Richard N. Perle is chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Although an unpaid position, it is highly influential and prestigious and fully subject to government ethics conflict-of-interest regulations. Mr. Perle also has been hired by the telecommunications company Global Crossing for a six-figure fee to lobby the Department of Defense on behalf of the bankrupt company for an important concession.
Mr. Perle should resign from either the Defense or the lobbying position, or, better yet, in the interests of cleanliness in government, he should be dismissed from the Defense Policy Board position immediately for having accepted the lobbying contract. Federal ethics rules bar anyone from using public office for private gain.
Mr. Perle's situation with respect to the conflict of interest is already subject to considerable media, public and congressional discussion, given his controversial political views. He has long been associated with advocacy of the "pre-emptive war" strategy, the one that says the United States should not feel itself constrained to work with allies inside the rules of international political order, but should attack Iraq and other countries across the world as it feels necessary. Generous use of U.S. military capacity is a given in this approach.
Global Crossing as a company can be said to be in the Enron category in its approach to corporate practice. It is currently in bankruptcy. The concession it is seeking is permission to sell itself to Chinese and Singapore companies. The Defense Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation oppose the sale because they say it would put the company's worldwide fiber optics network under the Chinese government's control.
Reporter Seymour Hersh, in the March 17 issue of The New Yorker, spelled out at some length what he alleges is Mr. Perle's relationship with a software company called Trireme Partners LP. U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has called for an inquiry into Mr. Perle's relationship with Trireme Partners, which Mr. Hersh says has unsavory links, and a British company, the Autonomy Corp., which recently won a major federal contract in the area of homeland security.
Mr. Perle's arrangement with Global Crossing calls for him to get $125,000 whether or not Global Crossing obtains the concession it seeks from the Department of Defense. But if he gets the concession, he receives another $600,000. Mr. Perle says he is "counseling" Global Crossing.
The bottom line is that neither Mr. Perle's politics nor Global Crossing's nor Trireme's nor Autonomy's character or nature is the question in point. It is the conflict of interest that is the problem. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, who appointed Mr. Perle in 2001, should tell him to withdraw from the Global Crossing contract or resign from the Defense post, or should fire him, now.
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