Alexis Debat

Alexis Debat is, among other things, found described as a "political scientist and terrorism analyst"; a "senior consultant" to ABC News (now a former consultant; "Debat was asked to resign in June [2007] after questions were raised by the French government about his academic credentials."); a contractor for the RAND Corporation; a "contributing editor" to The National Interest, a neoconservative publication founded by Irving Kristol; a Senior Fellow for National Security and Terrorism at the Nixon Center; a "premiere expert" on Pakistan; a "former advisor to the French minister of Defense on Transatlantic Affairs"; a "visiting professor at Middlebury College"; and "Director of the Scientific Committee for the Institut Montaigne (Paris)".

Debat also had affiliations with the think tank the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and the lobbying firm Jefferson Waterman International, and sought work with the PR firm the Lincoln Group, reported Laura Rozen. "Debat was introduced to a co-founder of the Lincoln Group, Paige Craig, at a Washington dinner party, and the two became friends." According to Craig, Debat had "done two hours of consulting work for Lincoln Group staff on the Horn of Africa." Lincoln CEO Ray Petty told Rozen that Debat "was supposed to get with some of my guys in Dubai ... but he was never an employee." Lincoln co-founder Christian Bailey said that "to the best of my knowledge, Debat has not worked for the Lincoln Group." Why all the job hustling? "In a practice not uncommon at think tanks," wrote Rozen, "Debat's position at the Nixon Center required him to raise his own funds."

"Simply put," Will Bunch of Attytood Blog wrote September 13, 2007, "Debat -- a former French defense official who now works at the (no, you can't make these things up) Nixon Center -- has also been a leading source in pounding the drumbeat for war in Iran, and directly linked to some bizarre stories -- reported on ABC's widely watched news shows, and nowhere else -- that either ratcheted up fears of terrorism or that could have stoked new tensions between Washington and Tehran."

Fake Interviews

Alexis Debat, a French terrorism expert, left the Nixon Center under a cloud last week after being accused of publishing a bogus interview with Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, in Politique Internationale, a French journal.

It emerged that other interviews were fabricated with people including Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, and Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives.

The Sunday Times quoted Debat prominently this month in an article about the Pentagon’s plans for a three-day blitz on Iran. He claimed at a meeting organised by the Nixon Center that the Pentagon had plans to annihilate the Iranian military by striking 1,200 targets. The thrust of his story was corroborated by Pentagon sources.

Debat has long been held in high regard in Washington government circles. He continued to be consulted by senior Pentagon officials after The Sunday Times’s article on Iran appeared.

Debat was hired as a terrorism consultant by ABC News shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, but it fired him in June after it was unable to verify his PhD from the Sorbonne. ABC News claimed his information was always “spot on” but is now re-examining his stories.

News stories involving Alexis Debat

• Alexis Debat, Cooperative Research.
• "France terror code 'breakthrough'," BBC (UK), October 5, 2001.
• Susan Donaldson James, "Fringe Science Yields 'Gay Bombs' and Psychic Teleportation. Pentagon Spends $78 Billion a Year on Weapons and Space Research, Some of it Whacky," ABC News, June 21, 2007.
• Marjorie Cohn, "Bush Plans War on Iran," MWC News, September 2, 2007.

News stories by Alexis Debat

• National Interest Online. Scroll to bottom of page for links.
• Search: Alexis Debat, ABC News.

Articles

• Pascal Riché, "A fake interview with Barack Obama in a French well-regarded review," Rue89.com; truthout, September 7, 2007.
• David Kurtz, "Who is the Real Alexis Debat?" Talking Points Memo, September 11, 2007.
• Joseph Cannon, "A spooked-up ABC journalist...?" Cannonfire Blogspot, September 11, 2007.
• Howard Kurtz, "Consultant Probed in Bogus Interview. Former ABC Consultant Says He Was 'Scammed' in Piece on Obama," Washington Post, September 13, 2007.
• David Bauder, "Ex-ABC Consultant Said to Fake Interview. Former ABC News Consultant Allegedly Faked Interviews With Obama and Others," Associated Press (ABC News), September 13, 2007.
• "Clinton, Pelosi, Gates Join List Of Subjects Allegedly Interviewed By Ex-ABC News Consultant," ABC News (The Huffington Post), September 13, 2007.
• Laura Rozen, "Alexis Debat Update," Mother Jones blog, October 23, 2007.
• Brian Stelter, "In Inquiry, ABC News Clears Work of a Fired Consultant," New York Times, October 23, 2007.

Further Reading, Notes

Further Reading

• Sarah Baxter US terror guru ‘put name to fake articles’ From The Sunday Times September 16, 2007