When Peter Van Buren traveled to U. Maine to give a lecture on the War in Iraq on Monday, he knew he was breaking the law.

And when he stood before the crowd that had gathered, he knew what he was about to say could land him in hot water with the U.S. Department of State. So the School of Policy and International Affairs’ spring lecture series began with an act of defiance.

“I am actually standing here committing an act of civil disobedience, conscience or a crime,” Van Buren said.

He came to talk about his book, “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People,” which, as a 23-year veteran of the Department of State, he had been banned from discussing in public. Van Buren’s book examines the shortcomings of the Department of State and its reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

The first indication that his book would cause problems came after a post from Van Buren’s blog, which he was using to promote his book, was picked up by The Huffington Post . The blog post questioned the purpose of the United States Embassy in Baghdad, which is the largest embassy in the world with nearly 16,000 staff members, most of whom are contractors.

Van Buren was scolded by his boss but was otherwise unpunished.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the U.S. embassy in Baghdad’s presence in Iraq stands to be decreased by at least half.

Almost immediately after the book was published, Van Buren lost his security clearance for exercising what the State Department deemed poor judgment.

Not long after the book was published, Van Buren posted a link to Wikileaks on his blog. Van Buren then lost access to State Department computers, buildings and his passport, and was told he could be tried under the Espionage Act.

According to Van Buren, the government is committed to secrecy and will use intimidation to protect those secrets.

“The easiest book to stop is the one that is never written,” he said. “The easiest voice to silence is the one that is never raised.”

The Department of State has procedures that must be followed should an employee want to publish a manuscript. To ensure that an employee isn’t accidentally divulging state secrets, the manuscript must be made available for examination by higher-ranking employees for up to 30 days.

After electronically submitting his manuscript, Van Buren waited 30 days for approval or denial. He did not hear from the department and waited an additional 15 days in case there was a complication caused by federal holidays or weekends.

It was discovered that the department misplaced the manuscript, and since the time for review had expired, Van Buren submitted the book to his publisher.

Whistle-blowing, according to Van Buren, could spell the end of a career with the government.

“It shouldn’t be an act of courage, but it is,” he said.

He has been placed on paid administrative leave and was told that he would not be able to extend his job come September.

“For most of my career in the state department I have been very happy. I’m not a disgruntled employee. I’m very gruntled,” Van Buren said, adding that he had not wanted to stop working for the Department of State.

“Are we going to end up on some government list if we buy your book?” Codi Booher, a fourth-year anthropology and women’s studies student, asked jokingly during a Q-and-A session after the lecture.

“I learned a lot,” she said later. “I’ll probably buy the book and read it.”

The chapter “Spooky Dinner” is one of the more humorous chapters in the book, according to Van Buren. It talks about a night he spent having dinner in one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces with some friends from the Central Intelligence Agency.

Van Buren references CIA operations in Somalia and U.S. cooperation with Hussein. This information was deemed classified by the government, but Van Buren said he learned about the CIA operation in Somalia from the film “Black Hawk Down.”

A photograph of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein led Van Buren to believe there was cooperation between the leaders.

Van Buren was a member of a Provincial Reconstruction Team, which was created with the goal of finding citizens individualized solutions to problems caused by military actions. The idea of this counterinsurgency program was that economic opportunities would prevent Iraqis from attacking U.S. soldiers.

One reconstruction program Van Buren described gave sheep to Iraqi widows. Each sheep cost $5,000, and it was expected that the widows would sell the lambs in order to earn a modest income. Van Buren asked questions about the justification of this program, namely how it benefited the government or the widows.

“Nobody on my team understood what we were doing,” Van Buren said.

Another program translated classic American novels into Arabic. Van Buren said he had 80,000 of the books in his possession and quickly found that giving the novels away was difficult. He said he ended up having to bribe a school principal to take all of the books.

He said later it was discovered that the principal tried to sell the books on the black market and when no one purchased them, they were abandoned behind a public building.

Many of the reconstruction programs Van Buren was associated with were similar. He described them as a type of positive publicity for the government.

“Our goals didn’t work. We just didn’t get it right. We failed,” Van Buren said. “We could never have done it and made it work, but we could have done better.”

With the help of the Government Accountability Program, Van Buren has been able to receive the legal help he now needs as a result of publishing his book. Others who have allegedly been  targeted for whistle-blowing have not fared as well, he said.

“I am one little piece of a very big battle,” Van Buren said.