Nieman Watchdog > About Us > Contributor

Paul Pillar
prp8@georgetown.edu

Paul R. Pillar is on the faculty of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He capped a long career in the Central Intelligence Agency by serving as National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005.

He has served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. Dr. Pillar also served in the National Intelligence Council as one of the original members of its Analytic Group. He has been Executive Assistant to CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence and Executive Assistant to Director of Central Intelligence William Webster. He has also headed the Assessments and Information Group of the DCI Counterterrorist Center, and from 1997 to 1999 was deputy chief of the center. Dr. Pillar is a retired officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. He served on active duty in 1971-1973, including a tour of duty in Vietnam. He is the author of Negotiating Peace and Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy .

Contributions

Does God speak to the Republican National Committee?
COMMENTARY | January 26, 2012
Rather than more questions about Romney's taxes or Gingrich's adultery, debate moderators would be better off asking the candidates their views on a unanimously adopted RNC resolution stating that God wants a one-state solution for Israel, writes Paul Pillar.

Questions for the new administration regarding the use and misuse of intelligence
ASK THIS | January 06, 2009
Former senior CIA official Paul Pillar thinks the public needs to hear a lot more about the Obama Administration's views of the intelligence community and its complicated but crucial relationship with policymakers, Congress and the public.

Pillar to press: Don't get fooled again
ASK THIS | February 27, 2006
Paul R. Pillar, the former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year, writes that the press was insufficiently questioning both in the run-up to war and in its coverage of the 9/11 Commission. He proposes questions reporters should ask -- retrospectively and prospectively -- about the use and abuse of intelligence by policymakers.