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Why The Internet Is Becoming A Surveillance Machine | Whitney Webb

7 26 PALANTIR POINDEXTER SURVEILL TOTAL INFO AWARENESS --> TERROR

ARPA-h

IN Q TEL

CIA ONLY CLIENT OF PALANTIR 1ST 6 YRS RICHARD PEARL --> POIN PVTIZE TO QUELLE OUTRAGE; OROG PUBLIC-PVT WITHIN DARPA

EHUD BARACK

PAYPAL ORIG CODE ALAN WADE TIA

Jul 15, 2026 #WhitneyWebb #Palantir #AISurveillance

Every search, click, location, and online habit leaves behind a digital trail. Whitney Webb explains how AI, Palantir, and modern surveillance systems are reshaping privacy—and why she believes the internet is becoming a powerful tool for large-scale data collection. In this documentary-style breakdown, Whitney Webb traces the evolution of surveillance from DARPA's Total Information Awareness program to predictive policing, AI-driven profiling, Palantir, and the expanding role of Silicon Valley in government technology. Rather than focusing on isolated events, this conversation explores how data, algorithms, and digital infrastructure increasingly influence modern society.

Topics Covered

• Whitney Webb interview • Palantir explained • Peter Thiel • AI surveillance • Total Information Awareness (TIA) • DARPA history • Predictive policing • Facial recognition technology • Digital identity • AI risk scoring • Government surveillance • Silicon Valley and national security • Privacy and civil liberties

PREDPOL UCLA? LAPD ERRORS

0:35

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dictates of the Trump White House. What is being targeted is not the deep state, but the laws, resolutions, regulations,

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protocols, and rules, and the government, civil servants who enforce them, which hinder absolute dictatorial control.

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Yeah, it's definitely I would argue one of the best starting points and also thanks so much for having me on Chris.

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1 minute

Um so John Po Dexter uh as of course you know was one of um the national security adviserss to Reagan and was the highest

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ranking member of his administration that was indicted as part of Iran Contra. But he is also uh remembered as

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1 minute, 15 seconds

the quote unquote godfather of modern surveillance. Um and this is in part because of his efforts in the immediate

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1 minute, 23 seconds

post 911 era um pioneering the off uh in office within DARPA that housed a program called total information

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1 minute, 30 seconds

awareness. Um so right after uh the Reagan administration um Po Dexter was sort of um in various roles throughout

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these tech companies that were sort of a a prototype to what Palunteer and total information awareness would later do uh

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like Saffron Technology, Cintech Technologies that were defense contractors and trying to basically create uh use uh sort of um you know

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1 minute, 56 seconds

predictive analytics um to determine uh what terrorists would do next all before 9/11 even happened and of course there

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was a renewed demand for that type of technology and these sort of innovative solutions in the immediate post 911 era

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um and uh when this information you know uh was reported on total information awareness there was a huge outcry um

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throughout uh you know US mainstream media um a lot of organizations including the ACLU and organizations like that uh rightly noted that it would

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eliminate uh the constitutional right to privacy uh and create this uh very disturbing era um of of mass

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surveillance uh by you know it b I think one of the mainstream media reports on it said that it would uh fight terrorism

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by terrifying US citizens basically and making everyone a suspect um in under this this type of um this paradigm he

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was seeking to usher in. And so it was eventually you know under pressure. It was I think first announced in February 2003 and by May they attempted to change

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the name to terrorism information awareness uh trying to move away from uh the idea that it would uh be total it

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would surveil absolutely everyone uh through a name change but obviously it didn't change how the program actually worked. It would still uh be focused on

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everyday Americans um you know a total drag net really. Um and in that same month where that name change happened uh

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Peter Teal incorporated uh Palunteer and as Palunteer uh was developing as a company uh they you uh Peter Teal and

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Alex Karp the Palunteer co-founders uh reached out to Point Dexter directly through Richard Pearl who's a well-known neoconservative figure and was also one

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of the architects of the Iraq war at the uh Bush era Pentagon.

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And uh you know basically they hatched this plan to privata to privatize this program rightly calculating that if they

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turned it into a entirely private sector enterprise uh the outrage uh would uh

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you know essentially dissipate which it uh remarkably did because um you know originally it was a public private partnership housed within DARPA and then

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by making it this private sector uh enterprise um you know a lot of the concerns about it uh disappeared. And

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bec and this is arguably because by moving into the private sector uh they were able to accomplish a lot more than they than they could have uh by being

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affiliated directly with the public sector even though they contract uh with the public sector. And so Palunteer uh

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funding wise was set up with money from Peter Teal um himself and that the algorithm for it had originally been

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developed at PayPal and um uh the other funding source was the CIA's Inqell. Um

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and one of the figures that helped create uh that helped made that funding decision uh was the CIA's chief information officer at the time named

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Alan Wade. and Allan Wade had been one of the top allies of the total information awareness with Po Dexter um

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you know in the immediate post 911 um era and so um the CIA was the was Palanteer's exclusive company sorry

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exclusive client for I believe the first six years of its existence as a company um and its its engineers went to Langley uh you know CIA headquarters in Virginia

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every two weeks for several years as well where the CIA was um developing their algorithm with them, you know, in

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a very direct partnership. And Alex Karp has even said that the CIA was always the intended client um of Palunteer. So,

5 minutes, 39 seconds

I guess I'll I'll pause there and I'm happy to go in other any other direction.

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Explain what it does, what what the what the goal, what PO Dexter's goal was and and what they were able to establish. I

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mean the mechanics of it, the way it was initially sold to the public was this is a way to stop terrorism attacks before they happen um

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by coalating so much um data um from all different sources and then using an in

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some sort of analytic or AI to determine um you know if u certain data points are flagging that a terrorist attack will take place here um here or there.

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There's various different aspects of this program that didn't really get enough coverage at the time. Uh so one is that they attempted to use uh free

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market forces to determine if a terrorism attack would happen. Before it happened, they created basically what's referred to as a terrorism futures

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market. It was really like a forerunner to poly market and some of these predictive markets uh where people bet on things online. And it was basically

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that but about whether a terrorist attack uh will happen in the Middle East or if there will be turmoil in the Middle East if someone like Yaser Arafat

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would be overthrown. You know, these were the kinds of things they were going to have these unnamed uh investors bet on. Um another one was focused entirely

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on health um under this program called bioveurveillance um which actually a lot of it Palunteer

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uh helped launch with HHS during the COVID era. uh things like um analyzing American wastewater to determine if

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there is going to be an outbreak of a disease before it happens uh with um again with an algorithm or basically you

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know surveilling Americans uh health data uh and uh to determine if there will be a pandemic before it happens or

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if there will be a bioteterror attack because remember this was also in the aftermath um of the of the anthrax attacks. Um and so a lot of that

....

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chalanbi

aDNAN KHASHOGGI ARMS DEALER

 neocon, always wrong, but keeps getting invites to punditry?

BW bk:

invest: perle asst to wolfie, office next dr rumy 306; perle lobbying at DoD (global crossing wanted to sell itself to for co; fibre optic network to china, used by gov't)) perle wd make 700K$ if deal goes thru; Perle quit when news broke, but runy asked to stay on Def pol  Bd and he did; Conyers asked for invbest, 6 mos later joe said no apprance of impropriety to a reasonable person 307.

==

Pat Buchanan's blaming President George W. Bush "and the **neocons**" for the current Iraq crisis shows he not only "misunderstood" U.S. policy but also derogatorily used a term used by "hateful critics" to refer to Jewish Americans, Richard Perle charged Tuesday.

The former assistant secretary of defense, who is now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on **Newsmax TV** that the "connotations" of "neocon" are anything but subtle.

t's often used to describe Jewish Americans because, as it happens, some of the original thinkers whose ideas have now been characterized by this general term 'neoconservative' were in fact Jewish, and it often carries conspiratorial tones on the part of people who throw the term around," he said, adding that Buchanan has used the word in that context "for a long time."

"The truth is that if you Google neoconservative and you read any number of randomly read articles about neoconservatives you will discover that neoconservatives themselves are almost never quoted. They are not permitted to define their own views – their views are being defined by their critics and in some cases quite hateful critics." 

Perle also noted that Buchanan is opposed to going into **Iraq**now, and had the same view when the U.S. took military action under the Bush administration.

"He misunderstood the reasons that some of us advocated it," Perle said. "We were not doing it to bring democracy to Iraq, we were not doing it as he has sometimes suggested on behalf of any other government. We believed the intelligence that was available at the time that the CIA and other intelligence organizations . . . that Saddam [Hussein] had weapons of mass destruction and there was a danger after 9/11 that he would share those weapons.

"That was the only reason for going into Iraq," Perle added. "The idea that this was some sort of crusade on behalf of democracy is simply wrong. After the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction that were believed to be there, people often as a kind of rationalization began to talk about the virtues of democracy. I agree about the virtues of democracy, but that was not the reason for going into Iraq, so for Pat Buchanan to claim that it was a mistake . . . seems to me to be rewriting the history."

Perle believes the "mistake in American policies that have brought us" to the current chaos in Iraq "is the way in which we departed in 2011."

"But perhaps more important is the failure to recognize that if we stood by and did nothing in Syria, support would flow to the most radical elements and that's exactly what happened and so now we have a terrible situation in Syria, it is spilled over into Iraq and the administration  —  astonishing as this may seem  —  is actually thinking about going to the Iranians to help deal with the situation that we allowed to develop and that the Iranians had been encouraging."

Perle blasted President Barack Obama for making "certain there would be no status of forces agreement" to keep some troops in Iraq.

"He wanted to leave completely," Perle said. "Even though it was premature, even though it was foolish and I suspect he now regrets it, but he wanted out."

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Pat-Buchanan-Paul-Wolfowitz-neocons/2014/06/17/id/577619#ixzz35Ux9u2Js 

Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed vote

==

corn 3/13

The past week has brought about a 10-years-after review of the Iraq war—particularly an examination of how the Bush-Cheney administration sold the war prior to the invasion launched on March 19, 2003. Pundits and politicians have relived those days—and somberly reconsidered the run-up to the war, the role of the media in enabling the swindle, and the consequences of that military action. MSNBC has aired a documentary based on the book I cowrote with Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. Showtime featured a documentary on Dick Cheney that centered on the war. The Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University released a study noting that the war cost US taxpayers $2.2 trillion and consumed the lives of 4,488 members of the US armed services and at least 123,000 to 134,000 Iraqi civilians.

One of the most shocking reactions to the anniversary came—perhaps no surprise—from one of the leading neoconservative drum majors for the war, Richard Perle. As a member of the Defense Policy Board advisory committee, Perle, who had been a hawk's-hawk assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan years, began calling for war in Iraq nanoseconds after September 11. He told CNN, "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."In 2002, he suggested a war against Iraq would be a cakewalk: "It isn't going to be over in 24 hours, but it isn't going to be months either." He asserted Saddam was "working feverishly to acquire nuclear weapons." He claimed the post-invasion reconstruction in Iraq would be self-financing. He got everything wrong.

On Wednesday morning, NPR's Renee Montagne interviewed Perle. It wasn't a grilling. Perle was allowed to explain his Iraq war fever, noting that "we had intelligence assessments" indicating Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. He pleaded his case by remarking that after 9/11, "You ask yourself what could happen next, you do the obvious thing….[The Bush administration] made a list of potential threats and on that list the single most important potential threat was another attack with a weapon of mass destruction. So then you make a list of who has weapons of mass destruction and who might be motivated either to attack or enable someone else to attack the US. And Iraq was clearly on that list."Perle then offhandedly observed, "It's easy a decade later to say, well, it turned out this fact or that presumption was wrong." He insisted that the biggest "blunder" with Iraq was the post-invasion occupation.

This is all standard fare for a neocon who won't let go. But the final exchange of the interview was a chilling driveway moment:

Montagne: Ten years later, nearly 5,000 American troops dead, thousands more with wounds, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead or wounded. When you think about this, was it worth it?

Perle: I've got to say I think that is not a reasonable question. What we did at the time was done with the belief that it was necessary to protect this nation. You can't a decade later go back and say we shouldn't have done that.

That was cold. In the Showtime documentary, Cheney predictably expresses no regrets, saying, "I did what I did. It’s all on the public record, and I feel very good about it. If I had it to do over again, I'd do it in a minute." Yet here is Perle going beyond no regrets to deny it is even worthwhile to consider the human costs of the war when assessing the decision to invade Iraq. His comment is modern-day Strangelove and yet another reason he deserves the nickname he earned in the 1980s: the Prince of Darkness. What transpires within Perle's soul, ultimately, is not all that important. The true tragedy is that anyone would seek—let alone heed—the advice of a man so averse to considering a basic (and moral) calculation.

Hear for yourself:

==

rightweb

Richard Perle, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former adviser to various Republican administrations, is widely considered a core representative of the neoconservative political faction. Perle has played a key role promoting militaristic U.S. foreign policies since the 1970s, first as an adviser to the late Sen. Henry Jackson, later as a Defense Department official in the Reagan administration, and then as head of the George W. Bush administration's Defense Policy Board during the launching of the "war on terror." More recently he has been a high-profile advocate of using military force to halt Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program.

Post-Bush

Since stepping down from his post as chair of the Bush administration's Defense Policy Board in 2003, Perle has generally kept a low public profile, while at times offering contradictory public evaluations of the Iraq War and urging U.S. military action in other Middle Eastern countries.

In early 2013, Perle served as a representative of the Clarion Project—a controversial advocacy group that has produced several Islamophobic and anti-Iranian films—in its efforts to capitalize on the Boston marathon bombings to promote its political agenda. Claiming that "jihadist ideology continues to motivate a sophisticated worldwide terror network and that America remains a target," Clarion urged the public to view its 2008 film, The Third Jihad, and offered Perle and Clare Lopez for interviews.[[1]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn1) The press release, wrote Inter Press Service reporter Jim Lobe, appeared to suggest that "Perle, a long-time member of the strongly pro-Chechen, anti-Russian American Committee for Peace in the Caucasus (formerly the American Committee for Peace in Chechnya) and many, many other neo-con letterhead organizations, has now associated himself in some way with the ultra-Islamophobic Clarion Project."[[2]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn2)

Previously, Perle broke with many of his fellow neoconservatives in expressing regret about the U.S. occupation of Iraq. However, since the election of President Barack Obama, Perle has become an increasingly vocal critic of the U.S. foreign policy and become a high profile proponent of attacking Iran.

In a 2011 interview with the conservative outlet Newsmax.com, Perle said: "The Iranians are killing Americans at every opportunity in the places where we're now fighting. They support terrorism around the world, and they're headed toward nuclear weapons. … I think Obama believes wrongly that he can talk the Iranians out of their nuclear weapons program. He's been trying to do that since he became president. The previous administration tried it too. It isn't going to work."[[3]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn3)

When asked during an interview with Russia Today whether his views on Iran should be considered legitimate given the errors in judgment on Iraq, Perle responded defensively, stating: "What are you suggesting? That we stop trying to figure out whether Iran has nuclear weapons, because there were intelligence errors with respect to Iraq? Should the U.S. dismantle its intelligence organizations? Of course not!"[[4]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn4)

Like many of his colleagues in the rightwing "pro-Israel" community, Perle has expressed concern about the emergence of conservative Muslim parties since the "Arab Spring," particularly the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He told Newsmax in 2011: "The Muslim Brotherhood is potentially a very serious problem, since it is committed to the global expansion of an extreme approach to Islam, which is strict shariah law. And it will be very difficult if the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power."[[5]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn5)

Reviving arguments he used during the 1970s and 1980s to promote extravagant weapons programs to deter the Soviet Union, Perle has criticized the Obama administration's arms control negotiations with Russia. In a 2010 op-ed for the American Interest, he wrote, "Obama's approach to Moscow smacks of appeasement, an eagerness to accommodate unreasonable Russian positions made worse by an exaggerated focus on refurbishing the antique arms control arrangements of the Cold War while embracing a utopian vision of a world without nuclear weapons."[[6]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn6)

Perle has characterized the Obama administration's foreign policy as naïve and ill-informed, while at the same time using right-wing scare tactics in an effort to delegitimize the president. "What if," Perle wondered, "we are witnessing the deliberate, measured implementation of a deeply entrenched ideology reflecting such influences as the scarcely acknowledged Bill Ayers and the once inconveniently visible Reverend Jeremiah Wright? What if they shaped Obama's worldview in the years when they were ministering to and counseling a young, charismatic politician? Americans have never been tempted to elect a 'blame America first' President,' and now they are 'not so sure' about Obama."[[7]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn7)

Iraq War Advocacy and Reversal

Perle's role in promoting the invasion of Iraq centered largely on his capacity as chair of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, which serves as a quasi-idea factory for the Defense Department. Paralleling the efforts of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a leading neoconservative advocacy group with which Perle was associated, as well as those of then-Pentagon number two Paul Wolfowitz, Perle convened a meeting of the DPB shortly after the attacks to produce policy responses for the administration. Perle invited as a guest to one of the board's classified meeting Ahmed Chalabi,the Iraqi exile and longtime confidant of Perle who served as the head of the Iraqi National Congress, which had for years been pushing for regime change in Iraq.

Although the DPB typically has little or no influence in setting policy, many commentators saw Perle's efforts as part of a larger, neoconservative-led initiative to coordinate public pressure from both inside and outside the administration. Commenting on this apparent coordination, Jim Lobe and Michael Flynn wrote: "It appears that after 9/11, the network of hawks and neoconservatives that had coalesced around PNAC's founding agenda had mobilized in a highly coordinated way to fashion the administration's response to the terrorist attacks and rally the public behind their new agenda" (see the Right Web special report, "The Rise and Decline of the Neoconservatives," November 17, 2006).

In late 2006, as the U.S.-led war in Iraq devolved into an increasingly bloody counterinsurgency campaign, Perle became a high profile turncoat with respect to the decision to invade Iraq. In a widely noted interview with Vanity Fair that year, Perle argued that the war in Iraq had turned out to be a mistake. He said: "I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.' ... I don't say that becauseI no longer believe that Saddam had the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction, or that he was not in contact with terrorists. I believe those two premises were both correct. Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have."[[8]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn8)

Responding to Perle's change of heart, Gary Schmitt, a founder of PNAC and Perle's colleague at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), told the BBC: "I do not agree with Richard Perle that we should never have gone in. I do argue that the execution should have been better. In fact, I argued in late 2003 that we needed more troops and a proper counterinsurgency policy."[[9]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn9)

Also in seeming opposition to other neoconservatives, Perle gave an equivocal reaction to the controversial decision by President George W. Bush in early 2007 to "surge" the number of troops in Iraq. While most neoconservatives were supportive of the surge plan, even eager for a larger commitment than 20,000 additional troops proposed, Perle expressed doubt that sending more troops was the answer. He told the New York Sun, "I don't think the additional troops are the key to the strategy [Bush] has announced, it is how effectively those troops are managed." He added: "The big question in my mind is whether we can implement some practical and prudent measures. I don't know if we can. It will depend significantly on the command in the country."[[10]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn10)

Perle later claimed that his remarks about the invasion had been taken out of context, insisting that he had actually meant to criticize the U.S. occupation and administration of the country. "The mistake in my view—and I can't prove this; nobody can prove this—the seminal mistake was getting into an occupation and not turning things over to the Iraqis," he said. "I doubt that they would have handled the postwar situation as badly as we did. We sent thousands of Americans over there to run a country they knew nothing about." He added, " I think the decision that was made to remove Saddam was right."[[11]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn11)

Worldview

Perle's pessimism on Iraq stood in stark contrast to his trademark hard-nosed militarism, which has been a staple of his rhetoric for more than two decades. Reflecting core aspects of what many regard as the neoconservative worldview, Perle's discourse typically reflects a combination of warrior worship, existential conflict, and extreme moral righteousness. As the Australian journalist John Pilger reported shortly before the war in Iraq: "One of George W. Bush's 'thinkers' is Richard Perle. I interviewed Perle when he was advising Reagan; and when he spoke about 'total war,' I mistakenly dismissed him as mad. He recently used the term again in describing America's 'war on terror.' 'No stages,' he said. 'This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq ... this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war ... our children will sing great songs about us years from now.'"[[12]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn12)

Like many neoconservatives, Perle seems to have been particularly influenced by his views of the Holocaust, a theme that has repeatedly popped up in his rhetoric. Said Perle in a 2003 interview with BBC: "For those of us who are involved in foreign and defense policy today, my generation, the defining moment of our history was certainly the Holocaust. It was the destruction, the genocide of a whole people, and it was the failure to respond in a timely fashion to a threat that was clearly gathering. We don't want that to happen again; when we have the ability to stop totalitarian regimes we should do so, because when we fail to do so, the results are catastrophic."[[13]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn13) Similarly, in his 2004 book An End to Evil, he and coauthor David Frum argued: "For us, terrorism remains the great evil of our time, and the war against this evil, our generation's great cause ... There is no middle way for Americans: It is victory or holocaust."[[14]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn14)

Prescriptions on the Middle East

This radical outlook on foreign affairs deeply influenced both Perle's reaction to 9/11 and his initial response to the growing turmoil in the Middle East in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. For example, despite the growing violence in Iraq by late 2005, Perle remained committed to a larger "regime change" strategy for the Middle East that included both Syria and Iran. On Syria, Perle hosted meetings in late 2005 between Chalabi and Syrian exile Farid Ghadry, who was head of the Syrian Reform Party. Ghadry told the Wall Street Journal: "[Chalabi] paved the way in Iraq for what we want to do in Syria." Said Perle: "There's no reason to think engagement with Syria will bring about any change," adding that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "has never been weaker, and we should take advantage of that."[[15]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn15)

On Iran, Perle lambasted the State Department and then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for being weak on the "mullahs." In a July 21, 2006 piece for AEI, Perle contended that the offer of negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program amounted to "appeasement." He wrote: "Proximity is critical in politics and policy. And the geography of this administration has changed. Condoleezza Rice has moved from the White House to Foggy Bottom, a mere mile or so away. What matters is not that she is further removed from the Oval Office; Rice's influence on the president is undiminished. It is, rather, that she is now in the midst of—and increasingly represents—a diplomatic establishment that is driven to accommodate its allies even when (or, it seems, especially when) such allies counsel the appeasement of our adversaries."[[16]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn16)

During the summer 2006 conflict in Lebanon, Perle also remained on message, arguing that Israel was involved in an "existential struggle" with Hezbollah. In an op-ed for the New York Times, Perle wrote: "Israel must now deal a blow of such magnitude to those who would destroy it as to leave no doubt that its earlier policy of acquiescence is over. This means precise military action against Hezbollah and its infrastructure in Lebanon and Syria, for as long as it takes and without regard to mindless diplomatic blather about proportionality. For what appears to some to be a disproportionate response to small incursions and kidnappings is, in fact, an entirely appropriate response to the existential struggle in which Israel is now engaged."[[17]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn17)

Perle has for decades supported the work of a number of hardline think tanks and advocacy groups, including the Committee on the Present Danger, PNAC, AEI, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Hudson Institute, and the Center for Security Policy.

In 1996, Perle participated in a study group that produced a report for the incoming Likud-led government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that urged the country to break off then-ongoing peace initiatives and suggested strategies for reshaping the Middle East. Among the group's arguments was the idea that "removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq [was] an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right." The report—titled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" and coauthored byDouglas Feith,David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser—also recommended working closely with "Turkey and Jordan to contain, destabilize, and roll back" regional threats and using "Israeli proxy forces" based in Lebanon for "striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon." If that should "prove insufficient, [Israel should strike] at select targets in Syria proper." Further, "Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, even rolling back Syria." This would create a "natural axis" between Israel, Jordan, a Hashemite Iraq, and Turkey that "would squeeze and detach Syria from the Saudi Peninsula." This "could be the prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East, which could threaten Syria's territorial integrity."[[18]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn18)

In 1998, Perle signed a PNAC letter to President Bill Clinton that argued, "Current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War." The threat from Iraq was characterized as being of such a magnitude that the "only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power." Other signatories included future Bush administration officials Elliott Abrams, Richard Armitage, John Bolton, Zalmay Khalilzad, Peter Rodman, Robert Zoellick, Donald Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz.

In 2001, Perle also signed the now notorious post-9/11 PNAC letter to President Bush arguing that "even 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. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism. The United States must therefore provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition. American military force should be used to provide a 'safe zone' in Iraq from which the opposition can operate. And American forces must be prepared to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessary means."

Private-Sector Controversies

Perle has been heavily criticized for his sometimes-questionable business interests, which have been the focus of several investigative reports by journalists. When the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh documented Perle's business dealings in the Middle East with the venture capital firm Trireme, Perle threatened to sue the journalist, saying that he was the "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist."[[19]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn19)

Hersh's article, "Lunch with the Chairman," discussed possible conflicts of interest resulting from Perle's dual role as chairman of the Defense Policy Board and as a partner for Trireme, a company that invests in homeland security and defense-related industries. Hersh recounted how Perle met with Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi arms dealer, and another Saudi businessman in early 2003. Various people interviewed by Hersh, including Khashoggi, indicated that Perle and Trireme seemed to be sending the message that in return for Saudi investment backing, the "Chairman" would use his Pentagon connections to influence U.S. policy.[[20]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn20)

Soon after the Hersh piece was published, columnist Maureen Dowdand other journalists documented Perle's relationship to Global Crossings, a bankrupt communications giant and defense contractor that was seeking Pentagon permission to be sold to the Asian company Hutchinson Wampoa (the same Hutchinson Wampoa whose interests in Panama sparked an anguished round of right-wing hand-wringing about a Chinese attempt to take control of the Panama Canal). Although Perle denied any wrongdoing, he admitted through his attorney that he was hired by Global Crossings to consult with a reluctant Department of Defense about the deal.[[21]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn21)

In late March 2003, Perle announced that he was stepping down from his post as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, writing in his resignation letter to Rumsfeld: "I have seen controversies like this before and I know that this one will inevitably distract from the urgent challenge in which you are now engaged. I would not wish to cause even a moment's distraction from that challenge. As I cannot quickly or easily quell criticism of me based on errors of fact concerning my activities, the least I can do under these circumstances is to ask you to accept my resignation as chairman of the Defense Policy Board."[[22]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn22)

Apparently undeterred, however, Perle continued to make eyebrow-raising business arrangements, particularly in the Middle East. In 2008, the Wall Street Journalreported that Perle was exploring investing in oil interests in Iraq and Kazakhstan, a curious decision given the salient claims by Iraq war opponents that the war was waged over access to Iraq's oil.[[23]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn23) Perhaps more surprisingly, Politico reported in 2011 that Perle also twice traveled to Libya with the Monitor Group, a consulting firm that named Perle a senior adviser in 2006, as part of an effort to "burnish Libya's and [then-dictator Muammar] Qadhafi's image" in the United States.[[24]](http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#_edn24)

- See more at: http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/perle_richard#sthash.iDqWmouG.dpuf

Long-time Washington cold warrior Richard Norman Perle is a man of many hats: Pentagon policy adviser (resigned February 2004), former Likud policy adviser, media manager, international investor, op-ed writer, talk show guest, think tank expert, and ardent supporter of the war in Iraq.

Known in Washington circles as "The Prince of Darkness," Perle is associated with the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century, both of which have been prominent behind-the-scenes architects of the Bush administration's foreign policy, in particular its push for war with Iraq.

He is closely allied with former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Dundes Wolfowitz, another Iraq hawk. Perle is also a vocal supporter of Israel and a critic of Saudi Arabia. Perle is on the Advisory Board of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and is a former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a Defense Department advisory group composed primarily of former government officials, retired military officers, and academics.

Contents

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Background

Perle was born 16 September 1941 in New York City, attended the University of Southern California, earning a B.A. in English in 1964. As an undergraduate he studied in Copenhagen at Denmark's International Study Program. He also studied at the London School of Economics and obtained a M.A. in political sciencefrom Princeton University in 1967. He is married to Leslie Joan Barr. He owns a vacation home in Les Baux (Provence, France) and is there neighbor to Brian Lapping and previously to Jeane Kirkpatrick.

A biographical note stated that Perle had served as Resident Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research since 1987 "where he had directed its commission on Future Defenses". ^[1]^

Perle was a member of the Defense Policy Board between 1987 and 2004 and was Chairman of it between 2001-2003. He was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy in the Reagan Administrations between 1981 and 1987. Before that he had served on the US Senate Staff (1960-1980).

He did his Honours Examinations at the London School of Economics between 1962 and 63, gained a Bachelor of Arts in International Politics at the University of Southern California in 1964 and completed a M.A Politics at Princeton University in 1967. ^[2]^

He has been a director of a number of companies including Conrad Black's Hollinger [3] and Tapestry Pharmaceuticals. [4]

Perle's Role in Hollinger

Perle had close business ties with Conrad Black, former chairman of Hollinger International Inc., which at one time owned more than 400 daily and weekly newspapers in Canada, the United States, Britain, Israel and Australia. Hollinger papers included London's Daily Telegraph, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Jerusalem Post. Black, a Canadian, joined fellow media kingpin Rupert Murdoch in defending British Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to stick with Bush's war aims, despite overwhelming domestic opposition.

Perle was a Director of Hollinger from June 1994. A biogrpahical note on the company's website at the time stated that Perle was Co-Chairman of Hollinger Digital Inc., the media management and investment arm of Hollinger ^[5][11]. It also mentioned that Perle was "a Director of Jerusalem Post", another subsidiary of the company, and that he had served as a director of GeoBiotics. ^[6]^

Perle and Black are now (2004) estranged and have accused each other of wrongdoing in the looting of Hollinger assets. The Breeden Report, which cataloged the accusations against Black by the now-independent Hollinger directors, singled out Perle, among all of the corporate directors, for criticism: "As a faithless fiduciary, Perle should be required to disgorge all compensation received from the company". [12]. In October 2004, Hollinger amended its lawsuit against Black to include Perle as a defendant, asking for $22.9 million, including the $5.4 million of his compensation. ^[7].

Despite his familiarity with the media, Perle found a piece by veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh a little hard to take. Hersh's New Yorker report, "A Hawk's Business," targets Perle's hush-hush meeting withSaudi industrialist **Saleh al-Zuhair**, a meeting arranged with the help of **Iran/contra** figure **Adnan Khashoggi**. Hersh explored the possibility of a conflict of interest for Perle, one of whose businesses is **Trireme Partners LP**, a venture capital firm that invests in technology, goods, and services related to homeland security and defense. Trireme also created **International Advisors Inc.**, a lobbying firm whose main client is **Turkey**. **Henry Kissinger**is a Trireme adviser, and Perle is a managing partner. [13] Kissinger, who was forced to resign as head of the independent commission to investigate the 9/11 attacks, has been using his influence to try to keep the Saudis calm during the buildup to war. The subject of the al-Zuhair meeting is in dispute, but Perle is fighting off the impression that he was trying to use his Pentagon influence to profit from a war that he is doing all he can to implement. Hersh criticized Perle's relationship with Trireme as an ethical conflict of interest, to which Perle responded by calling Hersh "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist." ^[8]^

Bush has recently taken to accepting Perle's view that the United Nations is pretty much irrelevant when it comes to Iraq. ^[9]^

Perle is also associated with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which backs Bush's Iraq war push. Others with the foundation are columnist Charles Krauthammer,the Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, and Georgia senator Zell Miller. Perle, who produced the 1992 PBS documentary, "The Gulf Crisis, the Road to War," has long experience in the ways of Washington.

The wide-ranging Perle even finds himself involved in Total Information Awareness technology. He was listed as a speaker at a March 13 Washington press briefing on 'data mining,' the use of computer technology to sift out patterns from electronic communications. A fellow Pentagon official, Admiral John M. Poindexter of Iran-Contra notoriety, spurred a political firestorm with his TIA plans. Congress forbade such technology to be used against Americans. The briefing, which also billed Sen. Ron Wyden, was promoted as informational only. However, concerned scientists have charged that data mining pays off in miniscule results in contrast to widespread privacy violation.[14]

Mr. Perle has received some heat due to a possible conflict of interest with serving on the Defense Policy Board and being hired as an advisor for Global Crossing, "Even as he advises the Pentagon on war matters, Richard N. Perle, chairman of the influential Defense Policy Board, has been retained by the telecommunications company Global Crossing to help overcome Defense Department resistance to its proposed sale to a foreign firm, Mr. Perle and lawyers involved in the case said today." Mr. Perle's fee is $750,000, but he will receive an additional $600,000 if the sale is approved. [15] Concerned over conflict of interest, senior Democrats sought an inquiry into the matter by the Pentagon inspector general. [16]

Perle maintained that he had not violated any ethics rules, but decided to resign his position as chairman of the Defense Policy Board on March 26, 2003, [17]. In an effort to save face, he wrote in his resignation letter that he would refuse any compensation with his deal with Global Crossing and "any fee for past service would be donated to the families of American forces killed or injured in Iraq." There was also a report that "The communications company, Global Crossing, also announced that Mr. Perle had decided to sever his ties with it."[18] [19]

The Global Crossing affair started a more critical look into Perle's business affairs. On March 29, 2003, The New York Times reported that Perle was involved withLoral Space and Communications in 2001 as an advisor while it faced accusations that it transfered rocket technology to China. [20] It is worth noting that the Global Crossing affair was also due to Global Crossing trying to overcome Defense Department opposition to be sold to a venture with ties to China.

In February 2004, Perle resigned entirely from the Defense Policy Board. [21] The full text of Perle's resignation letter may be found at the website for the public relations firm Benador Associates. [22]

It was reported May 25, 2004, by CNN that Tom Clancy, the brand name author with many admirers in the military criticized the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, citing it as proof that "good men make mistakes."

That same writer said he almost "came to blows" with a leading war supporter, former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle.

The hawkish master of such million-selling thrillers as "Patriot Games" and "The Hunt for Red October" now finds himself adding to the criticism of the Iraq war, and not only through his own comments.

His latest book, Battle Ready (2004 book) is a collaboration with another war critic, retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni. "Battle Ready" looks at Zinni's long military career, dating back to the Vietnam War, and includes harsh remarks by Zinni about the current conflict.

In a press conference held on March 25, to promote the book, both Clancy and Zinni singled out the Department of Defense for criticism. Clancy recalled a prewar encounter in Washington during which he "almost came to blows" with Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser at the time and a longtime advocate of the invasion.

"He was saying how (Secretary of State) Colin L. Powell was being a wuss because he was overly concerned with the lives of the troops," Clancy said. "And I said, 'Look ..., he's supposed to think that way!' And Perle didn't agree with me on that. People like that worry me."

One unusual (but in-character for him) habit of Perle's is his demands for payment for press inteviews [23].

Critical description

"The baby-faced Richard Perle, who chairs the Defense Policy Board, waited out the Vietnam War at the University of Chicago. He then joined pro-Vietnam War Senator henry Scoop Jackson's staff and made his reputation as one of the youngest of the defense intellectuals. Like Jackson, Perle made pro-Israeli poliy an axiom of his discourse. Perle has become well-known for his aggressive mouth on TV talk shows, contradicting the flaccidity of his physical demeanor." page 131,Saul Landau. 2003. The Preemptive Empire: A Guide to Bush's Kingdom. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 0745321402.

Organizational affiliations

Quotes

"Richard Perle, foreign policy adviser: 'The first time I met Bush 43 … two things became clear. One, he didn't know very much. The other was that he had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn't know very much.'"[11]

Books

Books By Perele

Books About Perle & His Views

Resources and articles

Profiles

External articles

2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007

References

  1. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ [1]
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  6. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ [6]
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  9. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ [9]
  10. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Laura Rozen, Among Libya's lobbyists, Politico, 21 February 2011.
  11. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ [10]

Categories: 

In January, 1993, Richard Perle met with Adnan Khashoggi to discuss possible investment in Perle's company Trireme. Trireme was set to become successful if there was an Iraq war. It was this appearance of corruption that forced Perle to step down as chairman of the Defense Policy Board.

 ===

RICHARD PERLE

Role In Going To War: Richard Perle, the so-called “Prince of Darkness,” was the chairman of Defense Policy Board during the run-up to the Iraq war. He suggested Iraq had a hand in 9-11. In 1996, he authored “Clean Break,” a paper that was co-signed by Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and others that argued for regime change in Iraq. Shortly after the war began, Perle resigned from the Board because he came under fire for having relationships with businesses that stood to profit from the war. Guardian, [9/3/02, 3/28/03; AFP, 8/9/02]

Where He Is Now: Currently, Perle is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he specializes in national security and defense issues. He has been investigated for ethical violations concerning war profiteering and other conflicts of interest. Washington Post, [9/1/04]

Key Quote: “And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they’ve been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation.” Perle, [9/22/03]

cf janine wedel shadow elite

janine wedell GMU

gov't mtg w/ all contractors

 xe split so harder to track; c wright mills classic three sep: mil, gov't and corps

3/4 of all ppl who do gov;t work are PVT?!

mil in afgan? used RS and CTT to crit BO?

drivers: pvtization RR, 2) end of cold war   3? ?  4) truthiness is ethos

power resides in network (ctt, gov, media) ability to shapeshift?

1st noticed in poland after fall of comm, C&C

network/clique had b2 admin jobs, but circumvented constraints by making new ones?

created chalabi who mfg misinfo, so the blessed and spread it

rubin summers (--> harvard pres flamout --> BO admin; failed upwards) greenspan BC admin  pushed dereg and excluded opponents

Flexions: serve own agenda, not nec those of the orgs they are in; also flexnets

invest jrnl declines, so no ctr to

q: wd the action happen w/o players?

2) branding action? other voices suppresed?

30 who funds?

4) is the border between public-pvt clear?

neocon: no conflict of interest b/c we define the interest"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiXGcEpI-sI

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

Richard Norman Perle (born 16 September 1941) is an American political advisor and lobbyist who worked for the Reagan administration as an assistant Secretary of Defense and worked on the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee from 1987 to 2004. He was Chairman of the Board from 2001 to 2003 under the Bush Administration.

He is a member of several think-tanks, such as the Hudson Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) Board of Advisors, the Center for Security Policy (CSP), and (as a resident fellow) the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, as well as the neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). He is also a Patron of the Henry Jackson Society. Perle has written extensively on a number of issues; his cited research interests including defense, national security, and the Middle East. Aside from these engagements, Perle is the former co-chairman and director of Hollinger, Inc., a partner of Trireme Partners and a non-executive director of Autonomy.

...

Bribery Accusations and Alleged Conflicts of Interest

From 1981 to 1987, Perle was Assistant Secretary of Defense for international security policy in the Reagan administration. In a New York Times article Perle was criticized for recommending that the Army purchase an armaments system from an Israeli company that a year earlier had paid him $50,000 in consulting fees. Perle acknowledged receiving the payment the same month he joined the Reagan administration, but said the payment was for work done before joining the government and that he had informed the Army of this prior consulting work. Perle was never indicted for anything related to the incident. (New York Times, 17 April 1983, "Aide Urged Pentagon to Consider Weapons Made by Former Client", Jeff Gerth. See also New York Times, 21 April 1983, "On buying weapons and influence", Editorial.).

In March 2004, another New York Times article reported that, while chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Perle had contracted with the troubled telecommunications giant Global Crossing[cf milken] to help overcome opposition from the FBI and the Pentagon to the sale of its assets to Hong-Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa. Since the military employed the company's fiber optics network for communications, the brass argued that sale to a foreign-owned, especially Chinese, corporation would compromise national security. Perle was to be paid $125,000 to promote the deal, with an extra $600,000 contingent fee on its approval.^[17]^ This controversy led to accusations of bribery, and Perle resigned as chairman on March 27, 2003, though he remained on the board.[18]

Perle is also known to have demanded payment for press interviews^[19]^ while he was the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a practice that has raised accusations of not only ethical, but legal impropriety.^[20]^

[edit] Unresolved Legal Issues

DPB?

Among the companies benefiting from the tolerated practice are top U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin, which now employs 57 former senior officials, aerospace giant Boeing which employs 33, Air Force contractor Northrop Grumman at 20, Raytheon at 23 and General Dynamics which employs 19.

The nonprofit watchdog gave the example of Richard Perle, a former Pentagon official who served as assistant secretary of defense in the Ronald Reagan administration and was a member of the Defense Policy Board from 1987-2004, serving as its chair from 2001 to 2003.

He resigned as chairman in March 2003, after a conflict of interest controversy involving a consulting job he took with the bankrupt telecommunications firm, Global Crossing Ltd.

The report says that during the summer of 2003, Perle expressed his support for a Boeing tanker contract -- a deal that would direct billions of dollars to the company. His support for the tankers came just 16 months after Boeing pledged to invest 20 million dollars with Perle's venture capital firm, Trireme Partners, notes the report. 

http://archive.democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=Richard%20Perle

spy, sabotage peace talks, conflicts

2008 Washington Post:

Sensing GOP vulnerability, the Democrats' campaign ads focus on voter unhappiness with the Iraq war. The Republicans, in turn, prefer to talk about keeping us safe from terrorism.

So eyebrows popped up last week when none other than Richard Perle , former Reagan assistant secretary of defense, former Bush brain-truster on the Defense Policy Board, and a key promoter of the war to find Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, blistered the administration as "dysfunctional" when it comes to stopping someone from bringing "a nuclear weapon or even nuclear material into the United States."....

==

Attachments