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213310 mars 2003 — Richard Perle, dont on parle beaucoup et dont on sait pas mal (voir notamment sur ce site, un portrait de Perle et des articles sur lui), se fait un honneur d’être un homme discret, — un honneur et un avantage. C’est aussi un homme d’une influence exceptionnelle au sein de l’administration GW, par l’intermédiaire de sa fonction de président du Defense Policy Board (DPB), groupe influent de consultants extérieurs travaillant pour le Pentagone et conseillant l’administration sur sa politique de sécurité nationale ; au travers du DPB, Perle, un des leaders des néo-conservateurs, fait transiter son exceptionnelle influence.
Ce week-end, l’honneur et l’avantage de Perle, c’est-à-dire son goût de la discrétion, ont été mis à rude épreuve.
• Un article du New Yorker du fameux reporter Seymour Hersh, développe plusieurs faits troublants qui tendraient à impliquer Perle dans plusieurs investissements qui profitent manifestement de sa position de puissance et d’influence au sein de l’administration GW. Dans l’article de Hersh, on retrouve Perle dans des tractations avec l’homme d’affaire iranien Khashoggi (notamment au cours d’un déjeuner à Marseille le 3 janvier, Perle ayant une villa dans le Sud de la France et Khashoggi un appartement à Cannes) ; Perle envisageant de monter des sociétés pouvant profiter des opportunités économiques en Irak, après l’invasion ; Perle ayant d’ores et déjà investi dans certaines sociétés, au sein du groupe d’investissement Trireme Partners, où l’on retrouve Henry Kissinger et Gerald Hillman, qui font partie du DPB de Perle ; — doit-on ajouter : et ainsi de suite... ? Ci-après, quelques paragraphes de l’article de Hersh.
« Khashoggi is still brokering. In January of this year, he arranged a private lunch, in France, to bring together Harb Saleh al-Zuhair, a Saudi industrialist whose family fortune includes extensive holdings in construction, electronics, and engineering companies throughout the Middle East, and Richard N. Perle, the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, who is one of the most outspoken and influential American advocates of war with Iraq.
(...)
» Perle is also a managing partner in a venture-capital company called Trireme Partners L.P., which was registered in November, 2001, in Delaware. Trireme’s main business, according to a two-page letter that one of its representatives sent to Khashoggi last November, is 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.” The two other policy-board members associated with Trireme are Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State (who is, in fact, only a member of Trireme’s advisory group and is not involved in its management), and Gerald Hillman, an investor and a close business associate of Perle’s who handles matters in Trireme’s New York office. The letter said that forty-five million dollars had already been raised, including twenty million dollars from Boeing; the purpose, clearly, was to attract more investors, such as Khashoggi and Zuhair.
(...)
» Four members of the Defense Policy Board told me that the board, which met most recently on February 27th and 28th, had not been informed of Perle’s involvement in Trireme. One board member, upon being told of Trireme and Perle’s meeting with Khashoggi, exclaimed, “Oh, get out of here. He’s the chairman! If you had a story about me setting up a company for homeland security, and I’ve put people on the board with whom I’m doing that business, I’d be had”—a reference to Gerald Hillman, who had almost no senior policy or military experience in government before being offered a post on the policy board. “Seems to me this is at the edge of or off the ethical charts. I think it would stink to high heaven.”
» Hillman, a former McKinsey consultant, stunned at least one board member at the February meeting when he raised questions about the validity of Iraq’s existing oil contracts. “Hillman said the old contracts are bad news; he said we should kick out the Russians and the French,” the board member told me. “This was a serious conversation. We’d become the brokers. Then we’d be selling futures in the Iraqi oil company. I said to myself, ‘Oh, man. Don’t go down that road.’” Hillman denies making such statements at the meeting. »
• Interrogé sur ces allégations dans l’émission de la CNN Late Edition de Wolf Blitzer, le 9 mars, Perle a réagi avec une violence extrême, accusant Hersh d’être un terroriste. L’accusation a laissé Blitzer pantois. Ci-dessous, le passage de l’émission sur ce point précis :
« BLITZER : All right. Tom, hold on a minute. You know, we are basically all out of time for this segment. But before you go, Richard, I want to give you a chance to respond.
» There's an article in the New Yorker magazine by Seymour Hersh that's just coming out today in which he makes a serious accusation against you that you have a conflict of interest in this because you're involved in some business that deals with homeland security, you potentially could make some money if, in fact, there is this kind of climate that he accuses you of proposing.
» Let me read a quote from the New Yorker article, the March 17th issue, just out now. ''There is no question that Perle believes that removing Saddam from power is the right thing to do. At the same time, he has set up a company that may gain from a war.''
» PERLE : I don't believe that a company would gain from a war. On the contrary, I believe that the successful removal of Saddam Hussein, and I've said this over and over again, will diminish the threat of terrorism. And what he's talking about is investments in homeland defense, which I think are vital and are necessary.
» Look, Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly.
» BLITZER : Well, on the basis of — why do you say that? A terrorist?
» PERLE : Because he's widely irresponsible. If you read the article, it's first of all, impossible to find any consistent theme in it. But the suggestion that my views are somehow related for the potential for investments in homeland defense is complete nonsense.
» BLITZER : But I don't understand. Why do you accuse him of being a terrorist?
» PERLE : Because he sets out to do damage and he will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever distortion he can — look, he hasn't written a serious piece since My Lai.
» BLITZER : All right. We're going to leave it right there. Richard Perle, thank you very much. »
Les réactions de Richard Perle face à Blitzer constituent une bonne mesure de la gêne où le met l’enquête de Seymour Hersh. Il n’est pas question ici de se demander si Perle peut être inquiété pour “conflit d’intérêt” ou toute autre appréciation éthique, mais de constater combien cette situation fait naître les plus grands doutes sur la substance et les fondements de la politique extrémiste qu’il préconise et qui est effectivement suivie par les États-Unis, et sur le point de précipiter une guerre, peut-être de graves désordres, etc.
Ces interventions confirment de façon troublante une dimension nouvelle qu’on ne cesse de voir se dessiner plus précisément : la dimension affairiste de la politique de sécurité nationale US, et la proximité de plus en plus grande de cette dimension avec l’idéologie extrémiste (néo-conservatrice). Un personnage comme Bruce K. Jackson (on a déjà beaucoup parlé de BKJ sur ce site) s’avère finalement extrêmement proche d’un personnage comme Richard Perle, autant par l’activité idéologique que par l’activité de lobbying, et par l’activité affairiste tout simplement. On a confirmation de la proximité également très grande, aujourd’hui, du business, de la politique et de l’idéologie aux USA, — et non pas, selon le schéma classique du business manipulant ou finançant l’idéologie et la politique, mais du business faisant partie intégrante de l’idéologie et de la politique, formulant et dictant lui-même la stratégie américaine.
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