Jeff Koopersmith Dead Man Walking    1  |  2 |  3 |  4

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.

NEXT: Memo from Wanniski to Kissinger.

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