Chain of Command by Seymour M. Hersh

Author:Seymour M. Hersh [Hersh, Seymour M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Prisoners of war, United States, Iraq War; 2003, Political Freedom & Security, Iraq War (2003-), September 11 Terrorist Attacks; 2001, General, Intelligence service, Political Science, Military, Terrorism, War on Terrorism; 2001, History
ISBN: 9780141020884
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2016-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

3. Richard Perle Goes to Lunch

At the peak of his deal-making activities, in the 1970s, the Saudi-born businessman Adnan Khashoggi brokered billions of dollars in arms and aircraft sales for the Saudi royal family, earning hundreds of millions in commissions and fees. Though never convicted of wrongdoing, he was repeatedly involved in disputes with federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and in recent years he has been in litigation in Thailand and Los Angeles, among other places, concerning allegations of stock manipulation and fraud. During the Reagan Administration, Khashoggi was one of the middlemen between Oliver North in the White House and the mullahs in Iran in what became known as the Iran-contra scandal. Khashoggi subsequently claimed that he lost $10 million that he had put up to obtain embargoed weapons for Iran which were to be bartered (with presidential approval) for American hostages. The scandals of those times seemed to feed off each other: a congressional investigation revealed that Khashoggi had borrowed much of the money for the weapons from the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (B.C.C.I.), whose collapse, in 1991, defrauded thousands of depositors and led to years of inquiry and litigation.

Khashoggi is still brokering. In January of 2003, he arranged a private lunch, in France, to bring together Harb Saleh al-Zuhair, a Saudi industrialist whose family fortune included extensive holdings in construction, electronics, and engineering companies throughout the Middle East, and Richard Perle.

Perle had served as a foreign policy adviser in George W. Bush’s presidential campaign, but he chose not to take a senior position in the Administration. In mid-2001, however, he accepted an offer from Rumsfeld to chair the Defense Policy Board. Its members (there are around thirty of them) are primarily highly respected former government officials, retired military officers, and academics, including former secretaries of defense and heads of the C.I.A., who serve without pay. The board members meet several times a year at the Pentagon to review and assess the country’s strategic defense policies. They may be outside the government, but they have access to classified information and to senior policy makers, and also give advice on such matters as weapons procurement. Most of the board’s proceedings are confidential.

Perle was also a managing partner in a venture capital company called Trireme Partners L.P., which was registered in November 2001 — two months after the September 11th attacks — in Delaware. Trireme’s main business, according to a two-page letter that one of its representatives sent to Khashoggi the following November, was to invest in companies dealing in technology, goods, and services that are of value to homeland security and defense. The letter argued that the fear of terrorism would increase the demand for such products in Europe and in countries like Saudi Arabia and Singapore.

The letter mentioned the firm’s government connections prominently: “Three of Trireme’s Management Group members currently advise the U.S. Secretary of Defense by serving on the U.S. Defense Policy Board, and one of Trireme’s principals, Richard Perle, is chairman of that Board.

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