47 Facts About Peter Galbraith

Peter Galbraith served in East Timor's first transitional government, successfully negotiating the Timor Sea Treaty.

In 2009, Peter Galbraith was appointed United Nations' Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan, where he contributed to exposing the fraud that took place in the 2009 presidential election in Afghanistan before being fired in a dispute over how to handle that fraud.

Peter Galbraith served as a Democratic member of the Vermont Senate for Windham County from 2011 to 2015, and was a candidate for governor of Vermont in 2016.

Peter Galbraith is Chair of the Board of Directors of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the research arm of the Council for a Livable World.

Peter Galbraith is the brother of economist James K Galbraith.

Peter Galbraith was an assistant professor of Social Studies at Windham College in Putney, Vermont, from 1975 to 1978.

Peter Galbraith is an Honorary Fellow at St Catherine's College.

Peter Galbraith has been a member of the Board of Trustees of American University of Kurdistan in Duhok since its establishment in 2014.

Peter Galbraith worked as a staff member for the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1979 to 1993.

Peter Galbraith contributed to the uncovering of Saddam Hussein's systematic destruction of Kurdish villages and use of chemical weapons after visits in 1987 and 1988.

Peter Galbraith wrote the "Prevention of Genocide Act of 1988," which would have imposed comprehensive sanctions on Iraq in response to the gassing of the Kurds.

Peter Galbraith's accounts were instrumental in recording and publicizing attacks on the Kurdish civilian population and contributed to the decision to create a Kurdish "safe haven" in northern Iraq.

Peter Galbraith was involved in airlifting the documents to the United States where he deposited them in the files of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the National Archives.

Peter Galbraith was actively involved in the Croatia and Bosnia peace processes.

Peter Galbraith was one of three authors of the "Z-4 plan," an attempt to negotiate a political solution to the Croatian War of Independence.

From 1996 to 1998, Peter Galbraith served as de facto Chairman of the international commission charged with monitoring implementation of the Erdut Agreement.

Peter Galbraith was in Croatia's capital, Zagreb, when Serbian forces rocketed the city on May 2 - 3 1995.

In 1995, when tens of thousands of Serb refugees were being attacked while fleeing to Yugoslavia, Peter Galbraith joined a convoy to protect the refugees, riding on a tractor to send a message of US support and earning him criticism from local Croatian media and officials.

From January 2000 to August 2001, Peter Galbraith was Director for Political, Constitutional and Electoral Affairs for the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor.

Peter Galbraith served as Cabinet Member for Political Affairs and Timor Sea in the First Transitional Government of East Timor.

In that context, Peter Galbraith advised both the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the two main Kurdish parties of Iraq, particularly with a view to encouraging the emergence of a strongly decentralized state.

Peter Galbraith argues that Iraq has broken into three parts, that there is no possibility of uniting the country, and that the US's "main error" in Iraq has been its attempt to maintain Iraq as a single entity.

At the time of the negotiations, Peter Galbraith had described himself as an unpaid advisor to the Kurds, making only vague references to business interests in the region.

Peter Galbraith responded that, because he had left the US government at the time of the drafting of the constitution, he was acting as a private citizen, in a merely advisory role with no ability to force any particular provision through.

When Eide announced his own stepping down in December 2009, he did not do so voluntarily, according to Peter Galbraith, though Eide has said it was a voluntary departure.

In December 2009, Kai Eide and Vijay Nambiar accused Peter Galbraith of proposing enlisting the White House in a plan to force the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to resign, and to install a more Western-friendly figure as president of Afghanistan.

Peter Galbraith flatly denied there was a plan to oust Karzai.

Peter Galbraith said he and his staff merely had internal discussions on what to do if a runoff for the presidency were delayed until May 2010 as a result of the fraud problems and other matters.

Peter Galbraith explained that the internal discussions concerned avoiding a constitutional crisis, that any solution would have required the consent of both Karzai and the opposition, and the UN's involvement was consistent with its good offices role.

Peter Galbraith noted that Kai Eide, his chief accuser, proposed replacing Karzai with an interim government a month later in a meeting with foreign diplomats in Kabul.

The United Nations announced that Peter Galbraith had initiated legal action against the United Nations over his dismissal.

Martin Nesirky, spokesman for the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said the reason Peter Galbraith "was terminated was that the secretary general determined that such action would be in the interests of the organization".

Peter Galbraith negotiated the reunion with the Kurdish authorities in both Iraq and Syria and escorted the mothers into Syria where they saw their children for the first time in two years.

Peter Galbraith organized the July 17,2021 rescue of Amina Bradley, an American orphan who had been hidden by radical ISIS women in Roj Camp in Northeast Syria.

Peter Galbraith has contributed opinion columns in relation to issues including political developments in Iraq and Afghanistan, for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Independent and The New York Review of Books.

Peter Galbraith has argued that the Bush administration "has put the United States on the side of undemocratic Iraqis who are Iran's allies".

Peter Galbraith served as chairman of the Vermont Democratic Party from 1977 to 1979.

In 1998, Galbraith briefly campaigned for the Democratic nomination for the seat in the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts then held by retiring Representative Joseph P Kennedy II and previously held by Tip O'Neill and John F Kennedy.

In 2008, Peter Galbraith told Vermont Public Radio he was considering a run for the governorship of Vermont, but later announced that he would not be running and endorsed former House Speaker Gaye Symington instead.

Peter Galbraith is a Senior Diplomatic Fellow, and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the research arm of the Council for a Livable World.

On November 2,2010, Peter Galbraith won election to the Vermont State Senate from Windham County as a Democrat, and was reelected in 2012.

Peter Galbraith's critics said he did not adapt well to the Vermont Senate's culture and described him as "abrasive," and "arrogant", but others in the Senate praised his intelligence, clear thinking, and nonconformism.

Peter Galbraith announced in March 2016 that he would be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Vermont in 2016.

Peter Galbraith supported universal background checks for gun sales in Vermont, and called for a ban on assault weapons.

Peter Galbraith came in third in the primary, behind Matt Dunne and the winner Sue Minter, whom Peter Galbraith endorsed.

Peter Galbraith has one child with his first wife, Anne O'Leary, and two children with his second wife, Tone Bringa.

Peter Galbraith was a good friend of the twice-elected Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, dating back to their time together as students at Harvard and Oxford Universities; he was instrumental in securing Bhutto's release from prison in Pakistan for a medical treatment abroad during the military dictatorship of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.