq. September 2006.

In 2006 Cucciniello moved to Baghdad, Iraq to work for Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I). Shortly after he was hired by the U.S. Department of State to work in the Public Affairs Section at the U.S. embassy, located in the former Republican Palace (Arabic: القصر الجمهوري al-Qaṣr al-Ǧumhūriy) of Saddam Hussein.[2][15] As such Cucciniello was made a non-career U.S. diplomat.[14] He served as a spokesman for the U.S. embassy and has been quoted in news media outlets like The New York Times, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, CBS News, NBC, CNN, McClatchy Newspapers, Sky News, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and others, providing information about political developments[21] during the war,[22] the trials of Saddam Hussein,[23][24] diplomatic activity including VIP visits by U.S. Senators like Barak Obama,[25] Iraq's delicate relationship with Israel,[26] Iran,[27] and the U.S. embassy.[28] He was also a writer for the U.S. Department of State, writing about Iraqi rule of law;[29] art, culture,[30] and sports programs;[31] and anti-corruption.[32]

Some of Cucciniello's experiences in Iraq were documented in the 2007 book Baghdad: Journal of A Reporter (French: Bagdad, Journal d'un Reporter) by the AFP reporter Patrick Fort, and he was a contributor to many titles documenting and covering the war.[33]

While in Iraq, Cucciniello befriended Andrea Parhamovich, a National Democratic Institute employee killed in January 17, 2007 in Baghdad when her convoy was ambushed as she was returning from teaching a class on democracy to Iraqis. Parhamovich was the subject of the book I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story, written by her fiancé and Newsweek reporter Michael Hastings.[34] Cucciniello was also a good friend of Hastings, who died on June 18, 2013 in an automobile crash in Los Angeles, California.[35]

Cucciniello was a spokesperson for the U.S. embassy in Baghdad[36] from 2006 until 2010. According to HipNewJersey.com, "He earned the distinction of being the longest-serving spokesperson and public affairs official – military or civilian – for the Iraq war.[5]

Saddam Hussein and The Iraqi High Tribunal[edit]

Cucciniello was responsible for overseeing news media and logistical operations at the Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT),[37] a court established under Iraqi law to try Iraqis or residents accused of genocide, war crimes, and other crimes against humanity,[38] or other serious crimes committed by Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party regime. As such, Cucciniello was one of the few Americans to witness and be present at the trial of Saddam Hussein;[39] and other Ba'ath Party officials and top-tier henchmen of Hussein like Ali Hassan "Chemical Ali" Al-Majid, Tarik Aziz, (Foreign Minister) Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Taih (Minister of Defence), Hussein Rashid Moal-Takriti.[23]

Camp Ashraf and the Mojahedin-e-Khal (MEK)[edit]

In December 2008 Cucciniello was one of the few American diplomats to have ever visited Camp Ashraf.[40] The camp was the former headquarters of the exiled Iranian group known as the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI) or the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) (Persian: سازمان مجاهدين خلق ايران‎ Sāzmān-e mojāhedin-e khalq-e irān), an Iranian opposition movement in exile, founded in 1965, that actively and has sometimes violently advocated for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. There Cucciniello met Mehdi Baraie, a senior official of the PMOI who had signed the ceasefire and mutual understanding agreement with US forces in April 2003.[41] At the time, in 2008, tensions within the camp were high as the Iraqi government had assumed responsibility for all residents on January 1 under the terms of a U.S.-Iraq security agreement. Residents were fearful of being left at the mercy of the new Iraqi government, which had been hostile to the MEK and the camp residents.[42]

Pakistan[edit]

Armand Cucciniello III, second from left, at Aiwan-e-Sadr inIslamabad with the President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari (center). Photo taken December 2010.

In Pakistan, Cucciniello managed projects for the U.S. Department of Defense.[43][44] Although he worked for the U.S. government and lived there from 2010–15, he has been critical of the U.S. government's handling of Pakistan during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama presidencies, and supports the policies of President Donald J. Trump, specifically Trump and Ambassador Nikki Haley's announcements to cut military assistance in January 2018.[45]

Reference[edit]

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  2. ^ a b "NJ resident in Iraq war zone-njmonthly.com". New Jersey Monthly. Retrieved 2016-01-26.
  3. ^ Daniel Ackerman (2016-02-17), Armand Cucciniello interview on CNN, retrieved 2016-02-17
  4. ^ One America News Network (2018-01-08), Pres. Trump's No Fear Policy on Pakistan, retrieved 2018-01-09
  5. ^ a b "Staff". Hip New Jersey. Retrieved 2016-04-07.
  6. ^ Williams, Hal (Autumn 2018). "In Danger Zones, Staying Alive Is the Day-to-Day Job". https://bv.world/magazine/. Retrieved 11 November 2018. External link in |website= (help)
  7. ^ Herberg, Mikkal, ed. (2014). Energy Security and the Asia-Pacific. U.S.: The National Bureau of Asian Research. p. 260. ISBN 978-1-939131-33-1.
  8. ^ Singh, Manjeet (2005). "Deducing India's Grand Strategy of Regional Hegemony From Historical and Conceptual Perspectives" (PDF). Singapore: Nanyang Technological University. pp. 53, 58. Retrieved 28 January 2016.
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