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One down, Two to Go for Govmt's Truth TwistersOp-ed One Down, Two to Go for Govmt's's Truth Twisters Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, former chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle and Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, are the persons in the Defense Department primarily responsible for the erroneous statements and policy judgments regarding Turkey to the great detriment of U.S. interests in the region and worldwide. In the article herewith, you can surmise who the three administrations are in reality, and their shameful deeds. CONFLICT OF INTEREST? THE LESSER OF HIS SINS:Richard Perle Perle resigned on March 27, 2003 as chairman of the Defense Policy Board after disclosures that his business dealings included a meeting with two Saudis, one an arms dealer, and a contract for $750,000 to advise telecommunications firm Global Crossings Ltd. that was seeking Defense Department permission to be sold to Chinese investors. In a New Yorker article, Seymour Hersch reported that Perle faced conflict of interest between his work on the board and his private business dealings. He reported that Perle is “a managing partner in a venture-capital company called Trireme Partners L.P.” He also reported that Perle attended a luncheon meeting on January 3, 2004 with two Saudis, Adnan Khashoggi and industrialist Harle Zuhair, who told Hersch that the agenda included an item “to pave the way for Zuhair to put together a group of ten Saudi businessmen who would invest ten million dollars each in Trireme.” (New Yorker, March 17, 2003, pages 76-81.) Perle resigned as Assistant Secretary of Defense in 1987, before the end of the Cold War, and went to Turkey and negotiated an $800,000 contract for International Advisors Inc. (IAI), a company which he initiated. He recruited Douglas Feith, his special assistant at Defense, to head IAI. Perle became a consultant to IAI and received $48,000 annually from 1989 to 1994. IAI registered as a foreign agent with the Justice Department. IAI received $800,000 from Turkey in 1989 and then received $600,000 annually from 1990 to 1994. Douglas Feith:"The stupidest guy ...on earth?" From 1989 to 1994, Douglas Feith headed IAI and registered as a foreign agent for Turkey. He received $60,000 annually and his law firm Feith and Zell received hundreds of thousands of dollars from IAI Neither Perle, when he was on the Defense Policy Board, or Feith as Under Secretary of Defense, recused themselves on matters dealing with U.S.-Turkey relations. Feith was Perles protégé. According to the Washington Posts Bob Woodward, “Feith was not popular with the military. He appeared to equate policy with paper.” Woodward wrote that General Tommy Franks “tried to ignore Feith though it was not easy. The general once confided to several colleagues about Feith: “I have to deal with the [expletive] stupidest guy on the face of the earth almost every day.” (Woodward, Plan of Attack, p. 281.) Paul Wolfowitz:Monumental Misstatements Wolfowitz has committed major mistakes of policy and judgment regarding Turkey to the serious detriment of U.S. interests. Wolfowitzs remarks on Turkey have contained false and misleading statements with serious errors of fact and omission of Orwellian proportions. On July 14, 2002, Wolfowitz in a CNN Turkey interview stated: “I think a real test of whether a country is a democracy is how it treats its minorities. And actually its one of the things that impress (sic) me about Turkish history—the way Turkey treats its own minorities.” How does one respond to such a statement? Armenian, Greek and Kurdish Americans have expressed their outrage. See Exhibit 1 to AHI joint letter of September 4, 2002 on AHI website at www.ahiworld.org for a list of Turkeys violations of the human rights of its minorities committed throughout the 20th century, a number of which continue up to the present time. Also on July 14, 2002, in a speech at the Conrad Hotel, Istanbul, Wolfowitz referred to Turkey: “as a staunch NATO ally through forty years of Cold War….It is the great good fortune of the United States, of NATO, the West, indeed the world, that occupying this most important crossroads we have one of our strongest, most reliable and most self-reliant allies.” This is another false and misleading statement by Wolfowitz with serious errors of fact and omission. The record shows that during the Cold War, Turkey brushed aside U.S. interests on many occasions and deliberately gave substantial assistance to the Soviet military. See Exhibit 2 of the September 4, 2002 letter which sets forth examples of Turkey's unreliability as an ally and refutes the assertion of Turkey as a self-reliant ally. Turkeys vote on March 1, 2003 refusing to allow U.S. troops to use bases in Turkey to open a second front against the Saddam Hussein dictatorship is a dramatic example of Turkeys unreliability as an ally. Wolfowitzs effusive comments in his July 14, 2002 speech regarding Ataturk may play well in Turkey, but the rest of the world is familiar with Ataturk as a brutal dictator and mass killer of Armenians, Greeks and Kurds. John Gunther in his book, Inside Europe refers in his opening sentence to Ataturk as “The blond, blue-eyed combination of patriot and psychopath who is dictator of Turkey.” (1938 edition p. 378.) See Exhibit 3 of the September 4, 2002 letter for the details of Ataturk's mass killings of Armenians, Greeks and Kurds. Ataturk and Turkey are hardly the models, as suggested by Wolfowitz, for Afghanistan and other Muslim nations to follow to achieve democracy. In his July 14, 2002 speech Wolfowitz also stated: “When the illness of international terrorism struck the United States last September, Turkey quickly offered unconditional support...” Wolfowitz conveniently omits the fact that Turkey is an international terrorist state by virtue of its aggression against Cyprus in 1974, and a national terrorist state by its actions of ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and genocide against its 20 percent Kurdish minority. The double standard on the rule of law and international and national terrorism that the U.S. applies to Turkey damages the U.S.s war on international terrorism and makes a mockery of our moral and legal positions. See Exhibit 4 of the September 4, 2002 letter which discusses Turkey as an international and national terrorist state. Wolfowitz refers often to Turkeys democracy. The fact is otherwise. Turkey is still a military-dominated government, in which the military controls foreign affairs and national security policy and has harmful influence over domestic affairs. There is an absence in Turkey of minority rights, human rights, press freedom, speech freedom and religious freedom. Falsehoods and myths regarding Turkeys democracy have been propagated for years by Defense and State Department officials. Freedom House in its 2003 annual report calls Turkey only part-free. On March 13, 2002, in a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Wolfowitz failed to recognize that Turkey violated the NATO Treaty by its invasion of Cyprus and that the violation continues to this day. See Exhibit 6 of the September 4, 2002 letter which discusses Turkey's violation of the North Atlantic Treaty by its invasion of Cyprus. The false and misleading statements made by Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz on Turkey raise serious questions as to his credibility and the factual basis of his advice to the President and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on other issues such as Iraq. The U.S. double standard policy toward Turkey on the rule of law and the appeasement of Turkey these past decades, pursued by a handful of Defense and State Department officials and Turkeys paid foreign agents, have seriously damaged U.S. national interests. President Bush said “enough is enough” regarding the violence in the Middle East. The President, in the interests of the U.S., should tell his advisors that “enough is enough” regarding Turkeys aggression and occupation in Cyprus, its genocide against the Kurds, its blockade of humanitarian aid to Armenia, its national torture policy, its thousands of political prisoners, its jailing of journalists, the lack of religious freedom, its denial of the Armenian Genocide and the Turkish militarys control of national security and foreign policy and its harmful influence on domestic policy. Secretary Rumsfeld should ask for the resignations of Wolfowitz and Feith. ( The author of this Op-Ed item, is Gene Rossides, President of the American Hellenic Institute and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during the first Nixon Administration.)
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