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Armand Cucciniello III (b. 7 December 1979; also known as Armand Cucciniello, Armand V. Cucciniello, Armand V. Cucciniello III) is a former American diplomat, political and international affairs commentator, writer, and public relations and communications executive. He has appeared on CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), and other news media outlets.[1][2] His work has been cited by think-tanks, the U.S. government and U.S. military, and various scholars and authors.[3][4][5][6]

Armand Cucciniello III
Born: 7 December 1979
Profession: Public relations and communications executive,

writer, political and international affairs

commentator. Former U.S. diplomat to Iraq,

former reporter.

Citizenship: U.S.A.

Education

Cucciniello is a graduate of Boston University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree (2002).[7] He subsequently attended The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University where he earned a Master of Arts degree (2004) and was a Title VI Foreign Language and Area Studies National Resource Fellow.[8][9] He has also earned certificates from and completed coursework at the University of California, Berkeley.[10]

Cucciniello is a graduate of Seton Hall Preparatory School (1998).[11]

Career and Professional Life

While attending university in Boston, Cucciniello founded A2C Enterprises LLC, a boutique public relations company. Subsequent to his time in Boston, he worked for the Center For Strategic and International Studies[12] and The Rendon Group, Inc., a public relations firm based in Washington, D.C.

India

Cucciniello lived in India twice: First in 2001 as a student in Mysore at the world-renowned Dhvanyaloka Centre For Indian Studies;[13] and subsequently working as a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires in New Delhi and Mumbai.[14]

While in Mysore, Cucciniello was a student of the renowned Indian archaeologist and epigraphist M.S. Nagaraja Rao; and scholar H.V. Nagaraja Rao, a world authority on Sanskrit.[15] Aside from studying archaeology, South Asian languages, and contemporary political science Cucciniello conducted primary research in southern India on the then-nascent and budding information technology (IT) industry, which had been mostly forming in and around nearby Bangalore and Hyderabad. Cucciniello's work, conducted at an exceptionally young age, was noticed by leading Indian journalist and head of Dow Jones India Mr. Suman Dubey[16] - a very close friend of the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his wife, the Italian-born politician Sonia Gandhi.

In 2003 Dubey invited Cucciniello to come work in New Delhi as a reporter for the newswire to cover IT, among other topics. From Mumbai, Cucciniello was one of the first to report internationally on India as a thriving, global hub for what became known as business processing outsourcing, or simply "outsourcing." He also reported on macroeconomics, agriculture, the textile industry, and the animation industry.

Iraq

In 2006 Cucciniello moved to Baghdad, Iraq to work for Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) - often referred to as the Coalition Forces and led by the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Shortly thereafter he was hired by the U.S. Department of State to work in the Public Affairs Section at the U.S. embassy, located in the former Republican Palace (Arabic: القصر الجمهوري al-Qaṣr al-Ǧumhūriy) of Saddam Hussein. As such Cucciniello was made a non-career U.S. diplomat. He served as a spokesman for the U.S. embassy, and has been widely quoted in news media outlets like The New York Times, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, CBS News, NBC, CNN, McClatchy Newspapers, Sky News, The Guardian, The Telegraph, and many others.[17][18][19][20][21][22][23]

Cucciniello remains the longest-serving spokesperson for the Iraq war (military or civilian). In 2010 he was presented with the Superior Honor Award by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq James Jeffrey. Cucciniello also served under Ambassadors Zalmay Khalilzad (2006-2007), Ryan C. Crocker (2007-2009), and Christopher Hill (2009-2010); as well as worked with Commanding Generals George Casey, Jr., David Petraeus, Raymond Odierno, and Lloyd Austin III. He has received many other awards from the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Defense for his work in public affairs, public diplomacy, crisis and issues management.

Some of Cucciniello's experiences in Iraq were documented in the 2007 book Baghdad: Journal of A Reporter (French: Bagdad, Journal d'un Reporter) by the AFP reporter Patrick Fort, and he was a contributor to many titles documenting and covering the war.

While in Iraq Cucciniello befriended Andrea Parhamovich, a National Democratic Institute employee killed in January 17, 2007 in Baghdad when her convoy was ambushed as she was returning from teaching a class on democracy. Parhamovich was the subject of the book I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story, written by her fiancé and Newsweek reporter Michael Hastings.[24] Cucciniello was also a good friend of Hastings, who died on June 18, 2013 in an automobile crash in Los Angeles, California.

Saddam Hussein and The Iraqi High Tribunal

Cucciniello was responsible for overseeing news media and logistical operations at the Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT), a court established under Iraqi law to try Iraqis or residents accused of genocide, war crimes, and other crimes against humanity, or other serious crimes committed by Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party regime.[25][26] As such, Cucciniello was one of the few Americans to witness and be present at the trial of Saddam Hussein; and other Ba'ath Party officials and top-tier henchmen of Hussein like Ali Hassan "Chemical Ali" Al-Majid, Tarik Aziz, (Foreign Minister) Sultan Hashim Ahmad al-Taih (Minister of Defence), Hussein Rashid Moal-Takriti.[27][28]

Camp Ashraf and the Mojahedin-e-Khal (MEK)

In January 2009 Cucciniello was one of the few American diplomats to have ever visited Camp Ashraf[29]. The camp was the former headquarters of the exiled Iranian group known as the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI) or the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) (Persian: سازمان مجاهدين خلق ايران‎‎ Sāzmān-e mojāhedin-e khalq-e irān), an Iranian opposition movement in exile, founded in 1965, that actively and has sometimes violently advocated for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. There Cucciniello met Mehdi Baraie, a senior official of the PMOI who had signed the ceasefire and mutual understanding agreement with US forces in April 2003.[30] At the time, in 2009, tensions within the camp were high, as residents were aware of the possibility of the United States military withdrawing from Iraq within the next year. Such a move, residents feared, would leave them at the mercy of the Iraqi government - historically hostile to the MEK and the camp's residents. The MEK actively lobbied the Americans to not leave, and continue providing protection for the camp and all its residents.

Armand Cucciniello III (second from left) at Aiwan-e-Sadr in Islamabad with the President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari (center). December 2010.

Pakistan

In Pakistan Cucciniello managed a counternarcotics and counter-narcoterrorism project for the U.S. Department of Defense through the Office of Defense Representative - Pakistan (ODRP). Besides managing the counter-narcotics program for ODRP Cucciniello supported public affairs initiatives and activities for the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad.

Osama bin Laden

Cucciniello and his team provided in-country analysis support and media monitoring to the U.S. Mission to Pakistan leading up to, during, and after the May 2, 2011 raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (Usama bin Laden, UBL, OBL)

.

References

  1. ^ "Armand Cucciniello III | LinkedIn". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2016-01-19.
  2. ^ 2015-03-19 CNN New Day, 2015-03-23, retrieved 2016-01-20
  3. ^ Caudill, Lt Col Shannon; et al. (2011). "Defending the Joint Force" (PDF). http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/. Air and Space Power Journal. Retrieved 1/20/2016. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help); External link in |website= (help)
  4. ^ "India and Israel Move Closer Together - CIAO". ciaonet.org. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  5. ^ Kemp, Geoffrey (2012-01-01). The East Moves West: India, China, and Asia's Growing Presence in the Middle East. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN 0815724071.
  6. ^ Kumaraswamy, P. R. (2010-07-30). India's Israel Policy. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231525480.
  7. ^ Rothman, Evan (11/11/2008). "Our Man in Iraq". http://njmonthly.com/. New Jersey Monthly. Retrieved 1/19/2016. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= and |date= (help); External link in |website= (help)
  8. ^ Prema, 2015. "Kurien" (PDF). Retrieved 01/10/2016. {{cite web}}: |first= has numeric name (help); Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  9. ^ (none) (2003). "The South Asia Center News" (PDF). Syracuse University. Retrieved 1/20/2015. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  10. ^ "Armand Cucciniello III | LinkedIn". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  11. ^ "1996 Seton Hall Preparatory High School Yearbook". www.classmates.com. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  12. ^ "Armand Cucciniello III | LinkedIn". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  13. ^ "Dhvanyaloka Centre for Indian Studies - Mysore". www.dcismysore.org. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  14. ^ Luongo, Michael (2010. Vol 22, No. 1). "Ambassador" (PDF). www.niaf.org. The National Italian American Foundation. Retrieved 1/18/2016. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= and |date= (help)
  15. ^ "H. V. Nagaraja Rao | The Institute for Advanced Studies". www.as.huji.ac.il. Retrieved 2016-01-19.
  16. ^ "The Hindu : Dow Jones' pact with Times of India group". www.thehindu.com. Retrieved 2016-01-19.
  17. ^ Glanz, James (2007-08-21). "15 Hussein Aides on Trial in Baghdad". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  18. ^ "Saddam lawyers told to pick up his effects". www.freerepublic.com. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  19. ^ "Iraqi government distanced itself from U.S. accusations towards Iran". Global Research. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  20. ^ "Reaction to Al-Maliki". Star Tribune. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  21. ^ "Obama in Iraq for talks with US, Iraqi leaders". NBC New York. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  22. ^ "Obama's Iraq Fact-Finding Mission". Sky News. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  23. ^ Baghdad, By Damien McElroy in. "Barack Obama calls for plans to withdraw troops from Iraq to Afghanistan". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
  24. ^ Hastings, Michael (2008-01-01). I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story. Melbourne Univ. Publishing. ISBN 9780522854930.
  25. ^ "Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal". Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
  26. ^ "Iraqi Special Tribunal to Try Crimes Against Humanity". www.hrcr.org. Retrieved 2016-01-19.
  27. ^ Glanz, James (2007-08-21). "15 Hussein Aides on Trial in Baghdad". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-01-20.
  28. ^ "Saddam's Time Running Out". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
  29. ^ McNaught, Anita (2009). [Mehdi Baraie "Fighting To Stay In Iraq"]. FOX News. FOX News. Retrieved 1/20/2016. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help); Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  30. ^ "Interview with a veteran official of the Iranian Mojahedin". www.iranfocus.com. Retrieved 2016-01-22.
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