[333] Retired Intelligence Analyst Examines Kurds' Chances

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 3, 2010
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

RETIRED INTELLIGENCE ANALYST EXAMINES KURDS’ CHANCES
Norman “Rick” Denny is Guest Speaker at MTSU Political Science Forum

(MURFREESBORO) – Norman “Rick” Denny, Cmdr., U.S.N. (Ret.), will speak on the topic “Iraqi Kurds: Awaiting the Third American Stab in the Back” at 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 16, in Room 123 of the Cason-Kennedy Nursing Building at MTSU. This forum, sponsored by the MTSU Department of Political Science, is free and open to the public.
Denny is a retired naval intelligence officer with more than 30 years of experience in the Middle East. He retired from his position as a civilian analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency effective Jan. 2, 2010. For much of the last few years, Denny has worked as a Northern Iraq analyst serving in Baghdad and Kirkuk.
He is the author of a number of articles dealing with military policy, technology and history. In “The Kurdish Nationalist Dream, Deferred?,” an article published last year in the online edition of Harvard International Review, Denny wrote, “Today, the KRG (Kurdish Regional Government) has all the trappings of a democracy with a functioning governmental structure, and Kurds worldwide view the KRG as the best hope for an eventual independent Kurdistan. Kurdish aspirations for an independent homeland are peaking as the KRG enters a decline in power within Iraq and faces potential future Arab domination.”
However, in the same article, Denny cautioned, “There appears to be a clear realization among the KRG leadership that an independent Kurdistan is not in the foreseeable future. The KRG is surrounded by nations opposed to an independent Kurdistan. In Baghdad, one of the few things that would unite the Shia and Sunni Arabs would be a Kurdish declaration of independence.”
Denny holds master’s degrees in public administration from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and in military arts and science from the Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
For more information, contact the Department of Political Science at 615-898-2708.

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ATTENTION, MEDIA: For a color jpeg of Norman “Rick” Denny, contact Gina Logue in the MTSU Office of News and Public Affairs at 615-898-5081 or gklogue@mtsu.edu.



With three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and former faculty, Middle Tennessee State University confers master’s degrees in 10 areas, the Specialist in Education degree, the Doctor of Arts degree and the Doctor of Philosophy degree. MTSU is ranked among the top 100 public universities in the nation in the Forbes “America’s Best Colleges” 2009 survey.