Official from former CPA in Iraq to visit

William Olson, formerly chief of the Information Management Unit for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad, Iraq, and now with National Defense University, will speak in the Pyle Center Auditorium at 4 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 27.

The talk, titled “Transnational Threats to the U.S. National Interest,” is part of the Middle East Studies Program’s Fall Lecture Series, “Change in the Middle East.” It is free and open to the public

While in Iraq, Olson was responsible for the collection, analysis and publication of CPA-related information on Iraq reconstruction. Before that, he served in several different capacities with both the Department of Defense and the Department of State, and has done work related to international peacekeeping, counter-narcotics operations and counter-insurgency operations throughout the world.

In addition, he has been a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based National Strategy Information Center, where he worked on projects dealing with global ungovernability, international organized crime and bank security issues. He also has served as a participant in and contributor to working groups at CSIS and the Heritage Foundation on homeland security, as well as the Consortium on Intelligence’s Working Group on Intelligence Reform.

Olson has written and edited a number of works on a range of international issues.

For additional information, please e-mail Brian Ulrich, bjulrich@wisc.edu, Tamir Moustafa, moustafa@polisci.wisc.edu or call the Center for Middle East Studies at 265-6583.