Perle: ‘I Never Believed Saddam Was Responsible For 9/11

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/04/perle-lies/

Perle: ‘I Never Believed Saddam Was Responsible For 9/11

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed former Iraq war architect Richard Perle to get his response to accusations by George Tenet that he was advocating an attack against Iraq in the days after 9/11. Perle acknowledged meeting Tenet a week after 9/11 at the White House, but claimed he never conversed with Tenet. Perle then said, “I never believed Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11.”

But CNN played a clip from 9/16/01 that showed Perle telling the network:

Even if we cannot prove to the standard that we enjoy in our own civil society they are involved, we do know, for example, that Saddam Hussein has ties to Osama bin Laden. That can be documented.

Watch it at link~

There is more strong evidence that Perle was advocating a war against Iraq shortly after 9/11. As ThinkProgress has noted, Perle signed a letter to President Bush on 9/20/01 that stated the following:

(E)ven if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.

Moreover, conservative pundit Robert Novak recalls in a column today:

Over the telephone on Sept. 17, Perle told this column that there were few good targets in Afghanistan but many in Iraq. Perle, a former assistant secretary of defense, was then chairman of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board.

After thoroughly trashing Tenet, Perle later in the same interview cited him as a source for a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. “There was a relationship,” Perle said. “It has not only been documented, as I said in the clip. But George Tenet himself has written a letter that indicates this.”

Tenet did indeed write a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2002 claiming an Iraq-al Qaeda relationship. But Tenet recently told Blitzer, “We were sloppy in that letter.”

[Ilsa]

1. Was Perle one of the signers of a letter from Bill Kristol, Rumsfeld, etc

to Bill Clinton in the 1990's that advocated attacking Iraq? The Big Dawg appropriately filed it away. On edit: It was apparent to me and many others that they wanted to go to war with iraq and occupy it. (I have a kid that is throwing up, so I posted prematurely.)

[babylonsister]

3. He's a major PNAC member and yes, they sent Clinton a letter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

PNAC was a major advocate for the United States' 2003 invasion of Iraq. The invasion formed a centerpiece of the group's neoconservative agenda. Complications with the invasion have contributed to PNAC's decline, along with the decline of the larger neoconservative foreign policy movement. PNAC now only has one employee and is seen as nearly defunct.<2>

snip//

Position on the Iraq invasion and occupation

In 1998, following perceived Iraqi unwillingness to co-operate with UN weapons inspections, members of the PNAC, including former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, wrote to President Bill Clinton urging him to remove Saddam Hussein from power using U.S. diplomatic, political and military power. The letter argued that Saddam would pose a threat to the United States, its Middle East allies and oil resources in the region if he succeeded in maintaining his stockpile of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The letter also stated "we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections" and "American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council." The letter argues that an Iraq war would be justified by Hussein's defiance of UN "containment" policy and his persistent threat to U.S. interests.

[Turbineguy]

5. One employee?

They may have to downsize a bit after they get the bill for their war.

[babylonsister]

6. You obviously didn't go to the link-here's a list of the members:

Members

Many of the organization's ideas, and its members, are associated with the neoconservative movement. PNAC, at one point, had seven full-time staff members in addition to its board of directors.

Current members include:<3>

* William Kristol
* Robert Kagan
* Bruce P. Jackson
* Mark Gerson
* Randy Scheunemann
* Ellen Bork
* Gary Schmitt
* Thomas Donnelly
* Reuel Marc Gerecht.
* George W. Bush, 43rd US President
* Karl Rove
* Richard Armitage
* William J. Bennett
* Jeb Bush
* Dick Cheney, US Vice President
* Zalmay Khalilzad
* Lewis "Scooter" Libby
* Richard Perle
* Donald Rumsfeld, former US Secretary of Defense
* Paul Wolfowitz, head of the World Bank, former Deputy Secretary of Defense.
* Gary Bauer, former presidential candidate, president of American Values
* James B. Borow, former deputy director of the NSA, co-founder of the Illinois Center for Core Values
* Rudy Boschwitz, former US Senator from Minnesota
* Eliot A. Cohen, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University
* Steve Forbes, publisher of Forbes Magazine, former presidential candidate
* Aaron Friedberg, director of the Center of International Studies
* Frank Gaffney, columnist, founder of Center for Security Policy
* Fred Ikle, Center for Strategic and International Studies
* Jeane Kirkpatrick, former U.S. ambassador
* Charles Krauthammer, conservative columnist
* Christopher Maletz
* Daniel McKivergan
* Norman Podhoretz, Hudson Institute
* Dan Quayle, former vice-president
* Stephen Rosen, Beton Michael Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs, Harvard University
* Henry Rowen, former president of Rand Corporation
* Abram Shulsky, former Director of Office of Special Plans
* Vin Weber, Minnesota congressman
* George Weigel, Roman Catholic theologian and political commentator
* R. James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency for President Bill Clinton, vice-president at Booz Allen Hamilton

[corkhead]

2. That doesn't mean shit. He and the rest of the neoconartists misled the stupid into thinking so

[appal_jack]

4. LIAR!

Perle is one of the most emphatic, self-righteous liars I have ever heard/seen/had nightgmares about.

-app

[iamahaingttta]

7. Fuck you, Richard Perle!

Just... fuck you!

[slampoet]

8. Boloney!!! I have him on tape saying that there was a connection when he spoke at Brown univ. 5/2003

[AndyTiedye]

9. If He Did Not Believe It When He SAID It, He is a LIAR

but we knew that already.