PNAC member of the week: Richard Perle

[POAC]

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/pnacmemberoftheweek.htm

After graduating college and a short stint in working for the fiercely anti-Communist Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson he went to work for a private military-consulting firm. The following year he was appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense in the presidential administration of Ronald Reagan. During the presidential campaign of George W. Bush, Perle served as a foreign policy advisor.

A veteran Washington insider, Perle has on occasion been accused of being an Israeli agent of influence. It has been reported that, while he was working for Jackson, "An FBI summary of a 1970 wiretap recorded Perle discussing classified information with someone at the Israeli embassy," writes Paul Findley (They Dare To Speak Out, Chicago, Ill, Lawrence Hill Books 1989)."He came under fire in 1983 when newspapers reported he received substantial payments to represent the interests of an Israeli weapons company. Perle denied conflict of interest, insisting that, although he received payment for these services after he had assumed his position in the Defense Department, he was between government jobs when he worked for the Israeli firm." (1)

Like many of Bush's top whitehouse and pentagon officials, he's a war profiteer who consulted for the very companies that profited from the illegal invasion of Iraq and was one of the most ardent supporters of the invasion. Rummy consulted for Bechtel, Cheney, of course, had Halliburton. The Carlyle Group had Bush Sr. on their board and Perle worked for Trireme, a venture capital firm and defense contractor similar to The Carlyle Group. As pentagon adviser, Richard N. Perle coauthored an opinion piece this summer praising a Pentagon plan to lease tanker aircraft -- which had the potential to steer billions of dollars to Boeing Co. -- 16 months after Boeing committed to invest $20 million with Trireme.

Perle also serves on the board of directors of Hollinger International Inc., the media company whose chief executive, Conrad Black, resigned last month after disclosures that he and other executives collected millions of dollars payments the company's audit committee determined were unauthorized. Hollinger disclosed last month that it has invested $2.5 million in Trireme Associates. A special committee of Hollinger's board is examining that investment and others involving company insiders, a source close to Hollinger said. (2)

Trireme also created International Advisors Inc., a lobbying firm whose main client is Turkey. Henry Kissinger is a Trireme adviser, and Perle is a managing partner. (3) Kissinger, who was forced to resign as head of the independent commission to investigate the 9/11 attacks, has been using his influence to try to keep the Saudis calm during the buildup to war. New Yorker investigative journalist, Sy Hersh, criticized Perle's relationship with Trireme. The award winning journalist wrote in the March 17th issue of the New Yorker: "There is no question that Perle believes that removing Saddam from power is the right thing to do. At the same time, he has set up a company that may gain from a war." (4) In response, Perle equated columnist Sy Hersh with Osama bin Laden and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. "Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist," Perle told Wolf Blitzer. (5)

Like many of Bush's top whitehouse and pentagon officials Perle is involved with the Iran-Contra felons who lied to congress, and betrayed the country with impunity.

John Poindexter, Elliott Abrams, Otto Reich, Richard Armitage, John Negroponte, and Mitch Daniels are all Iran-Contra alumni who have been appointed to high level government jobs by Bush Jr. Where does Perle fit in? Meet Adnan Khashoggi. During the Reagan Administration, Khashoggi was one of the middlemen between Oliver North, in the White House, and the mullahs in Iran in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Khashoggi is still brokering. In January of this year, he arranged a private lunch, in France, to bring together Harb Saleh al-Zuhair, a Saudi industrialist whose family fortune includes extensive holdings in construction, electronics, and engineering companies throughout the Middle East, and Richard N. Perle, the chairman of the Defense Policy Board.

As stated before, Perle is a managing partner in the venture-capital company called Trireme Partners L.P. Trireme’s main business, according to a two-page letter that one of its representatives sent to Khashoggi last November, is to invest in companies dealing in technology, goods, and services that are of value to homeland security and defense. (6)

Four members of the Defense Policy Board told me that the board, which met most recently on February 27th and 28th, had not been informed of Perle’s involvement in Trireme. One board member, upon being told of Trireme and Perle’s meeting with Khashoggi, exclaimed, “Oh, get out of here. He’s the chairman! If you had a story about me setting up a company for homeland security, and I’ve put people on the board with whom I’m doing that business, I’d be had” (7)

The wide-ranging Perle even finds himself involved in Total Information Awareness technology. He was listed as a speaker at a March 13 Washington press briefing on 'data mining,' the use of computer technology to sift out patterns from electronic communications. A fellow Pentagon official, Admiral John M. Poindexter an Iran-Contra felon, spurred a political firestorm with his TIA plans. Congress forbade such technology to be used against Americans.

Perle's tentacles reached into the press, too, which he manipulated through careful leaks of sensitive information. He was said to frequently use Evans and Novak's column to push his agenda and to punish his foes. Later, Perle would add George Will and the Wall Street Journal's Robert Bartley to his list of friends in the media. Could Perle have been the "high ranking official" who leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame to Novak in retaliation for her husband's public disproval of Bush's lies leading us to invade Iraq? (8)

"Basically, Perle is serving as the ventriloquist's dummy and is making the administration's case publicly but in a deniable fashion," says John Pike, a defense policy expert and an old Perle foe. "Donald Rumsfeld adamantly refuses to talk about blowing up Iraq. Richard Perle talks about very little else."


(1) http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/10/Richard_Perle_lowdown.html
(2) http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37059-2003Dec4?language=printer
(3) http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030317fa_fact
(4) http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0303/09/le.00.html
(5) http://www.rense.com/general35/eax.htm
(6) http://www.oldamericancentury.org/bushcontra.htm
(7) http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030317fa_fact
(8) http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020823-darkness.htm




Archived PNAC Members of the week:

Elliott Abrams
William Bennett
Jeb Bush
William Kristol
Richard Perle
Karl Rove
Donald Rumsfeld

[Grins]

1. Heard a story...

First, Thanks for the link. I did not know about the "Project for an OLD American Century.

Second, a friend-of-a-friend story. Seems Pearle called on the office of a US Senator back in the 80's. One of the staffers asked Pearle of what country was he a citizen. Pearle responded that he was an American. The comment back was, "Well, it sure sounds like you're a citizen of Israel!" Hah!

Pearle walked out.

Lately been wondering if the US has become Israel's "usefull idiot". We just took out Israel's biggest threat, who was no threat to us, and all at our expense.