resignation letters

Mary Ann Wright (born 1947?) is a retired United States Army Colonel, retired official of the U.S. State Department, and now full-time anti-war activist. She currently sits on the Board of Directors for organizations Operation Truth/Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, and Veterans for Common Sense.

Wright is most noted for being one of three U.S. State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003.

Pre-Military Life

Wright grew up in Bentonville, Arkansas, in what she referred to as "just a normal childhood." Wright attended the University of Arkansas, where she earned Master's and Law Degrees, before entering the U.S. Army.

Military Career

Wright earned a Master's Degree in National Security Affairs from the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Wright participated in reconstruction efforts after U.S. military actions in Grenada and Somalia.

Wright was stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, from 1982 to 1984. In a note of irony, one of her duties during that time was to draw up contingency plans for invading several countries, one of which was Iraq. She would later express dismay over what she considered the dismissal of such carefully laid plans in the actual invasion of Iraq in 2003.^{citation needed]}

Wright went on to serve 16 years in active duty in the U.S. Army, and 13 years in the Army Reserves, rising to the rank of Colonel. She was placed in the Retired Ready Reserve, meaning the President could call her back to active duty in a time of need.

State Department Career

In 1987, Wright went to work for the U.S. State Department. Over the course of her State Department career, Wright served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassies in Afghanistan (which she helped open following the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, an assignment she volunteered for), Sierra Leone (an embassy which she helped close and then reopen again), Micronesia and Mongolia, and also served at U.S. embassies in Uzbekistan (which she helped open), Kyrgyzstan, Grenada, and Nicaragua.

Wright received the State Department's Award for Heroism for her help evacuating 2,500 people from the civil war in Sierra Leone in 1997.

Wright's eventual resignation was not the first time she spoke out against policy. In an interview, Wright claimed to have spoken out against United Nations bombing tactics waged in Somalia, in the effort to kill rebel leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid. However, Wright also claims to have "held her nose" on multiple occasions, continuing her State Department work despite her own disagreements with the policy.

Resignation

Wright filed her resignation letter to then U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on March 19, 2003, the day before the onset of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Her letter was published on the Internet the following day.

In her resignation letter, Wright listed four reasons she could no longer work for the U.S. government under the George W. Bush administration:

• The decision to invade Iraq without the blessing of the U.N. Security Council
• The "lack of effort" in the Israel-Palestine peace process
• The "lack of policy" in regards to North Korea
• The curtailment of civil liberties within the United States.

Wright was the third of three prominent State Department officials to retire from service in protest in the month prior to the invasion of Iraq, the other two being Brady Kiesling and John Brown. Wright claims to have not known the other two, or to have even read their resignation letters at the time she submitted her own.

Peace Activism

Ever since her resignation from the State Department, Wright has been a prominent figure in opposition to the occupation of Iraq. She has attended numerous conferences and given numerous lectures on her political views, and on her experiences before and after her resignation.

Wright has worked with anti-war demonstrator Cindy Sheehan on several occasions, most notably by helping organize the Camp Casey demonstration outside George W. Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch in August 2005, and by accompanying the southern leg of the Bring Them Home Now bus tour. She also volunteered at Camp Casey 3, the Veterans For Peace shelter for Hurricane Katrina victims in Covington, Louisiana, during the bus tour.

She was also one of three witnesses called to testify at an Article 32 hearing on behalf of Lt. Ehren Watada, who on June 22, 2006 refused to deploy to Iraq, asserting that the war violates the US Constitution and International Law.

Wright has willingly been arrested as part of anti-war demonstrations, the first such arrest occurring in front of the White House on September 26, 2005. Wright has said in interviews of how she does not remove her arrest bracelets, attached to her wrists upon the processing of her arrest, but rather collects them.

On October 19, 2005, Wright was escorted out of a U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, when she shouted at speaker Condoleezza Rice, "Stop the war! Stop the killing!" Wright was uneventfully escorted out of the hearing.

Wright was one of five judges at the January 2006 sessions of the "International Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration."

Sources

• Tomdispatch Interview: Ann Wright on Service to Country
• Biography for Mary A. (Ann) Wright
• Sourcewatch entry on Ann Wright
• End the War and Impeach Bush - An Interview with Ann Wright
• Article from Revolution Interviewer, #020

External links

• Ann Wright's letter of resignation
• Ann Wright interviewed on Democracy Now! at Camp Casey, August 19, 2005
• Breaking Through Diplomacy's Glass Ceiling, by Ann Wright
• Statement by Ann Wright Concerning International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity by the Bush Administration