Community Calendar

Event Details:

Location Description:

Drake Community Library's Community Room 

Event Description:

The March 6 Bucket Course is entitled “Great is the Shame: The
Unnecessary Invasion of Iraq.” This course will be presented by
Greg Thielmann, 1972 Grinnell College graduate, current Grinnell
resident, and retired State Department official.

The Bucket Course will be held at the Caulkins Community Room
in Drake Community Library from 10:00 am to 11:30 am. The
course is open to all and is free of charge. Donations are
welcome to cover the cost of refreshments.
The course will focus on the governmental decision to invade Iraq
during the George W. Bush administration. While the stated
rationale for the war was that Iraq had active programs to develop
“weapons of mass destruction” (WMD’s), that assessment turned
out to be wrong.

Thielmann at the time was an acting office director of the
Department of State’s Intelligence Bureau (INR), the only
intelligence agency in government that disagreed about whether
Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program.. After retiring from
that office in 2002, he described his bureau’s dissent on various
news programs, such as Sixty Minutes. Greg also received the
“Citizen Watchdog” award from the Center for Investigative
Reporting for his contributions.

Thielmann’s career focused mainly on arms control, and he
served in Brazil, Germany, Russia, and the US.

Bucket Courses are sponsored by Grinnell’s Community
Education Cooperative, whose members include UnityPoint
Health Grinnell, Grinnell College, Drake Community Library,
Grinnell-Newburg Community School District, Grinnell Area Arts
Council, Mayflower Community, Grinnell Education Partnership,
Read to Lead, and Iowa Valley Community College. Videos of
previous Bucket Courses are available on the YouTube channel
Grinnell Community Education Cooperative.