Daniel McKivergan, former deputy director of the Project
for the New American Century (PNAC), is a policy analyst and writer closely associated with Sen. John
McCain (R-AZ), for whom he has served as a campaign adviser. Through perches at outfits like the Weekly
Standard, McKivergan has hyped threats from a number of countries, including Russia and Iran,
often promoting interventionist U.S. strategies.
After graduating from the College of the Holy Cross in 1988, McKivergan joined the staff of the Republican
National Committee (RNC), working in the research department first as an analyst and later as its director.
McKivergan left the RNC in 1993 for the Project for the Republican Future, a Washington, DC, think tank
that served as a precursor organization to PNAC. He is also listed as a deputy director from 2003 to
2005 of the New Citizenship Project, which is credited as being the sponsor of PNAC (see Media Transparency, "New
Citizenship Project, Inc."). According to Media Transparency, others affiliated with NCP include Gary
Schmitt (president); Randy Scheunemann, Bruce
Jackson, and Robert Kagan (directors); Ellen
Bork and Thomas Donnelly (deputy directors);
and William Kristol (chairman).
McKivergan became research director for the neoconservative magazine the Weekly Standard in
1995, where he worked for two years. While McKivergan was working at the Standard, magazine
founder Bill Kristol took note of him as a "young protégé" (New Republic, October
16, 2006). When Senator McCain, a regular reader of the Standard, approached Kristol about needing
a new legislative aide, Kristol recommended McKivergan for the job. McKivergan joined McCain's staff
as legislative director in 2000, following a brief stint working as legislative director for Rep. Dan
Miller (R-FL), and two years' time at the Philanthropy
Roundtable, for which he served as both policy director and associate editor of its magazine, Philanthropy.
In 2002, McKivergan became deputy director of PNAC, where he joined a chorus of neoconservative pundits
in arguing that deposing Saddam Hussein was necessary to win the "war on terror." In October
2002, he authored a memo titled "War on Terrorism and American Statecraft," addressed to "opinion
leaders." The memo directed their attention to recent articles about a potential war with Iraq,
including "A Necessary War: Unless Saddam Hussein is Removed, the War on Terrorism Will Fail," by American
Enterprise Institute fellow Reuel Marc Gerecht,
and a Washington Post piece titled, "From Truth to Deception," by William Kristol, who
was also PNAC chairman.
After the United States failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, McKivergan continued to
argue that there had been substantial evidence that Hussein had been stockpiling WMD leading up to the
war (see Daniel McKivergan, "The Worst of Intentions: What Saddam's Iraq Was Up To," Weekly
Standard, July 1, 2005). He was also a signatory of a January 2005 PNAC "Letter to Congress" calling
for lawmakers to approve an increase in U.S. ground forces of 25,000 active duty troops per year ("Letter
to Congress").
McKivergan left PNAC in 2005 to work as the online foreign editor for the Weekly Standard,
where he continued to espouse his hawkish, conservative opinion on the Iraq War. "It's important
to remember that terror attacks against the United States didn't start the day our troops entered Baghdad,
and they won't end if we leave Iraq to the terrorists," McKivergan wrote in October 2006 for Worldwide
Standard, the blog of the Weekly Standard (McKivergan 2006).
In November 2006, commenting on the mid-term elections, McKivergan focused a blog entry on Sen. Joe
Lieberman (I-CT): "Lieberman wins, and he did so without compromising his position on Iraq.
Indeed, he defended it," McKivergan wrote. "[S]ome Democratic strategists were privately advising
him to trim his support for the war. He ignored them. Good for Joe" (Pittsburgh Tribune Review, November
12, 2006).
Until he left the Weekly Standard in 2007 to join the McCain campaign team, McKivergan often
posted articles on the Standard's blog, arguing that Iran is developing the capacity to produce
nuclear weapons and that the only question is how long it will be before these weapons appear (McKivergan,
April 2006). A January 2006 post drew parallels between Hussein and Ahmedinejad, with the title, "Saddam
Close to Having a Nuke in '91; Today, Iran Follows Saddam's Nuclear Procurement Playbook" (Daniel
McKivergan, "Iran 'Fantasies' at the New York Times?" WorldwideStandard.com, April
11, 2006 ).
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Affiliations
John McCain for President: Campaign Staffer
Philanthropy Roundtable: Policy Director
Project for the New American Century: Former Deputy Director
Project for the Republican Future: Former Staffer
Republican National Committee: Former Research Department Analyst and Director
Weekly Standard: Former Online Foreign Editor and Contributor
Wounded Warrior Project: Member, Board of Directors
Government Service
Office of Rep. Dan Miller (R-FL): Former Legislative Director
Office of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ): Former Legislative Director
U.S. Coast Guard Reserve: 1985-1989
Education
College of the Holy Cross: 1988
Johns Hopkins University: Degree and year unspecified
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