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Institute for Policy Studies: Phyllis Bennis
Institute for Policy Studies

Biography

The Middle East component of the Project challenges the drive towards U.S. empire in that region and beyond, focusing particularly on ending the U.S. war and occupation in Iraq, and supporting a just and comprehensive peace based on an end to Israeli occupation of Palestine. The United Nations component analyzes U.S. domination of the UN and attempts to strengthen the potential role of the UN as part of a new internationalism and the global resistance to empire. Since September 11, 2001, the New Internationalism Project has also been involved in assessing the root causes of, and critiquing Bush administration responses to, that tragedy.

IPS fellow Phyllis Bennis is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She has been a writer, analyst and activist on Middle East and UN issues for many years. While working as a journalist at the United Nations during the run-up to the 1990-91 Gulf War, she began working on U.S. domination of the UN, and stayed involved in work on Iraq sanctions and disarmament, and later U.S. war and occupation in Iraq. In 1999 Phyllis accompanied a group of congressional aides to Iraq to examine the impact of U.S.-led economic sanctions on humanitarian conditions there, and later joined former UN Assistant Secretary General Denis Halliday, who resigned his position as Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq to protest the impact of sanctions, in a speaking tour. In 2001 she helped found and currently co-chairs the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation. She works closely with the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition, and since 2002 has played an active role in the growing global peace movement.

Click to download Phyllis Bennis’s photo in press quality

Phyllis Bennis

Fellow
New Internationalism


phyllis@ips-dc.org


Recent Work

Talking Points
Petraeus-Crocker Hearing: Political Theater on Message
April 9 - Even before the House version gets underway on Wednesday, it’s clear that Day One of the Petraeus-Crocker show is all about political theater – starring a four-star general with a chest full of medals and political ambition, and a soft-spoken self-deprecating ambassador, both straight out of central casting. But the real goals had to do with Iran, justifying the surge, and defending a permanent occupation of Iraq. By Phyllis Bennis.

Talking Points
Maliki Offensive and Bush Iraq Strategy Failing
March 30 - The Iraqi government’s U.S.-backed offensive that began on March 25 was not designed to go after “criminals” and was not limited to Basra. It was designed to eliminate the military and political power of Shi’a cleric Moqtada al Sadr, Maliki’s most powerful Shi’a rival, ahead of the provincial elections set for October. The U.S. knew about the planned attacks long ago, and has played a major role in the fighting; Britain has played some role as well. Large-scale desertions among government troops, especially in Baghdad, have been reported. Despite a curfew imposed on Baghdad, huge protests against the offensive broke out in the streets of the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad. Direct U.S. involvement – including attacks by helicopter gunships (killing 78 “bad guys” on one day in Basra alone, according to the Pentagon), coordinating attacks and calling in air support – was acknowledged on the 28th. But that support has been insufficient, and the U.S.- and UK-trained Iraqi government troops are still losing against Sadr’s forces. With Maliki having to be evacuated under fire from the Basra palace where he was “directing” the offensive, and the Iraqi government forces collapsing before the stronger Sadr forces, it is clear Maliki miscalculated his own capacity. As the BBC reported it, “Maliki blinked first.” By Phyllis Bennis, published in AfterDowningStreet, Al Jazeera, Alternatives International, Transnational Institute, United for Peace and Justice.

Interview
Winter Soldier: Iraq and Vietnam, Abu Ghraib & My Lai
March 18 - We've heard from the generals; we've heard from the admirals; we've heard from the politicians. Now it's the veterans' turn. One of the panels today dealt with the question of racism, the question of racism at the highest levels. One of the vets said, and I thought it was a very apt way to put it, that the slippery slope of morality goes from top to bottom, not from bottom to top. They don't start racist ideas at the lowest levels, at the lowest ranks of the military; it starts at the top and it filters down. By Phyllis Bennis, published in The Real News.