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Former Pentagon official Richard Perle resigns as key Rumsfeld adviser
By Robert Burns, Associated Press, 3/27/2003 18:59
In a brief statement, Rumsfeld thanked Perle for his service and
said he was grateful that the former Reagan administration official
had agreed to remain a board member. Rumsfeld made no reference to
a reason for Perle giving up the chairmanship.
Perle said he was stepping aside voluntarily.
''I have seen controversies like that before and I know that
this one will inevitably distract from the urgent challenge in
which you are now engaged,'' Perle wrote in a resignation letter.
In the letter, made public by the Pentagon and dated March 26,
Perle assured Rumsfeld that he had abided by rules applying to
members of the Defense Policy Board. He has been chairman of the
board since July 2001. The position is unpaid but is subject to
government ethics rules that prohibit using public office for
private gain.
The controversy centers on Perle's deal with bankrupt Global
Crossing Ltd. to win government approval of its purchase by a joint
venture of two Asian firms. Perle would receive $725,000 for his
work, including $600,000 if the government approves the deal,
according to lawyers and others involved in the bankruptcy case.
The deal is under review by a government group that includes
representatives from the Defense Department.
Perle denied any wrongdoing.
''The guiding principle here is that you do not give advice in
the Defense Policy Board on any particular matter in which you have
an interest,'' Perle said in a recent interview. ''And I don't do
that. I haven't done that.''
The Defense Policy Board is a bipartisan group that advises the
secretary of defense on a wide range of policy issues. Its 30
members are a mix of former military and government officials. They
include former CIA Director James Woolsey, former Vice President
Dan Quayle, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former
Air Force Chief of Staff Ronald Fogleman.
Perle wrote in his resignation letter that he could not
''quickly or easily quell criticism'' in the Global Crossing
controversy, adding that it was ''based on errors of fact.''
Nonetheless, he wrote, ''I would not wish to cause even a
moment's distraction from'' the war effort.
Perle said he was advising Global Crossing that he would not
accept any compensation from the pending sale and that any fee for
his past services would be donated to the families of American
forces killed or injured in Iraq.
In his written statement, Rumsfeld thanked Perle for his
service.
''He has been an excellent chairman and has led the Defense
Policy Board during an important time in our history,'' Rumsfeld
said. ''I should add that I have known Richard Perle for many years
and know him to be a man of integrity and honor.''
Perle was an assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan
administration.
He became involved in another controversy stemming from an
article in The New Yorker that said he had lunch in January with
Saudi-born businessman Adnan Khashoggi and a Saudi industrialist.
The industrialist, Harb Saleh Zuhair, was interested in
investing in a venture capital firm, Trireme Partners, of which
Perle is a managing partner. Nothing ever came of the lunch in
Marseilles; no investment was made. But the New Yorker story,
written by Seymour M. Hersh, suggested that Perle, a longtime
critic of the Saudi regime, was inappropriately mixing business and
politics.
Perle called the report preposterous and ''monstrous.''
Perle, 61, was so strongly opposed to nuclear arms control
agreements with the former Soviet Union during his days in the
Reagan administration that he became known as ''the Prince of
Darkness.''
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