Syria Researcher Cited By John Kerry And McCain Fired From Think Tank For Lying About Ph.D.
By Countercurrents.org
12 September 2013
Countercurrents.org
Elizabeth O'Bagy, who had penned and op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, made several television appearances, and had been cited by sen. John McCain and secretary of state John Kerry, was let go from her position at the Institute for the Study of War after they learned she didn't have a Ph.D. [1]
A report by Leslie Larson in New York Daily News said:
Elizabeth O'Bagy had been billed as Dr. O'Bagy during various appearances on TV talking about a potential conflict with Syria .
A Syria expert at a US think tank, whose research was cited by both secretary of state John Kerry and sen. John McCain during Senate testimony, has been fired for lying about having a Ph.D.
Elizabeth O'Bagy had been doing the media rounds in the past few days as a Syria analyst at the Institute for the Study of War in Washington , D.C.
Though she touted herself as Dr. O'Bagy, it turns out she doesn't have her doctorate after all.
"The Institute for the Study of War has learned and confirmed that, contrary to her representations, Ms. Elizabeth O'Bagy does not in fact have a Ph.D. degree from Georgetown University ," the organization said in a statement, posted on the page for the former employee.
"ISW has accordingly terminated Ms. O'Bagy's employment, effective immediately."
Elizabeth O'Bagy was terminated from her position after the think tank discovered she did not have a doctorate from Georgetown University .
As the Obama administration pushed for Congress to approve launching strikes against Bashar Assad, O'Bagy argued in support of the Syrian rebels opposing Assad's regime.
McCain mentioned an "important op-ed" by O'Bagy when he discussed the opinion piece she wrote for The Wall Street Journal during a Senate hearing on Syria on Sept. 3.
The Arizona Republican asked Secretary Kerry if he agreed with O'Bagy's positive review of the Free Syrian Army as a secular, moderate opposition group.
Kerry said he did "agree with most of" her appraisal on the Syria situation.
Despite her dismissal, O'Bagy still listed her position at the Institute for the Study of War in her Twitter profile.
A RT report headlined “ Syria researcher cited by McCain, Kerry fired for fabricating credentials” said:
The 26-year-old [O'Bagy] wrote that “contrary to many media accounts, the war in Syria is not being waged entirely, or even predominantly, by dangerous Islamists and Al-Qaeda die-hards.”
She told McClatchy that she was merely waiting for Georgetown to confer her degree after submitting and defending her dissertation, also claiming she was in a dual master's and doctorate program at the private Washington university. O'Bagy said the dissertation was titled “With Both Rifle and Child: The Role of Female Militancy in Islamic Societies.” She wrote that she was “talking to some publishers about possibly turning it into a book.”
Kimberly Kagan, who founded the Institute for the Study of War in 2007, said she was “deeply saddened” by the revelation but does not discount any of O'Bagy's work.
“Everything I've looked at is rock solid,” she told Politico. “Every thread that we have pulled upon has been verified through multiple sources.”
O'Bagy also served as the political director of the Syria Emergency Task Force (SETF), a Syrian rebel advocacy group that has lobbied the White House and Congress to lend support to opposition groups.
The Wall Street Journal was criticized earlier this week for failing to disclose O'Bagy's ties to the group.
O'Bagy told The Daily Caller Wednesday that she was not employed by the SETF, but an independent contractor who was not involved in their lobbying efforts.
She also resisted the Obama administration's decision to deem al-Nusra a terror organization in December.
“I'm not saying they aren't a terrorist group,” she told McClatchy last year. “But given the circumstances and given their disastrous cooperation with the opposition as a whole, designating them now would be disastrous.”
The powerful Syrian rebel group formally allied itself with Al-Qaeda less than five months later and O'Bagy later admitted her initial comments were wrong.
Kerry said the op-ed was a “very interesting article” and remarked on O'Bagy's “enormous” experience, including learning Arabic. But Janine Di Giovanni, a veteran foreign correspondent who has covered the conflict on the ground, told the Huffington Post that O'Bagy “exaggerated wildly her experience inside Syria .
“Those of us who work in Syria , as reporters or researchers, are a very small group of people,” she said. “It's not a war to cut your teeth in. A lot of people were quite shocked when a 26-year-old Ph.D, so-called Syria expert who appeared to have never worked in the region, and whom no one had heard of, appeared on CNN and other networks as a Syrian expert.”
Comments are moderated