Hubbry Logo
search
logo
1721964

Meghan O'Sullivan

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
1721964

Meghan O'Sullivan

logo
Community Hub0 Subscribers
Write something...
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
See all
Meghan O'Sullivan

Meghan L. O'Sullivan (born September 13, 1969) is a former deputy national security adviser on Iraq and Afghanistan. She is Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and a board member of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Kennedy School. She is a member of the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Raytheon, and the North American chair of the Trilateral Commission.

O'Sullivan grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts.

She received her bachelor's degree from Georgetown University in 1991. O'Sullivan later received her master's degree in economics and her D.Phil. in politics from Brasenose College, Oxford. Her doctoral dissertation was about the Sri Lankan Civil War.

O'Sullivan was an aide to Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and between 1998 and 2001 a fellow at the Brookings Institution under Richard N. Haass.

Between November 2001 and March 2003, O'Sullivan served in the Office of Policy Planning at the State Department, where she assisted Colin Powell in developing the smart sanctions policy proposal.

Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, she volunteered for the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance under Jay Garner. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Jay Garner that he could not keep her (or Tom Warrick) on in Iraq, though Rumsfeld later relented. She was an assistant to Paul Bremer in the Coalition Provisional Authority.[when?] Starting July 2004, she was Senior Director for Iraq and Afghanistan at the United States National Security Council. O'Sullivan's last position at the White House was as the Special Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan from October 2005 to September 2007 where she frequently communicated via telephone with Fort Leavenworth's General David Petraeus on a new military strategy for Iraq.

During her time in Iraq, O'Sullivan was involved with many key decisions on the political front, including helping to negotiate the early transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis and assisting the Iraqis in writing their interim constitution. She is remembered for driving herself around Baghdad to meet with Iraqis, and endured some harrowing experiences while in Iraq, including escaping from a terrorist attack by scaling a building ledge ten stories up.

On May 31, 2007, President Bush announced that O'Sullivan was returning to Baghdad:

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.