Richard Perle on the War on Terrorism circa 2001

[andrewgd]

For those of you who don't know, Richard Perle is a member of the PNAC (the right-wing thinktank behind the Iraq invasion) and the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel to the Pentagon made up of leading figures in national security and defense which backs laying the groundwork for overthrowing Saddam through military means.

In October 2001, he gave an interview with PBS (this was less than a month after 9/11). Of course, he is already plotting the war against Saddam, claiming it is part of the war on Terrorism.

Some of the most interesting parts come when he's asked some very forward thinking questions.

The nightmare scenario is that we get bogged down in Afghanistan, we can't find bin Laden in some cave. We go into Iraq, we have problems, we're hit back at home with biological weapons or whatever; we lose the public, or start losing the public. Things start getting rattled. It's not clean. It's difficult. What happens?

... I think we will be vulnerable in a way that this country has never been vulnerable before. And this is not a war we cannot afford to lose.


So we have to win this war?

We have to win this war, which is why I'm confident that we will not seek to win it in the cheapest and easiest of all ways, which is to define it so that it is already won. There was that old line about Vietnam: that we should declare victory and go home. You can't do that in this war. Declare victory; but if you haven't won victory, you're as vulnerable as before you made the declaration. So that isn't an option.


Does Washington understand that?

I think the president understands that. I think the secretary of defense understands it. I think the vice president understands it, and I hope others understand it.

Richard Perle is someone I'd consider right behind Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Richard Armitage and Paul Wolfowitz as the "brains" behind invading Iraq. (All belonging to PNAC)

[lance]

Andrewgd,

Jesus, those guys creep me out.

Thanks for the post and the link.

LanceMan

[andrewgd]

I especially like the line that I italicized "Declare victory; but if you haven't won victory, you're as vulnerable as before you made the declaration."

Its too bad Bush didn't take his advice. We have now lost more U.S. boys and girls AFTER Bush declared "Victory" then we did during the war.

I believe we are indeed "vulnerable in a way that this country has never been vulnerable before." Our reasons of attacking Iraq have run the gamut, depending on which arguement is being shown as a lie at the moment... We've now lost the worlds respect. Not only the Muslim nations, but most others as well. Are we really safer for it?