Lecture Series Includes First Person Accounts of War in Iraq

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Three speakers with three distinct points of view will discuss the war in Iraq and a U.S. career diplomat will talk about the future of U.S. foreign policy in a series of free, public lectures titled “The United States and the Battle for Iraq” at Northwestern University.

New York Times war correspondent Dexter Filkins, Iraqi journalist Huda Ahmed and Marine Capt. James Haunty will reflect on their time in the vortex of America's most intense war since Vietnam. Each has intimate personal experience of the Iraq war.

U.S. diplomat Eric Rubin kicked off the Monday night lecture series Jan. 29 when he talked about the thicket of threats and challenges faced by the U.S. in the wake of 9/11 and the Iraq invasion.

All lectures except the Feb. 19 lecture with Dexter Filkins will take place in Room 122 of University Hall, 1897 Sheridan Road, Evanston campus. Filkins' Feb. 19 lecture will be held at McCormick Tribune Center Forum, 1870 Campus Drive, Evanston campus. All four lectures begin at 7 p.m.

A schedule follows:

Feb. 12: Huda Ahmed is an Iraqi journalist who recently arrived from Baghdad. She holds this year's Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship in Boston, sponsored by the International Women's Media Foundation. For nearly four years she has worked and lived in the heart of war-torn Iraq.

Feb. 19: Dexter Filkins is an award-winning New York Times correspondent who has covered Iraq since the 2003 invasion. His widely recognized stories portray the intersecting worlds of Iraqi citizens, U.S. forces and the policy-makers who are struggling to contain a spiraling conflict. (Note: This lecture will take place in the McCormick Tribune Center Forum, 1870 Campus Drive.)

Feb. 26: Capt. James Haunty, now a student at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, is a Marine Reservist from Ohio who saw the war at ground-level and worked closely with the unit whose difficult and deadly 2005 tour in Anbar Province was documented in “Combat Diary: The Marines of Lima Company.”

The lecture series is presented by Northwestern's American Studies Program and Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. For further information, visit the American Studies Web site at http://www.wcas.northwestern.edu/amstp/news.html or call (847) 491 3525.

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