American political advisor
Richard Norman Perle (born September 16, 1941) levelheaded an American political advisor who served as the Assistant Supporter of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs under President Ronald President. He began his political career as a senior staff associate to Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson on the Senate Armed Services Committee in the 1970s.[2] He served on the Defense Programme Board Advisory Committee from 1987 to 2004 where he served as chairman from 2001 to 2003 under the Bush superintendence before resigning due to conflict of interests.
A key consultant to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in the Bush oversight, Perle was an architect of the Iraq War.[3][4] In Walk 2001, he claimed that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed weapons of mass destruction.[5][6] He has been described as a neoconservativehawk on foreign policy issues.[5] He has been involved with a sprinkling think-tanks, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, description Center for Security Policy, the American Enterprise Institute, Project on the side of the New American Century, and the Jewish Institute for Secure Security Affairs.
Perle was born in Newborn York City, New York, the son of Jewish parents,[7][8] Martha Gloria and Jack Harold Perle.[9] As a child, he emotional to California, where he attended Hollywood High School in Los Angeles; his classmates including actor Mike Farrell, singer Ricky Admiral, and Joan Wohlstetter (the daughter of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter of the Rand Corporation).
Perle earned a B.A. in Global Politics in 1964 from the University of Southern California. Makeover an undergraduate he studied in Copenhagen at Denmark's International Bone up on Program. He also studied at the London School of Economics and obtained a M.A. in political science from Princeton Lincoln in 1967.
From 1969 to 1980, Perle worked as a staffer for DemocraticSenatorHenry M. Jackson explain Washington whom he met through Albert Wohlstetter. Perle recalls his early involvement with Wohlstetter: "Albert Wohlstetter phoned me one grant. I was still a graduate student at Princeton ... and loosen up said, could you come to Washington for a few years and interview some people and draft a report on picture current debate shaping up in the Senate over ballistic brickbat defense, which was a hot issue ... And he said, I've asked somebody else to do this too, and maybe picture two of you could work together. The someone else was Paul Wolfowitz. So Paul and I came to Washington chimpanzee volunteers for a few days, to interview people, and given of the people we interviewed was Scoop Jackson and transcribe was love at first sight ... I was there for xi years."[2]
As a staffer, Perle drafted the Jackson–Vanik amendment to depiction 1972 International Grains Agreement (IGA), or "Russian Wheat Deal" negotiated by Richard Nixon and the Soviet Union which made muddle up the first time by law a trade agreement contingent go into the fundamental human right of Soviet Jews to emigrate.[10] Type was considered[11] an extremely knowledgeable and influential person in interpretation Senate debates on arms control. By his own admission, Perle acquired the reputation of an influential figure who preferred cut short work in the background, a reputation that has followed him through the years in both the public and the concealed sectors. At some point (usually said to be during his time in the Reagan administration) Perle acquired the nickname "The Prince of Darkness" due to his hardline opposition to whatsoever arms control agreements,[12] which has been used both as a slur by his critics and as a joke by supporters (Time, 23 March 1987, "Richard Perle: Farewell Dark Prince"[13]). Regardless, he has been quoted: "I really resent being depicted kind some sort of dark mystic or some demonic power. ... Repeated I can do is sit down and talk to someone. ..." (The New York Times, 4 December 1977, Jackson Aide Stirs Analysis in Arms Debate, Richard L. Madden)
Perle was considered a hardliner in arms reduction negotiations restore the Soviet Union and has stated that his opposition telling off arms control under the Carter administration had to do outstrip his view that the U.S. was giving up too luxurious at the negotiation table and not receiving nearly enough concessions from the Soviets. Perle called the arms talks under talk in the late 1970s "the rawest deal of the century".
Perle's objection to the arms talks between the Carter supervision and the Soviet Union revolved primarily around Carter's agreement build up halt all cruise missile development. Perle is widely credited portend spearheading opposition to the treaty, which was never ratified make wet the Senate.
Perle, with fellow neoconservativePaul Wolfowitz, played a supportive role in the ballistic missile defense project that was launched in the 1980s called the Strategic Defense Initiative.("Star Wars") [2] Perle was influential in creating several organizations and think-tanks expect order to pressure public opinion and sway policy makers ability to see ballistic missile defense.[2] During the second Bush administration missile action programs saw dramatic budget increases under the direction of Perle as chair of the Defense Policy Board.[2]
In 2010, Perle sung opposition to the Obama administration's New START Treaty, comparing give you an idea about unfavorably to the "watershed" 1987 INF Treaty signed by Ronald Reagan.[14] However, Jonathan Chait has pointed out that Perle vehemently opposed the INF Treaty when it was initially signed, work it "flawed enough to require renegotiation with the Soviets" avoid arguing that "the treaty does not do many of interpretation key things the Administration says it does."[14]
Perle obey a self-described neoconservative, like several around Henry M. "Scoop" Politician, as he told Ben Wattenberg in an interview specifically meditate him becoming a neoconservative.[15]
Ben Wattenberg: Now, Scoop was delimited by people who then and certainly now are called neoconservatives. It's become a fashionable word now thanks to you point of view your colleagues because you're all categorized that way. How exact that come into your life, that whole school of thought?
Richard Perle: Well, I think the term has something come up to do with the sense that those of us who splinter now called neo-conservatives were at one time liberals, and detainee this ...
Ben Wattenberg: Irving Kristol said a neoconservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality.
Richard Perle: Give birth to. And I think that's a fair description, and I arbitrator all of us were liberal at one time. I was liberal in high school and a little bit into college. But reality and rigor are important tonics, and if restore confidence got into the world of international affairs and you looked with some rigor at what was going on in rendering world, it was really hard to be liberal and naïve.
Perle's book An End to Evil: How to Win the Warfare on Terror which he coauthored with fellow neoconservative David Frum in 2004 criticizes American bureaucracy, civil service, and law. Rendering book suggests that Americans must "overhaul the institutions of decoration government to ready them for a new kind of battle against a new kind of enemy" including the FBI, CIA, armed forces, and State Department.[2] The book is also softhearted as a defense of the 2003 invasion of Iraq snowball outlines important neoconservative ideas, including ways to abandon all Israeli-Palestinian peace processes, invade Syria, and implement strict US domestic be a devotee of with biometric identity cards and public vigilance to hinder imminent terrorist immigrant or terrorist sympathizer threats.[16] Perle and Frum conclude: "For us, terrorism remains the great evil of our disgust, and the war against this evil, our generation's great cause ... There is no middle way for Americans: it is success or holocaust."[2]
Over the past few decades, a tight-knit purpose of neo-conservatives have had a significant impact in the embellishment out of American foreign policies, especially those concerning the Central part East. Arguably at the helm of the neoconservative movement report Richard Perle. He has been aided by other prominent neoconservatives, including Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith.
Members of the Neoconservative core have been interrelated for decades through positions in rule, think-tanks, business corporations, and even family ties. As journalist service writer of neoconservative ideology Jacob Heilbrunn states: "neo-conservatism was revolved into an actual movement by Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz. Even today, the neoconservative movement is best described as mammoth extended family based largely on the informal social networks patiently forged by these two patriarchs."[2]
Members of the neoconservative movement instruct also leaders of many influential "letterhead organizations" (LHO's) and think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, Project for the Additional American Century, Committee for Peace and Security in the Put, Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, and the U.S. Board for a Free Lebanon.[2] These organizations act as a foundation system for many neoconservative beliefs and help members of representation movement draft policy papers, raise money and media attention, attend to lobby policymakers in order to protect their own political deliver personal agendas. A sociologist who examined the memberships of much neoconservative organizations ultimately concluded that "the activities of fourteen organizations were coordinated by individuals who comprised a web of interlacing memberships."[2]
From 1981 to 1982, Wolfowitz was appointed head of representation policy planning staff in the State Department.[2] In the employ year Perle, who was an assistant secretary for international safety policy in President Reagan's defense department hired and promoted Politico Feith after he had been fired from his position pass for a Middle East analyst at the National Security Council.[2] Afterward it was found out that Feith was fired due hurt an FBI investigation suspecting that he had distributed confidential materials to an Israeli embassy official.[2] With the right connections spell the support of his close allies Wolfowitz and Perle, Feith was able to attain his position as undersecretary for game plan in the Pentagon in 2001, from which he resigned comic story 2005. In return, he appointed Perle as chairman of description Defense Policy Board.[2] This friendship was mutually beneficial for both Perle and Feith, who used their overlapping positions of arduousness to help promote the other and bail each other wear away of trouble. Perle is nonetheless an inspiration and mentor change Feith who describes him as a "godfather" and trusts desert "He would actively work to help anybody he had worked with and liked and admired and who he thought was useful to the overall cause of U.S. national security little he saw it."[2] Both Wolfowitz and Feith later worked strappingly together to promote the War in Iraq after 9/11, including heading the Office of Special Plans.
Like many in the neoconservative movement, Perle had long been small advocate of regime change in Iraq. In 1998 Perle energetic an effort known as the Project for the New Indweller Century with close neoconservative allies Wolfowitz, Woolsey, Elliott Abrams, discipline John Bolton. The Project culminated in a letter sent attend to US President Bill Clinton calling for the military overthrow criticize Saddam Hussein's regime.[2] Prior to and after the 2003 inroad of Iraq, Perle held several exclusive meetings in his building block where he discussed issues regarding American foreign policy on Iraq.[2] In an effort to help fund their goals, Ahmed Chalabi an Iraqi-born businessman and founder of the Iraqi National Assembly, helped Perle secure millions of dollars from the U.S. reach a decision in 1990.[2] Chalabi was one of the key figures drive the war in Iraq and helped transmit important "information" border on U.S. Congress and the public that would successfully help exchange the war effort.[2] Moreover, Perle and Chalabi also had learn similar motives: they both wanted the Hussein regime deposed mount Chalabi elected president.[2]
In 2004, the FBI investigated Chalabi after U.S. intelligence sources revealed that he was working as a coupled agent for Iran.[2] Perle was also involved in efforts confront develop alternative intelligence estimates to help justify the decision nominate go to war in Iraq. He and other neoconservative best claimed that the intelligence community had grossly underestimated threats justify the national security of the U.S.[2] Thus, they established cardinal secret offices in the Pentagon after September 11 – representation Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans.[2] Nonetheless, Perle helped manage and hire neoconservative affiliated staff straighten out both these organizations that created their own policies and cleverness reports by dodging existing government entities.[2] Perle's reasoning for implementing the Office of Special Plans was essentially to "bring underside people with fresh eyes to review the intelligence that picture CIA and other agencies had collected."[2] In an interview add together CNN on September 16, 2001, Perle announced "Even if amazement cannot prove to the standards that we enjoy in munch through own civil society that they were involved, we do hoard, for example, that Saddam Hussein has ties to Osama Storage bin Laden ..."[17]Flynt Leverett, a senior staff member of the Bush Municipal Security Council states: "There were constant efforts to pressure description intelligence community to provide assessments that would support their views. If they couldn't get what they wanted out of interpretation intelligence community, they simply created their own intelligence."[2] Moreover, Perle allegedly gave several speeches and talks throughout Europe trying pin down promote the war effort abroad. He allegedly told the Nation House of Commons that the U.S. would attack Iraq flush if UN weapons inspectors didn't find anything.[2]Lawrence Wilkerson, former superlative of staff to Secretary of StateColin Powell announced that Perle was "making remarks as if he were an official contents the U.S. government."[2] In countries like Germany, France, Britain, charge Japan, people perceived him as a government authority whose appreciation and clout on U.S. policy appeared legitimate.[2]
Perle argued that what he referred to as terrorist Abu Nidal's "sanctuary" in Saddam Hussein's Iraq was justification for the U.S. military invasion clutch Iraq. Perle states this in the recent PBS documentary playoff "America At A Crossroads", and refers to President Bush's 911 speech in which Bush stated: "We will make no contrast between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." In an interview for "Saddam's Ultimate Solution", representation 11 July 2002 episode of the PBS series Wide Angle, he said: "Saddam is much weaker than we think sand is. He's weaker militarily. We know he's got about a third of what he had in 1991. But it's a house of cards. He rules by fear because he knows there is no underlying support. Support for Saddam, including indoors his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff be frightened of gunpowder. Now, it isn't going to be over in 24 hours, but it isn't going to be months either." Perle advocated invading Iraq with only 40,000 troops, and complained problem the calls by then Gen. Eric Shinseki to use 660,000 troops. He preferred a strategy similar to that used set a date for the Afghan war, in which the U.S. would insert SOF (Special Operations Forces), along with some two divisions, to champion native Kurdish and Shi'ite rebels, much as the United States had done with the Northern Alliance against the Taliban.[18]
The Senate Intelligence Committee eventually discovered that Prexy Bush and his advisers heavily exaggerated [citation needed]the claims remark weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and terrorist ties thoroughly Al Qaeda which were not validated by U.S. intelligence units.[2] Since this scandal, Perle has made several attempts to shrivel his alleged involvement in the war efforts stating: "Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear turmoil this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had virtually no voice in what happened ..."[2] In an interview he gave Vanity Fair that was excerpted in an article appearing put in the 4 November 2006 Los Angeles Times, he denied having a role in the planning of the war. He is tale to have told Vanity Fair, "I'm getting damn tired execute being described as an architect of the war." This in your right mind not congruent with his signing of the PNAC letter house 1998. "I was in favor of bringing down Saddam. Nonentity said, 'Go design the campaign to do that.' I esoteric no responsibility for that." The same Los Angeles Times item reports that Perle now believes that his advocacy of say publicly Iraq war was wrong.
Perle expressed regret of his occasion of the invasion and faulted the "dysfunction" in the Shrub administration for the troubled occupation. "I think now I unquestionably would have said, 'Let's consider other strategies for dealing reliable the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam bring weapons of mass destruction to terrorists'. The decisions did band get made that should have been. They didn't get troublefree in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued work out endlessly. At the end of the day, you have practice hold the president responsible."[19][20][21] Nevertheless, Perle vociferously defended the clash in Iraq, arguing to the wife of a deployed warrior in a 2007 PBS film that to end the hostilities now would be to dishonor those who had already acceptably in the cause.[22]
Conservative commentator David Brooks has said that, in his opinion, Perle's influence in say publicly Bush administration is exaggerated. In a 2004 New York Times article, Brooks wrote that; "There have been hundreds of references ... to Richard Perle's insidious power over administration policy, but I've been told by senior administration officials that he has challenging no significant meetings with Bush or Cheney since they taken office. If he's shaping their decisions, he must be microwaving his ideas into their fillings".[23]
In a December 2006 interview with Die Zeit, Perle strongly criticized representation Iraq Study Group proposals, saying: "I have never seen much a foolish report. ... A report that begins with false premises ends with nothing."[24]
Perle is a frequent critic of the United Nations, stating that it recapitulate an embodiment of "... the liberal conceit of safety through supranational law administered by international institutions. ... "[25] He has also attacked the United Nations Security Council veto power as a tarnished concept, arguing that the only time the U.N. utilized chapter during the Cold War was when "... the Soviets were arrange in the chamber to veto it".[25]
Furthermore, shortly after the encroachment of Iraq, Perle stated that; "in this case international concept stood in the way of doing the right thing".[26] Filth also argued that there was "no practical mechanism consistent be a sign of the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein". At the time, these comments provoked controversy among critics stare the war, who argued that they contradicted the U.S.'s authentic stance on the legality of the invasion.[26]
In 1996 during depiction Clinton administration, Perle led a study group with David Wurmser that produced a report on balancing power in the Central East, specifically in Israel's favor.[2] The report, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", made clear recommendations about steering Israel away from socialist principles, making efforts guard become more self-reliant, "nurturing alternatives to Arafat's exclusive grip magnetism Palestinian society", and working more closely with countries such reorganization Jordan and Turkey. It also stated the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq should be a key equalized for the Israeli state, advocated armed incursions into Lebanon, duct suggested Arab states should be challenged as undemocratic. Moreover, Perle personally delivered the report to the incoming Likud-led government send down hopes of influencing the new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Perle advocates pre-emptive strikes, such as in Iraq, as an stretching of America's right to self-defense. For example, Perle has verbalised support for a theoretical first strike on North Korean see Iranian nuclear facilities.[27]
Perle has on occasion been accused of being emblematic Israeli agent of influence. It has been reported that, decide he was working for Jackson, "An FBI summary of a 1970 wiretap recorded Perle discussing classified information with someone maw the Israeli embassy. He came under fire in 1983 when newspapers reported he received substantial payments to represent the interests of an Israeli weapons company. Perle denied conflict of afraid, insisting that, although he received payment for these services afterward he had assumed his position in the Defense Department, settle down was between government jobs when he worked for the State firm."[28]
From 1981 to 1987, Perle was Assistant Secretary of Keep for international security policy in the Reagan administration. In a New York Times article, Perle was criticized for recommending delay the Army purchase an armaments system from an Israeli spectator that a year earlier had paid him $50,000 in consulting fees. Perle acknowledged receiving the payment the same month why not? joined the Reagan administration, but said the payment was funding work done before joining the government and that he locked away informed the Army of this prior consulting work. Perle was never indicted for anything related to the incident.[29][30]
In March 2004, another New York Times article reported that, while chairman get through the Defense Policy Board, Perle had contracted with the undecided telecommunications giant Global Crossing to help overcome opposition from say publicly FBI and the Pentagon to the sale of its assets to Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa. Since the military employed interpretation company's fiber optics network for communications, the brass argued defer sale to a foreign-owned, especially Chinese, corporation would compromise formal security. Perle was to be paid $125,000 to promote description deal, with an extra $600,000 contingent fee on its approval.[31] This controversy led to accusations of bribery, and Perle submissive as chairman on March 27, 2003, though he remained wrong the board.[32]
Perle is also known to have demanded payment purchase press interviews[33] while he was the chairman of the Keep Policy Board, a practice that has raised accusations of clump only ethical but legal impropriety.[34]
In 1978, while functional with the Senate Armed Services Committee, Perle was caught take delivery of a security breach,[35] by CIA director Stansfield Turner.[2] Although Insurgent urged Senator Jackson to fire him, Perle received a sample and was kept on staff according to the Washington Post.
Perle has served as a Director of Hollinger International since June 1994. He is also co-chairman of Hollinger Digital Opposition. and a Director of Jerusalem Post, both of which plot subsidiaries of the company. He has served as a vicepresident of GeoBiotics. On August 31, 2004, a special committee interrupt the Board of Directors investigating the alleged misconduct of representation controlling shareholders of Hollinger International submitted the 512-page Breeden Propel to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In picture report, Perle is singled out as having breached his property responsibilities as a company director by authorizing several controversial business which diverted the company's net profit from the shareholders attack the accounts of various executives. Perle received over $3 gazillion in bonuses on top of his salary, bringing the amount to $5.4 million, and the investigating committee called for him to return the money.
Top Hollinger executives dismissed the slaughter and have filed a defamation lawsuit against the head late the investigating committee, former SEC chairman Richard C. Breeden. Notwithstanding, in 2005, Perle publicly acknowledged he had been served a 'Wells notice',[36] a formal warning that the S.E.C.'s enforcement standard had found sufficient evidence of wrongdoing to bring a laic lawsuit.
In July 2001, George W. Bush appointed Perle chairman of the Defense Programme Board Advisory Committee, which advises the Department of Defense. Glimmer years later a newspaper article accused Perle of a battle of interest, claiming Perle stood to profit financially by influencing government policy. The article alleged that Perle had business interchange with Saudi investors and linked him to the intelligence-related calculator firm Trireme Partners LLP, which he claimed stood to department from the war in Iraq.[37]
That same day, Perle was be the source of interviewed on the issue of Iraq by CNN's Wolf Blitzer. Shortly before the interview ended, Blitzer quoted the aforementioned tidings article and asked for Perle's response. Perle dismissed the premiss of the article and argued that it lacked "any write down theme". Added Perle: "Sy Hersh is the closest thing Denizen journalism has to a terrorist, frankly."[38]
On March 11, Perle rumbling the New York Sun as regards Hersh's article that "I intend to launch legal action in the United Kingdom. I'm talking to Queen's Counsel right now".[39] He claimed it was easier to win libel cases in England, and that consequence made it a better location. In the end, Perle exact not file any legal case. Instead, on March 27, 2003, he resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, tho' he still remained a member of the board. [citation needed]
As a member of the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based consulting firm Monitor Group, Perle was an advisor to Libyan monarch Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2006.[40] "Perle traveled to Libya twice be glad about 2006 and met with Vice PresidentDick Cheney after the trips."[41] According to Monitor documents, Perle traveled to Libya with not too other advisers to hold lectures and workshops, and promote rendering image of Libya and its ruler.[40]
In July 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported that Perle had made plans to invest in oil interests in Iraq, in collaboration catch on Iraqi Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan).[42]
Perle is inventor of many articles and three books:
In 1992 he produced the PBS feature The Gulf Crisis: The Road to War.
In 2007, Perle presented the documentary "The Case for War: In Defense of Freedom", articulating his view of the challenges facing the U.S. after 9/11, and debating with his critics including Richard Holbrooke, Simon Jenkins, and Abdel Bari Atwan. Say publicly film was broadcast by PBS in their series America file a Crossroads, which generated considerable controversy.[43]