"We Don't Need Anyone's Permission"
ichard Perle's liberal and other enemies like to call him "the Prince of Darkness." Osama bin Laden & friends should take the hint. Perle is the hardliner's hardliner. Assistant secretary of...
...Bin Laden seems to be betting on that, at least in Saudi Arabia...
...It seems to be the province of the Department of State, which is well-schooled in the propagation of contradictions.Yes, it strikes me as extraordinary that while we are doing everything we know how to do to protect the American people, some State Department officials would have the nerve to sug P A t a l k with Richard Perle gest that the Israelis they mustn't defend themselves.And the Israelis~quite rightly, in my viewmhave said, "Thanks for the advice...
...Something is dreadfully wrong when people without the basic tool set to do their .job are permitted to rise to senior positions...
...And therefore the question is: should we accept the counsel of those who want to narrow the President's objective, in ways that would leave terrorist networks standing and leave states sponsoring terrorism in the business of doing so...
...How do you rate the Bush administration so far on security issues...
...What evidence do we need to go after Baghdad...
...I think he looked around and said,"IfNATO is irrelevant to this, it's the end for NATO...
...What about Iraq...
...NATO continues to be rather narrowly preoccupied with European security, and the threats in Europe are vastly diminished...
...I don't mean to disparage itmI'd rather they say the things they're saying than the things they might be saying...
...We're not globalizing half a million men...
...It is fundamental to self-defense that we act preemptively when necessary to forestall attacks on our country...
...So, the simple issue in my view is: do we wait and hope for the best...
...The ABM treaty is history...
...Assistant secretary of defense for international security policy in the Reagan Administration, he took the liberal critics' derisive nickname for high-tech national missile defense~"StarWars"mand made it a battle cry...
...And I think all the evidence that's necessary is in...
...It's been doing pretty well...
...So, ifNATO wishes to survive, it's going to need to reorient.While there's been some movement in that direction, it hasn't gone nearly far enough...
...I don't think it's necessary to establish an Iraqi anthrax connection in order to recognize an Iraqi threat...
...What we have seen from Osama bin Laden is an act of vicious hatred that has nothing to do with our policies, except that he'd like us out of Saudi Arabia, so he can take over...
...Saudi Arabia is very shaky by any modern political standard...
...How relevant is NATO to the war against terrorism...
...PERLE: I would redefine it a little bit...
...That's a very interesting question...
...So we can either conduct a test in violation of the treaty or wait while we sort things out with President Putin...
...Is there a procedure for blackballing would-be applicants...
...I don't know either of these individuals, so there's nothing personal about it, but it seems to me scandalous.That isn't their fault~it's the fault of the management that hired and promoted them...
...Not just the CIA but the whole of the intelligence community needs to be radically overhauled...
...And everything we know about Saddam suggests that he's perfectly capable of using weapons of mass destruction, and against us...
...But on top of all of that there was a general slovenliness, a decline in quality...
...In 1981, when the Israelis saw that a nuclear reactor that could have placed weapons-grade material in Saddam's hand was about to be completed, they didn't wait...
...It is not limited to al Qaeda and Afghanistan...
...Now chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, he is a powerful force for aggressive use of Americans' superpower advantage...
...TAS: Washington is buzzing about a "competition for the President's soul," over the scope of the war on terrorism...
...Nothing...
...You say there's "as much myth as reality" in the coalition now being led by the U.S...
...We're not mobilizing an armada with 1,600 aircraft...
...Hardliners led by you and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz want to pursue a wider struggle, against Iraq and possibly others...
...Whether that turns out to be real or imagined will depend on what the NATO countries do...
...A number of people need to find employment in things they're good at...
...Pursuant to Article Five of its charter, NATO has declared that the attack on the United States constitutes an attack against the alliance as a whole...
...The coalition became a means of legit41:0 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 9 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2OOI imizing American action at home.That's not the case now...
...That's why it was a dreadful mistake for a U.S...
...He has weapons of mass destruction...
...In 1991, when we fought Iraq over its invasion and occupation of Kuwait, it was considered essential to have a coalition.And I believe it was in those days~not least of all, because there was so little support for that military action in the United States...
...Because they're not very good at what they've been paid to do...
...So you think the Bush Administration has purposely diverted attention from Iraq because they don't want a conflict...
...They intended to do the damage they did...
...Or do we take preemptive action...
...Do we accept anyone, even countries that are themselves engaged in acts of terrorism...
...What about the argument that we're experiencing a "blowback" effect from U.S...
...Suppose we take the position that we cannot or should not or will not act against Iraq unless there is overwhelming evidence of Iraq's culpability in some hostile action...
...They considered it an intolerable threat, and they destroyed the reactor...
...There are frequent references to "the coalition," but I don't know who's in it...
...What do you think of the reactions of the moderate Arabs...
...In other words, that the moral gloves are now off...
...I don't think we need anybody's approval to defend ourselves...
...But it will come, and when it does, I think we will discover that we are disparately deficient...
...The greater the injury, the more effective they consider themselves to be...
...Secretary of State to pressure Ariel Sharon to accept a meeting with Yassar Arafatmthat will be seen in the Arab world, I am quite sure, as a validation of the attack on the United States.The logic is very simple: if you want Washington to pressure Israel, attack the United States...
...policy in the Middle Eastmbombing Iraq, total support for Israel...
...It's rubbish...
...I very much favor going after Saddam Hussein's regime and Saddam Hussein...
...It's a vague concept.And it seems to me, principally, to reflect the tendency to fight the last war...
...In other words, if Israel came to some kind of accommodation with the Palestinians, you don't think any of this would end...
...There was pressure from liberal opinion for the ClA to operate in a difficult and hostile world by standards that were appropriate for liberal democracies...
...The current inadequacy of the intelligence community has its roots quite far back, in Congressional meddling and secondguessing in the 1970smthe Church committee, the Pike committee...
...Who will win...
...We've been attacked, directly on our own territory, and thousands of our citizens have been killed...
...What we are not seeing among moderate Arabs is the battle that I hope will take place one day: between moderate Arabs and the extremists in their own ranks...
...I rather suspect that they're disappointed that more people were not killed...
...Does the outrageousness of Sept...
...He has used them against his own people and would not hesitate to use them against us...
...I suspect that once the appropriate notice of withdrawal is given, we will then schedule the tests...
...And the counterpoint is going to come, frankly, when we take this war beyond Afghanistan, and we see then where our NATO colleagues line up...
...Jim Glassman and Nick Schulzmhost and editor, respectively of Washington-based Tech Central Station, one of our favorite online policy forums-spoke with Perle in late October...
...What does that tell us about Iraq's potential for future hostile action...
...When you put it that way, the question pretty much answers itself...
...It has nothing to do with whether he's involved with September 11 or with al Qaeda.What's relevant here is that he hates the United States...
...That was done by the Secretary General, on his own initiative...
...They will do whatever they can to inflict injury...
...I believe we can do it without the coalition's support...
...The President has said that we are at war with terrorism and with the states that sponsor and harbor terrorists...
...Well, talk is cheap...
...We don't need bases and local support.We're doing this very differently...
...On the contrary, it would be seized upon by our enemies as evidence that only violence can succeed in achieving their objectives...
...He's made it very plain~he wants the power, he wants the position, the wealth, the oil, and he wraps himself up in ideological cover because it has a broader appeal than sheer will to power and greed...
...Nobody wants recriminations now, so the inevitable review of this massive intelligence failure has not yet been started...
...But like the others in the region, it is pretty fragile, and we need to recognize that...
...What about the Pentagon's decision to suspend missile defense tests...
...Where should we be pointing fingers...
...If you join, can you be expelled later if you don't do whatever it is that's expected of you...
...So that already suggests a so-called "wider" war...
...But at the end of the day, it's just words.And there are those who believe that it's important, that it somehow legitimizes what we are doing...
...I don't know what the basis of membership is...
...No change in American policy could alter the plans of Osama bin Laden...
...11 make you worry that the use of biological and chemical weapons is just around the corner...
...And we've had a lot of cheap talk...
...The chief Afghan analyst of the CIA doesn't speak any of the Afghan dialects.The chief Saudi analyst doesn't speak Arabic...
...NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2OOI " THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 41:1...
...For instance, the notion that we couldn't recruit people with doubtful recordsmas though people without doubtful records were in a position to help us...
...There aren't moral constraints among the perpetrators of this...
...What do you mean...
...The deficiencies seem to be not on the military side, but in intelligence, which is clearly not adequate to the task...
...it's just a question of when...
...The State Department led by Secretary Colin Powell wants to keep the narrow focus on bin Laden...
...It's a corrupt regime in which the wealth of the country is expropriated by a small number of people at the top, and in which fundamental rights are routinely denied.There is no consent of the governed, so it's always difficult to know what the people of Saudi Arabia would do if they were free to do it.They're notmit's a police state...
...Another open question: NATO...
...Is the Bush Administration being contradictory in pursuing a war on terrorism but then telling the Israelis to pull back from Palestinian-controlled territory...
...So there's a scramble to demonstrate the relevance of NATO to American security...
...I wouldn't attribute that viewmwhich is certainly contradictory~to the Administration...
Vol. 34 • November 2001 • No. 8
