John Peter Hannah (born January 5, 1962) is a senior counselor at

Foundation for Defense of Democracies The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit think tank and registered lobbying organization based in Washington, D.C., United States. The group's political leanings have been described as hawkish and neoconservative ...

, and a senior advisor to Chairman Ron Wahid of Arcanum, a global strategic intelligence company and a subsidiary of Magellan Investment Holdings. He was formerly a senior fellow at the

Washington Institute for Near East Policy The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP or TWI, also known simply as The Washington Institute) is a pro-Israel American think tank based in Washington, D.C., focused on the foreign policy of the United States in the Near East. WINE ...

, a Washington, DC think tank which was founded in 1985. He is also a former national security adviser to U.S. Vice President

Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former U ...

from 2005 to 2009.Hannah, Joh
"History and the Effort to Stop an Iranian Bomb - washingtonpost.com
May 18, 2009, accessed August 13, 2009.Dreyfuss, Rober
"Vice Squad"

The American Prospect ''The American Prospect'' is a daily online and bimonthly print American political and public policy magazine dedicated to American modern liberalism and progressivism. Based in Washington, D.C., ''The American Prospect'' says it "is devoted to ...

, April 17, 2006, accessed July 1, 2008.

Early life

Hannah's father was an oil executive working for Shell in the 1960s and 1970s. The Hannah family was stationed in Libya before

Muammar Gaddafi Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, . Due to the lack of standardization of transcribing written and regionally pronounced Arabic, Gaddafi's name has been romanized in various ways. A 1986 column by ''The Straight Dope'' lists 32 spellin ...

came to power and nationalized the oil industry. They returned to the U.S. in the late 1970s and lived in

Huntington, New York The Town of Huntington is one of ten towns in Suffolk County, New York. Founded in 1653, it is located on the north shore of Long Island in northwestern Suffolk County, with Long Island Sound to its north and Nassau County adjacent to the west. ...

, for several years, before moving to Bahrain. Hannah graduated from Huntington High School in 1980., then went on to graduate from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

and

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

Career

On October 31, 2005, Cheney named Hannah as his assistant for national security affairs. At the same time, Cheney appointed another Duke alumnus, David S. Addington, as his chief of staff. The two took over duties that had previously been jointly held by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Hannah had originally been on loan to the Office of the Vice President from the office of former

State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

official and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations

John Bolton John Robert Bolton (born November 20, 1948) is an American attorney, diplomat, Republican consultant, and political commentator. He served as the 25th United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006, and as the 26th United Sta ...

.Jehl,Dougla
"In Cheney's New Chief, a Bureaucratic Master"

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

, November 2, 2005, accessed July 2, 2008. On February 11, 2007, ''The Washington Post'' reported that an unnamed ambassador present in a meeting with Hannah had been "taken aback" by a remark Hannah made that the Bush administration considered 2007 to be "the year of Iran," with Hannah indicating that he believed a U.S. attack on that country to be a real possibility.DeYoung, Kare
"U.S. Keeps Pressure on Iran But Decreases Saber Rattling"

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

, February 11, 2007, accessed July 2, 2008.Taibbi, Mat
"Hersh on secret White House plot to bomb Iran"

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...

, April 2, 2007, accessed July 1, 2008.Warrick, Job
"U.S. Is Said to Expand Covert Operations in Iran"

, June 30, 2008, accessed July 1, 2008.Hersh, Seymou
"Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran"

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

, July 7, 2007.

Personal life

Hannah and his wife Laura have two children and are members of the Temple Sinai, Washington, D.C., having joined in the fall of 2006.

References

External links

*
''SourceWatch'' profile of John Hannah''RightWeb'' profile of John HannahJohn Hannah
''Center for Cooperative Research''.
Cheney and the 'Raw' Intelligence
''Newsweek'', December 15, 2004
John Hannah serves as Senior Advisor to the Chairman at Arcanum Global
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hannah, John P. 1962 births Living people George W. Bush administration personnel Yale Law School alumni Duke University alumni