If you've caught much of the TV commentary about the "war against terrorism," you've probably seen a lot of Richard Perle, the portly, Ronald Reagan-era assistant secretary of defense who kept the defense-hawk home fires burning throughout the Bill Clinton years from a perch at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. On such shows as MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports, Perle advocates taking our fight against Osama bin Laden to the next level and using American military power to overthrow Saddam Hussein. And if the president's recent comments are any indication, his media blitz is having an effect. Politics is a rough business, so it's no surprise that Perle--a veteran of vicious turf battles during the Reagan administration--is hitting the airwaves to push his point of view. But that's not the whole story.
Though Perle draws no government salary, he holds a Pentagon appointmentand he has an office in the Pentagon's E-Ring, a short hop from that of DefenseSecretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. He has access to all manner of classifiedinformation; he's in the loop on war planning. Rumsfeld recently told CNN's BobNovak that Perle is "not a government official." But by most commonsensedefinitions, Perle isn't a former member of the Reagan administration; he's amember of the current administration.
Early last summer, Rumsfeld appointed Perle chairman of the Defense PolicyBoard (DPB), a Pentagon advisory panel charged with overseeing militarypreparedness and engaging in defense policy big-think. Perle's Defense Departmentsupporters had been eager to bring him back to the Pentagon, but they knew thathis controversial Reagan-era record would make it difficult, if not impossible,for him to get confirmed by the Senate. The DPB chairmanship looked like theperfect solution. And since his appointment in June, Perle has transformed theonce-obscure sinecure into an important advisory position.
Perle's media campaign is part of the larger and much-publicized debate amongRepublican defense and foreign-policy hands over how the war on terrorism shouldbe conducted: a worldwide attack on al-Qaeda and its supporters or a broaderranging, Godfather-like settling of accounts with all of America's enemies. Nongovernment hawks, like William Kristol, the editor of The WeeklyStandard, can rally the troops from the outside. But supporters of the latter strategy who can't escape their administration ties, like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, can't be publicly critical of the targeted policy: It's the one backed by Secretary of State Colin Powell, after all.
So how is Perle able to play both sides of the street? One prerequisite is thecontinued acquiescence of Rumsfeld. "I think Rumsfeld has loved this stuff," saysone of Perle's former Reagan-administration colleagues, though whether Rumsfeld'sgo-ahead for these rants is explicit or implicit is anyone's guess.
But Perle's own chutzpah and simple media sloppiness play even more importantroles. Overseas and in defensecommunity publications like Defense Dailyand Air Force Magazine, Perle is routinely identified as what he is: the chairman of the Defense Policy Board and one of Rumsfeld's senior advisers. But producers and reporters in the mainstream press almost always identify him as a "former assistant secretary of defense," as he was dubbed on Hardball in late November. Hardball producer Noah Oppenheim equivocates as to whether Perle's misdirected identification served Perle's purpose or the show's own: "It's the kind of thing we would probably mention if we knew." In any case, Oppenheim continues, it's not as though Perle was on to talk about administrative policy.
Perle's foreign-policy freelancing first raised eyebrows on October 5, when hechided the British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in The Daily Telegraph for a "failed" and "embarrassing" mission to Iran in which Straw sought to enlist Tehran's assistance in the war against terrorism. That evening, Perle proved that his beef with foreign secretaries isn't limited to the United Kingdom. Appearing (again, as "former assistant secretary of defense") on CNN's Crossfire, he attacked an insufficiently hawkish member of Bush's National Security Council, called Colin Powell's coalition building "foolish," and charged the State Department with bucking the president's policy by pushing Israel to make a deal with the Palestinian Authority. Leaning on Israel "was a change in policy," said Perle, "a very undesirable change in my view; and I don't believe it was the president's policy. I think it originated, it began, and it ended in the Department of State."
Those are pretty strong words about the State Department and Powell, coming asthey do from a senior adviser to one of Powell's senior cabinetcolleagues--Rumsfeld. But Perle has kept up his efforts, giving numerous printand television interviews as ringleader of the anti-Saddam Hussein, anti-ColinPowell cabal. Of late, he's become a frequent guest on CNN's nightly wartime chatshow War Room, one of the few programs to correctly identify his current Pentagon affiliation.
Perle's have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too punditry may be getting more difficult.Executives at CNN are now discussing whether they have adequately disclosedPerle's advisory role at the Pentagon. (After all, how much sense does it make tohave one of the defense secretary's policy advisers analyzing administrationpolicy on the evening news?) They plan to identify him more accurately in anyfuture appearances. But even if Perle's double game gets shut down at CNN andother news outlets, it may have already accomplished its mission: President Bushissued an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein in late November. As the fighting inAfghanistan moves toward a conclusion, senior administration officials have beensending out messages that Iraq is moving to the top of the list of targetedregimes in the war against terrorism. If Perle can no longer make the caseagainst Saddam, maybe he can leave it to another defense appointee, likeRumsfeld.
