Josh Marshall writes: "Our friend Mr. Perle is giving new meaning to the phrase 'comedy of errors'. Yesterday in Washington he called for the resignation of CIA chief George Tenet and the head of the DIA. 'Heads should roll,' he said, 'not in a punitive or vindictive way. But when you discover you have an organization that doesn't get it right time after time, you change the organization, including the people.... I would start with the head. George Tenet has been at the CIA long enough to assume responsibility for its performance.' Now, this is truly one of those 'where do you start' points of ridiculousness. It's rather like Andy Fastow and Ken Lay calling for heads to roll at the SEC because the government regulators didn't get the whole securities oversight thing quite right. Well, Yes, heads should roll, you say in response... In any case, if Perle wants to call for others to walk the plank, it's a call he should be making from the waves, not the deck."

Jim Lobe writes: "It wasn't enough that Perle, author of a new book titled An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terrorism, gave the keynote speech last week at a rally at the Washington Convention Center in solidarity for an Iranian rebel group officially listed by the State Department as a 'foreign terrorist organization.' (A self-described terrorism expert, Perle later pleaded ignorance about the rally's purpose, despite the fact that the Red Cross and the La Leche League had figured out the connection and withdrawn their own association with the event.) No, now Perle and his fellow neoconservatives are hailing chief U.S. weapons-of-mass-destruction hunter, David Kay... 'I have always thought our intelligence in the Gulf has been woefully inadequate,' Perle, former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board (DPB), confided to The New York Times after Kay disclosed his findings... [Perle and the NeoCon's] campaign now... is to blame the CIA for exaggerating the Iraqi threat."

Richard Perle is promoting his new book, "An End to Evil: How To Win the War on Terror". But why would anyone read it? Besides his obscene war profiteering, Perle is a dismal analyst. William Hartung writes: "It was he and his colleague Kenneth Adelman who suggested that the invasion and occupation of Iraq would be a 'cakewalk.' It was he and his neocon cohorts who claimed that Saddam Hussein was sitting astride a vast arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. It was he and his colleague R. James Woolsey who asserted an operational link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda that did not and does not exist. It was he and his pals at the American Enterprise Institute who suggested that their hand-picked choice to lead Iraq, exiled leader Ahmed Chalabi, would be welcomed with open arms by ordinary Iraqis. None of these things proved true."

"Pentagon adviser Richard Perle came under fire on Friday for failing to disclose financial ties to Boeing Co., even while championing its bid for a controversial $20 billion-plus defense contract. Perle co-wrote a guest column in The Wall Street Journal newspaper this summer praising the plan to lease then buy 100 modified refueling planes, a year after Boeing committed to invest up to $20 million in Trireme Partners, a New York venture capital fund in which Perle is a principal... 'It stinks to high heaven,' said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based federal budget watchdog group, of Perle's failure to disclose his ties to Boeing in the Wall Street Journal piece. 'Mr. Perle's entitled to his own views on the tanker deal,' said Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government accountability watchdog. 'We just think that the public's entitled to know that he has a relationship with Boeing when he's expressing his views.'"

"Boeing has taken a $20m stake in an investment fund run by Richard Perle, a top Pentagon adviser, underlining the close links it has built to Washington's defence establishment... As Boeing's focus has shifted from civil aircraft to military contracting, it has devoted greater attention to increasing its presence in Washington. Boeing said it made the investment in Trireme Partners last year as part of a broad strategy to invest in companies with promising defence-related technologies... Trireme's board of advisers until recently included Henry Kissinger, another Defence Policy Board member. Boeing said it had no knowledge that Mr Perle had advised the company on a controversial $18bn deal to lease refueling aircraft tankers to the US Air Force, or other Pentagon-related matters." There was also the earlier influence-peddling scandal involving Perle, Trireme, Homeland Security contracts and Saudi dealers such as Adnan Khashoggi. (Enter 'Perle' in our search engine).

Ari Berman writes: "An odd thing happened when a European TV station approached Richard Perle for an interview... the station badly wanted Perle, as chairman of the influential Defense Policy Board, to articulate the Pentagon's Iraq policy. But Perle demanded a fee. Though startled by the request, the news station violated its strict no-pay policy and obliged the chairman. During and after his chairmanship, Perle used his insider status to demand fees for appearances on a number of foreign broadcasts, which included British, Canadian, Japanese and South Korean TV. Fees ranged from under $100 to $900... but federal regulations covering officials in his capacity make no distinctions based on amount. Nor is this the first assertion of dubious dealings by Perle. In the past few months, The New Yorker and the New York Times have both raised serious questions about whether Perle has used his government post for private gain."

"Richard Perle briefed an investment seminar on ways to profit from conflicts in Iraq and North Korea just weeks after he received a top-secret government briefing on the crises in the two countries, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday... Perle did not return phone calls or e-mails from the newspaper seeking comment... He resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board on March 27 after it was reported he had worked as a consultant to bankrupt telecommunications company Global Crossing Ltd., which was trying to get Pentagon approval to be sold to Asian investors. In offering his resignation, Perle, 61, denied any wrongdoing and said he didn't want questions about his outside interests to be a distraction to Rumsfeld. He remained a member of the board... Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has asked the Pentagon's inspector general to investigate Perle's business activities and any conflicts they might pose for his membership."

Richard Perle resigned as chair of the Defense Policy Board and promised to donate his Global Crossing fees to "the families of American forces killed or injured in Iraq." Perle's influence-peddling efforts to help Global Crossing sell its Asian fiber optic cables to companies controlled by China enraged the National Security Agency, because the NSA uses these cables to spy on Asia, and does not want China to have such capability. The NSA shared its outrage with the NY Times, which dutifully attacked Perle and created a climate that forced him to resign. Of course, Perle's war profiteering - under $1 million in fees- is trivial compared to Dick Cheney, who has steered BILLION$$$ in business to his close pals at Halliburton. When will the Times go after Cheney, the most corrupt government official in US history? Don't hold your breath...

"'I am aware of several potential conflicts that warrant your immediate review,' Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) said in a letter to the Pentagon's inspector general... For his work for Global Crossing, Mr. Perle's fee, outlined in papers that the company is preparing to file in as part of a bankruptcy proceeding, is $725,000, including a unusual contingent payment of $600,000 if the company succeeds in obtaining approval to complete the deal... [Conyers also wants an investigation of Perle's work for] Autonomy, a data-mining company that has said its clients include the Defense and Homeland Security Departments... [and] Trireme Partners, a venture capital firm that invests in companies related to national security. In an article about Mr. Perle and Trireme earlier this month in The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh described a January lunch between Mr. Perle and Adnan Kashoggi, the Saudi-born arms dealer... Mr. Perle has threatened to sue The New Yorker in a British court for libel." - NY Times.

"Global Crossing... has retained Mr. Perle to help persuade the Defense Dept. to drop its objections to a proposed sale to foreign buyers in Hong Kong and Singapore. The deal has been opposed by the Defense Dept. and the FBI as a threat to national security because it would put Global Crossing's fiber optics network, which is used by the United States government, under foreign control. Mr. Perle stands to make up to $725,000 from his work for Global Crossing. Mr. Perle insists that there is no conflict in his case because the Defense Policy Board is not involved in approving the Global Crossing deal. But that is not the right test. Global Crossing's fee is clearly payment, at least in part, for the influence Mr. Perle exerts through his Defense Dept. post, and federal ethics rules prohibit using public office for private gain. To remove the conflict, Mr. Perle will have to choose between the gain and the office." Perle thinks he rules the world, so don't bet on his surrender...

In a seethingly contemptuous UK Guardian article entitled "Thank God for the death of the UN," Richard Perle declares: "Saddam Hussein's reign of terror is about to end. He will go quickly, but not alone: in a parting irony, he will take the UN down with him. Well, not the whole UN. The "good works" part will survive, the low-risk peacekeeping bureaucracies will remain, the chatterbox on the Hudson will continue to bleat. What will die is the fantasy of the UN as the foundation of a new world order. As we sift the debris, it will be important to preserve, the better to understand, the intellectual wreckage of the liberal conceit of safety through international law administered by international institutions." Right-wing Republican regimes led by Reagan and the Bushes worked tirelessly to destroy the UN and to install and maintain murderous pro-American dictators. This article should provoke some very interesting research into Perle's activities...

NY Times reports, "Even as he advises the Pentagon on war matters, Richard N. Perle, chairman of the influential Defense Policy Board, has been retained by the telecommunications company Global Crossing to help overcome Defense Department resistance to its proposed sale to a foreign firm... Perle is to be paid $725,000 by the company, including $600,000 if the government approves the sale of the company to a joint venture of Hutchison Whampoa, controlled by the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, and Singapore Technologies Telemedia, a phone company controlled by the government of Singapore... [The Pentagon and the FBI oppose the sale] because it would put Global Crossing's worldwide fiber optics network - one used by the United States government - under Chinese ownership." Indict Perle Now!

Russell Mokhiber challenged Ari on Richard Perle's ownership of Trireme Partners, a venture capital company that is positioned to profit from a war with Iraq. He also challenged Ari on Perle's description of investigative reporter Seymour Hersh as a "terrorist." Once again, Ari refused to answer the questions. We demand a Special Prosecutor for Richard Perle!

"Richard Perle is suing journalist Seymour Hersh over an article he wrote implying that Mr. Perle is using his position as a Pentagon adviser to benefit financially from a war to liberate Iraq. 'I intend to launch legal action in the United Kingdom. I'm talking to Queen's Counsel right now,' [said] Mr. Perle, who chairs the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, a non-paying position...He said he is suing in Britain because it is easier to win such cases there, where the burden on plaintiffs is much less. Mr. Hersh's article...said Mr. Perle met for lunch with two Saudi businessman [one of them was Iran-Contra financier and BushDaddy benefactor Adnan Kashoggi - see gregpalast.com] in France in January in an attempt to seek Saudi investment for a company Mr. Perle is associated with, Trireme Partners L.P. Trireme was created to 'invest in companies dealing in technology, goods, and services that are of value to homeland security and defense,' according to Mr. Hersh's article."

When Richard Perle called investigative reporter Sy Hersh a terrorist, he opened the door to a thorough investigation of his own background. Perle was caught spying for Israel in 1970 while working in Congress. And in 1983 he was caught taking payments from an Israeli weapons manufacturer while working in the Reagan Pentagon. In 1996, Perle sought to undermine President Clinton's Middle East peace efforts by urging Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Iraq and other countries, to occupy Palestinian territories, and to end the peace process. In 2000, Perle was caught trying to undermine the Clinton-Barak-Arafat negotiations at Camp David. So why was Perle never arrested and charged? We demand a Special Prosecutor!

In July 2000, Richard Perle contacted the Israeli government and deliberately tried to sabotage President Clinton's Mideast Peace talks at Camp David, when Clinton worked around the clock with Ehud Barak and Yassir Arafat to find a formula for peace. Barak's people reported the matter to Clinton, and Bush was forced to publicly disavow the efforts on his behalf to sabotage negotiations. Bush said he 'disagreed' with what Perle did, as if his campaign had not directed and/or approved of it. At the time, there were demands that Perle be prosecuted for illegally interfering with American foreign policy. Naturally, Bush's new AG John Ashcroft scrubbed the case.

W-ar architect Richard Perle is widely viewed as an ultrazionist who wants the US to control the Middle East for the benefit of Ariel Sharon and the Likud Party. But Perle also has a more personal goal - greed. Perle is exploiting his position as Chair of the Defense Policy Board to line up business for his ventural capital fund, Trireme Partners, which invests in - surprise!' defense and homeland security businesses. On 1-3-03, Perle and his NYC pointman Gerald Hillman met with Adnan Khashoggi (a famous figure in the Iran-contra and BCCI scandals) and Harb Saleh al-Zuhair, "a Saudi industrialist whose family fortune includes extensive holdings in construction, electronics, and engineering companies throughout the Middle East." Perle sought millions in investments from Khashoggi and al-Zuhair, plus lucrative contracts in Saudi Arabia, but now he's denying it for obvious reasons - it's a CRIME to use a government office for private gain. We demand a Special Prosecutor!