Joseph L. Galloway
is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and a nationally syndicated columnist.
One of America's preeminent war correspondents,
with more than four decades as a reporter
and writer, he recently concluded an assignment
as a special consultant to Gen. Colin Powell
at the State Department.
Galloway, a native of Refugio, Texas, spent
22 years as a foreign and war correspondent
and bureau chief for United Press International,
and nearly 20 years as a senior editor and
senior writer for U.S. News & World Report
magazine. His overseas postings include tours
in Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, Singapore
and three years as UPI bureau chief in Moscow
in the former Soviet Union. During the course
of 15 years of foreign postings Galloway served
four tours as a war correspondent in Vietnam
and also covered the 1971 India-Pakistan War
and half a dozen other combat operations.
In 1990-1991 Galloway covered Desert Shield/Desert
Storm, riding with the 24th Infantry Division
(Mech) in the assault into Iraq. General H.
Norman Schwarzkopf has called Galloway "The
finest combat correspondent of our generation
-- a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."
By JONATHAN S. LANDAY, JOHN WALCOTT and JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
WASHINGTON - Richard Perle, one of the most outspoken advocates for
invading Iraq,
has quietly resigned from the Defense Policy Board, an influential
bipartisan Pentagon advisory group.
Perle informed Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld that he was
quitting the board in a letter dated Feb. 18, although a week later
a Pentagon list of board members still included him. A copy
of the letter was obtained by Knight Ridder.
Perle's resignation comes as President Bush, who had hoped to ride
popular support for the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq to a second term, finds his administration facing a growing
number of congressional, legal and internal investigations into dubious
prewar intelligence on Iraq and lucrative contracts for Iraqi reconstruction.
In his letter, Perle said he was resigning after 17 years on the board
so that the Bush administration and the Department of Defense would
no longer be associated with his outspoken views on Iraq and other
matters.
"We are now approaching a long presidential election campaign, in
the course of which issues on which I have strong views will be widely
discussed and debated," Perle wrote. "I would not wish those views
to be attributed to you or the president at any time, and especially
not during a presidential campaign."
Perle didn't return a telephone call seeking comment on his resignation,
and a Pentagon spokesman would confirm only that he had resigned.
In recent weeks, Perle has called for the resignation of CIA Director
George Tenet, criticized Secretary of State Colin Powell and other
current and former senior U.S. officials as "soft-liners" and urged
the Bush administration to consider pulling out of the United Nations
if the agency doesn't legalize pre-emptive attacks on states that
harbor terrorists.
Perle also is a prominent supporter and close friend of Ahmad Chalabi,
a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council who's the subject
of a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation into exaggerated
and fabricated intelligence about Iraqi weapons programs and ties
to Osama bin Laden.
In the run-up to the invasion, Perle advocated installing Chalabi
as Iraq's interim leader, and he told Knight Ridder in a July 2003
interview that CIA and State Department opposition to this plan led
to the insurgency against the U.S.-led occupation.
Perle served as the board's unpaid chairman from July 2001 until March
2003, when he quit the post while the Pentagon inspector general looked
into whether he had violated ethics rules by representing companies
that had dealings with the Defense Department. He was cleared of any
breaches and remained a board member.
A British newspaper reported last week that questions also have been
raised about $3 million in bonuses that Perle reportedly received
in 2000 and 2001 from the firm Hollinger International. The company
is investigating undisclosed payments to its executives, according
to The Times of London.
Perle's resignation coincides with the publication of a book he co-authored
calling for "bold action" against Iran, North Korea and other "sponsors
of terrorism," including U.S. ally Saudi Arabia. The book, "An End
To Evil: How to Win The War on Terrorism," co-authored with David
Frum, argues that Iran and North Korea "present intolerable threats
to American security."
"We must move boldly against them both and against all the other sponsors
of terrorism as well: Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia. And we don't
have much time," the book argues.
Although the Defense Policy Board is a bipartisan advisory committee
that has no role in making policy, Perle was an influential member
of the group, which includes Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy Secretary
of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith
and I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, who were the most outspoken
proponents of a pre-emptive attack on Iraq.
In his resignation letter, Perle wrote that too often his views have
been seen as those of the administration's. "Many of the ideas in
that book are controversial and I wish to be free to argue for them
without those views or my arguments getting caught up in the campaign,"
he wrote.
Perle and Frum are fellows at the American Enterprise Institute, a
Washington think tank that's a leading champion of conservative causes.
Cheney was a fellow there; his wife, Lynne, still is.
Perle served as an assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan
administration. He earned the nickname "Prince of Darkness" for his
passionate opposition to detente with the former Soviet Union and
to arms-control treaties, which he considered unenforceable.
