The Secure America Project is a consortium of researchers and experts on foreign policy issues including former ambassadors and military officials who have cooperated to examine issues of international security and current U.S. policy. Since 2004, dozens of experts have served on our panel of speakers.

The 2010 panel includes:

David Cortright is the Director of Policy Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame and Chair of the Board of the Fourth Freedom Forum in Goshen, Indiana. He has served as consultant or adviser to a dozen governments, various agencies of the United Nations and several private foundations. His sixteen books include most recently Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas(Cambridge University Press 2008) and Towards Nuclear Zero (Adelphi Papers, 2010). During the 1980s he was Executive Director of SANE, the largest disarmament organization in the United States.

Lieutenant General Robert Gard, Jr. is Senior Military Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Former Assistant to then-Secretary of Defense McNamara; Director of Human Resources Development for the United States Army; Commanding General of Fort Ord, CA and the 7th Infantry Division; Commanding General of U.S. Army Military Personnel Center; President of the National Defense University; and President of the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

George A. Lopez holds the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Chair in Peace Studies, at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. In 2009-10 he served as Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. He has written and spoken extensively on terrorism, economic sanctions, and new options in America's security policies.

Colonel Richard L. (Dick) Klass, USAF (retired) is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy (1962) and the National War College (1977). He received his M.A. and M. Litt. degrees from Oxford University, England, as a Rhodes Scholar and served as a White House Fellow in the Nixon administration. He taught flying and political Science at the Air Force Academy, served with United States Air Forces in Europe and the Office of the Undersecretary of Defese (Policy) in the Pentagon. He flew over 200 combat missions in Vietnam as a Forward Air Controller. His military decorations include the Silver Star, Distinguished Flying Cross, Legion of Merit and Purple Heart. After retiring from the military, Col. Klass held several senior international marketing positions with U.S. aerospace and consulting firms. He sits on the boards of the Falcon Foundation and the Council for a Livable World and is president of VETPAC (www.vetpac.org).

Dr. Lawrence Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Senior Advisor to the Center for Defense Information. Prior to joining the Center, he was a Senior Fellow and Director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He had previously served as Director of the Center for Public Policy Education and as Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, Dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, Vice President of Corporate Operations at the Raytheon Company, and Director of Defense Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Korb served as Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1981 through 1985. For his service in that position, he was awarded the Department of Defense’s medal for Distinguished Public Service. Dr. Korb served on active duty for four years as Naval Flight Officer, and retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of Captain.

Trita Parsi is the author of Treacherous Alliance--The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel, and the United States (Yale University Press, 2007). Dr. Parsi is the recipient of the Council on Foreign Relations' 2008 Arthur Ross Silver Medallion and the 2010 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He wrote his doctoral thesis on Israeli-Iranian relations at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies while heading the largest Iranian-American organization in the United States, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).