It turns out that Ahmed Chalabi wasn’t the only crook who fooled (or bribed?) Richard Perle into helping him with his schemes. Perle, having pocketed a cool $5 million as a director of Hollinger during the period when Conrad Black was looting the company, now says that he was “duped” by Black.
Perhaps Mr. Perle is just easy to fool. But I’d dearly like to know how much of the tens of millions of dollars the US taxpayers gave Chalabi’s INC made its way into the pockets of influential people in Washington. Wouldn’t you?
Perle, let’s recall, wasn’t only the neocon High Priest, he was the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board (appointed to that position by George W. Bush, whom Perle advised during the 2000 campaign and who doesn’t believe that America can win the war on terror).
As a director of Hollinger. Perle could only betray the shareholders; as Chalabi’s Washington sponsor he got to betray a great deal more than that. If, as now seems likely, Chalabi has been working for Iran, and tipped off Iranian intelligence that we’d broken their codes, Perle’s promotion of him in Washington circles resulted in the biggest security breach since the Hansen affair.
Of course Michael Ledeen is still defending Perle, as he is Chalabi. But then Ledeen seemingly has reasons of his own to want to discredit criminal investigations.
Really and truly, we cannot afford to leave this cabal of crooks and charlatans in position to influence American national security policy for another four years.