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CounterPunch
September
10, 2002
Perle's Bombshell
in Milan
by Gary Leupp
"Mohammed Atta met Saddam Hussein
in Baghdad prior to September 11. We have proof of that, and
we are sure he wasn't just there for a holiday. The meeting is
one of the motives of an American attack on Iraq."
Richard Perle, to Il Sole 24 Ore, as
reported by Agence France-Presse, Sept. 8.
Wow! What a bombshell! But curious that
the well-informed Perle (since the 1980s nicknamed the "Prince
of Darkness" by his Pentagon friends), who as chairman of
the Pentagon's secretive Defense Policy Board (an "advisory"
body that seems now to be directly influencing policy), a man
with limitless access to intelligence, should first apprise the
readers of an Italian business daily of this proof, having neglected
to mention it in his well-publicized August 23 London Sunday
Times piece explaining to Europeans the U.S. rationale for war
with Iraq.
I see that the brief AFP article, composed
in French and available in English (I found it on the Times of
India website) is also available in Dutch. But I have not found
it in a U.S. newspaper. Should not such proof make the front
page of my morning paper, the Boston Globe? Wouldn't its revelation
clinch the chickenhawks' case for war? Shouldn't Perle tell it
to CNN's Paula Zahn rather than some journalist in Milan?
Seems to me there are four possibilities.
1. There is in fact proof, which Perle
acquired just prior to his interview in Milan. But then one would
expect the story to get picked up in this country immediately.
2. Translation problems. Il Sole misrepresented
Perle's real comment: "Mohammed Atta met [an Iraqi diplomat
in Prague appointed by] Saddam Hussein in Baghdad prior to September
11. We have proof of that, and we are sure he wasn't just there
[in Prague] for a holiday..." But the U.S. government has
backed off from the Prague meeting story after British and Czech
intelligence authorities questioned it.
3. Perle has a lively imagination and
just slipped up, misspoke, in his eagerness to rally the world
for a U.S. attack on Iraq, which has been an obsession for him
for years. This is probably because (as General Wesley Clark
has said of the chickenhawks in general), he is "afraid
that [Saddam Hussein] might decide if he had a nuclear weapon
to use it against Israel."
4. Perle is willfully sowing disinformation,
in the face of overwhelming and obvious European opposition to
Bush's war plans. But that degree of bald-faced disinformation
would suggest extreme desperation.
(Unrelated note: In the Lord of the Rings,
the dark lord, sitting on his dark throne, in the land of Mordor
where the shadows lie, seeks to bring us all and in the darkness
bind us. He uses surveillance, knives in the night, devious alliances
and the cunning lies of Wormtongue to obtain his ends. But, while
his victory seems so certain that even Galadriel despairs, he
ultimately fails, good triumphs over evil, and against all odds
the world does not fall into darkness. In that struggle, the
least likely folks play key roles.)
Gary Leupp
is an an associate professor, Department of History, Tufts University
and coordinator, Asian Studies Program.
He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu
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September
7 / 8, 2002
Bill Christison
A
Year Later: It's Happening Here
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Tenth Crusade
Susan Davis
Mr. Ashcroft's
Neighborhood
Bruce Jackson
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War Came Home
David Krieger
Looking
Back on September 11
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Bush and War
Peter Linebaugh
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and 9/11
William McDougal
September 11 One Year On:
That's Entertainment!
Riad Z. Abdelkarim
and Jason Erb
How American Muslims Really Responded
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Clair
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with Normal
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