Here are three Perle interviews from PBS's Frontline. Someone with a stronger stomach than me might want to check these for evolutionary evidence on the true belief front.
From Oct. 2001, banging the Iraq war drums early and often: pbs.org
From Jan 2003, as he's about to get the war he's worked so long and hard for: pbs.org
From July 2003, where the "blame it on the CIA" card is already in play, albeit in quite a different form than the current blame game:
pbs.org
Q: How can you explain that they were able to do that when the CIA and the DIA couldn't do it?
Perle: Because the CIA and the DIA were not looking. They had filtered out the whole set of possibilities, because it was inconsistent with their model. If you're walking down the street, [if] you're not looking for hidden treasure, you won't find it. If you're looking for it, you may find something. In this case, they hadn't been looking.
Q: Conversely, one criticism made of these efforts is that if you look for something, you will find it, simply because you are looking. The nature of intelligence is very often vague, and things can be interpreted one way or another.
Perle: Of course. There's no absolute truth to this. There's no absolute truth. But what Chris Carney and Mike Maloof and Dave Wurmser were doing, is going over previously collected intelligence with a fresh eye -- something that ought naturally to be done.
The whinging, the complaints from the intelligence establishment who had overlooked this material, [is] really quite pathetic. They have tried to suggest that there was somehow a politicization of intelligence, because people who didn't subscribe to their blinkered view of the world took a fresh look at old intelligence. I think it's absurd.
Personally, I think self-proclaimed war architect Perle calling other people absurd is rich. He got his war, though, and apparently is off looking for the next one already; others will have to clean up his mess. |
