ATHENS, Ga. – In a rare public speaking appearance, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki will address the security challenges facing post-conflict democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan at a conference to be held at the University of Georgia on April 16.
Shinseki was the first commanding general of NATO peacekeepers in Bosnia. He served in this capacity from 1995 to 1998 and played a key role in developing the United States’ strategy to stabilize post-conflict democracies worldwide. He served as U.S. Army chief of staff during recent wars and post-war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In February 2003 he testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that securing post-war Iraq would require a peacekeeping force of “several hundred thousand” soldiers. U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz commented at the time that Shinseki’s predictions were “wildly off the mark.”
Since his retirement in the summer of 2003, Shinseki has turned down all interview requests from national and international media, including the Sunday morning political talk show circuit. This will be Shinseki’s first public speaking engagement relating to these matters since his retirement.
The conference, “From Autocracy to Democracy: the Effort to Establish Market Democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan,” will constitute a comprehensive analysis of the legal, political, economic and security issues facing post-war Iraq and Afghanistan. It will start at 9 a.m. and conclude at 6 p.m. The conference’s keynote address, to be delivered by Shinseki, will begin at 11 a.m. in the UGA Chapel.
Other speakers at the conference will include:
Establishing the Rule of Law Panel
* Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks, University of Virginia School of Law, will discuss post-war legal development in Iraq
* Scott Carlson, U.S. Sentencing Commission, will discuss post-conflict conciliation and criminal justice
* Mariam Nawabi, Embassy of Afghanistan, will address post-war legal development in Afghanistan
Luncheon Speaker
* Capt. Travis Hall, U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps and Iraq Justice Ministry, will provide a ground-level perspective of the challenges facing post-conflict justice in Iraq
Building the Institutions of the Nation Panel
* Louis Aucoin, Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, who is spearheading a comparative analysis of various nations’ constitution-writing efforts commissioned by the U.S. Institute of Peace, will speak on constitution-writing in post-conflict societies
* Ambassador Karl Inderfurth, the former U.S. assistant secretary of state for south Asian affairs, will discuss the specific challenges of establishing free and transparent governmental institutions in Afghanistan and Iraq
* Howard Wiarda, UGA School of Public and International Affairs, will discuss the fundamentals of nation-building
The Development of a Market Democracy Panel
* Keith Crane, RAND Corporation and Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, will speak on economic development in Iraq and Afghanistan
* Timothy Mills, Iraq/Afghan Practice Group of Patton Boggs LLP, will discuss doing business in Iraq and Afghanistan
* Lee Reed, UGA Terry College of Business, will discuss the importance of property rights in the establishment of market democracies
For panel times and locations, contact Clete Johnson at cdj@uga.edu or 706/542-7289 or visit the conference Web site at www.law.uga.edu/~gjicl/index.html.
The conference is organized by the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, which will publish the conference proceedings in a forthcoming issue. Sponsors of the conference are UGA’s School of Law, Terry College of Business and School of Public and International Affairs.