Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski — Person

About

Karen U. Kwiatkowski, née Unger (born September 24, 1960), is a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel with over 20 years of service. From May 2002 to February 2003, she served as a desk officer in the Pentagon's Office of Near East and South Asia Affairs (NESA), during which she witnessed and exposed the formation and intelligence manipulation by the Office of Special Plans. Kwiatkowski became a prominent whistleblower by publicly criticizing the neoconservative politicization of intelligence analysis leading up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, particularly under Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. She detailed these experiences in a three-part series in The American Conservative in 2003 and a 2004 Salon.com article. Her career also included roles at the National Security Agency. After retirement, Kwiatkowski has worked as a writer, lecturer, teacher, and radio host, frequently commenting on foreign policy with libertarian and paleoconservative themes. She ran as a Republican candidate for U.S. Congress in Virginia's 6th congressional district, holds a Ph.D., and remains active as a commentator contributing to media outlets and podcasts aligned with anti-interventionist views.

Key Relationships

Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies

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Kwiatkowski interacted with IASPS during her time in the Department of Defense's African Affairs office, later becoming a whistleblower regarding neoconservative influence.

Since 2002

David Wurmser

criticized

Karen Kwiatkowski served as a Pentagon desk officer in the Near East South Asia bureau (May 2002 - February 2003) and directly observed the formation of the Office of Special Plans that absorbed David Wurmser and Michael Maloof's Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group work. In a March 2004 Salon article ('The new Pentagon papers'), she wrote: 'I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.' She described how raw, unvetted intelligence was sent directly to senior policymakers, bypassing the CIA and DIA — the process Wurmser and Maloof's CTEG had pioneered.

Since 2004

Douglas Feith

criticized

Karen Kwiatkowski served as a Pentagon desk officer physically adjacent to Feith's Office of Special Plans (May 2002-February 2003) and became one of its most vocal critics. She specifically named Feith: 'What Feith's OSP wanted, needed and produced was inflammatory bits of data, cherry-picked statements, and isolated observations by often shady characters, presented as if they were vetted, contextualized and conservative intelligence.' She charged that 'Feith, and political appointees above and below him, presented false or unfounded information to the media, the Congress and to the President's speechwriters, as if it were not only factual, but as intelligence community consensus.' She stated: 'As public servants, on the U.S. public payroll, what they did seems to me to be illegal.'

Since 2003

Richard Perle

criticized

Kwiatkowski served in the Pentagon's NESA directorate from May 2002 to February 2003, witnessing firsthand the Office of Special Plans (OSP) whose director Abram Shulsky had worked for Perle during the Reagan administration. In 'The New Pentagon Papers,' Kwiatkowski wrote she 'witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods.' While her criticism targeted the broader network, Perle was a central node as the person who had trained and mentored OSP's leadership.

Since 2003

Key Facts

Career & Education

About

Key Relationships