Richard Perle, you arrogant prick. David Rose writing in Vanity Fair
quotes you, the leading neo-con and advocate for the war in Iraq, from
the upcoming January issue as having second thoughts? And you
told him this shit with a straight face?
“The levels of brutality that we’ve seen are truly horrifying, and I
have to say, I underestimated the depravity,” Perle says now, adding
that total defeat—an American withdrawal that leaves Iraq as an
anarchic “failed state”—is not yet inevitable but is becoming more
likely. “And then,” says Perle, “you’ll get all the mayhem that the
world is capable of creating.”
According to Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board in 2004, this
unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction
within the administration of President George W. Bush.
Goddamn you Richard Perle. Goddamn
you and the rest of your neocon cowards to Iraq (it is worse than
hell). You did everything in your power to cower this country
into the wrong war at the wrong time and now you blame Bush? You
have taken chutzpah to a new level. [Chutzpah (for you goyim) is a
Yiddish term that means “unbelievable gall; insolence; audacity”.]
You worked hand-in-glove with the President
and Rumsfeld to persuade the public that we must take out Saddam
Hussein in order to keep America safe and prevent a new 9-11. And
now? You feign ignorance and disavow your role. You make Pontius Pilate
look like an honorable guy. At least he made a show of washing
his hands, but your hands are sotted with the blood and shit of the
brave Americans who have died for your folly. No amount of water
or disinfectant can cleanse you of this stain.
Have you forgotten the letter you wrote, with
several others, under the banner of the Project for the New American
Century, the April 3, 2002 in the National Review? You wrote:
Furthermore, Mr.
President, we urge you to accelerate plans for removing Saddam Hussein from
power in Iraq.
As you have said, every day that Saddam Hussein remains in power brings closer
the day when terrorists will have not just airplanes with which to attack us,
but chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, as well. It is now common
knowledge that Saddam, along with Iran,
is a funder and supporter of terrorism against Israel. Iraq has
harbored terrorists such as Abu Nidal in the past, and it maintains links to
the Al Qaeda network. If we do not move against Saddam Hussein and his regime,
the damage our Israeli friends and we have suffered until now may someday
appear but a prelude to much greater horrors.
(signatories–Ken Adelman, Hillel Fradkin, Martin Peretz, Gary Bauer, Reuel
Marc Gerecht, Richard Perle, Jeffrey Bell, Charles Hill, Daniel Pipes, William
J. Bennett, Bruce P. Jackson, Norman
Podhoretz, Ellen Bork, Donald Kagan, Stephen P. Rosen, Eliot Cohen, Robert Kagan, Randy Scheunemann, Midge
Decter, Rich Lowry, Gary Schmitt, Thomas Donnelly, Clifford May, William
Schneider Jr., Nicholas Eberstadt, Joshua Muravchik, Marshall Wittmann, R.
James Woolsey)
Catch that? You called to accelerate plans
to take out Saddam. You argued, falsely, that Saddam was in bed
with Osama. Then a few weeks later you and Leon Feurth told Ken
Dalecki of Kiplinger Business Forecast ( Vol. 2002, No. 0503, May 1,
2002) war was inevitable:
National security
experts across the political spectrum agree that the U.S.is inevitably headed for another military confrontation with Iraq.
“The issue is not whether, but when and how to have a final reckoning with
Saddam Hussein,” says Leon Fuerth, former national security adviser to
Vice President Al Gore.
Richard Perle,
assistant secretary of defense for international security policy in the Reagan
administration, agrees with Fuerth and goes a step further, saying, “The
U.S. should move sooner rather than later,” because Iraq is foremost among
nations that support and harbor terrorists.
. . . .If
pressured to give Saddam another chance, Fuerth says the U.S.should
insist on a “hair trigger,” which would give a green light for
a U.S.invasion
if Saddam did anything to thwart inspectors.
The military
assault would involve from 100,000 to 250,000 troops, virtually all of them
American. Even if Bush gave the Pentagon the go-ahead today, it would take
months to move those forces and all their equipment into position.
So, while the military planning continues, Bush will
intensify efforts to build political support for finishing a job his father stopped
short of completing more than a decade ago.
Not only was the war was
inevitable, but you knew how many troops would be required. Even
though General Shinseki had warned more would be needed, you dismissed
his experience and substituted your hubris. You moron.
Remember Time Magazine, May 13, 2002 (p. 36)? You were quoted:
Hawks like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Defense Policy Board chief Richard Perle
strongly believe that after years of American sanctions and periodic
air assaults, the Iraqi leader is weaker than most people believe.
And you clearly forgot (ignored?) the May 25th, 2002 piece in the Times of London, which reported that:
THE Pentagon retreated yesterday from warnings that a US-led invasion of Iraq
was only a matter of time after being told by its own top brass that
such action could mean grave risks and critical shortages of hardware
and manpower.
An invasion would need at
least 200,000 troops, could not be launched until next year at the
earliest and might force Saddam Hussein into a “no-win” situation in
which he might use chemical and biological weapons even at serious risk
to his own troops, General Tommy Franks of the US Central Command has
reportedly told defence chiefs and the White House.
The
military planners wanted more troops. And what misearable fathead
insisted that we could do the war with less? That was you
Richard. According to the Times article:
General Franks’s assessment of the risks of an invasion of Iraq
have irritated many in Washington’s civilian defence establishment who
have been pushing for an assault on Baghdad since September 11. “These
regimes that looked unchallengeable turn out to be highly brittle,”
Douglas Feith, Under-Secretary of Defence and a hawk on Iraq,
said this week. Mr Feith and others are said to favour a version of the
highly successful airborne assault on Afghanistan to dislodge Saddam.
They criticise General Franks for excessive and outdated reliance on
ground troops.
This alternative to
all-out invasion has been dubbed the Downing Plan, after retired
General Wayne Downing, Mr Bush’s chief counter-terrorism co-ordinator.
His backers include the independent defence analyst Richard Perle, who yesterday noted: “If we’d left it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1990, Saddam Hussein would still be in Kuwait.”
In fact Richard, you called the military guys who
insisted that we needed more troops “incompetent”. Remember (the
Guardian, July 30 2002)?
Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and an advocate of an assault on Iraq,
rejected the anxiety as irrelevant. The decision to take on Saddam, he
said, was “a political judgment that these guys aren’t competent to
make”.
Who
is the incompetent asshole? And let’s not forget you were the
one, along with your buddy Jim Woolsey, who said we did not need allies
to take out Iraq, we could do it ourselves. Remember?
Perle explained this new
unilateralism in stark terms in October, 2001 when he said that Powell
was “simply wrong” in thinking the U.S. needed to build coalition
support before attacking Iraq.
According to Perle: “If the coalition is going to protect a terrorist state like (Iraq’s)
Saddam, then to hell with the coalition.” Even more forceful than
Perle is Woolsey, another DAB member and a fervent supporter of
invading Iraq.
When asked about the fact that not one Arab country supported attacking Iraq,
Woolsey replied, “I think one nutty way to make foreign policy is to
collect a large number of nations and decide to do what the lowest
common denominator wants. If you approach foreign policy and security
policy that way, you’ll never accomplish anything.”
Richard,
I can go on for pages breaking you up. The extent of your
stupidity, your arrogance, and your culpability is mind boggling.
When I look at you I see every American soldier who has died or been
maimed because of your greed for this war. I see the grieving
parents and wives and husbands. There is no human action that can
fill the hole in the heart of a child who has lost their father or
mother because of your actions. Yes, your actions. You were
one of the leaders in mounting the public relations campaign to counter
the reluctance of the U.S. military planners to go to war. And
because of the success of your efforts we went to war.
Richard, chutzpah does not begin to capture your actions. You
are a putz, you are not a mensch. You are a war criminal.
Your pretend Alzheimer’s disease is not a defense. Bush did not
fuck up alone. He had help. He had you. Goddamn you
Richard Perle.
