Washington, D.C. - Tonight, President Obama will mark the end of the combat mission in Iraq, fulfilling his promise to end the war responsibly. As part of that commitment, the Obama administration has overseen the drawdown of 90,000 troops from Iraq and scaled up civilian and diplomatic involvement. But fifty thousand troops remain to advise and assist Iraqi forces - even as government formation has been stalled since the March elections.

Today, August 31 at 1:00 PM EST, the National Security Network and the Center for American Progress will hold a press conference call to examine these issues, featuring NSN Senior Adviser Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), who oversaw the training of Iraqi troops from 2003-2004; Lawrence Korb, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Center for American Progress Senior Fellow; and Brian Katulis, Center for American Progress Senior Fellow. Korb and Katulis were co-authors of CAP's Strategic Redeployment series, which galvanized discussion of a strategic shift in Iraq beginning in 2005. 

***Call-in #: 1-800-895-0231***

***Passcode/Conference ID:  7IRAQ***

WHO:

Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.), National Security Network Senior Adviser

Lawrence Korb, former Assistant Secretary of Defense and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress 

Brian Katulis, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress

WHAT:

Press call on the end of combat operations in Iraq

WHEN:

Today, August 31, 2010 at 1:00 PM EST

Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton (Ret.) served more than 30 years in the United States Army, including combat and post-combat assignments in Iraq, Bosnia and Somalia. As a major general he was assigned to Iraq as Commanding General of the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team (CMATT), where he developed, designed and began the training of the Iraqi military and security forces from 2003 to 2004. Prior to that assignment, he commanded the Army's Infantry Center and was Chief of Infantry for the Army. Eaton has appeared on Hardball, Face the Nation, and Tavis Smiley discussing US national security. He holds a bachelor's degree from West Point and a master's in French from Middlebury College. He is married to PJ, has two sons and a daughter, all soldiers.

Lawrence Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He is also a senior advisor to the Center for Defense Information and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Prior to joining the Center for American Progress he was a senior fellow and director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. From July 1998 to October 2002 he was Council vice president, director of studies, and holder of the Maurice Greenberg Chair.

Prior to joining the Council, Dr. Korb served as director of the Center for Public Policy Education and senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution; dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh; vice president of corporate operations at the Raytheon Company; and director of defense studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

Dr. Korb served as assistant secretary of defense (manpower, reserve affairs, installations, and logistics) from 1981 through 1985. In that position, he administered about 70 percent of the defense budget. For his service in that position, he was awarded the Department of Defense's medal for Distinguished Public Service. Dr. Korb served on active duty for four years as Naval Flight Officer, and retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of captain. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the State University of New York at Albany and has held full-time teaching positions at the University of Dayton, the Coast Guard Academy, and the Naval War College.

Dr. Korb has authored, co-authored, edited, or contributed to more than 20 books and written more than 100 articles on national security issues. His books include The Joint Chiefs of Staff: The First Twenty-five Years; The Fall and Rise of the Pentagon; American National Security: Policy and Process, Future Visions for U.S. Defense Policy; Reshaping America's Military; A New National Security Strategy in an Age of Terrorists, Tyrants, and Weapons of Mass Destruction; Serving America's Veterans; and Military Reform.

His articles have appeared in such journals as Foreign Affairs, Public Administration Review, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Naval Institute Proceedings, and International Security. Over the past decade Mr. Korb has made over 2,000 appearances as a commentator on such shows as "The Today Show," "The Early Show," "Good Morning America," "Face the Nation," "This Week," "The News Hour," "Nightline," "60 Minutes," "Larry King Live," "The O'Reilly Factor," and "Hannity and Colmes." His more than 100 op-ed pieces have appeared in such major newspapers as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Christian Science Monitor.

Brian Katulis is a Senior Fellow at American Progress, where his work focuses on U.S. national security policy in the Middle East and South Asia. Katulis has served as a consultant to numerous U.S. government agencies, private corporations, and nongovernmental organizations on projects in more than two dozen countries, including Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, and Colombia. From 1995 to 1998, he lived and worked in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Egypt for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.

Katulis received a master's degree from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs and a B.A. in history and Arab and Islamic Studies from Villanova University. In 1994 and 1995, he was a Fulbright scholar in Amman, Jordan, where he conducted research on the peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. Katulis has published articles in several newspapers and journals, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, and Middle East Policy, among other publications. He is co-author of The Prosperity Agenda, a book on U.S. national security published by John Wiley & Sons in 2008. Katulis speaks Arabic.

###