Mark Perry is co-director of the Conflicts Forum, a Beirut-based nongovernmental organization that has, over the past three years, put former senior American and British policy-makers and intelligence officials in talks with Hezbollah and other militant political Islamic groups in Lebanon. He formerly worked as an adviser to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and as a […]
Laura Rozen
Laura Rozen is a Prospect senior correspondent and a national security correspondent for The Washington Monthly.
Posted inDispatches
Watching the Detectives
When Nick Schwellenbach went down to the House of Representatives’ legislative resource center in May to look into the widening Duke Cunningham corruption probe, he noticed a couple of other visitors at a neighboring table — a man and a woman, both crisply dressed, who were getting attentive service from the office staff. As the […]
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Condi’s Play
After six years of the Bush administration often resisting calls for pragmatism and compromise from allies and home-grown foreign policy realists alike, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s dramatic announcement Wednesday that the United States would agree to join European-led talks with Iran if Tehran would suspend its uranium enrichment had the power of shock and […]
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The Italian Job
Rome — In this ancient city, just as in Washington, the origins of the infamous Niger yellowcake forgeries — the documents purporting to prove that Iraq was contracting to purchase vast quantities of uranium and cited by George W. Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address as a pretext for war — continue […]
Posted inDispatches
The Italian Job
Rome — In this ancient city, just as in Washington, the origins of the infamous Niger yellowcake forgeries — the documents purporting to prove that Iraq was contracting to purchase vast quantities of uranium and cited by George W. Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address as a pretext for war — continue […]
Posted inDispatches
“Duke” of Deception
On its face, the corruption scandal involving California Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, the former Vietnam War ace fighter pilot who pled guilty in November to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and others seeking his favors, would not seem to have the elements of a decent spy novel. As the story of a […]
Posted inArticle
“Duke” of Deception
On its face, the corruption scandal involving California Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, the former Vietnam War ace fighter pilot who pled guilty in November to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and others seeking his favors, would not seem to have the elements of a decent spy novel. As the story of a […]
Posted inArticle
Black Contracts
We know about the hundreds of millions of dollars in defense contracts that former congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, using his position on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, helped steer to individuals who had given him bribes. We also have reported about allegations that he used his position on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence […]
Posted inFeatures
He’s Done
Things change fast, when they finally do. For more than two years, the daily reports of American casualties and car bombs in Iraq, questions about how the White House had led the country into the Iraq War, and the torture memos and “extraordinary renditions” — with their subterranean narrative of an almost wholly undebated U.S. […]
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La Repubblica’s Scoop, Confirmed
With Patrick Fitzgerald widely expected to announce indictments in the CIA leak investigation, questions are again being raised about the intelligence scandal that led to the appointment of the special counsel: namely, how the Bush White House obtained false Italian intelligence reports claiming that Iraq had tried to buy uranium “yellowcake” from Niger. The key […]