Omar Al-Shahery

Biography

Omar Al-Shahery is a research project associate at the RAND Corporation. He had previously served as the Deputy Director General for Defense Intelligence and Security in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. In this position, Al-Shahery planned and implemented election security in the first postwar elections; mediated between members of the U.S. Embassy and Iraqi government; planned the security for a several-thousand-mile national oil pipeline; and established military attaché offices, single-handedly creating an organizational structure and a training curriculum. Al-Shahery was also a member of the Iraqi national security advisory team for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad, and a member of the CPA's Oil for Food Coordination Delegation. Al-Shahery received his M.Sc. in software engineering and information technology from the National Center for Informational Technology, Institute of Graduate Studies, Baghdad; and his M.P.A. from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he was a Mason Fellow.