Posted on: Sunday, May 11, 2003

EDITORIAL
Too much feeding at Bush Inc.'s trough

It doesn't help the Bush administration's claim that the Iraq War wasn't fought for oil when it 1) awards with a nonbid contract potential control over the country's oil fields to Vice President Dick Cheney's former company and then 2) introduces a resolution in the U.N. Security Council to turn Iraq oil revenues over to the United States instead of the U.N. oil-for-food program.

The oil development contract to a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. too easily leaves the impression that one purpose of the war was to grab oil fields for American companies.

This contract adds to the impression that myriad appointees and friends of the administration are finding a wide variety of ways to enrich themselves at the public trough, especially in the defense sector.

A leading case in point is Richard Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board, a group of outside advisers to the Pentagon. It's clear that Perle's private consulting and investment interests overlap — inappropriately, we believe — with his role on the board.

Perle resigned as board chairman after published reports indicated he had been employed as a consultant by bankrupt telecommunications company Global Crossing Ltd., which was trying to get Pentagon clearance to be sold to Li Ka-shing, chairman of Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.

But Perle is still on the board. At the end of February, reports the Los Angeles Times, Perle heard classified presentations to the board about the prospects for U.S. conflicts with North Korea and then, three weeks later, participated in a Goldman Sachs conference call for investors on possible defense investment opportunities, titled "Iraq Now. North Korea Next?"

"It sounds like he's squeezing every nickel out of the Defense Policy Board," said a retired admiral who had served on the board during the Clinton administration.

Indeed it does.