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| February 21, 2004 | ||||
Richard Perle, Walking Disaster |
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| by Christopher Deliso | ||||
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You would think Richard Perle would have learned by now. Even after having been implicated twice for insider strong-arming and profiteering over security contracts – and after having been caught with his fingers deep in the Hollinger honey pot of self-awarded, multimillion dollar bonuses – he still cannot seem to keep his mouth shut, instead lashing out blindly in every direction and thundering against the entire world in his over-the-top new book. Still, while it's admittedly getting increasingly hard to separate the man from the parody, there is nothing funny at all about the sordid story of Richard Perle. Has Perle Gone Too Far in Antagonizing the CIA? If Perle's slick dealings aren't enough to end him, the fallout of his small war with the CIA and State Department just might do the trick. Everyone knows that Perle and the neocons, including Vice President Cheney's office, have long detested the "weak" CIA and State Department. They have philosophical differences-literally – with the agency's "unimaginative" methodology, and they have made Colin Powell's tenure as Secretary of State a thwarted, humiliating tragedy. Still, Perle cannot seem to go one peroration without attacking either or both bodies. As he recently told the Christian Science Monitor about the CIA: "…heads should roll, 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." Perle and his gang loved it when the much-maligned CIA director heroically took the fall for President Bush last July over faulty Iraq intelligence. Tenet and his agency – already on the ropes over the intelligence failures that allowed the 9/11 terrorist attacks to happen – were clearly on the defensive. But the neocons couldn't let well enough alone. After all, to do so would have meant the repudiation of all the bellicose ideals they hold so close to their nasty little hearts. And so after their "Office of Special Plans" sham was revealed, and former ambassador Joseph Wilson debunked their Niger uranium fairy tale, someone in the war party decided to seek revenge. Yet this revenge (the "outing" of Wilson's wife and CIA employee Valerie Plame to the press) was downright stupid; it amounted, essentially, to an act of treason. A fine result, considering the pre-existing doubts about the neocons' patriotism, in light of their obsessive allegiance to Israel and Perle's French/British schizophrenia. The resulting furor has engulfed the Bush Administration, with an FBI investigation now centering on Vice President Cheney's office – a key backer of the OSP, and key ally of Perle's. Who, Me? When the Christian Science Monitor casually asked Perle if the FBI had interrogated him in regard to the Plame investigation, he indignantly snapped: "…I have not been questioned about it, and I wish whoever is putting this out would cease and desist and [reporters] not be such willing consumers of that kind of information." Really, the nerve of them to ask such a question! Perle's angry dismissal of "that kind of information" is telling indeed. Indeed, why would federal investigators have any interest in talking to Citizen Perle? It's not as if his case for war – and reputation – depended largely on "evidence": evidence that Wilson and many others had rubbished, evidence manufactured by the neocons' OSP, evidence that the CIA and DIA would not buy. An innocent, uninformed bystander? Richard Perle is more like Col. Mustard in the study with the lead pipe. Yet Perle's hubris will most likely prove his demise. And his greatest foreign ally – Ahmad Chalabi – is clearly not helping matters. "…We Are Heroes in Error" In the same exchange with the CSM on Tuesday, Perle defended Chalabi thus: "… his detractors, by and large… are the people who know him least, and his defenders are the people who know him best.... The CIA has been engaged in a character assassination of Ahmad Chalabi for years now, and it is a disgrace." Once again, Perle has shown exquisitely poor timing with his statements. Barely two days after reassuring us about the integrity of his ally and Iraqi National Congress godfather, Chalabi himself gleefully admitted pushing false intelligence to start a war: "…We are heroes in error… as far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important." Not important for him, that is. As a foreign lobbyist and international shyster, Chalabi was just doing what he does best. For him, the ends clearly justified the means. And he could care less if the ends are ever justified. That's a problem for his American friends, not him. With characteristic British understatement, the Telegraph stated that these comments are "likely to inflame the debate" over the "quality of pre-war intelligence and the spin put on it by President George W. Bush and Tony Blair as they argued for military action." That's putting it mildly. As the controversies mount, and the full scale of the deception is revealed, it's becoming increasingly clear that this may be the end of the line for Perle and the neocons. Going Down in a Blaze of Glory Nevertheless, Perle apparently wants to go down in a blaze of glory, rhetorical guns blazing like some B-rate cowboy in a hackneyed Spaghetti Western. The fact that he still refuses to admit he lied comes as a patronizing affront to both the American public and reality. Having boxed himself into a massive corner, Perle's only strategy is to turn up the volume – and boorishly drown out any remotely threatening questions. At least Fox News' Bill O'Reilly – a dyed-in-the-wool war supporter if ever there were one – could summon up a little humility and contrition, and apologize to viewers for accepting the neocon justifications for war. Yet by being so relentlessly overbearing and duplicitous, Perle has eliminated any way out. He's fighting so hard now because he has no other choice. Indeed, as Antiwar.com's Justin Raimondo pointed out yesterday, the new congressional investigations mean that now "…there is a four-pronged assault on the neoconservative redoubt in this administration. The chutzpah strategy is a desperate attempt to deflect this all-sided attack, by launching a preemptive – some would say suicidal – strike against the enemy." As If One Chalabi Weren't Enough – Perle's New Partners for the Iran Takeover A recent New York Times op-ed, penned by one Ali Safavi, cites another vintage Perle peroration. It dates from an appearance Perle made before "a gathering of some 5,000 Iranian-Americans last month," and the fact that a conscious effort is being made to remind the people of it shows that Perle has indeed lost all contact with reality, and his own best interests. On 24 January Perle spoke at an innocuous enough fund-raiser at the Washington Convention Center, apparently dedicated to helping victims of the Bam earthquake. Perle denied any activist purpose of the event: "all of the proceeds will go to the Red Cross," he promised. Actually, the Red Cross didn't accept any money, knowing (as Perle must have) that the event was organized by diaspora groups linked to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a blacklisted terrorist organization that killed Americans in the 1970's and fought for Saddam Hussein thereafter. The MEK's goal is to overthrow the Iranian government. Incidentally enough, Perle just happened to have such a speech in his back pocket. Funny that. In his commentary, Safavi grumpily refers to the terrorist designation: "…the [State] department has even classified the Iranian National Council of Resistance, an exile group of which I am a former official, as a 'terrorist organization.'" The Council, headed by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi and her husband Massoud, is the MEK's political wing. A long-time Washington lobbyist, it is also known as the People's Mojehedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). Safavi, in a 1992 overture to the Clinton Administration, deemed the Council "the antipode to the current Iranian government." Simultaneously, future INCR foreign affairs committee Chair Mohammed Mohaddessin is recorded as having "ambushed" Vice President Gore with his revolutionary requests. Mohaddessin's 2001 book, Islamic Fundamentalism: The New Global Threat harmonizes perfectly with Perle's recent masterpiece. And Perle is on the board of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which is apparently (the Times is a bit vague) Safavi's gig, too. The Council has regularly patronized the American mass media, for example in a full-page ad backed by friendly congressmen in the Times a year ago. Mrs. Rajavi indeed has plenty of backers in the Iranian Diaspora and US congress. And several websites set up in the past few months indicate the neocons intend to step up the battle for invading Iran – at the behest of an opportunistic terrorist organization that makes Chalabi look like a kitten in comparison. All's Well That Ends Perle, however, must think it will work. Having the relatively appealing Mrs. Rajavi as a figurehead is certainly an improvement over Chalabi's leering, contented mug. Plus, the Rajavi cause gives him yet another reason to hate France, which detained Mrs. Rajavi in 2003, and where he owns a chateau in lovely Gordes. Yet as he continues to foment revolution in Iran with fulsome appeals to democracy and human rights, Perle proceeds at his own risk. All things considered – the Hollinger mess, faulty intelligence furor, Plame-Gate, Chalabi's mischievous admission, and now Iranian terrorist ties – we may, with any luck, soon be rid of Perle's insufferably odious political presence once and for all. |
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Christopher Deliso is an American journalist, travel writer and author concentrating on the Balkans and Southeast Europe, where he has lived and traveled for almost a decade. His criticisms of interventionist foreign policy can be found in his writings for Antiwar.com, and in his recent work on the West's failures to eradicate foreign-funded Muslim extremists in the Balkans, The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West (Praeger Security International, 2007). Mr Deliso directs the Balkan-interest news and analysis website, Balkanalysis.com and is also the author of a travelogue, Hidden Macedonia (Haus Publishing, London). He holds an MPhil with distinction in Byzantine Studies from Oxford University.
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