Richard Perle: An Unsavory Character On Bush Team

Richard Perle, a foreign policy guru who has oozed his
way through Republican administrations for two decades
making a fortune as he went, has met his match in
Conrad Black, the former head of Hollinger
International, the U.S.-based newspaper conglomerate.
Black stepped down as Hollinger CEO after being
accused by shareholders of being a crook.

As Black goes down, Perle, who worked for the Bush
administration and deserves as much credit for the
Iraq war as anyone, is going with him. A special
committee investigating Hollinger's financial losses
accuses both men of corruption.

Perle is an important figure for he stands at the
nexus of power and money. More than most, he has
advocated policies that would make him money.

Perle, along with Henry Kissinger, serves on the
Hollinger board of directors, as well as on the board
of the Jerusalem Post, part of Black's newspaper
empire. The Hollinger committee accuses Perle of
"flagrant abdication of duty" and of "putting his own
interests above those of Hollinger's shareholders,"
and called on him to return $5.4 million in pay. It
wants $200 million back from Black.

Perle, who served as chairman of the Bush
administration's Defense Policy Board until being
forced out in May because of other conflicts of
interest, initially defended Black against the charges
brought by the shareholders. Now, however, from his
summer home in the South of France, Perle says Black
"misled" him.

Black, in turn, accuses Perle of "nest-feathering,
dissembling and obfuscation."

A center of ethical controversy as long as he has been
in Washington – twice in the 1980s over perceived
conflicts of interest with Israel – Perle has survived
because of powerful patrons like Kissinger and Black,
whose wife, Barbara Amiel, also serves on the board of
the Jerusalem Post. Black's Hollinger holdings include
some 200 publications, including conservative
newspapers such as the Chicago Sun-Times, London Daily
Telegraph, Sydney Morning Herald and Jerusalem Post.

Perle turned down an appointment in the Bush Defense
Department in order to take the position as chairman
of the policy board and continue his business
interests, which center around Trireme Partners Ltd.,
a company that invests in defense and security
companies and has Kissinger as one of its advisers.

Perle was forced out of his Pentagon position when it
became public this year that Global Crossing was
paying him to lobby the Pentagon at the same time he
was heading the Pentagon advisory group. His
resignation came two weeks after allegations by
investigative reporter Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker
that Perle used his position as Pentagon adviser to
try to profit from the war in Iraq.

In the Hersh article, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the
Saudi ambassador, accuses Perle, a longtime critic of
Saudi Arabia, of trying to blackmail his government.
"Here he (Perle) is," said Bandar, "on the one hand
trying to make a hundred million dollar deal, and on
the other hand there were elements of the appearance
of blackmail – if we get in business, he'll back off
on Saudi Arabia."

Perle used his Pentagon position to lobby both for war
and for turning postwar power in Iraq over to Ahmad
Chalabi, the long-time Iraqi exile. Perle, Paul
Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, chief war supporters in
the Bush Pentagon, had sponsored Chalabi since he set
up the Iraqi National Council in 1992 to lobby for
war.

Chalabi received $27 million from Congress for the
express purpose of lobbying the Clinton administration
– unsuccessfully – to go to war against Iraq. Chalabi
and Perle got their war with Bush, though Chalabi was
cut off by the Pentagon last May when it was
determined the information he provided was both
misleading and useless.

Perle's conflicts of interest and "nest feathering"
have been known in foreign policy circles and pointed
out in the media for years. Thanks to his official
protectors, however, he has survived and thrived.

Last April, even after resigning his Pentagon post
over conflicts of interest, he was invited by the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to testify as an
"expert" on Iraq. According to Juan Cole, professor of
history at the University of Michigan and a leading
expert on Iraq who was also on the panel, Perle used
his time "flacking for Ahmad Chalabi." Perle was added
to the panel at the last minute, says Cole, "and it is
mysterious why he was there, since ours was supposed
to be an 'expert' panel."

With these latest charges, even people in the foreign
policy establishment can see Perle for what he is: a
sleazy, self-interested operator. Leslie Gelb, a
former colleague of both mine and Perle's and
president emeritus of the Council on Foreign
Relations, says Perle was "seduced by money."

Black, says Gelb, "thought Richard Perle was the font
of foreign policy wisdom. Once that happened, Black
and Perle figured out how to work together to make
more money."

How comforting to know U.S. foreign policy –
especially the war power – is in the hands of such
principled people. If Bush is re-elected, rest assured
Richard Perle will be back.

THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
Goldsborough can be reached by e-mail at
jim.goldsborough@uniontrib.com.