Yossef Bodansky

Who is Yossef Bodansky?

Yossef Bodansky is an Israeli-American political scientist who served as Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare of the US House of Representatives from 1988 to 2004. He is also Director of Research of the International Strategic Studies Association and has been a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. In the 1980s, he served as a senior consultant for the Department of Defense and the Department of State.

The work of the Congressional Task Force involved staff producing what they described as "ground truth" by "repeated visits to the areas they were studying and [developing] face-to-face relationships with their sources" and actively participated in supporting them. According to a compilation of Task Force reports published in 2007, "Task Force staff members went into Afghanistan and rode with the mujahideen as they fought against the Soviets. They helped the fighters secure the weapons and humanitarian aid they needed and evacuate the seriously wounded." The Task Force also contributed to related legislation, including authoring "key parts of the Diplomatic Security and Anti-Terrorism Act", allowing the FBI to investigate outside the US. Task Force reports did not generally divulge sourcing in public reports, and fully referenced versions of their reports were released only to the Task Force chairmen, and not even to other committee members.