Paula A. DeSutter, Senior Fellow. Ms. DeSutter is the former Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation. The Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation has principal responsibility for the overall supervision of all matters relating to the verification of and compliance with international arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament agreements and commitments. Ms. DeSutter brings to her position an extensive background in verification and a career focus on national security and intelligence. She served for over four years as a Professional Staff Member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). Ms. DeSutter was professional staff liaison to Senator Jon Kyl and was responsible for legislation and oversight of intelligence collection, analysis and activities related to proliferation, terrorism, arms control, the Persian Gulf States, India, Pakistan, China, and Afghanistan. Prior to her work in the Senate, Ms. DeSutter held numerous positions in the Verification and Intelligence Bureau in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). She was selected to represent ACDA as a student at the National War College, then returned to the National Defense University as a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at its Center for Counter-Proliferation Research. Ms. DeSutter holds an MA in International Relations, an MS in National Security Strategy from the National War College, an MA in Economics, and a BA in Political Science. Her work at the National War College earned her the President's Strategic Vision Award for Excellence in Research and Writing, and she was a Distinguished Graduate. Ms. DeSutter's publications include Denial and Jeopardy: Deterring Iranian Use of NBC Weapons (NDU Press, 1998).

 

J. D. Gordon, Senior Fellow. Mr. Gordon is the former Defense Department spokesman for the Western Hemisphere in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, serving under both Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary Gates from 2005 to 2009. While at the Pentagon, he served in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) as the Press Team Leader for Operations, Policy & Intelligence and was responsible for Western Hemisphere Affairs and U.S. Southern Command; Asia-Pacific Security Affairs and U.S. Pacific Command; and Detainee Affairs. In this capacity, he was the Pentagon's principal spokesman for all facets of Guantanamo detention operations and detainee-related litigation, to include lead media escort and on-scene spokesman for military commissions, the war crime trials for alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban combatants and supporters. A retired Navy Commander and career public affairs officer with 20 years of active duty service, he has been the on-scene spokesman for numerous other major international events.  This includes the Haitian and Cuban refugee crises at Guantanamo of 1994; Operation Restore Democracy, the subsequent multi-national force deployment to Haiti also in 1994; US dual-carrier operations in the East China Sea during the China-Taiwan missile crisis of 1996; NATO's Stabilization Force (SFOR) in the former Republic of Yugoslavia in 1997; the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998; the Navy's efforts to maintain the Atlantic Fleet's primary training range, located on Vieques Island, Puerto Rico from 1999-2001; Operation Enduring Freedom-Philippines, the Special Operations Command Pacific deployment to the southern Philippines in 2002; and the first USN ship visit to Vietnam since the Vietnam War onboard Frigate USS Vandegrift in 2003. Born in New York City, and raised in central New Jersey, Gordon was commissioned as an Ensign through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps program at Pennsylvania State University where he graduated with a B.A. in Communications.  He also holds an M.A. in Diplomacy from Norwich University, a certificate from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force's Air Command and Staff College. 

 

Clare M. Lopez, Senior Fellow. Ms. Lopez is a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, homeland security, national defense, and counterterrorism issues. Lopez began her career as an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), serving domestically and abroad for 20 years in a variety of assignments, acquiring extensive expertise in counterintelligence, counternarcotics, and counterproliferation issues with a career regional focus on the former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Ms. Lopez is a Professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies. Formerly, she was Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee, a Washington, DC think tank, from 2005-2006. She has served as a Senior Scientific Researcher at the Battelle Memorial Institute; a Senior Intelligence Analyst, Subject Matter Expert, and Program Manager at HawkEye Systems, LLC.; and previously produced Technical Threat Assessments for U.S. Embassies at the Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security, where she worked as a Senior Intelligence Analyst for Chugach Systems Integration. Ms. Lopez received a B.A. in Communications and French from Notre Dame College of Ohio and an M.A. in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. She completed Marine Corps Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Quantico, Virginia before declining a commission in order to join the CIA. Ms. Lopez is a member of the Advisory Board for the Intelligence Analysis and Research program and guest lecturer at her undergraduate alma mater, Notre Dame College of Ohio; she also has been a Visiting Researcher and guest lecturer on counterterrorism, national defense, and international relations at Georgetown University. Ms. Lopez is a regular contributor to print and broadcast media on subjects related to Iran and the Middle East and the co-author of two published books on Iran. She is the author of an acclaimed paper for the Center, The Rise of the Iran Lobby.

 

Steve Milloy, Senior Fellow. Mr. Milloy is the founder and publisher of JunkScience.com; a co-founder and portfolio manager of the first Free Enterprise Action Fund  (the first conservative/libertarian activist mutual fund); a long-time columnist for FoxNews.com; and a consultant on environment and public health policy issues. Mr. Milloy frequently appears on radio and TV, including shows ranging from Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck to CNBC's Squawkbox to Comedy Central's The Daily Show. Mr. Milloy holds a B.A. in Natural Sciences and a Master of Health Sciences in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins University, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Baltimore, and a Master of Laws in Securities Regulation from the Georgetown University Law Center. Mr. Milloy has testified on risk assessment and Superfund before the U.S. Congress; and has lectured before numerous organizations. In addition to more than 500 columns and articles published in a variety of newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, and major online media, Mr. Milloy is most recently the author of the Amazon.com best-selling book, "Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them" (Regnery 2009). 

 

Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu (Ret.), Senior Fellow. Mr. Cucullu is a former Special Forces lieutenant colonel with more than four decades of experience dealing with the tumultuous region of East Asia, including North and South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China and Southeast Asia. His best-selling book, Separated at Birth: How North Korea became the Evil Twin, has been acclaimed as one of the best insights into the convoluted, long-running conflict between South and North Korea. He is a regular contributor to Front Page Magazine, Tech Central Station, and Human Events Online. His articles appear often in The American Enterprise magazine as well as other electronic and print media. He has contributed to the New York Post, the Washington Times, the Jerusalem Post and many other publications. He is a frequent guest on Fox News Channel and was on-camera analyst for WABC Channel 7 in New York City during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mr. Cucullu's latest work, Inside Gitmo: The True Story Behind the Myths of Guantanamo Bay is an essential contribution to a deeply misunderstood topic.

 

Michael J. Del Rosso, Senior Fellow.  Mr. Del Rosso is an accomplished technology executive whose career spans 30 years. He has served as CEO and CTO of large public companies and early stage companies. He is currently CEO of Nimaya, Inc., an enterprise software company and Updata Partners portfolio company;  Chairman of Acuity Tech Solutions, Inc.; and partner in Capital Trust Ventures (a growth stage venture capital firm) and Capital Trust Associates (a specialized advisory services to companies, lenders, and investors). His broad technical expertise include data communications & telephony; identity management; computer security; critical infrastructure protection; information warfare and cyber-terrorism. He has contributed to Department of Defense information security research projects, has designed and implemented information security products for the commercial, intelligence, and defense marketplaces, and holds an active Department of Defense security clearance.

 

Nonie Darwish, Senior Fellow. Ms. Darwish is an American human rights activist, writer, public speaker and founder of Arabs For Israel. She is the author of the book Now they Call Me Infidel; Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror. Her second book is Cruel And Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law. Her speech topics cover human rights, with emphasis on women’s rights and minority rights in the Middle East. Born in Egypt, Darwish is the daughter of an Egyptian Army lieutenant general, who, when assassinated by the Israeli army in 1956, was called a “shahid” by the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, although Darwish blames “the Middle Eastern Islamic culture and the propaganda of hatred taught to children from birth” for the assassination. In 1978, she moved with her husband to the United States, and converted to Christianity there. After September 11, 2001 she has written on Islam-related topics.