[Peace-discuss] Fw: [pf] Fwd: NYTimes.com Article: Pentagon Adviser Is Stepping Down

[Joan Cole]

Bye-bye Mr. Prince of Darkness!
----------------------------------------------------------
Joan Cole
http://www.advancenet.net/~jscole/
"Warfare for peace is not transcendent. ...Killing is easy. Peace is
hard." - Chris Cowan & Natasha Todorovic

----- Original Message -----
From: "tully" <tully at bellsouth.net>
To: <positive-futures at igc.topica.com>
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 7:00 AM
Subject: [pf] Fwd: NYTimes.com Article: Pentagon Adviser Is Stepping Down


> This article from NYTimes.com
> Pentagon Adviser Is Stepping Down
>
> March 28, 2003
> By STEPHEN LABATON
>
> WASHINGTON, March 27 - Richard N. Perle resigned today as
> chairman of an influential Pentagon advisory board in the
> wake of disclosures that his business dealings included a
> recent meeting with a Saudi arms dealer and a contract to
> advise a communications company that is seeking permission
> from the Defense Department to be sold to Chinese
> investors.
>
> The departure, announced by the administration, came after
> growing criticism of Mr. Perle's business ties while he was
> serving as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a
> collection of experts and former government officials who
> have access to classified information and are unpaid
> advisers to the defense secretary on military issues. The
> Pentagon said Mr. Perle, who has many friends in the senior
> ranks of the administration and was appointed to the
> chairman's post in 2001 by Defense Secretary Donald H.
> Rumsfeld, would remain on the board.
>
> The communications company, Global Crossing, also announced
> that Mr. Perle had decided to sever his ties with it.
>
> Earlier this week, Representative John Conyers Jr. of
> Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee,
> asked the Pentagon to conduct an examination of Mr. Perle's
> business dealings. And on Wednesday, Senator Carl Levin of
> Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services
> Committee, wrote a letter to Mr. Rumsfeld urging him to
> force Mr. Perle to choose between his job on the Defense
> Policy Board and his business.
>
> In a letter to Mr. Rumsfeld dated Wednesday, Mr. Perle said
> he was "dismayed" that criticism of his business ties was
> distracting Pentagon officials while they were grappling
> with the war in Iraq.
>
> "I have seen controversies like this before, and I know
> that this one will inevitably distract from the urgent
> challenge in which you are now engaged," Mr. Perle wrote.
> "I would not wish to cause even a moment's distraction from
> that challenge. As I cannot quickly or easily quell
> criticism of me based on errors of fact concerning my
> activities, the least I can do under these circumstances is
> to ask you to accept my resignation as chairman of the
> Defense Policy Board."
>
> Last week, Mr. Perle defended the appropriateness of his
> fee arrangement with Global Crossing, which had agreed to
> pay him $600,000 on top of his $125,000 retainer if the
> Pentagon and other government agencies approved its sale.
> But in his letter, Mr. Perle reversed himself and said he
> would not accept any compensation resulting from completion
> of the deal. He also said that "any fee for past service
> would be donated to the families of American forces killed
> or injured in Iraq."
>
> In a brief phone conversation this afternoon before the
> Pentagon's announcement, Mr. Perle sounded angry. Asked
> whether he had resigned, he replied: "Let me just tell you
> something. If I had, you'd be the last person in the world
> I'd want to talk to." He then slammed down the phone.
>
> Mr. Rumsfeld issued a statement tonight praising Mr.
> Perle's service and his "willingness to continue to serve"
> as a member of the board.
>
> "Richard Perle has a deep understanding of our national
> security process and an abiding interest in preserving
> America's strength and freedom," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "He has
> been an excellent chairman and has led the Defense Policy
> Board during an important time in our history."
>
> Other senior officials at the Pentagon were relieved about
> the decision. For months, some senior Defense Department
> officials have expressed discomfort with Mr. Perle's public
> statements on foreign policy and military affairs,
> especially Iraq, because they appeared to carry the
> implication they had Mr. Rumsfeld's sanction when in fact
> they may not have. Mr. Perle's statements were often far
> more hawkish than the Bush administration's public line.
>
> But his recent troubles emerged from disclosures this month
> about his business dealings. They began with an article in
> The New Yorker by Seymour M. Hersh that disclosed that Mr.
> Perle had lunch earlier this year with the arms dealer
> Adnan Khashoggi. Mr. Perle responded to the article by
> calling Mr. Hersh a terrorist and threatening to sue him in
> a British court for libel.
>
> Last week, Mr. Perle and lawyers involved in Global
> Crossing's bankruptcy disclosed that he had been retained
> to advise the company on how to overcome Defense Department
> objections to its sale to an Asian venture led by Hutchison
> Whampoa, controlled by Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong
> billionaire.
>
> Global Crossing is rewriting its proposal for the sale
> after the Defense Department and the F.B.I. objected,
> raising national security and law enforcement concerns.
> Lawyers say the proposal will soon be resubmitted to the
> Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a
> government group that raised the objections to the deal and
> includes representatives from the Defense Department, the
> F.B.I. and other agencies.
>
> In an affidavit that he signed but that was never filed in
> the bankruptcy proceeding, Mr. Perle said he was retained
> by Global Crossing to gain the approval of the transaction
> by the committee because of his former job as an assistant
> defense secretary in the Reagan administration and his
> current position on the Defense Policy Board.
>
> "As the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, I have a
> unique perspective on and intimate knowledge of the
> national defense and security issues that will be raised by
> the C.F.I.U.S. review process that is not and could not be
> available to the other C.F.I.U.S. professionals," he said,
> referring to the committee.
>
> Mr. Perle said that he had not read the affidavit carefully
> before he signed it and that the reference in the affidavit
> to the Defense Policy Board had been "a clerical error"
> that should have been deleted.
>
> In recent days, criticism began to rise from Democratic
> lawmakers. Mr. Conyers asked the inspector general at the
> Pentagon to examine Mr. Perle's business dealings. And
> Senator Levin sent a letter to Mr. Rumsfeld expressing
> "deep concern" about the reports of Mr. Perle's business
> relationships.
>
> "I believe that Mr. Perle should be asked to make a
> choice," Mr. Levin wrote, "between stepping down from the
> Defense Policy Board or making a commitment not to have any
> further contact with D.O.D. officials on behalf of a
> client, not to allow his name to be used in connection with
> any such contact, and not to accept any fee that is
> contingent upon an action of the Department of Defense."
>
> Through a senior aide, Mr. Conyers said today that Mr.
> Perle's decision "is a step in the right direction, but it
> doesn't eliminate the problem" until he leaves the board.
>
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/28/business/28GLOB.html?ex=1049855880&ei=1&en
=825a87b1fc0d877e
>
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