THE
PRINCE OF DARKNESS
A LOOK AT THE CONTROVERSIAL BUSINESSES DEALINGS
OF PENTAGON ADVISER
RICHARD PERLE
"Last week, Richard Perle, the influential Pentagon adviser, was speaking on his
mobile phone outside a Senate office building when trouble came from an unlikely
source: the parking attendant.
"It's not about the oil," Mr. Perle was heard to shout at the attendant in
apparent frustration before returning to his call.
It was that sort of week for Mr. Perle, one of the leading architects of the US
policy on Iraq, who has been embroiled in a storm of controversy over his
outside business interests."
That was the opening of a piece in the Financial Times on Saturday. The paper
went on to report:
"Mr. Perle was appointed chairman of the Defense Policy Board in 2001 by Donald
Rumsfeld, the defence secretary. Although the board members are not paid
government employees, they have grown in stature because of Mr. Perle's close
ties to the administration's hawks.
His role came under scrutiny after the New Yorker magazine reported that Mr.
Perle had attended a lunch in January with two Saudi businessmen to seek funding
for his venture capital group, Trireme Partners, which invests in defence and
security companies. One of the Saudis was alleged to be Adnan Kashoggi, the arms
dealer at the centre of the Iran-Contra scandal.
Mr. Perle denied the allegations, and threatened to sue the publication for
libel in London. But the controversy did not end.
He finally resigned his chairmanship on Thursday night after his work for Global
Crossing, the bankrupt telecommunications company, sparked calls in Congress for
an ethics investigation.
Mr. Perle was to be paid $750,000 by the company to help win government approval
to sell its assets to a Chinese-controlled company. The deal has been blocked by
the defense department and the FBI, which object to a Chinese company
controlling the vital fiber-optic network that the government uses. Mr. Perle
had bristled at the suggestion that he has done anything improper, or should
leave the board altogether. He said in a letter to Mr. Rumsfeld that he was
resigning his post to prevent a political distraction.
Asked about the controversy last week, he suggested it was the work of a
leftwing conspiracy.
He told the Financial Times, "I'm beginning to think that people who've been
saying on the internet that I am part of a small neo-conservative cabal that
runs the world actually believe what they are saying."
By: Frida Berrigan,
Senior Research Associate with the Arms Trade Resource Center of the World
Policy Institute and author of the piece "Richard Perle: It Pays To Be the
Prince of Darkness" which appeared recently in In These Times.
Richard Perle: It Pays
To Be the Prince of Darkness
By Frida Berrigan | 3.21.03
Richard Perle is a busy guy these days, what with his long-desired war against
Iraq in full swing, plus a lucrative consulting business on the side. As the
chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Perle is a close adviser to Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, with an insider’s perspective on the Pentagon, the
war in Iraq and the ongoing war on terrorism. As a major investor in a number of
defense companies, he stands to reap considerable benefits from war and homeland
security contracts. Apparently his dual roles as a major policy adviser to the
Pentagon and a business dealmaker can be a bit confusing at times.
A few weeks ago, Perle was hired by Global Crossing, the bankrupt
telecommunications giant that is trying to sell itself to a Chinese consortium.
The Pentagon and FBI are against the sale because it would put the company’s
fiber optics network, which is used by the U.S. government, in Chinese hands.
Perle’s job is to change their minds. And if anyone can, it is the “Prince of
Darkness,” as Perle is known by friend and foe in Washington.
As he said in an affidavit dated March 7, his position as chairman of the
Defense Policy Board gives him a “unique perspective on and intimate knowledge
of the national defense and security issues that will be raised by the CFIUS
review process.” The CFIUS, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United
States, has the power to block the deal. Global Crossing is paying Perle
$750,000 for this “unique perspective” and “intimate knowledge.” Perle’s
incentive: $600,000 of his fee is contingent on government approval of the deal.
But this little phrase led to a funny exchange with New York Times reporter
Stephen Labaton. Perle insisted, “I’m not using public office for private gain,
because the Defense Policy Board has nothing to do with the CFIUS process.” But
when asked about his “unique perspective” and “intimate knowledge,” Perle
claimed he had not noticed that phrase, saying it “was drafted by lawyers, and
frankly I did not notice it.” He is a busy man, we understand.
But then, he called Labaton back to clarify, saying that the problematic phrase
was in an earlier draft, he had noticed it and crossed it out. “You have a draft
that I never signed,” he said. OK?
After consulting with Global Crossing’s lawyers, Perle called Labaton again to
say that he had told the lawyers to strike the phrase because it “seemed
inappropriate and irrelevant.” But then someone put the phrase back in, and
Perle signed it without noticing. “It is a clerical error,” he explained, “and
not my clerical error.” When in doubt, blame the lawyers.
So the final version will be submitted without referring to Perle’s “unique
perspective” and “intimate knowledge.” But that doesn’t mean those are not what
Global Crossing is paying him for.
-----------------------
This is not the first time someone has questioned Perle’s ethics. Pulitzer
Prize-winner Seymour Hersh, writing in the March 17 issue of The New Yorker,
cited possible “conflicts of interest” in Trireme Partners, Perle’s venture
capital company. The company, which invests in companies dealing in homeland
security and defense products, has raised $45 million in capital so far—almost
half of that coming from U.S. defense giant Boeing. When asked about the article
in a TV interview, Perle declared that “Sy Hersh is the closest thing American
journalism has to a terrorist, frankly.”
There is also the matter of Autonomy Corporation, where Perle is a director,
with 75,000 shares of stock. The firm has developed a high-tech eavesdropping
software that is capable of monitoring hundreds of thousands of e-mail and phone
conversations at the same time. In October 2002, the Department of Homeland
Security granted the company a huge contract. A few months later, Autonomy was
granted $1 million in contracts from a number of government agencies, including
the Secret Service and National Security Agency.
As a former Clinton adviser observed with admiration, Perle “enjoys all the
benefits of being an insider without any of the constraints.”
Frida Berrigan is a senior research associate with the Arms Trade Resource
Center, a project of the World Policy Institute.