On February 4th 2003, Richard Perle declared that “ France (was) no longer an ally of the United States ”. By March 29th, the chairman of a Pentagon advisory panel resigned after facing allegations of conflict of interest over his work for the bankrupt telecommunications firm Global Crossing.
By late August, Richard Perle, infamous ChickenHawk and Grand Architect of the Administration’s War on Iraq, was back in his home away from home in Southern France. Perle spoke with Renaud Girard of the French daily newspaper, le Figaro.
When asked about Condoleezza Rice’s plan to “ Punish France ”, Perle responded that there was no plan to punish France and that “ Using sound bites is always dangerous (…) this statement was more about entertainment that serious politics ”.
Still blindly opposed to France’s position on the war in Iraq, Perle was adamant in defending the Administration’s record. He did concede however that the US had made some mistakes, specifically in preparing the post war transition to Iraqi power.
Richard Perle also claimed that the current situation in Iraq was somewhat tied to the fact that “invading a country and administering it was not part of American culture” and that “ the USA has no colonial experience to draw upon ”, assertions that will provoke dissent in all serious historians.