20 Years After Fallujah: Lessons Learned and Unlearned

Dr. Erica Gaston heads the Conflict Prevention and Sustaining Peace Programme at the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research. She has worked on conflict-related human rights, civilian protection, peacebuilding, rule of law, and security sector reform in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Pakistan. Gaston has collaborated with organizations such as the Open Society Foundations, the Center for Civilians in Conflict, and the Global Public Policy Institute. She is also a Non-Resident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and GPPi. Her work has been featured in Lawfare, War on the Rocks, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, CNN, Al Jazeera, and BBC. Her most recent book, "Illusions of Control: Dilemmas in Managing U.S. Proxy Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria", was published last summer.

Thomas Brennan served as a U.S. Marine and fought in the Second Battle of Fallujah and Afghanistan, where he sustained a traumatic brain injury during a foot patrol. He publicly documented his recovery journey, addressing mental health and moral injury in an award-winning series for The New York Times. After being medically retired, he transitioned to investigative journalism and founded The War Horse, a nonprofit newsroom focused on the impact of war. He graduated from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Cheryl Ites owns Ites Consulting and retired from federal service in 2018. Her last role was as a Program Analyst in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, where she developed doctrine and represented the Department on interagency and joint committees. Before working at the Pentagon, she served as an Operations Officer at the Joint Mortuary Affairs Center at Ft. Lee, overseeing doctrine development and advising units on mortuary affairs during trips to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Germany. Over her 35-year career in the U.S. Marine Corps, both active and reserve, CWO-4 Ites completed three tours in Iraq as the I Marine Expeditionary Force Services Officer, where she led Mortuary Affairs Units responsible for the recovery, processing, and transport of combat fatalities for U.S., Allied, and local forces. She holds a Master’s degree from Lehigh University.

Thom Shanker is director of the Project for Media and National Security at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. He spent 25 years at The New York Times, including 13 years as Pentagon correspondent covering the Department of Defense, combat operations, and national security policy. He reported extensively from Afghanistan and Iraq, embedding with units across military levels, and later served as Deputy Washington Editor overseeing military, diplomacy, and veterans' coverage. Shanker co-authored the New York Times best seller "Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda." He was previously foreign editor at The Chicago Tribune and served as a correspondent in Berlin and Moscow, covering the Yugoslav wars and the fall of the Soviet Union.