Kenneth R. Timmerman

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Kenneth R. Timmerman is the Executive Director of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI), which he co-founded in 1995, and a member of the Committee on the Present Danger. [1]

Timmerman is a columnist with FrontPageMag.com[2] and is a regular contributor to The American Spectator magazine.[3]

His articles and commentaries have been published or re-posted online by numerous conservative websites: Western Journalism Center, WorldNetDaily, NewsMax, Insight Magazine, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Daniel Pipes website, The Washington Times, and JINSA. and The Iran Brief, which he launched in December 1994.[4]

Previously, Timmerman wrote for "Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and Reader's Digest." [5]

Timmerman is the author of several books, the most recent of which was Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, published by Crown Forum in 2007. He was also a contributor to a section in Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.'s War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World (Naval Institute Press, 2005).

Russia "Cleaned Up" Saddam's WMD

Iranian nuclear weapons test

"United Press International carried a story last Thursday about a group called the Foundation for Democracy in Iran," William Rivers Pitt wrote January 22, 2006, in truthout. "This group, according to the UPI story, claims that, 'Tehran is planning a nuclear weapons test before the Iranian New Year on March 20, 2006.' FDI, according to the story, offered absolutely no proof to back this claim. But that's not three to five years. That's less than ten weeks. Scary stuff, right?

"Take a closer look, however," Pitt wrote, "and you can see the fingerprints of the architects of our current Iraq boondoggle all over this. The Foundation for Democracy in Iran is run by a man named Kenneth Timmerman. Timmerman is umbilically connected to the godfather of right-wing think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute. It was the American Enterprise Institute that spawned the Project for the New American Century, the think tank that gave us Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, the original noise about Iraqi WMD, and the idea that a military takeover of the entire Mideast is a bully idea. The same people that terrorized the American people into unnecessary war in Iraq are preparing to do the same with Iran, and all in time for the midterms.

"One must also note the irony of the suggested date for this Iranian nuclear test. March 20, 2006, for those not paying attention, is the three-year anniversary of our invasion of Iraq. And round and round we go," Pitt wrote.

Iran Freedom Support Act

In response to Timmerman's January 13, 2006, article "Next Steps on Iran" published in FrontPageMag.com, Professor Paul Sheldon Foote wrote in his message posted January 13, 2006, to the Yahoo! Group anticom:

"Kenneth Timmerman is a supporter of the Iran Freedom Support Act, sponsored in the House of Representatives by Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen [(R-Florida)]. Ros-Lehtinen, who came to America from Fidel Castro's communist Cuba at age seven, is one of the strongest supporters of the Iranian Communist MEK (Rajavi Cult) terrorists. Timmerman did not even mention the Iran Freedom Support Act as a next step on Iran. If this act becomes law, American taxpayers will be providing millions of dollars to communists in Iran. While there are many communist and other opposition groups operating in Iran, the Iranian monarchists would have a difficult time to identify even one opposition group in Iran seeking a return to monarchy.
"While Kenneth Timmerman deserves praise for revealing the money and techniques that the Iranian Communist MEK (Rajavi Cult) terrorists use in corrupting America's political process, he needs to write articles on other important subjects, such as: (1) Other than speaking at an Iranian monarchist rally, does he speak for or receive funding from Reza Pahlavi? (2) Is Massoud Rajavi, leader of the MEK, being held by the American military at Camp Mercury, Iraq as a prisoner for killing Americans and for war crimes against Iranians and Iraqis or being protected until the American military installs a communist regime in Iran?"

Profiles

"Born in New York in 1953, Timmerman obtained a BA from Goddard College in 1973 and an M.A. from Brown University in 1976. He moved to France, where he pursued a career as a novelist, publishing a novel called Wren Hunt in 1976 and a novella called The Iskra Scrolls in 1980."[6]

"In the early 1980's, Timmerman became a Middle East correspondent for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and developed an expertise in the Middle East and the arms trade. In 1982, he was taken prisoner for 24 days by Fatah guerillas in Lebanon. He was the first journalist on the scene when Islamic militants bombed the US Embassy in 1983.

"From 1985 to 1987, Timmerman was a correspondent for Defense and Armament Newsweek and Military Technology, covering the Iran-Iraq War and the arms industry in the Middle East. He won the Joe Petrosino Prize for Investigative Reporting in 1987 for an investigation of an Iranian arms procurement group.

"From 1987 to 1993, Timmerman published the Middle East Defense News and was international correspondent for Defense Electronics. He also wrote monographs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center on alleged efforts by Iraq, Syria and Libya to acquire weapons of mass destruction."[7]

According to his website profile,

  • Timmerman has "operated Middle East Data Project, Inc., a small business that has provided investigative support and policy guidance to government agencies and private companies on three continents" since 1987.
  • In 1995, with Peter W. Rodman, Joshua Muravchik, and "a group of Iranian patriots, he established the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI)."
  • "In 1998, he tracked renegade Saudi financier Osama Bin Ladin and his international terrorist network halfway across the globe for Reader's Digest, publishing his expose on the unknown Saudi just weeks before he attacked two U.S. embassies in Africa."
  • "In April 1983, he was the first U.S. correspondent on scene when the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon was blown up by Islamic militants."
  • "During the later half of the 1980s, he covered the Iran-Iraq war, gaining first-hand knowledge of Iraq's deadly weapons buildup."

Affiliations

Articles

Published Works

Books

  • Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender, Crown Forum, November 2007 (hardcover), ISBN 0307352099.
  • Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, Crown Forum, June 14, 2005 ISBN 1400053684. Washington Post Review posted on Amazon.com; Crown Forum promotion.
  • The French Betrayal of America, Three Rivers Press; Reprint edition, March 22, 2005 ISBN 1400053676.
  • Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson, Regnery Publishing, Reprint edition, January 2004 ISBN 0895261081.
  • Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America, Crown Forum, October 21, 2003 ISBN 1400049016.
  • Selling Out America, Xlibris Corporation; 1 edition, July 24, 2000 ISBN 0738828599.
  • Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq, Houghton Mifflin (T), November 1991 ISBN 0395593050.

Other publications

  • Contributor to Section on "Regional Initiatives" in Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.'s War Footing: 10 Steps America Must Take to Prevail in the War for the Free World, Naval Institute Press, November 24, 2005, ISBN 1591143012. [11]
  • "In their own words: Interviews with leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Muslum Brotherhood : Damascus, Amman, and Gaza," Simon Wiesenthal Center, 1994 ISBN 094305821X.
  • "Iraq rebuilds its military industries: A staff report," U.S. Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, January 1, 1993, ASIN B0006P3146.
  • "Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Cases of Iran, Syria & Libya," Simon Wiesenthal Center, August 1992 (Paperback) ISBN 0614032261.
  • "The BNL blunder: How U.S. policy allowed a bank in Atlanta to help finance Saddam Hussein's war machine : a special report," Middle East Defense News, January 1, 1991, ASIN B0006P5XXI.
  • "Poison Gas Connection: Western Suppliers of Unconventional Weapons and Technologies to Iraq and Iran," Diane Publishing Company, November 1990 (Paperback) ISBN 0756707811.
  • "Fanning the Flames: Guns, Greed & Geopolitics in the Gulf War", written 1986-1987.

Testimony

Contact Information

Website: www.kentimmerman.com

Related SourceWatch Resources

External links

Profiles

Articles & Commentary

1997-1998

2003

2004

2005

2006

References