Andrew Natsios

Andrew S. Natsios (born September 22, 1949) is an American civil servant who has served in a number of Massachusetts and high level federal government positions. From 2001 to 2005 he has served as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and was appointed as Special Coordinator for International Disaster Assistance and Special Humanitarian Coordinator for the Sudan. In December 2005, Natsios announced his resignation from USAID to join the faculty of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University in January 2006. As of 2006, he is the Special Envoy to Sudan, focusing specifically on Darfur.cite web|url=http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060919-4.html|title=President Bush Addresses United Nations General Assembly|accessdate=2006-09-19]

Natsios is the author of numerous articles on foreign policy and humanitarian emergencies, as well as the author of two books: "U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997), and "The Great North Korean Famine" (U.S. Institute of Peace, 2001).

Education

Natsios received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and his Masters of Public Administration at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

Career

Natsios served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1975 to 1987. He also was chairman of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee for seven years. From 1987 to 1989, he was executive director of the Northeast Public Power Association in Milford, Massachusetts.

In 1986, Natsios introduced legislation to repeal the Massachusetts Teachers' Oath, a product of the 1930s that remained law in the Commonwealth even after the Supreme Judicial Court invalidated the law in 1967. The legislation passed without opposition.

He was director of the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance at USAID from 1989 to 1991 and assistant administrator for the Bureau for Food and Humanitarian Assistance (now the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance) from 1991 to January 1993.

A 23-year veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves, Natsios retired in 1995 with the rank of lieutenant colonel after having served in the Gulf War.

From 1993 to 1998, Natsios was vice president of World Vision U.S. He was secretary for administration and finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from March 1999 to April 2000. And he was chairman and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority from April 2000 to March 2001, where he took over responsibility for managing Boston's controversial Big Dig (even though he had twice voted against it as a state representative) after significant cost overruns and gained notoriety for cutting costs and lobbying against further federal funding.

In May 2001, he was sworn in as the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Natsios resigned from USAID on January 14, 2006.cite web|url=http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5158012|title=Top U.S. Foreign Aid Official Steps Down|accessdate=2006-09-19] President Bush appointed him Special Envoy for Darfur in 2006.

Iraq reconstruction

On April 23, 2003, Natsios appeared on "Nightline" in his capacity as administrator of USAID (the lead agency responsible for rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq) to describe the Bush administration's plan for the reconstruction of Iraq. He denied that the effort would be comparable to the Marshall Plan by claiming that the rebuilding would be mainly financed by international donations and Iraqi oil revenues, saying: "But the American part of this will be 1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this." cite web|url=http://www.fas.org/sgp/temp/natsios042303.html|title=USAID: Assistance for Iraq|accessdate=2006-09-19] The Washington Post reported in December 2003 that the Bush administration had removed the transcript of this interview from the USAID site.cite web|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A9821-2003Dec17&notFound=true|title=White House Web Scrubbing|accessdate=2006-09-19|publisher=Washington Post] The Post noted that Natsios's figure was by then known to be a gross understatement. In fact by May 1, 2008, 5 years after President Bush declared the war in Iraq "Mission Accomplished", Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the War Costcite web|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jan/07/usa.iraq|title=$3 TRILLION (3,000,000,000,000) US Dollars|accessdate=2008-01-25] thus far (April 2008) to the United States' taxpayers at least 3,000,000,000,000 US Dollars.

Family

A native of Holliston, Massachusetts, Natsios and his wife, Elizabeth, have three children: Emily, Alexander, and Philip.

References

External links

* [http://www.usaid.gov/about_usaid/bios/bio_asn.html USAID bio]
* [http://www.usaid.gov/index.html Official Website of the United States Agency for International Development]
* [http://www.lightrailnow.org/myths/m_000008.htm Natsios and the Big Dig]
* [http://www.oldamericancentury.org/hoopla.wmv "Project Iraq Interview"]
* [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11965317/site/newsweek/ Breaking the Silence] , "Newsweek", March 22, 2006