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Institutional
Affiliations
Project for the New American Century: Signed PNAC's founding statement of principals and its August 1999 letter on the defense of Taiwan (8)
American Bar Association: Member, American Bar Association Standing Committee on Law and National Security (1)
Rand Corporation: Member, Advisory Board of the Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies (1)
Government
Service
Chief of
Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney
Department
of Defense: Deputy Under Secretary for Policy during George
Sr. administration (1)
Department of Defense: Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Strategy and Resources during George Sr. administration (1)
U.S. House of Representatives: Legal Advisor, Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China (Cox Committee) (2)
Department of State: Director, Special Projects, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (1982-1985) (2)
Department of State: Policy Planning Staff, Office of the Secretary (1981) (2)
Corporate
Connections/Business Interests
Dechert,
Price & Rhoads: Former managing partner, Washington Office
(2)
Northrop Grumman: Former adviser (7)
Education
Columbia University: J.D. (1975) (1)
Yale University: BA, magna cum laude (1972) (1)
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Highlights
& Quotes
I. Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is a member of the clique of neocons who were pushing for preemptive defense policies and war in Iraq long before the election of George W. Bush and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
In 1992, while he was
working under then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, Libby co-wrote with Paul
Wolfowitz a policy guidance aimed at formulating a post-Cold war defense
posture. Upset by President H.W. Bush's decision to leave Saddam Hussein's
regime in place after the 1991 Gulf War, Libby and Wolfowitz argued in a
draft version of the Defense Policy Guidance that the U.S. should actively
deter nations from "aspiring to a larger regional or global role," use
pre-emptive force to prevent countries from developing weapons of mass destruction,
and act alone if necessary. Although the draft guidance was quashed soon
after it was leaked to the New York Times, many of its ideas--in particular,
the doctrine of pre-emption--later found their way into President George
W. Bush's national security strategy. The document also seems to have served
as a template for the founding statement of principles of the Project for
a New American Century, which was signed by a who's who list of hawks and
neocons who now serve in the current administration, including Cheney, Libby,
Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Elliott Abrams, Peter Rodman and Zalmay Khalilzad.
(9)
Since
taking over as Cheney's chief of staff, Libby has received flak
on a number of fronts. He has been criticized for his role in defending
Marc Rich, the billionaire financier convicted on racketeering and
tax fraud charges who was pardoned by President Clinton (3); he
has repeatedly been accused of being the anonymous White House official
who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame (4); and
observers charge him of working with Dick Cheney to firm up a number
of discredited allegations that had been used to build the case
against Iraq, including the assertion that a Hussein agent met with
lead hijacker Mohamed Atta during the months leading up to the 9/11
terrorist attacks. (5)
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