This is Rich!

As in, Richard Perle explains it all to you. Arch-fiend Richard Perle, well, at least arch-Iraq-war promoter and war-profiteer Richard Perle has an article in this morning’s Washington Post, “How the CIA Failed America”. I’ve read this thing three or four times and still am not sure why Perle wrote it. For sure, he wants to make it crystal clear that he did NOT say that Iraq was going to have pay dearly for 9/11, which George Tenet claims he said. Perle wrote, “I was surprised when, having been made aware of his error, Tenet reasserted his claim (that Perle said Iraq would have to pay a price for 9/11), saying: ‘So I may have been off on the day, but I'm not off on what he said and what he believed’.” Perle says he never ever said it. And for sure he wants to nail the CIA in general and former-head George Tenet in particular for negligence, stupidity and whatever else might be sitting in the kitchen sink. Perle says, “For years the American intelligence establishment has failed to show meticulous regard for the facts.” And, “Fatefully, the CIA failed to make our leaders aware of the rise of Islamist extremism and the immense danger it posed to the United States.” And, “But the greatest intelligence failure of the past two decades was the CIA's failure to understand and sound an alarm at the rise of jihadist fundamentalism.” Huh? Perle’s tagline: “George Tenet and, more important, our premier intelligence organization managed to find weapons of mass destruction that did not exist while failing to find links to terrorists that did -- all while missing completely the rise of Islamist fundamentalism. We have made only a down payment on the price of that failure.” What? The man has balls, that’s for sure. Richard Perle is an architect of the war in Iraq. He wanted to make war on Iraq since before 1998. One of the centerpieces of the Project for the New American Century manifesto that Perle signed in 1998 was: “we need to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values”. Iraq was seen as a regime hostile to our interests. No one was talking about the rise of fundamentalism in Iraq. It was all about the US showing its military strength and defending its economic interests in the Middle East. And Iraq was the weak nation that was perfect for the PNAC neocons' show of power. Richard Perle was named Assistant Secretary of Defense (under Donald Rumsfeld) for President Ronald Reagan (at which time he was dubbed The Prince of Darkness); he signed the PNAC preemptive strike statement; he was foreign-policy adviser for George W. Bush’s Presidential campaign; he accepted Rumsfeld’s offer in mid-2001 to chair the Defense Policy Board; he has been an outspoken backer and cheerleader for the war in Iraq. And now he’s claiming the war in Iraq was embarked on because of the rise of jihadism? How does that scan? The rise of terrorism in Iraq is a direct result of the war, not the other way around. And by the way, let’s take a wee glance at one of Mr. Perle’s less-than splendid moments in the last five years. The Defense Policy Board is one of those benign sounding organizations no one pays any attention to, until the realization dawns that the thirty members have access to classified information and give advice on policy and weapons procurement. The proceedings of the Defense Policy Board are secret and confidential When Perle was chairman of the Board of the Defense Policy Board, he was considered a special government employee and therefore was subject to the federal Code of Conduct. That meant he couldn’t take advantage of his position to gain financially in any way. In the March 17, 2003 issue of The New Yorker, Seymour M. Hersh wrote, “In January of this year, he (Adnan Khashoggi) arranged a private lunch, in France, to bring together Harb Saleh al-Zuhair, a Saudi industrialist whose family fortune includes extensive holdings in construction, electronics, and engineering companies throughout the Middle East, and Richard N. Perle, the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, who is one of the most outspoken and influential American advocates of war with Iraq. “The Defense Policy Board is a Defense Department advisory group composed primarily of highly respected former government officials, retired military officers, and academics. Its members, who serve without pay, include former national-security advisers, Secretaries of Defense, and heads of the C.I.A. The board meets several times a year at the Pentagon to review and assess the country’s strategic defense policies. “Perle is also a managing partner in a venture-capital company called Trireme Partners L.P., which was registered in November, 2001, in Delaware. Trireme’s main business, according to a two-page letter that one of its representatives sent to Khashoggi last November, is to invest in companies dealing in technology, goods, and services that are of value to homeland security and defense. “The letter argued that the fear of terrorism would increase the demand for such products in Europe and in countries like Saudi Arabia and Singapore. “The letter mentioned the firm’s government connections prominently: ‘Three of Trireme’s Management Group members currently advise the U.S. Secretary of Defense by serving on the U.S. Defense Policy Board, and one of Trireme’s principals, Richard Perle, is chairman of that Board.’” Perle was forced to step down as Chairman of the Board of the Defense Policy Board partly because of Hersh’s article, but he remained a member of the organization. And he has received huge profits from the war in Iraq. You can absolutely bet the rent that the Prince of Darkness did say 'Iraq has to pay a price for what happened on 9/11”. The events of September 11th fit in so perfectly with Perle’s plans to invade Iraq that he must have thought he’d died and gone to heaven when that disaster struck.