Who Is Richard Perle?

Who Is Richard Perle?

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1960s: Ahmed Chalabi Studies at University of Chicago; Meets Albert Wohlstetter
Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi exile, studies for his doctorate in math at the University of Chicago where he gets to know Albert Wohlstetter, a prominent cold-war strategist and a mentor for Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. After receiving his degree, Chalabi moves to Lebanon where he works as a math teacher at the American University of Beirut. His brother, Jawad, is also living in Beirut and runs Middle East Banking Corp. (Mebco). [American Prospect, 11/18/2002; Salon, 5/5/2004; New Yorker, 6/7/2004; Christian Science Monitor, 6/15/2004]

October 1970: FBI Wiretap Records Perle Disclosing Classified Information to Israeli Officials
An FBI wiretap at the Israeli Embassy in Washington picks up Richard Perle discussing classified information with an Israeli official. The information was given to Perle by National Security Council staff member Hal Sonnenfeldt, who is currently under investigation for providing classified documents to the Israelis. [Atlantic Monthly, 5/1982]

March 1978: Congressional Staffer Offers Israeli Classified Material
During breakfast at Washington’s Madison Hotel, Stephen Bryen, a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer and a close associate of Richard Perle, is overheard offering to pass classified material to Zvi Rafiah, the congressional liaison officer for the Israeli embassy and a suspected senior Mossad officer (see October 1973). [Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 7/4/1986] “I have the Pentagon document on the bases, which you are welcome to see,” he reportedly says. [Nation, 6/29/1985] The eavesdropper is Michael Saba, a businessman and former executive director of the National Association of Arab Americans. Saba, who recognizes Bryen as a staff member of the Senate Committee, promptly reports the incident to the Justice Department, which quickly launches an FBI investigation. The investigation will find that Bryen has illegally obtained classified documents of military and scientific importance and that he has been seeking material that “could prove to be a major embarrassment to the US government.” [Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 7/4/1986] The investigation also learns that he has been meeting with Zvi Rafiah “two or three times a week.” [Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 7/4/1986] The FBI ultimately assembles “a good circumstantial case” that Rafiah “routinely issued orders to Bryen” and will recommend that the case be brought before an investigative grand jury for espionage. But the case is quietly closed after Bryen resigns at the insistence of Philip Heymann, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and under strong pressure from senators Clifford Case (Bryen’s boss) and Henry Jackson (Richard Perle’s). Heymann happens to be a close personal friend and associate of Dr. Bryen’s attorney. [Nation, 6/29/1985; Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 7/4/1986]

1979: Meeting Held in Turkey Discussing US-Turkey Alliance
Albert Wohlstetter arranges a meeting in Istanbul bringing together 13 Americans, 13 Turks, and 13 Europeans. Richard Perle is possibly present. The policies discussed at the meeting later become the basis of the Turgut Ozal administration’s pro-American policies in Turkey (see September 1980) (see December 1983). [American Enterprise Institute, 11/22/2003 Sources: Seyfullah Nejat Tashan] Wohlstetter, a professor at the University of Chicago, is a mentor to Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. [Think Tank, 11/14/2002] He sees Turkey as “a US staging post for Middle East contingencies and as a strategic ally of Israel.” [Evriviades, 1999]

March 1980: Richard Perle Leaves Position as Senate Aide, Becomes Private Consultant
Richard Perle leaves his position as a Senate aide to become a consultant with the Abington Corporation. His first clients are Israeli arms dealers Shlomo Zabludowicz, and his son Chaim Zabludowicz, who would like to sell the US weapons produced by Soltam Ltd., an Israeli company that makes mortars, artillery, ammunition, and other civilian and military products. Shlomo Zabludowicz is the founder of the company and its principal shareholder. Soltam agrees to pay Abington $10,000 a month for a period of one year. Despite Perle’s resignation as a Senate aide, he inexplicably remains on the Senate rolls as a nonsalaried employee until May 31, 1981. During this period, Perle retains his Senate security clearance. William F. Hildebrand later tells the New York Times that Perle’s arrangement with the Senate was not normal. “[Y]ou can’t be employed” by the Senate “and not get paid,” he explains. [New York Times, 4/17/1983]

September 1980: Pro-American Military Coup Takes Place in Turkey
General Kenal Evren leads a military coup in Turkey. Richard Perle, in a 1999 article, will justify the pro-American coup as “a response by the Turkish armed forces to the breakdown of order and security and the rise of terrorism and widespread random violence in Turkey.” According to Perle, the wave of terrorism in Turkey “threatened to undermine American support, both popular and official, for Turkey and for close cooperation in security affairs between the United States and Turkey.” [Foreign Policy Research Institute, 9/1999] Perle says Turkey’s civilian government failed to maintain law and order. Conveniently, the clampdown that follows the coup enables the new government to begin implementing the pro-US strategic agenda that was laid out during the 1979 meeting arranged by Perle’s mentor, Albert Wohlstetter (see 1979). It is now known that the terrorism that destabilized Turkey in the late 1970s was predominately the work of secret groups run by the Turkish military in conjunction with the CIA and NATO. [Progressive, 4/1997; Covert Action Quarterly, 6/1997; Ganser, 12/17/2004]

Early 1981: Richard Perle Assists Reagan’s Transition Team
Richard Perle works on the Reagan administration’s transition team. He manages to “place his associates in important national security positions and in the Department of Defense.” [New York Times, 4/17/1983]

March 1981: Richard Perle Receives Large Sum from Israeli Arms Dealers
Richard Perle is paid a $50,000 fee by Israeli arms dealers Shlomo and Chaim Zabludowiczes (see March 1980). Perle says in a later interview with the New York Times that the amount was paid to him for services he provided Soltam Ltd during the previous year. In January 1982, he will also receive a portion of a $90,000 fee that Soltam pays to Abington Corp. (see January 1982) The payments made to Perle and Abington are both funneled though Tamares, a small London-based subsidiary of Salgad, another company founded by Shlomo Zabludowicze based in Liechtenstein. [New York Times, 4/17/1983]

March 23, 1981: Richard Perle Appointed to Position at Defense Department
Richard Perle becomes Assistant Secretary for International Security Policy at the Defense Department. [New York Times, 4/17/1983]

April 1981: Richard Perle Wants Stephen Bryen to be his Assistant
Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle indicates that he would like Stephen Bryen to be the deputy assistant. This becomes an issue during Perle’s confirmation hearings because Bryen was previously investigated by the FBI for passing classified documents to Zvi Rafiah, an Israeli embassy official in 1978 (see March 1978). Perle and Bryen are described in 1985 as “perhaps the most effective proponents of neoconservative positions on such matters as arms control, technology transfer, and the Middle East.” [Nation, 6/29/1985]

January 1982: Asst. Defense Secr. Richard Perle Advocates on Behalf of Former Client
Richard Perle, an assistant secretary of defense, writes a memorandum to the secretary of the army recommending that mortars manufactured by the Israeli arms company, Soltam, be evaluated for cost competitiveness. Less than a year before, Perle received $50,000 from the company (see March 1978). Perle also complains in the memo that the company had not been given a fair shot at an earlier Pentagon contract. [New York Times, 4/17/1983]

1984: Richard Perle Promotes Propaganda Campaign to Encourage Soviet Soldiers to Defect
Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle urges the CIA to promote a propaganda program urging Soviet soldiers to defect to the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. He is viewed by the CIA officers as the craziest of the many extreme right-wingers with whom they have dealt. [Crile, 2003, pp. 331-334]

1985: Ahmed Chalabi Introduced to Richard Perle
Albert Wohlstetter introduces Ahmed Chalabi to Richard Perle, undersecretary of defense for international-security policy. [American Prospect, 11/18/2002]

1986: Richard Perle Negotiates Defense Agreement with Turkey
Richard Perle successfully completes negotiations on the new Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement with Turkey, making the country the third-largest recipient of US military aid after Israel and Egypt. He also proposes the establishment of a “high-level US-Turkish consultative group co-chaired by the Pentagon and the Turkish general staff.” These developments cause “consternation” in the State Department. But after an “intense struggle,” is able to push the programs through with the support of ambassador Robert Strausz-Hupe and members of the National Security Council. [Foreign Policy Research Institute, 9/1999; Nation, 8/23/2002] Perle himself is the American co-chair of the high-level defense group. [Washington Post, 7/24/2004] On one of Perle’s trips to Turkey he is accompanied by future counterterrorism director Richard Clarke. Clarke had been assigned by the State Department to be keep an eye on Perle’s activities, but finds that he is “charmed by his manner and persuaded by his logic about the strategic importance of Turkey.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 49]

1987-2004: Richard Perle Serves as Member of Defense Policy Board
Richard Perle serves as a member of the Defense Policy Board, an unpaid but influential position in the Pentagon. [Inter Press Service, 6/29/2004]

April 1987: Richard Perle Resigns as Assistant Secretary of Defense, But Remains on Defense Policy Board
Richard Perle, again under fire for leaking classified information, resigns as assistant secretary of defense, but remains in his unpaid position on the Defense Policy Board. [Asia Times, 3/29/2003]

End Part I

1991-1992: Bush Administration is Split on Bosnia Policy
There is a growing conflict within the Bush administration between the “selective engagers” and an alliance of “hardliners” and “liberal humanitarianists” over whether or not to intervene militarily in Bosnia. The selective engagers believe that the US should militarily intervene only in cases where US strategic interests are directly threatened. Richard Perle and Albert Wohlstetter are prominently mentioned among the hardliners. [Western, 7/1999]

November 1995 and after: Richard Perle Serves as a Military Adviser to Bosnian Government
After the Dayton peace talks, Richard Perle serves as a military adviser to the Bosnian government. [AFP Reporter, 1997]

January 1996: Richard Perle Says Arming of Bosnians Is of “Vital Interest” to US
Richard Perle tells the Turkish Daily News that the arming and training of Bosnian Muslims is of “vital interest” to the United States and suggests that “among the NATO allies Turkey is [the] number one candidate for the job.” He says that Turkey would need perhaps $50 million in financing to do the work. [Turkish Daily News, 1/22/1996]

July 7, 1996: ‘A Clean Break’ Outlines New Middle East Strategy for Israel
The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli think tank, publishes a paper entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” [Chicago Sun-Times, 3/6/2003] Lead author Richard Perle will later become chairman of President Bush’s influential Defense Policy Board. Several other co-authors will hold key positions in Washington after Bush’s election. In the paper, Perle and his co-authors advise the new, right wing Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to make a complete break with the past by adopting a strategy “based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism.…” The first step is to be the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. A war with Iraq will destabilize the entire Middle East, allowing governments in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and other countries to be replaced. “Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them,” the paper concludes [Guardian, 9/3/2002] , citing the original paper at [Studies, 7/8/1996] . Perle will be instrumental is moving Bush’s US policy toward war with Iraq after the 9/11 attacks.

July 8, 1996
The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli think tank, publishes a paper titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” [Washington Times, 10/7/2002; Chicago Sun-Times, 3/6/2003] The paper, whose lead author is Richard Perle, advises the new, right-wing Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to break with the policies of the previous government by adopting a strategy “based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism….” Much along the lines of an earlier paper by Israeli Oded Yinon (see February 1982), the document urges the Israelis to aggressively seek the downfall of their Arab neighbors—especially Syria and Iraq—by exploiting the inherent tensions within and among the Arab States. Specifically, it recommends that Israel work with Turkey and Jordan to remove Saddam Hussein from power as a means of “foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.” [Studies, 7/8/1996; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 3/19/2003] Other suggestions for Israel include abandoning the Oslo Accords, developing a foreign policy based on a traditional balance of power strategy, reserving its right to invade the West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of a strategy of “self-defense,” abandoning any notion of “land for peace,” reestablishing a policy of preemptive strikes, forging closer ties to the US while taking steps towards self-reliance, and seeking an alternative to Yasser Arafat as leader of the PLO. [Studies, 7/8/1996]

(1997-1998): Ahmed Chalabi Befriends Neoconservatives
According to Middle East expert Judith Kipper, around this time, Ahmed Chalabi makes “a deliberate decision to turn to the right,” having realized that conservatives are more likely than liberals to support his plan to use force to topple Saddam Hussein’s government. Chalabi’s aide, Francis Brooke, later explains to the New Yorker: “We thought very carefully about this, and realized there were only a couple of hundred people” in Washington capable of influencing US policy toward Iraq. He also attends social functions with Richard Perle, whom he met in 1985 (see 1985) and who is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Dick Cheney, the CEO of Halliburton. According to Brooke, “from the beginning, Cheney was in philosophical agreement with this plan. Cheney has said, ‘Very seldom in life do you get a chance to fix something that went wrong.’” Paul Wolfowitz is said to be enamored with Chalabi. According to an American friend of Chalabi, “Chalabi really charmed him. He told me they are both intellectuals. Paul is a bit of a dreamer.” [New Yorker, 6/7/2004] He also becomes friends with L. Marc Zell and Douglas Feith of the Washington-Tel Aviv law, Feith and Zell. [Salon, 5/5/2004] Chalabi tells his neoconservatives friends that if he replaces Saddam Hussein as Iraq’s leader, he would establish normal diplomatic and trade ties with Israel, eschew pan-Arab nationalism, and allow the construction of a pipeline from Mosul to the Israeli port of Haifa, Zell later tells Salon magazine. Having a pro-Israeli regime in Iraq would “take[] off the board” one of the only remaining major Arab threats to Israeli security, a senior administration official says in 2003. It would do this “without the need for an accommodation with either the Palestinians or the existing Arab states,” notes Salon. [Knight Ridder, 7/12/2003; Salon, 5/5/2004 Sources: L. Marc Zell] But Chalabi has a different story for his Arab friends. He tells his friend, Moh’d Asad, the managing director of the Amman, Jordan-based International Investment Arabian Group, “that he just need[s] the Jews in order to get what he want[s] from Washington, and that he [will] turn on them after that.” [Salon, 5/5/2004] Chalabi also says that the Iraqis would welcome a US liberation force with open arms. [Christian Science Monitor, 6/15/2004]

Before October 1997: $400 Million Bosnian Defense Fund Fuels Balkan Conflict
Fourteen nations, including the US, support a $400 million “Bosnian Defense Fund,” which reportedly collects cash and equipment contributions for a “train and equip” program that is operated by the US. [Arms Trade News, 10/1997] According to investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, a former Naval Officer who has worked with the NSA: “Via something called the Bosnia Defense Fund, these countries [Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Brunei, Jordan, and Egypt] deposited millions of dollars into US coffers to buy weapons for the Bosnians…. According to Washington K Street sources, the law firm that established the Bosnia Defense Fund was none other than Feith and Zell, the firm of current Pentagon official and leading neo-con Douglas Feith. Feith’s operation at Feith and Zell was assisted by his one-time boss and current member of Rumsfeld’s Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle.” [CounterPunch, 9/18/2003]

January 26, 1998: Neo-Conservative Think Tank Urges US Should Attack Iraq
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), an influential neoconservative think tank, publishes a letter to President Clinton urging war against Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein because he is a “hazard” to “a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil.” In a foretaste of what eventually happens, the letter calls for the US to go to war alone, attacks the United Nations, and says the US should not be “crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.” The letter is signed by many who will later lead the 2003 Iraq war. 10 of the 18 signatories later join the Bush Administration, including (future) Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Assistant Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Undersecretaries of State John Bolton and Paula Dobriansky, presidential adviser for the Middle East Elliott Abrams, and Bush’s special Iraq envoy Zalmay Khalilzad. [Project for the New American Century, 1/26/1998; Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 3/16/2003] Clinton does heavily bomb Iraq in late 1998, but the bombing doesn’t last long and its long term effect is the break off of United Nations weapons inspections. [New York Times, 3/23/2003]

February 19, 1998
The Committee for Peace and Security publishes an open letter to President Bill Clinton outlining a 9-point “comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime.” The letter is signed by a litany of former US government officials known for their neoconservative viewpoints. Several of the signatories are also involved with the Project for the New American Century and had endorsed a similar letter published by that organization the previous month. [Abrams et al., 2/19/1998; CNN, 2/20/1998]

July 24, 1998: Chalabi Supporters Ask Israel to Pressure Congress to Grant Funding for INC
Francis Brooke and David Wurmser meet with Dore Gold, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, with hopes to get Israel to pressure US Congress into approving a $10 million grant to the Iraqi National Congress to fund an effort to facilitate regime change in Iraq. “I went to speak to [Ambassador Gold] just to say that I think it’s in Israel’s best interest to help the Iraqi people get this thing done,” Brooke says. “The basic case I made was that we need help here in the US to get this thing going.” Commenting on the effort, Richard Perle tells Forward, a Jewish-American Magazine, “Israel has not devoted the political or rhetorical time or energy to Saddam that they have to the Iranians. The case for the Iraqi opposition in Congress would be a lot more favorable with Israeli support.” [Forward, 7/31/2003]

September 11, 1998: PNAC Calls on Clinton To Take ‘Decisive Action’ Against Milosevic
The Project for a New American Century publishes an open letter to President Clinton urging him put an end to diplomatic efforts attempting to resolve the situation in the Balkans. Instead, they argue, he should take “decisive action” against the Serbs. The US must “distance itself from Milosevic and actively support in every way possible his replacement by a democratic government committed to ending ethnic violence,” the group writes. [Century, 9/11/1998]

1999: US NGO Formed to Promote Peace in Chechnya
The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC) is founded by Freedom House. Its mission is to promote a “peaceful resolution of the Russo-Chechen war.” Board members include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Steven J. Solarz, and Max Kampelman. ACPC’s regular members include Richard Perle; Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Midge Decter, Frank Gaffney, Bruce Jackson, Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, James Woolsey, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, among others. The APC is closely tied to the American Enterprise Institute and the Jamestown Foundation and National Endowment for Democracy and other US democratization initiatives. [Guardian, 9/8/2004; American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, 11/15/2005]

End Part II

May 2000: Conservative Think Tank Calls on US to End Syrian Influence in Lebanon
The Middle East Forum, an aggressively neoconservative and pro-Israeli journal edited by Daniel Pipes, issues a report urging the US to put an end to Syria’s influence in Lebanon, if necessary by military force. The report is cosigned by, among others, Richard Perle and Daniel Pipes. [Middle East Forum, 5/2000]

March, 2001: Perle Says Hussein Has Weapons of Mass Destruction
Defense Policy Board chairman and prominent neoconservative Richard Perle tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, “Does Saddam [Hussein] now have weapons of mass destruction? Sure he does. We know he has chemical weapons. We know he has biological weapons.…How far he’s gone on the nuclear-weapons side I don’t think we really know. My guess is it’s further than we think. It’s always further than we think, because we limit ourselves, as we think about this, to what we’re able to prove and demonstrate…. And, unless you believe that we’ve uncovered everything, you have to assume there is more than we’re able to report.” Perle fails to offer any evidence of his claims to the senators, and fails to provide evidence from UN inspectors that shows virtually all of Iraq’s WMD stockpiles and programs have long since been destroyed. [Hersh, 2004, pp. 209-210]

August 6, 2001: Perle’s Concern About Iraq, North Korea, and Iran Before 9/11 Becomes Axis of Evil Afterward
Richard Perle, head of the Defense Policy Board and foreign policy adviser to Bush, is asked about new challenges now that the Cold War is over. He cites three: “We’re concerned about Saddam Hussein, We’re concerned about the North Koreans, about some future Iranian government that may have the weapon they’re now trying so hard to acquire…” [Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 8/6/2001] Note that these three nations are the same three named in Bush’s famous January 2002 “axis of evil” speech (see January 29, 2002). [US President, 2/4/2002]

Shortly After September 11, 2001: Perle Says Iraq ‘Has to Pay a Price for’ 9/11
According to a later account provided by CIA Director George Tenet, he bumps into Pentagon adviser Richard Perle in the White House who tells him, “Iraq has to pay a price for what happened yesterday, they bear responsibility.” Tenet, recalling his reaction to Perle’s statement, later says, “I’ve got the manifest with me that tells me al-Qaeda did this. Nothing in my head that says there is any Iraqi involvement in this in any way shape or form and I remember thinking to myself, as I’m about to go brief the president, ‘What the hell is he talking about?’” (Note: Tenet says in his book that this incident happened on September 12; however, after Perle insists that he was not in the country that day, Tenet concedes that it may have happened a little later). [Tenet, 2007; CBS News, 4/29/2007; CNN, 4/30/2007] On September 16, 2001, Perle will hint in a CNN interview that Iraq should be punished for the 9/11 attacks (see September 16, 2001).

September 16, 2001: Richard Perle Hints Iraq Should Be Punished for 9/11 Attacks
On September 16, 2001, when asked on CNN if countries that harbor terrorists should be punished, prominent neoconservative Richard Perle agrees, saying, “Even if we cannot prove to the standards that we enjoy in our own civil society that they were involved. We do know, for example, that Saddam Hussein has ties to Osama bin Laden. That can be documented.” [CNN, 9/16/2001]

September 19, 2001-September 20, 2001: Defense Policy Board Meets and Discusses Iraq
The Defense Policy Board (DPB) meets in secrecy in Rumsfeld’s Pentagon conference room on September 19 and 20 for nineteen hours to discuss the option of taking military action against Iraq. [New York Times, 10/12/2001] They also discuss how they might overcome some of the diplomatic and political pressures that would likely attempt to impede a policy of regime change in Iraq. [New York Times, 10/12/2001] Among those attending the meeting are the 18 members of the Defense Policy Board, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Bernard Lewis, Ahmed Chalabi, and Chalabi’s aide Francis Brooke. [New York Times, 10/12/2001; Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 236; New Yorker, 6/7/2004] Secretary of State Colin Powell and other State Department officials in charge of US policy toward Iraq are not invited and are not informed of the meeting. A source will later tell the New York Times that Powell was irritated about not being briefed on the meeting. [New York Times, 10/12/2001] During the seminar, two of Richard Perle’s invited guests, Princeton professor Bernard Lewis and Ahmed Chalabi, the president of the Iraqi National Congress, are given the opportunity to speak. Lewis says that the US must encourage democratic reformers in the Middle East, “such as my friend here, Ahmed Chalabi.” Chalabi argues that Iraq is a breeding ground for terrorists and asserts that Saddam’s regime has weapons of mass destruction. [Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 232] He also asserts “there’d be no resistance, no guerrilla warfare from the Baathists, and [it would be] a quick matter of establishing a government.” [New Yorker, 6/7/2004] Attendees write a letter to President Bush calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein. “[E]ven if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism,” the letter reads. The letter is published in the Washington Times on September 20 (see September 20, 2001) in the name of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), a conservative think tank that believes the US needs to shoulder the responsibility for maintaining “peace” and “security” in the world by strengthening its global hegemony. [Project for the New American Century, 9/20/2001; Manila Times, 7/19/2003] Bush reportedly rejects the letter’s proposal, as both Cheney and Powell agree that there is no evidence implicating Saddam Hussein in the attacks. [New York Times, 10/12/2001 Sources: Unnamed senior administration officials and defense experts]

November 14, 2001: Perle Says It Is Only ‘a Matter of Time’ Before Iraq Acquires Nuclear Weapons
Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board, says in a speech delivered at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s annual dinner that Saddam Hussein “is busily at work on a nuclear weapon” and that “it’s simply a matter of time before he acquires nuclear weapons.” His assertion is based on information that was provided to him personally by Iraqi defector Kadir Hamza. According to Perle, Hamza said that after the Israeli strikes against Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981, Iraq built some 400 uranium enrichment facilities all over the country in order to protect its nuclear program from future attacks. “Some look like farmhouses, some of them look like classrooms, some of them look like warehouses. You’ll never find them. They don’t turn out much but every day they turn out a little bit of nuclear materials.” [Foreign Policy Research Institute, 11/14/2001]

January 29, 2002: Bush Labels Iraq, Iran, and North Korea an ‘Axis of Evil,’ Ending Cooperation with Iran
President Bush’s State of the Union speech describes an “axis of evil” consisting of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. When Bush advisor Richard Perle was asked one month before 9/11 about new challenges the US faced, he replied by naming these exact three countries (see August 6, 2001). Bin Laden is not mentioned in the speech. [US President, 2/4/2002] Michael Gerson, head of the White House speechwriting team at the time, will later claim that, as Newsweek will later put it, “Bush was already making plans to topple Saddam Hussein, but he wasn’t ready to say so.” Iran and North Korea are inserted into the speech in order to avoid focusing solely on Iraq. The speech is followed by a new public focus on Iraq and a downplaying of bin Laden (see September 15, 2001-April 6, 2002). Prior to the speech, the Iranian government had been very helpful in the US fight against the Taliban, since the Taliban and Iran were enemies. [Newsweek, 2/12/2007] At the time, al-Qaeda operatives has been streaming into Iran from Afghanistan following the defeat of the Taliban. Iran has been turning over hundreds of suspects to US allies and provided US intelligence with the names, photographs, and fingerprints of those it is holding. [Washington Post, 2/10/2007] Newsweek will later say that it is “beyond doubt” the Iranian government was “critical… to stabilizing [Afghanistan] after the fall of Kabul.” But all this cooperation comes to an end after the speech. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Hossein Adeli will later say that, “Those [inside the Iranian government] who were in favor of a rapprochement with the United States were marginalized. The speech somehow exonerated those who had always doubted America’s intentions.” [Newsweek, 2/12/2007]

Summer 2002-2003
Current and former top US military brass dispute White House claims that Iraq poses an immediate threat to the US and that it must be dealt with militarily. In late July 2002, Washington Post reports that “top generals and admirals in the military establishment, including members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff” believe that Saddam Hussein’s regime “poses no immediate threat and that the United States should continue its policy of containment rather than invade Iraq to force a change of leadership in Baghdad.” The report says that the military officials’ positions are based “in part on intelligence assessments of the state of Hussein’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and his missile delivery capabilities.” The newspaper says that there are several reasons why these dissident officers disagree with their civilian bosses. They worry that if Saddam Hussein is removed, Iraq could “split up,… potentially leading to chaos and the creation of new anti-American regimes and terrorist sanctuaries in the region.” It is also possible, they say, that an invasion of Iraq could provoke Saddam Hussein into using whatever weapons of mass destruction he may have. And even if the invasion is successful, the aftermath could see “mass instability, requiring tens of thousands of US troops to maintain peace, prop up a post-Saddam government, and prevent the fragmentation of Iraq,” the military brass warns. Their position is that the US should continue its policy of containment, specifically sanctions and the enforcement of the US- and British- imposed “no-fly” zones. [Washington Post, 7/28/2002] Responding to the dissenting opinions of these military officials, Richard Perle, current chairman of the Defense Policy Board, says that the decision of whether or not to attack Iraq is “a political judgment that these guys aren’t competent to make.” [Washington Post, 7/28/2002] A few days later, Washington Post publishes another story along similar lines, reporting, “Much of the senior uniformed military, with the notable exception of some top Air Force and Marine generals, opposes going to war anytime soon, a stance that is provoking frustration among civilian officials in the Pentagon and in the White House.” Notably the division has created “an unusual alliance between the State Department and the uniformed side of the Pentagon, elements of the government that more often seem to oppose each other in foreign policy debates.” [Washington Post, 8/1/2002 Sources: Unnamed senior military officials] The extent of the generals’ disagreement is quite significant, reports the Post, which quotes one proponent of invading Iraq expressing his/her concern that the brass’ opinion could ultimately dissuade Bush from taking military action. “You can’t force things onto people who don’t want to do it, and the three- and four-star Army generals don’t want to do it. I think this will go back and forth, and back and forth, until it’s time for Bush to run for reelection,” the source says. [Washington Post, 8/1/2002 Sources: Unnamed US official] During the next several months, several former military officials speak out against the Bush administration’s military plans, including Wesley Clark, Joseph P. Hoar, John M. Shalikashvili, Tony McPeak, Gen James L Jones, Norman Schwarzkopf, Anthony Zinni, Henry H. Shelton and Thomas G. McInerney. In mid-January 2003, Time magazine reports that according to its sources, “as many as 1 in 3 senior officers questions the wisdom of a preemptive war with Iraq.” They complain that “the US military is already stretched across the globe, the war against Osama bin Laden is unfinished, and… a long postwar occupation looks inevitable.” [Time, 1/19/2003]

July 10, 2002: Defense Policy Board: ‘Saudis Are Active at Every Level of the Terror Chain’
A briefing given to a top Pentagon advisory group states, “The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader.… Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies.” They are called “the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent.” This position still runs counter to official US policy, but the Washington Post says it “represents a point of view that has growing currency within the Bush administration.” The briefing suggests that the Saudis be given an ultimatum to stop backing terrorism or face seizure of its oil fields and its financial assets invested in the United States. The group, the Defense Policy Board, is headed by Richard Perle. [Washington Post, 8/6/2002] An international controversy follows the public reports of the briefing in August 2002 (for instance, [Scotsman, 8/12/2002] ). In an abrupt change, the media starts calling the Saudis enemies, not allies, of the US. Slate reports details of the briefing the Post failed to mention. The briefing states, “There is an ‘Arabia,’ but it needs not be ‘Saudi.’” The conclusion of the briefing: “Grand strategy for the Middle East: Iraq is the tactical pivot. Saudi Arabia the strategic pivot. Egypt the prize.” [Slate, 8/7/2002] Note that a similar meeting of the Defense Policy Board appears to have preceded and affected the United States’ decision to take a warlike stance against Iraq (see September 19, 2001-September 20, 2001).

End Part III

September 2002: Northern Gulf Affairs Office Renamed ‘Office of Special Plans’
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, adamant hawks, rename the Northern Gulf Affairs Office on the Pentagon’s fourth floor (in the seventh corridor of D Ring) the “Office of Special Plans” (OSP) and increase its four-person staff to sixteen. [Knight Ridder, 8/16/2002; Los Angeles Times, 11/24/2002; New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; Tom Paine (.com), 8/27/2003; American Conservative, 12/1/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004 Sources: Greg Thielmann, Karen Kwiatkowski, Unnamed administration official] William Luti, a former navy officer and ex-aide to Vice President Cheney, is put in charge of the day-to-day operations. [Guardian, 7/17/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004] The Office of Special Plans is staffed with a tight group of like-minded neoconservative ideologues, who are known advocates of regime change in Iraq. Notably, the staffers have little background in intelligence or Iraqi history and culture. [Salon, 7/16/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; American Conservative, 12/1/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004 Sources: Greg Thielmann, Karen Kwiatkowski, A Pentagon adviser] Some of the people associated with this office were earlier involved with the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group, also known as the “Wurmser-Maloof” project (see Shortly After September 11, 2001). They hire “scores of temporary ‘consultants’… including like-minded lawyers, congressional staffers, and policy wonks from the numerous right-wing think-tanks in the US capital.” Neoconservative ideologues, like Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, and Newt Gingrich, are afforded direct input into the Office of Special Plans. [Guardian, 7/17/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004; Vanity Fair, 7/2006, pp. 150] OSP staffer Karen Kwiatkowski says she sees Ledeen going “in and out of there (OSP) all the time.” [Vanity Fair, 7/2006, pp. 150] The office works alongside the Near East and South Asia (NESA) bureau, also under the authority of Douglas Feith [Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004 Sources: Karen Kwiatkowski] The official business of Special Plans is to help plan for post-Saddam Iraq. The office’s staff members presumably “develop defense policies aimed at building an international coalition, prepare the secretary of defense and his top deputies for interagency meetings, coordinate troop-deployment orders, craft policies for dealing with prisoners of war and illegal combatants, postwar assistance and reconstruction policy planning, postwar governance, Iraqi oil infrastructure policy, postwar Iraqi property disputes, war crimes and atrocities, war-plan review and, in their spare time, prepare congressional testimony for their principals.” [Insight, 12/2/2003] But according to numerous well-placed sources, the office becomes a source for many of the administration’s prewar allegations against Iraq. It is accused of exaggerating, politicizing, and misrepresenting intelligence, which is “stovepiped” to top administration officials who use the intelligence in their policy decisions on Iraq. [Knight Ridder, 8/16/2002; Los Angeles Times, 11/24/2002; New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; Tom Paine (.com), 8/27/2003; American Conservative, 12/1/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004; Daily Telegraph, 7/11/2004; CNN, 7/11/2004 Sources: Greg Thielmann, Karen Kwiatkowski, Unnamed administration official] There are very few news reports in the American mainstream media that report on the office. In fact, the office is reportedly Top Secret. [Bamford, 2004, pp. 308] “We were instructed at a staff meeting that this office was not to be discussed or explained,” Kwiatkowski will later say, “and if people in the Joint Staff, among others, asked, we were to offer no comment.” [American Conservative, 12/1/2003] Colin Powell is said to have felt that Cheney and the neoconservatives in this “Gestapo” office had established what was essentially a separate government. [Washington Post, 4/17/2004 Sources: Top officials interviewed by Washington Post editor Bob Woodward] Among the claims critics find most troubling about the office are:

• The office relies heavily on accounts from Iraqi exiles and defectors associated with Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress (INC), long considered suspect by other US intelligence agencies. [New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Salon, 7/16/2003; Guardian, 7/17/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; Independent, 9/30/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004 Sources: Greg Thielmann, Unnamed administration official] One defector in particular, code-named “Curveball,” provides as much as 98 percent of the intelligence on Iraq’s alleged arsenal of biological weapons. [CNN, 7/11/2004] Much of the information provided by the INC’s sources consists of “misleading and often faked intelligence reports,” which often flow to Special Plans and NESA directly, “sometimes through Defense Intelligence Agency debriefings of Iraqi defectors via the Defense Human Intelligence Service and sometimes through the INC’s own US-funded Intelligence Collection Program, which was overseen by the Pentagon.” [Mother Jones, 1/2004] According to Karen Kwiatkowski, the movement of intelligence from the INC to the Office of Special Plans is facilitated by Colonel Bruner, a former military aide to Gingrich. [Newsweek, 12/15/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004; Salon, 3/10/2004 Sources: Memo, Karen Kwiatkowski] Bruner “was Chalabi’s handler,” Kwiatkowski will tell Mother Jones. “He would arrange meetings with Chalabi and Chalabi’s folks.” [Mother Jones, 1/2004 Sources: Karen Kwiatkowski]
• The Office of Special Plans purposefully ignores intelligence that undermines the case for war while exaggerating any leads that support it. “It wasn’t intelligence,—it was propaganda,” Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked at the NESA desk, will later explain. “They’d take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don’t belong together.” [New York Times, 10/24/2002; New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Salon, 7/16/2003; Guardian, 7/17/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003; Independent, 9/30/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004 Sources: Greg Thielmann, Unnamed former intelligence official, Ellen Tauscher]
• The OSP bypasses established oversight procedures by sending its intelligence assessments directly to the White House and National Security Council without having them first vetted by a review process involving other US intelligence agencies. [New Yorker, 5/12/2003; Salon, 7/16/2003; Guardian, 7/17/2003; Mother Jones, 1/2004 Sources: David Obey, Greg Thielmann] The people at Special Plans are so successful at bypassing conventional procedures, in part, because their neoconservative colleagues hold key positions in several other agencies and offices. Their contacts in other agencies include: John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International; Bolton’s adviser, David Wurmser, a former research fellow on the Middle East at the American Enterprise Institute, who was just recently working in a secret Pentagon planning unit at Douglas Feith’s office (see Shortly After September 11, 2001); Elizabeth Cheney, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs; Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser; Elliott Abrams, The National Security Council’s top Middle East aide; and Richard Perle, Newt Gingrich, James Woolsey and Kenneth Adelman of the Defense Policy Board. The office provides very little information about its work to other US intelligence offices. [Salon, 7/16/2003; Guardian, 7/17/2003; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003 Sources: Karen Kwiatkowski, Greg Thielmann, David Obey]
• Lastly, the people involved in Special Plans openly exhibit strong pro-Israel and anti-Arab bias. The problem, note critics, is that the analysis of intelligence is supposed to be apolitical and untainted by ideological viewpoints. [American Conservative, 12/1/2003 Sources: Karen Kwiatkowski] According to a CIA intelligence official and four members of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, Special Plans is the group responsible for the claim Bush will make in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had attempted to procure uranium from an African country (see 9:01 pm January 28, 2003). [Nation, 6/19/2003; Information Clearing House, 7/16/2003] After the existence of the Office of Special Plans is revealed to the public, the Pentagon will deny that it served as a direct conduit to the White House for misleading intelligence, instead claiming that its activities had been limited to postwar plans for Iraq. [New Yorker, 5/12/2003] And a December 2003 opinion piece published in Insight magazine will call the allegations surrounding the Office of Special Plans the work of conspiracy theorists. [Insight, 12/2/2003]

End Part IV

October 6, 2002: Christian Fundamentalists Believed to Influence Bush Foreign Policy
60 Minutes airs a program on the religious support for President Bush’s expansionist Middle Eastern policies. [CBS News, 10/6/2002] A Guardian editorial from around the same time suggests that “Christian millenarians” who are “driven by visions of messiahs and Armageddon” have formed an alliance with “secular, neoconservative Jewish intellectuals, such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz” and are strongly influencing Bush’s foreign policy. [Guardian, 9/17/2002] A later Washington Post article also sees the support of evangelical Christians and right-wing Jewish groups as instrumental in defining US Middle East policy. [Washington Post, 2/9/2003]

October 20, 2002
While in Prague to attend to a Trilateral Commission meeting, Richard Perle is told “in person… that the BIS now doubts that any such meeting between Atta and al-Ani in fact took place.” And an unnamed source with ties to the BIS tells UPI: “Quite simply, we think the source for this story may have invented the meeting that he reported. We can find no corroborative evidence for the meeting and the source has real credibility problems.” [United Press International, 10/20/2002 Sources: Unnamed source close to the BIS]

November 20, 2002
Richard Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board, attends a meeting on global security with members of the British Parliament. At one point he argues that the weapons inspection team might be unable to find Saddam’s arsenal of banned weapons because they are so well hidden. According to the London Mirror, he then states that the US would “attack Iraq even if UN inspectors fail to find weapons.” [Mirror, 11/21/2002] Peter Kilfoyle, a former defense minister and Labour backbencher, tells the Mirror: “America is duping the world into believing it supports these inspections. President Bush intends to go to war even if inspectors find nothing. This make a mockery of the whole process and exposes America’s real determination to bomb Iraq.” [Mirror, 11/21/2002]

December 2002
Elliott Abrams, a special assistant to President George W. Bush on the National Security Council [NSC] is appointed to senior director for Near East and North African affairs within the NSC. Neoconservatives working at the Pentagon’s Near East South Asia (NESA) desk worked hard to get Abrams appointed. “The day he got (the appointment), they were whooping and hollering, ‘We got him in, we got him in,’” Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, tells Inter Press Service. Abrams, a controversial figure with close ties to Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, had been convicted of withholding information from Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal, though he was later pardoned by George W. Bush’s father. [Insight, 12/28/2002; Inter Press Service, 8/7/2003]

January 9, 2003
US officials and advisors reject British suggestions—revealed the previous day—that the war be put off (see January 8, 2003). Richard Perle, chairman of the Defense Policy Board, says that the Bush administration is under no obligation to abandon its war plans on account of opposition from the UN Security Council. He says, “I’m assuming that we will not get a consensus on the Security Council but it may be possible to get it…. It would be a great mistake to become dependent on it and take the view that we can’t act separately…. That would be an abrogation of the president’s responsibility…. If there’s no change in Saddam’s attitude I think there’ll be a reluctance to continue this without a clear indication that our patience will be rewarded by a UN Security Council consensus…. A consensus would be a useful thing and I think we’d be willing to wait a little longer to get it but not a long time…. We might be acting without a resolution from the UN authorizing it but I think the administration can make a strong case that Saddam’s defiance of a variety of resolutions passed previously could be understood to justify military action.” [Daily Telegraph, 1/10/2003] And John Negroponte, the American Ambassador to the UN, also dismisses widespread objections to US aggression, asserting that any instances of Iraqi non-cooperation will “constitute further material breach,” regardless of what the UN ultimately decides. [Associated Press, 1/9/2003; London Times, 1/10/2003]

(February-March 2003): Washington Rejects Last Minute Offer from Baghdad
In February, Hassan al-Obeidi, chief of foreign operations of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, pays a visit to Imad Hage, a Lebanese-American businessman living in Beruit who has contacts in the Pentagon. Obeidi requests his help in relaying a backchannel offer to Washington in an attempt to avert war. Hage later tells the New York Times that Obeidi told him: “If this is about oil, we will talk about US oil concessions. If it is about the peace process, then we can talk. If this is about weapons of mass destruction, let the Americans send over their people. There are no weapons of mass destruction. Americans could send 2,000 FBI agents to look wherever they wanted,” At one point, Obeidi says that Iraq would even agree to hold elections within the next two years. Hage relays everything to Pentagon staffer Mike Maloof in Washington. [New York Times, 11/6/2003] Hage then travels to Baghdad and meets with Iraq’s chief of intelligence Tahir Jalil Habbush Al-Tikriti. Hage later recalls: “[The Iraqis] would be willing to allow between 1,000 to 2,000 US agents, FBI and/or scientists, into Iraq to verify, according to them, the absence of weapons of mass destruction or that they no longer had weapons of mass destruction. The second point, they offered to turn over Abdul Rahman Yasin, [under indictment in] the World Trade Center bombing in 1993. And on the third issue, they offered to hold free and fair elections in Iraq within a year or two. They kept on asking why they were targeted or they would be targeted, that they didn’t wish confrontation with the United States. If it was about oil, they’d be willing to make concessions on oil.” [New York Times, 11/6/2003; CNN, 11/7/2003] On February 19, Hage faxes a three-page report to Maloof listing five concessions the Iraqis were willing to make: cooperation in the war on terrorism, “full support for any US plan” in the Arab-Israeli peace process, giving “the US… first priority as it relates to Iraq oil, mining rights,” support for United States strategic interests in the region, and “direct US involvement on the ground in disarming Iraq.” Details of the Iraqi offer are sent to several top Pentagon officials. [New York Times, 11/6/2003] In early March, Hage and Richard Perle meet in London. Hage informs him that the Iraqis would like to arrange a secret meeting with him to discuss their offer. According to Perle, he then contacts the CIA seeking permission to meet with the Iraqis. But according to Perle, the CIA isn’t interested. “The message was, ‘Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad.’” The agency also tells Perle that they had already pursued other backchannel leads with the Iraqi regime. According to one senior US intelligence official, the other leads “came via a broad range of foreign intelligence services, other governments, third parties, charlatans, and independent actors. Every lead that was at all plausible, and some that weren’t, were followed up.” [New York Times, 11/6/2003; Risen, 2006, pp. 183-184] In spite of the CIA’s refusal to engage in talks with the Iraqis, Hage continues to forward offers by the Iraqis to Maloof. The US ignores them. [New York Times, 11/6/2003]

March 25, 2003: Neoconservative Michael Ledeen Does Not Believe US Casualties Will be an Issue if War Goes Well Because ‘We Are a Warlike People and… We Love War’
During a conference held at the American Enterprise Institute, an audience member asks the panel of guests—made up of James Woolsey, Richard Perle, and Michael Ledeen—where they see “the level of acceptance of US society in terms of casualties, not only on the US side, but as well on the Iraqi side, and in terms of duration of the operation?” Ledeen responds: “I think the level of casualties is secondary. I mean, it may sound like an odd thing to say, but all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war.… What we hate is not casualties but losing. And if the war goes well and if the American public has the conviction that we’re being well-led and that our people are fighting well and that we’re winning, I don’t think casualties are going to be the issue.” [American Enterprise Institute, 3/25/2003]

November 19, 2003: Prominent Neoconservative Admits Invasion of Iraq Was Probably Illegal
Prominent neoconservative Richard Perle, speaking at an event organized by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, says of the invasion of Iraq: “I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing.” According to Perle, who is a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, “international law… would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone.” [Guardian, 11/20/2003]

January 24, 2004
Pentagon adviser Richard N. Perle speaks at a charity event whose stated purpose is to express “solidarity with Iran” and raise money for Iran earthquake victims. During the event, statements are made in support of “regime change in Iran.” The event is attended by FBI agents because of suspicions that the event has connections to the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), a militant Iranian opposition group that is included on the state department’s list terrorist organizations. The US Treasury Department will freeze the assets of the event’s prime organizer, the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia, two days later (see January 26, 2004). Perle tells the Washington Post that he was unaware of possible connections to MEK. [Washington Post, 1/29/2004]

End