Brent Scowcroft

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Brent Scowcroft, KBE (born March 19, 1925 in Ogden, Utah) was the United States National Security Advisor under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush and a Lieutenant General in the United States Air Force. He also served as Military Assistant to President Richard Nixon and as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He served as Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005. He also assisted President Barack Obama in choosing his national security team.

Early life
Brent Scowcroft was born in Ogden, Utah to Lucile Scowcroft (formerly Ballantyne) and James Scowcroft, a grocer and business owner. He is a descendant of early 19th century immigrants from England, Scotland, Denmark, and Norway.

He received his undergraduate degree and commission into the Army Air Forces from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Scowcroft also holds an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Positions held
Prior to joining the Bush administration, Scowcroft was Vice Chairman of Kissinger Associates, Inc. He has had a long association with Henry Kissinger, having served as his assistant when Kissinger was the National Security Adviser under Nixon, from 1968.

He is the founder and president of The Forum for International Policy, a think tank. Scowcroft is also president of The Scowcroft Group, Inc., an international business consulting firm. He is co-chair, along with Joseph Nye, of the Aspen Strategy Group. He is a member of the Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, a board member of The Center for Strategic and International Studies and The Atlantic Council of the United States.

In the course of his military career, Scowcroft held positions in the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Headquarters of the United States Air Force, and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. Other assignments included faculty positions at the United States Air Force Academy and the United States Military Academy at West Point, and Assistant Air Attaché in the American Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Scowcroft retired with the rank of Lieutenant General in the U.S. Air Force.

Scowcroft has chaired or served on a number of policy advisory councils, including the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control, the President's Commission on Strategic Forces, the President's Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management, the Defense Policy Board, and the President's Special Review Board (Tower Commission) investigating the Iran-Contra affair. He also serves on the Guiding Coalition of the nonpartisan Project on National Security Reform.

On the morning of 9/11, Scowcroft was in one of the President's Flying Command posts on the tarmac waiting to takeoff and fly to Offutt Air Force Base, when the first plane hit the tower. The plane was en route when the second plane hit. Scowcroft was involved in observing the command and control operations of both President George W. Bush in Florida and Vice President Dick Cheney, who was in the White House.

Scowcroft was a leading Republican critic of U.S. policy towards Iraq before and after the 2003 invasion, which war critics in particular have seen as significant given Scowcroft's close ties to former President George H.W. Bush. Scowcroft supported the invasion of Afghanistan as a "direct response" to terrorism.

Scowcroft had an aeronautical rating as a pilot and has numerous military decorations and awards. In addition, George H.W. Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991. In 1993, he was created an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace. In 2005, Scowcroft was awarded the William Oliver Baker Award by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.

He co-wrote A World Transformed with George H.W. Bush. This book described what it was like to be in the White House during the end of the Cold War, as the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s. Explaining in 1998 why they didn't go on to Baghdad in 1991: "Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

Scowcroft is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is also a member of Honorary Council of Advisors for U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC). He is a member of the board of directors of the International Republican Institute. He is on the Advisory Board for Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.