Mr. Perle meet Mr. Khashoggi.

Real Ray · Mar 10, 2003

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030317fa_fact

Didn't see this posted.

When Perle was asked whether his dealings with Trireme might present the appearance of a conflict of interest, he said that anyone who saw such a conflict would be thinking “maliciously.” But Perle, in crisscrossing between the public and the private sectors, has put himself in a difficult position—one not uncommon to public men. He is credited with being the intellectual force behind a war that not everyone wants and that many suspect, however unfairly, of being driven by American business interests. 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. In doing so, he has given ammunition not only to the Saudis but to his other ideological opponents as well.
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superdave · Mar 10, 2003

Here's what Perle had to say about the writer of that piece.

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 widely 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
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So, if Patriot Act II passes, I guess they'll try to strip Hersh of his citizenship.

If this country wasn't plunging headlong into banana republichood, this would have been a major story.

I got this from mediawhoresonline. CNN.com doesn't have the transcript from yesterday yet.

superdave · Mar 10, 2003

OK, look what I found:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2003/03/10/hersh/index.html
which led me to this
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0303/09/le.00.html

superdave · Mar 11, 2003

This oughta be bumped. What we have here is the purification of the notion, if you're not with us, you're agin' us.

DJPoopypants · Mar 11, 2003

Are we terrorists for reading about this?

I don't know which ticks me off most about the way the administration is proceeding.

a) If you want to claim any moral high ground - ELIMINATE ALL CHANCES OF THE APPEARENCE OF A CONFLICT OF INTEREST. Period. That's basic knowledge/law/business/politics. Otherwise you lose respectability. Ooops.

b) A journalist asking questions, or even providing innuendo about a potential conflict of interest, is labelled a terrorist. Nice way to put things in perspective.

While I may disagree with the conclusions of many conservatives/hawks, guys - at least tell me you think the administration should be doing a much better job of selling this war, and should start seting higher standards and expectations for themselves.

Thomas Flannigan · Mar 11, 2003

Real Ray, thanks for posting this. Every time I think the government can't get any worse I read something like this.
Seymour Hersh is one of the few remaining investigative journalists in this country worthy of the name. In my opinion, Richard Perle couldn't carry his notepad, to use the old athletic term.

Real Ray · Mar 11, 2003

Related to this is just how myopic Perle and Wolfowitz are-even if you accept that in Perle's case it's purely ideological. Here is a link I found that has the original NYT and Washington Post stories from 1992 when the Wolfowitz "Defense Planning Guidance" was leaked.

http://www.yale.edu/strattech/92dpg.html

And from the transcript of Frontline's, "The War Behind Closed Doors," :

DAN BALZ: That afternoon, there's another meeting of the National Security Council, or the war cabinet, and General Shelton, who was then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was there. And Powell sidled up to him and said to General Shelton, you know, "You've got to keep these guys in a box. I don't know what's going on over there, but this whole-- all of this Iraq stuff is a problem." And General Shelton had a similar view, that to go after Iraq, at that point, was not the smart thing to do.

NARRATOR: So by the time the war cabinet gathered at Camp David on that first Saturday, four days after September 11th, the war about the war was well under way. Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld knew the president had committed himself to using force even against states, maybe even against Iraq. But Colin Powell, General Shelton and others were determined to rein in the hawks.

DAN BALZ: Powell was always very skeptical of this. Powell's reaction was that Wolfowitz was fixated on Iraq, that they were looking for kind of any excuse to bring Iraq into this. And his view was we will never get international support if we make Iraq a primary target in this first round.
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The naked opportunism-as vulgar as it sounds, you are left with the impression that as the towers were falling, these two guys were in a Machiavellian mode, plotting how to convince Bush that now is the time to invade Iraq.