As for the money Perle could earn from Trireme? This little exchange between Wolf Blitzer of CNN and Perle is revealing:
PERLE: I don't believe that a company would gain from a war. On the contrary, I believe that the successful removal of Saddam Hussein, and I've said this over and over again, will diminish the threat of terrorism. And what he's talking about is investments in homeland defense, which I think are vital and are necessary. Look, Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly.
BLITZER: Well, on the basis of -- why do you say that? A terrorist?
PERLE: Because he's wildly irresponsible. If you read the article, it's first of all, impossible to find any consistent theme in it. But the suggestion that my views are somehow related for the potential for investments in homeland defense is complete nonsense.
BLITZER: But I don't understand. Why do you accuse him of being a terrorist?
PERLE: Because he sets out to do damage and he will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever distortion he can -- look, he hasn't written a serious piece since "My Lai" [an exposé of American slaughter of women and children in Vietnam].
Perle also has a directorship in Autonomy, a British information technology contractor for the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies, according to other sources. A British paper wrote that Perle is a Pentagon "hawk" working for British software company Autonomy and helping to sell products to intelligence agencies around the world.
The Guardian newspaper said, "Perle is a director of Autonomy" whose software uses "cunning artificial intelligence" algorithms. And so far, said the report, MI6, GCHQ, the the US Department of Homeland Security and other agencies have bought Autonomy software to aid them in bugging computer conversations."
The Guardian also claims that Mr. Perle was the one pushing the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda although just before he made these statements George W. Bush said no such links existed.
The newspaper adds that Autonomy garners nearly a third of its sales from "spook organizations," and quotes CEO Mike Lynch as saying that war sold more software. To add to this, a corporate governance watchdog, The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF), is concerned about the autonomous status of Richard Perle, the Pentagon adviser and his position on the board of Autonomy, the software group. The NAPF said it might recommend that shareholders abstain should Mr. Perle, a non-executive director of Autonomy, seek reappointment when his term of office expires this summer. NAPF fears that he is not independent of Autonomy's management.
Last October, Autonomy reportedly won a major contract with the US Office of Homeland Security, which, of course, was created to deal with threats posed by terrorism on US soil. But did it think about the threat that Perle's dual role might present?
Autonomy's web site lists Mr. Perle as a director -- and reveals the following other business interests:
Richard Perle, Director
Richard Perle has served as a director of Autonomy since February 2000. Mr. Perle has served as Resident Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research since 1987. Mr. Perle is Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hollinger Digital Inc. and a Director of Morgan Crucible plc, where he serves on the remuneration committee, Hollinger International and AppNet,Inc., where he serves on the audit and remuneration committees. Mr. Perle is a member of the International Advisory Board of Hollinger Inc. Mr. Perle holds an M.A from Princeton University and an A.B from the University of Southern California.
It was Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary, who appointed Mr. Perle chairman of the powerful Defense Policy Board, which has weighty influence on US defense policy. Mr. Perle, as chairman, is required to follow government rules of ethics which include prohibitions against using his position for private gain.
While NAPF does not suggest that Mr. Perle used his influence in Washington and at the White House to help Autonomy win contracts, it is very concerned about the way Perle is paid. Since his appointment to Autonomy's board in February 2000 Perle has drawn no salary, but has been given a reported total of 122,500 share options. NAPF guidelines state that share options compromise the the independent status of independent directors.
Perle also holds a directorship in DigitalNet, a Virginia-based communications company with US Army and Defense Department contracts. And in a revelation late last week that followed on the heels of Sy Hersh's scathing New Yorker article, it came to public attention that Perle also has a sweet consulting deal with bankrupt Global Crossing, which is paying him lots of money to lubricate its acquisition by Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa Ltd - a company with close ties to Beijing.
Global Crossing's management, according to the grapevine, hired Perle to help "overcome national security concerns" within the Pentagon about the Hutchison takeover. And these are not small concerns for the Pentagon. They arise from long-standing links between Hutchison's billionaire owner Li Ka-Shing and the Communist Chinese government -- including its armed forces.
The Defense Department is not exactly pleased to see a Chinese-connected firm take hold of Global's huge fiber-optic networks, which is used -- by the way -- by American military and defense agencies.
But wait! It gets better!
Perle said, in an affidavit dated March 7, that his position as chairman of the Defense Policy Board gives him a "unique perspective" on and "intimate knowledge" of the national defense and security issues that will be raised by the US Committee on Foreign Investment, which has the power to block the deal.
Global Crossing is paying Perle $750,000 for Perle's "perspective" -- and $600,000 of this fee is conditional on US government approval of the deal.
And for what?
In an odd exchange with New York Times reporter Stephen Labaton, Perle was firm: "I'm not using public office for private gain, because the Defense Policy Board has nothing to do with the CFIUS process." But when asked about his "unique perspective," Perle claimed the deal was drafted by lawyers and he had not noticed that phrase.
Later, after realizing his blunder, he called Labaton back to elucidate, saying that the sticky phrase was "in an earlier draft," and that he had noticed it and crossed it out. Perle claims that someone put the phrase back in, and Perle then signed it without noticing. Thus, the final version was submitted without referring to Perle's "unique perspective" and "intimate knowledge"
Hah!
Here's presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer's awkward response to a press question on Perle:
Q: And secondly, Ari, certain congressional offices have expressed an interest in Richard Perle's business dealings. And I know you've been asked this before and have kind of avoided the question, but given the fact that Perle does have his office next to the Secretary of Defense, he has the ear of the Secretary, has been a strong proponent of this war, now it seems as if, with his connections to Global Crossing and to Trireme, he and his friends are going to be making money off the rebuilding of Iraq after it's been destroyed by US bombs, isn't this unseemly, isn't this -- cast a pall of corruption over the administration?
MR. FLEISCHER: One, I want to correct something you just said, that Iraq will be destroyed by US bombs. The fact of the matter is, Iraq will be liberated as a result of the sacrifice our servicemen and women are making to disarm Saddam Hussein's regime. And I think no one should lose sight of that fact. On your question about Mr. Perle, the President is confident that all laws will be followed by all people who are on all commissions. And there are literally thousands, or tens of thousands of people -- thousands of people who have served the government in a variety of different capacities on advisory commissions. They're all obligated to follow the law, and the President is confident the law will be followed."
He, the President, certainly hopes so.
Perle is also widely loathed and suspected by those in this world that believe, despite its problems, that the United Nations is an institution worth saving -- and in its present form. Mr. Perle, although one might think his allegiance would fall toward a body that did so much for Israel in 1948, believes otherwise. In fact, just last week he wrote in the right wing magazine "The Spectator" that Saddam Hussein "... will go quickly, but not alone: in a parting irony he will take the United Nations down with him."
He snidely remarks that the "good works" of the UN will survive and that " the looming chatterbox on the Hudson will continue to bleat."
He calls the UN "... the intellectual wreckage of the liberal conceit of safety through international law administered by international institutions," and goes on to claim that Europeans have "... inadequate military capabilities ... [and that] the inability to use force morphs easily into an abhorrence of the use of force."
Oooh, how chilling.
In another sting on Perle, David Aaronovitch, writing for the Guardian, says, "We are lucky that the world's most powerful country is a democracy; it could have been otherwise. But the sight of White House adviser Richard Perle masturbating over what he hoped was the grave of the United Nations, was a reminder of where some of the kaleidoscope's pieces are floating."
Perle also wrote that it was "dangerously wrong" to hand any decisions over to "the likes of Syria, Cameroon, Angola, Russia, China and France". The "likes of" Syria and France? This man is supposed to be an international strategist. How awful for him, George W. Bush -- and the world. And as a strategist, to say Perle is wanting understates the case.
During the Clinton Administration, and after George W. Bush was a shoo-in for the GOP nomination for President, Perle warned the Israeli delegation to be prepared to walk out of negotiations urging the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, not to agree to any settlement which left the future status of Jerusalem unresolved, according to the New York Post.
Mr. Perle told two high-level Israelis to contact Barak who then told the Post the he "asked us to send a clear message" to Mr. Barak that it would be a "catastrophe" if the Jerusalem question was not dealt with, and urged him "to walk away" from the Camp David negotiations if faced with that outcome.
Even then Perle was meddling in places he did not belong and most leading foreign policy analysts were livid about what they saw as Republican party-politics intrusiveness in the delicate negotiations under way at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, aimed at reaching a final settlement in the 52-year Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Richard Perle has spent the past 15 some odd years keeping the US arms pipeline open for his former client -- Turkey.
He and his band of war mongers, during the Carter years, communicated their views through something called the "Committee on the Present Danger" -- which believed wholeheartedly that the US was about to be overrun by the Soviet Union and therefore advocated huge military budgets and total opposition to any and all arms treaties. During the Clinton presidency Perle and his bunch of hooligans hid under the cloaks of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (GAINS) and the Center for Security Policy (CSP).
These two groups unremittingly crusaded for war -- war with anyone, war with practically everyone. Michael Ledeen, a JINSA member and firebrand of the establishment ultra-right, called their quest "total war" -- not simply against Iraq but also against Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian.
Remember this: today, the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board is loaded with advisers from both JINSA and CPD. While this may be good for Israeli right wingers, the views of JINSA are not shared by all of Israel's leaders and that nation's active citizens striving for a peaceful solution to the Palestinian issue -- and not shared by a long shot.
Perle shares the belief that the US strategy in the Middle East should focus on "Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot [and] Egypt as the prize."
Mr. Ledeen is also leading the charge for regime change in Iran, while Andrew Marshall and Harold Rhode in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment plot to mess with both Iran and Saudi Arabia.
And the Pentagon is awhirl. Reports have surfaced that there are many in both the upper echelon of the US military and intelligence circles that have taken to using the term "Axis of Evil" in reference to JINSA, CSP, and the venerable repositories of hawkish thinking such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute and the Hudson Institute -- as well as major defense contractors, conservative "philanthropic" foundations and public relations entities underwritten by far-right Americans
You heard it right: even the hawks are afraid of Perle and his band.
Read this stunning "memo" to Henry Kissinger from economist and conservative writer Jude Wanniski. The reader should keep in mind that Wanniski has come under fire for publicly questioning claims that Saddam Hussein ordered the gassing of Kurds in Northern Iraq; Wanniski has suggested that this might have been done by Iran. Wanniski has also been known to be an apologist for Louis Farrakhan and perceived to be a defender of Slobadan Milosevic via his criticism of the International Monetary Fund's treatment of Yugoslavia. However, Wanniski's comments seem on point -- and, if nothing else, highly amusing:
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Memo To: Henry Kissinger
Re: Richard Perle
I was surprised to see you on television last night making arguments I associate with the world's No. 1 hawk, Richard Perle, who has been the chief architect of our policy toward the Arab/Islamic world. There is no single American more responsible for inciting outrage among Muslims globally than Richard, whose maniacal prescriptions led inexorably to last week]s cataclysm. It was no surprise to me to see Richard on CNN's Evans & Novak, Hunt & Shields program on Sunday, calling for all-out war against the Arab world with a coalition entirely composed of western Europeans. If he were just an ordinary maniac, we could live with him, Henry, but he is chairman of the Defense Policy Board, which advises the Pentagon, and which gives him total access to all military secrets.
Over the last four decades, since I first met both you and Richard in the first year of the Nixon administration in 1969, I always associated you with the moderates, like the late Sen. Jacob Javits of New York, who would look for diplomatic solutions to conflict. Richard, who was then a 25-year-old boy wonder who worked for Sen. Henry (Scoop) Jackson, Washington Democrat, was a protégé of Albert Wohlstetter, who played hawk to your dove in our dealings with the Soviet Union. Back then, I was allied with Wohlstetter a Cold War hawk, although I at least had an appreciation of your views.
Now I see you practically in lockstep with Perle, who we have always known as the Prince of Darkness, a master of disinformation who helped us win the Cold War, and who now wants to bring the Muslim world to its knees.
You know how these things work, Henry. There are basically two approaches to solving the problem of terrorism. One is that you understand the mind of the terrorist in order to establish defenses against it. The other is that you kill all the terrorists and all the potential terrorists. Richard would certainly not flinch at that possibility, although I'm sure he would think we would only have to kill a significant fraction of the 1.25 billion Muslims before the rest "got the message."
You know as well as I do that it has been criminal for our government to pretend to the American people that the embargo would have been lifted on Iraq if Saddam complied with the 1991 UN resolutions. Insofar as you have known this and done nothing about it, I suppose I would have to list you on the negative side of last week's equation.
Remember when Madeleine Albright our UN Ambassador, was asked by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes if it were worth the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children to keep the embargo on, and without hesitation, Madeleine [Albright] said it surely was.
Richard Perle, I'm sure, cheered her statement. So did Paul Wolfowitz, Perle's acolyte, who is now Deputy Defense Secretary. Our Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, probably flinched at the comment, as he still has some sense left, but Don still follows Perle's lead, as he has since the Ford Administration.
When Wohlstetter was the big intellectual cheese at the Rand Corporation, he brought Rumsfeld in on the Rand board, where he was fully indoctrinated on how to end wars and how to start them. In 1996, when the GOP came up with the Dole/Kemp ticket, I did my best to come up with ideas on how Bob Dole could present a more diplomatic image to the American people. Alas, [Robert] Dole had Perle at his side. When President Clinton bombed Iraq on Labor Day, to kick off his re-election campaign, he violated the War Powers Act. But Dole quickly praised the bombing and other Republicans, whose staffs include members of the Perle network on Capitol Hill, immediately complained that Clinton should have dropped bigger bombs.
In case you did not know it, Secretary of State Colin Powell refers to Perle and his network as 'the bombers.' They include the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which Perle has in his back pocket, The Weekly Standard, which he has in his front pocket, and Bill Safire, his mouthpiece at the NY Times. We were all buddies during the Cold War, but when the Cold War ended I became a peacenik. I do not have any influence, just a little guy trying to figure out how to prevent hot wars, cold wars and terrorist wars. But you have influence, Henry. You could pick up the phone and advise our young President to weigh Colin Powell's advice a little more heavily than Rumsfeld's, which is in fact Perle's.
I'd hate to see our country overrun with Muslim McVeigh's, blowing up this, that and the other thing. Wouldn't you?
Perle's connections to hawks and the CIA are deep. Perle and his band have endeavored to fire up America's "will to win" and neutralize the advocates of armed coexistence (who were hardly doves themselves). Perle
and his cohorts have rigged data, exaggerated the "peril", and battered individuals and institutions that dared to contradict them. The State Department and the CIA were favorite targets. In 1974 Albert Wohlstetter of the Rand Corporation, father-in-law of Richard Perle and a guiding spirit of the modern conservative movement in America, fired the first shot: "He accused the CIA of systematically underestimating Soviet missile deployment, and conservatives began a concerted attack" -- led by then-defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, his protégé Richard Cheney, Ford's chief of staff at the time, and by the president's foreign intelligence advisory board (PFIAB).
In late September of 2001, taking advantage of the attacks of September 11th, Perle laid out his agenda clearly:
"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and other senior administration officials are quite right to say that it is a totally new kind of war that the Free World now faces. But even though it is new, the Vichyite contingent would be quite wrong to extrapolate from that that the United States and its allies are impotent. Even if we don't yet know the whole story about last week's atrocities, we know enough to act, and to act decisively. ... Deprive the terrorists of the offices from which they now work, remove the vast infrastructure now supporting them and force them to sleep in a different place every night because they are hunted - and the scope of their activity will be sharply reduced. ...Regimes supporting terrorism have many different motives. Some, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Syria, do so because they agree with the fanatical outlook of their protégés. Saddam Hussein, crazed by a desire for vengeance, pays the families of suicide bombers. The Saudis tolerate terrorism out of fear and weakness, hoping thereby to deflect them on to other potential victims. ...As the United States builds a coalition to combat terrorism, it must remember that including states that are themselves sponsors of terrorism, or ready to tolerate it, carries a heavy price. The last time around, in building the coalition to liberate Kuwait in 1990-91, we paid a cost that we should never again bear.
...For example, Syria was invited to join the Gulf war coalition. Its military contribution to the campaign was minimal, yet in exchange for getting inside the Western tent it obtained the latitude to continue the use of and the sponsorship of terrorism -- especially in Lebanon. It has continued to destabilize the region. There are those who argue that even Yasser Arafat, a terrorist himself, who has recruited suicide bombers, commemorated their murderous acts, and ordered the assassination of American diplomats, should join the campaign to combat terrorism. ...Some countries may be unwilling or unable to participate in a coalition that demands a respect for the values and norms of western civilization. The nature of their hold on power may be inconsistent with genuine opposition to terrorism. Such countries are part of the problem, not the solution, and we neither need their help nor would benefit from their professions of support.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
It is clear that Bush has opted to follow Perle's plans thus far -- and that the nations of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other nations that Perle deems as "part of the problem" may be next on the list. While Mr. Perle may have some interesting and defensible ideas, his credibility has been irreversibly damaged by his avarice, cunning, and sheer blundering.
As a final example of his ineptitude, in November of last year Perle stunned members of the British Parliament when he told them that even a "clean bill of health" from UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix would not stop a US attack on Iraq: "Evidence from one witness on Saddam Hussein's weapons program will be enough to trigger a fresh military onslaught," reported the Mirror of London, paraphrasing Perle's comments at an all-party meeting on global security.
In short, Mr. Perle was announcing to the world that everything George W. Bush and his Cabinet had been saying in previous months was a falsehood.
Mr. Perle should resign from both his Defense and lobbying positions. Better yet, in the interests of cleanliness in government, he should be dismissed from the Defense Policy Board immediately just for having accepted the Global Crossing lobbying contract alone.
Federal ethics rules bar anyone from using public office for private gain -- and it seems Mr. Perle, intentionally or not, has been doing such for a long, long time.
JEFF KOOPERSMITH is a political consultant, opinion research authority,policy analyst, self-described "dissident lobbyist," and author of the
forthcoming Big Lies, Big Liars.
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