Re: French Join In on Anti-France Bandwagon

Thats funny I live in France and I heard of these books. But the again this
story comes from Faux News
which pretty much some up the truthfulness to this story.

It really must be eating away at NEOCONS that the French were right.


"Roger Moore" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> RICHARD PERLE ????.........going, going, gone!!!
>
> The gathering storm around Richard Perle
>
> D.C.'s "Prince of Darkness" has prospered in the shadows between the
> Beltway and big business -- but the latest scandal threatens to bring
> him down.
>
> By Eric Boehlert
> Salon.com, Nov. 26, 2003
> http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/26/perle/print.html
>
>
> Storm clouds are gathering around Washington's "Prince of Darkness,"
> Richard Perle.
>
> An influential über-hawk who enjoys close ties to the top of the
> Pentagon's civilian leadership, Perle got his wish earlier this year
> when the United States launched the preemptive war against Saddam
> Hussein that he'd spent a decade lobbying for. (The "Prince of
> Darkness"
> nickname stems from Perle's apparent dislike of nuclear arms treaties
> and Middle East peace accords.) A private businessman who once worked
> for an Israeli arms manufacturer, Perle maintains a public platform
> through the Defense Policy Board, a civilian advisory group stacked
> with
> hawks -- including James Woolsey, Newt Gingrich and Henry Kissinger --
> who supported a war with Iraq.
>
> Though he was forced to give up the board's chairmanship when some of
> his private defense-contracting clients were revealed, Perle maintains
> a
> unique position as a shadowy Beltway operator who blurs the line
> between
> private business and foreign policy. He's been making lots of noise --
> and news -- lately, and his critics are asking questions about his
> intentions.
>
> It's too early to tell how the accumulating controversies will affect
> Perle's role as a pro-war spokesman. In the past though, despite a
> history of missteps, Perle has managed to prosper. Or more important,
> to
> maintain the loyalty of senior administration officials ("the string
> of
> Perles"), many of whom he's cultivated for years and who find his
> pro-war bravado helpful.
>
> Still, virtually none of Perle's predictions about the surprisingly
> messy war with Iraq have proven true. ("Support for Saddam, including
> within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of
> gunpowder," he told PBS in 2002.) Moreover, Perle recently found
> himself
> involved in a controversial story about how, on the eve of war, the
> Bush
> administration rebuffed a last-minute back-channel offer from Saddam
> Hussein that could have averted an invasion. And last week he raised
> hackles when he ventured away from the White House talking points and
> conceded that the war itself, however justified, was illegal under
> international law.
>
> "That's a startling admission for him," says Vince Cannistraro, former
> CIA counter-terrorism chief.
>
> But more ominous for Perle than questions about his foreign policy
> meddling are those regarding his business dealings, as he suddenly
> finds
> himself at the center of a boardroom scandal that's likely to claim
> Lord
> Conrad Black's $1 billion media empire. Up until last week, Black
> served
> as CEO of Hollinger International, whose key assets include the
> Chicago
> Sun-Times, the London Daily Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post.
>
> The company's implosion was sparked when an audit by outsiders, lead
> by
> former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Richard Breeden,
> discovered $32 million in questionable payments to key company
> executives, including $7.2 million directly to Black and $16.55
> million
> to Hollinger's Canadian parent company. The generous payments were
> made
> while Hollinger's handpicked board of directors apparently looked the
> other way as the CEO allegedly used the public company as his private
> piggy bank.
>
> Perle serves on Hollinger's board with Henry Kissinger and Black's
> wife,
> conservative columnist Barbara Amiel, among others.
>
> Drawing shareholder scrutiny, as well, are investments Hollinger made
> in
> companies run by its board members. Hollinger Digital, headed by
> Perle,
> invested $2.5 million in Trireme Partners, the venture capital firm
> that
> invests in technology, goods and services related to homeland security
> and defense. Trireme Partners is co-managed by Perle.
>
> According to the Financial Times: "Also under review is a $14 million
> investment the company made under Mr. Perle's direction through
> Hillman
> Capital, a venture capital group controlled by Gerald Hillman -- who
> has
> since become a partner at Trireme and, like Mr. Perle, is a member of
> the U.S. Defense Policy Board."
>
> "It's typical of the problems many boards of directors face, but this
> seemed to be a case of board problems on steroids," says Nell Minow,
> editor of Capitol Library, which covers corporate governance. "The CEO
> had voting control, so there was not even pretense that shareholders
> had
> a role. He gets access to capital you only get through going public,
> yet
> he gets to control it as if it were a private company. For investors,
> it's the worst of both worlds."
>
> Last Monday, Black, a member of Britain's House of Lords, resigned as
> CEO from Hollinger. By week's end the Security and Exchange Commission
> began issuing subpoenas for its investigation into Hollinger's board.
> It
> appears Black's company, which he built over 33 years, will now be
> sold
> off, piece by piece; the investment bank Lazard has been hired to
> search
> for interested buyers.
>
> The usually ubiquitous Perle, who has been a pro-war staple on TV talk
> shows and Op-Ed pages this year, has been uncharacteristically quiet
> since the Hollinger story broke. He was traveling out of the country
> and
> could not be reached for comment.
>
> "The situation for the [Hollinger] directors involved is quite
> serious,"
> warns Herbert Denton, a shareholder advocate who has represented other
> investors in Hollinger. "I am certain additional legal action will be
> taken. And the focus will be the board of directors. It's got to go
> there."
>
> That means Perle and others will soon be facing some "ugly depositions
> and headaches," says Minow. "The directors should start putting their
> assets in their wife's name," she quips.
>
> The idea that as a board member Perle could face punitive damages for
> allegedly not fulfilling his duty to shareholders is not entirely out
> of
> the question. This May, a Delaware judge stunned the corporate world
> when he ruled that the Disney board members who OK'd an extravagant
> $140
> million severance package for exiting executive Michael Ovitz (who
> worked at Disney for 15 months), might be forced to pay the money back
> themselves since they so dramatically failed in their duties.
>
> Judge William Chandler wrote that the plaintiff's complaint "suggests
> that the Disney directors failed to exercise any business judgment and
> failed to make any good-faith attempt to fulfill their fiduciary
> duties
> to Disney and its stockholders."
>
> The ruling breaks with decades of corporate-friendly Delaware
> decisions,
> which maintained a hands-off approach toward board members, absent any
> criminal activity. The Disney shareholder trial is scheduled for early
> 2004.
>
> The Hollinger revelations follow the accusations of last spring that
> Perle was representing companies that had business pending before the
> Department of Defense, while at the same time he was advising the DOD
> in
> a semi-official capacity. In March, Perle was forced to give up his
> unpaid position as chairman of the Defense Policy Board after
> conflict-of-interest allegations were made in the press, most notably
> the New Yorker and the New York Times. (At Defense Secretary Donald
> Rumsfeld's request, Perle remained on the board itself, but not as
> chairman.)
>
> This month the Department of Defense's inspector general pronounced
> Perle innocent of any ethics violations, although the ruling was based
> mostly on a technicality. The inquiry determined that through his role
> with the Defense Policy Board, Perle works for the Pentagon only eight
> days a year, so he is therefore not subject to its stringent
> conflict-of-interest regulations.
>
> But neither Perle, nor the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, which
> called for apologies from reporters who publicly questioned Perle's
> integrity, had much time to savor the vindication; soon the Hollinger
> scandal became Page One news on two continents.
>
> Beyond the damage the scandal may cause to Perle, the pending collapse
> of Hollinger carries with it additional political ramifications.
> Because
> while Black's media empire has been shrinking in recent years -- in
> 2000
> he unloaded most of his Canadian newspapers for $1.8 billion -- it has
> remained a consistent outlet for conservative voices.
>
> It's too early to say who might buy up Hollinger's highest-profile
> properties, but it's questionable whether the new owners would
> maintain
> the dailies' conservative slant. Of particular interest to hard-liners
> is Hollinger's Jerusalem Post. As the Jewish Forward newspaper in New
> York City noted last week, "The Post was historically known as a
> left-wing newspaper, until its acquisition by Hollinger in 1989. Since
> then it has become a leading conservative outlet for opponents of the
> peace process throughout the world."
>
> The sale of the Jerusalem Post would also rob Perle of one of his most
> reliable media outlets, where -- being tossed softball questions --
> he's
> often interviewed at length about current events. ("How does Bush
> compare with your idol Ronald Reagan in defending the free world?")
> The
> paper though, rarely informs readers that Perle sits on the board of
> directors of the company that publishes the Post. In fact, just last
> week, the Post conducted a lengthy sit-down with Perle, but failed to
> ask him about the key role he may have played in the burgeoning
> Hollinger scandal. In fact, the issue was never addressed.
>
> Perle's Hollinger woes come on the heels of other public missteps. For
> instance, last summer he embarrassed the Pentagon when he invited
> Laurent Murawiec, a former follower of political extremist Lyndon
> LaRouche, to brief the Defense Policy Board about Saudi Arabia. The
> emphasis of Murawiec's presentation was that Saudi Arabia should be
> counted among "our enemies," and that, if necessary, the United States
> should threaten Islam's two holiest cities, Mecca and Medina, located
> inside Saudi Arabia. Following press inquiries, Perle claimed
> ignorance,
> insisting he didn't know what Murawiec was going to say.
>
> Earlier this year when the New Yorker's Sy Hersh detailed Perle's
> possible conflicts of interest, Perle went on CNN and labeled the
> Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist a "terrorist" and threatened to sue
> for libel. (Perle has yet to take any legal action.)
>
> This summer the Nation magazine reported Perle often charged foreign
> TV
> news organizations up to $900 for on-camera interviews with him.
>
> On Nov. 6, the New York Times reported Perle had met for two hours at
> a
> London hotel with a mysterious Lebanese businessman who, allegedly on
> behalf of the Baathist regime, was offering to hold monitored
> elections
> and allow U.S. troops to search for WMDs, in exchange for leaving
> Saddam
> in power. In the end, the offer was essentially dismissed by the CIA
> and
> the Pentagon. Perle told the Guardian newspaper that he had been told
> by
> the CIA not to pursue the contacts.
>
> Cannistraro, who also received back-channel feelers from Iraqis on the
> eve of war, which he relayed to the State Department, says Perle was
> "disingenuous" about the meetings, since administration hawks, their
> minds set on war, were not eager to consider last-minute peace
> initiatives. "He didn't do it with an open heart," says Cannistraro.
>
> Most recently, while Bush was visiting Britain last week, Perle
> conceded
> to a London lecture crowd that the war with Iraq, based on
> international
> law, was likely illegal. "I think in this case international law stood
> in the way of doing the right thing," he said.
>
> Just prior to the war, British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith gave
> prime minister Tony Blair crucial political cover when he ruled the
> war,
> even without a second United Nations resolution authorizing the use of
> force, would be legal.
>
> "It's hard to figure out what [Perle] was trying to do as a tactical
> matter," says Michael Dorf, a law professor at Columbia University and
> a
> columnist for FindLaw.com. He notes Perle's argument would have made
> more sense if caches of weapons of mass destruction had been seized in
> Iraq. "That way, he could say, 'Technically the war was illegal but
> aren't you glad we did it?'" But without the WMDs, the argument falls
> flat.
>
> Now, instead of worrying about missing WMDs, Perle has to contend with
> angry Hollinger shareholders, at a time when the courts and the SEC
> are
> taking a new hard-line approach with boards accused of negligence.
> Says
> Minow: "This is just a plain case of fingers getting caught in the
> cookie jar."
>
>
>
>
> "CB" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> > Wednesday, November 26, 2003
> > By Greg Palkot
> >
> > PARIS  - France's opposition to military action in Iraq sparked a
backlash
> > around the globe, but criticism of the country is now coming from an
> > unlikely source - the French themselves.
> >
> > In the last few months, there have been a slew of books published in the
> > country slamming French policy with titles that translate to: "The
Arrogant
> > French," "The French in Disarray," and "France in Free-Fall."
> >
> > "France has a great obstructive power, destructive power and this is
very
> > dangerous for France itself," said Andre Glucksmann, author of "West
Versus
> > West."
> >
> > Readers are snapping up books that question whether or not the policies
of
> > French president Jacques Chirac (search) are hurting their homeland.
> >
> > "A great many French officials hoped that we would fail in Iraq," said
> > Richard Perle (search), former chairman of the Defense Policy Board
> > (search).
> >
> > "With the help from the United Nations and the European Union, Chirac
wants
> > to revive France's glory days, an effort that some wonder if he's
> > overreaching."
> >
> > France's policies on war aren't the country's only controversial
decisions
> > these days. Protests by workers are frequent and a worrying wave of
> > anti-Semitism is spreading.
> >
> > "There are a number of challenges," said Laurent Cohen-Tanugi, author of
"An
> > Alliance at Risk: The United States and Europe Since September 11." "The
> > question is whether the government is going to wake up to those
challenges."