Biographies of the Neo-Cons

Elliott Abrams

Elliott Abrams is special assistant to the President and Senior Director for Near East and North African affairs on the National Security Council. Abrams prepares policy papers and options for NSC Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

There was dismay in some quarters when it was announced in December 2002 that Abrams was being appointed, to replace Zalmay Khalilzad who moved to become "ambassador-at-large for free Iraqis." Abrams' appointment was clearly a victory for the neo-conservatives in their battle against the State Department for control of Middle East policy. Abrams is an avid supporter of Israel and has been antagonistic to the Middle East peace process.

Abrams' dubious past while serving for the Reagan administration, and his role in the Iran-Contra affair increased the disquiet over his being given such a sensitive post. Some analysts think the George W. Bush administration decided on giving him an NSC post because any other post would have needed Senate confirmation.

James Zogby, director of the Arab-American Institute (AAI) said Abrams' appointment sent a "very dangerous message to the Arab world and adds to the lock that the neo-con set now has on all the major instruments of decision-making except for the State Department."

The appointment of Abrams was seen as showing that the Bush administration has fallen in with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's attitude to the peace process, and his determination that the Roadmap should lead nowhere. In his Middle East post at the NSC, Abrams is seen as having played a crucial role in the long delay in publishing the Roadmap.

Abrams is the son-in-law of veteran neo-conservative Norman Podhoretz. He is a member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and signed the PNAC Declaration of Principles in 1997. He contributed a chapter, on the Middle East, to the PNAC book Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign Policy and Defense Policy, published for the 2000 presidential campaign.

In the chapter Abrams, like other contributors, called for a pre-emptive toppling of Saddam Hussein. He wrote: "Strengthening our major ally in the region, Israel, should be the base of U.S. Middle East policy, and we should not permit the establishment of a Palestinian state that does not explicitly uphold U.S. policy in the region." He stressed that U.S. military strength and its willingness to use it will remain "a key factor in our ability to promote peace."

Abrams is one of those neo-conservatives who as a young man worked for the anti-Soviet pro-Israeli Democratic Senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson. Abrams was Reagan's Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights in the early 1980s, and then became Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs.

Abrams defended some of the worst human rights abuses, by regimes and U.S. troops in Central America. He was indicted by the Iran-Contra special prosecutor for giving false testimony, but pleaded guilty to two lesser offences of withholding information to Congress, and in this way managed to avoid a trial and possible imprisonment. He was sentenced to two years probation and 100 hours community service, but President George Bush Sr. pardoned him and some other Iran-Contra defendants on Christmas Eve of 1992.

After the Reagan administration ended in 1989, Abrams worked for various think tanks and eventually became head of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) where he wrote on the Middle East. In his 1997 book Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America he warns that the secularization of Jewish life in America and intermarriage is posing a grave threat to Jewish numbers and identity.

He stayed closely in touch with the group of neo-conservatives that centers around Richard Perle and former UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick (Kirkpatrick is a director of the EPPC) at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Ken Adelman

Ken Adelman served in the Ford and Reagan administrations, and is a member of the Defense Policy Board. He is a prominent neo-conservative commentator, with frequent contributions on TV and in the printed media. He is the national editor of The Washingtonian magazine (he conducted the magazine's 'What I've learned' series, interviewing, among others, King Hussein of Jordan). He teaches Shakespeare at George Washington University and has developed a management guide for business based on Shakespeare's works. Adelman is co-host of TechCentralStation.com where he runs the Defense pages.

Adelman was assistant to Donald Rumsfeld in 1975-77 when the already hawkish Rumsfeld first served as Defense Secretary, in the Ford administration. In his articles and TV appearances Adelman constantly harks back to the days he was assistant to Rumsfeld, of whom he remains a faithful supporter.

In 1981-83 Adelman was U.S. Ambassador to the UN. He served as Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1983-87. Michael Saba, in his book The Armageddon Network, notes that Adelman is one of the officials Richard Perle helped promote when Perle was Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Adelman has made some very objectionable statements on Islam. In 2002 he said that calling Islam a peaceful religion is "an increasingly hard argument to make. The more you examine the religion, the more militaristic it seems. After all, its founder, Mohamad, was a warrior, not a peace advocate like Jesus."

He is also a fierce critic of Saudi Arabia. "When the President says they're either with us or against us, I think by and large the Saudis are against us and they've been against us for the last 15 years," he said in the article 'Saudi Arabia: No Friend of Ours' posted on the Fox News website (Fox belongs to neo-conservative media magnate Rupert Murdoch) on December 11, 2002.

In the article, he criticized the "glitzy" Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar and ridiculed Secretary of State Colin Powell for referring to Saudi Arabia as "a great friend to the U.S. for many, many years and a strategic partner."

(The article is at: www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,72684,00.html).

In August 2002 Adelman poured scorn on Saudi warnings against a war on Iraq, and said, "What they really fear is to have a neighbor which is democratic, which is open, which is oil-rich, which is successful - like the top part of Iraq right now, the part that is protected by UK and U.S. airpower through the no-fly zone."

Like the other neo-conservatives Adelman was very keen to see an invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. He said: "By liberating Iraq and establishing a decent, tolerant government in Baghdad, the U.S. will achieve tremendous beneficial effects in the entire Middle East."

Adelman added: "My old mentor Donald Rumsfeld taught me years ago that if a problem seems intractable, like the Israeli-Palestinian problem does today, what you need to do is enlarge your terms of reference. By destroying Saddam Hussein, we would give peacemakers the opportunity to gain the upper hand over the suicide bombers among the Palestinians."

He claimed on the BBC-2 Newsnight program during the war on Iraq that U.S. actions in Iraq and its vision for the Middle East is in line with what Arabs themselves want, as expressed in UNDP's Arab Human Development Report, which was assembled by a team of Arab experts. Adelman omitted to mention that the report highlights the dreadful impact Israeli policies of occupation and repression have had on human development throughout the Arab world for many years.

William J. Bennett

William J. Bennett is regarded as a prime mover in the neo-conservative movement. He served as Reagan's Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and as Secretary of Education, and was President's Bush Sr.'s "drug czar."

Bennett is associated with the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and was one of the 25 signatories of its Statement of Principles in 1997. He is Distinguished Fellow in Cultural Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation. He is author of the book Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War On Terrorism, published February 2003, seen as anti-Islam and pro-Israeli.

After September 11, Bennett set up Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT) of which Paul Bremer, the top administrator for Iraq, is a senior advisor. Bennett's pro-Israeli sentiments are very evident in an article by James Dobson and himself on the AVOT website, responding to news that a group of prominent evangelical Christians had written to President Bush urging him to be "even-handed" towards Israelis and Palestinians (Bennett and Dobson had seen the story in the Saudi newspaper Arab News - "we doubt the signatories to the letter knew their words would be used as propaganda in a newspaper hosted and sponsored by a country where Christians can't even be citizens.")

Bennett and Dobson demanded that rather than be even-handed; Bush must take Israel's side, just as the U.S. supported Britain against Hitler. The letter also argued that Israeli settlements are not illegal.

Bennett has very close ties to the Republican Party. He wrote speeches for George W. Bush before he became president. He was a creator of Empower America, an organization which gives its five co-directors including Jeane Kirkpatrick access to media.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from Williams College, a Ph.D. in political philosophy from the University of Texas, and a law degree from Harvard. He has written and edited 11 books  - including The Book of Virtues, The Children's Book of Virtues, and The Death of Outrage: Bill Clinton and the Assault on American Ideals, which hit number one on The New York Times best seller list.

Despite his front as a moral neo-conservative, he has a darker side and on May 5, 2003 issued a statement saying "A number of stories in the media have reported that I have engaged in high stakes gambling over the past decade. It is true that I have gambled large sums of money. I have also complied with all laws on reporting wins and losses. Nevertheless, I have done too much gambling, and this is not an example I wish to set. Therefore, my gambling days are over."

John R. Bolton

John R. Bolton, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, is ultra right wing and was a prime architect of Bush's Iraq policy. He was a Senior Vice President for Public Policy Research at the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and on the board of advisors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) prior to being appointed to the State Department in May 2001.

Senator Jesse Helms has given him the endorsement: "John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon, if it should be my lot to be on hand for what is forecast to be the final battle between good and evil in this world." (It is said that Bolton himself believes in the inevitability of Armageddon).

Born in Baltimore in 1948, Bolton is a Yale-educated lawyer who held a variety of posts in the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.  He been General Counsel U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) 1981-82, Assistant Administrator for Programme and Policy Coordination at USAID (1982-83), Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice (1985-89), Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs at the State Department (1989-93).

In February 2003 Bolton visited Israel for meetings on "preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction," and met Prime Minister Sharon and Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Bolton is seen as sharing the views of Ariel Sharon.  In a very hawkish statement, he said that after the U.S. has dealt with Iraq, "It will be necessary to deal with the threats from Syria, Iran, and North Korea."

After Bush made his "axis of evil" speech, Bolton pressed for Cuba and Libya to be added to the axis. He has sought to add Cuba to the "axis," claiming it is developing biological weapons and sharing its expertise with enemies of the U.S.

Bolton is a strong supporter of the unilateral stance of the Bush administration. He has been a vociferous critic of the UN, warning that the UN might limit the U.S.'s ability to use its force in support of its national interests. He got the CIA to vet Dr. Hans Blix in 2002 because he doubted his reliability. Bolton now leads Donald Rumsfeld's charge to destabilize Powell's multilateralism.

Bolton argues that international law should have no validity because it might clash with U.S. unilateralism. He vehemently opposed the setting up of the International Criminal Court, and it was he who signed the letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in May 2002 renouncing any role for the U.S. in the ICC.

Bolton regularly contributes to William Kristol's right-wing Weekly Standard… His financial interests include oil and arms firms and JP Morgan Chase. Like former CIA chief James Woolsey he is said to think we are in the middle of World War IV, which he estimates could take 40 years to finish.

With Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Khalilzad, Bennett, Woolsey, Perle, and Kristol, Bolton co-signed a letter in 1998 urging President Bill Clinton to take military action in Iraq.

Bolton has pressed for Taiwan to be recognized as an independent state and to be given a seat at the UN. He has been on the payroll of the Taiwanese government, according to the Washington Post.

His hard-line stance on China was underlined when in 1999 he signed a statement prepared by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) criticizing the Clinton Administration for its failure to support Taiwan fully. Other right-wingers signed the statement, including Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, Elliot Abrams, William Buckley, and William Kristol.

L. Paul Bremer, III

On May 6, 2003, President Bush appointed Lewis Paul "Jerry" Bremer III, 61, as the top civilian administrator in Baghdad, to oversee Iraq's transition to democratic rule. Bremer is one of the world's leading authorities on terrorism. He had a 23-year career in the U.S. diplomatic service. In Iraq he was to head the team that included Jay Garner, the retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General who had been the top-ranking civilian in Iraq running the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA). Garner had been criticized for moving too slowly in restoring services and for allowing widespread looting. Bremer reports to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Bremer was expected to remain in Iraq for several months.

The appointment of Bremer was seen as the resolution of the prolonged dispute between the State Department and Pentagon over the administration of Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell had wanted greater civilian control while Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld emphasized the military angle. Bush stressed that Bremer goes with the "full blessing of this administration" - seen as referring to the discord between the State Department and Pentagon over Iraq's reconstruction. Bush said: "In selecting Bremer, our country will be sending one of our best citizens. He's a can-do-type person. He shares the same values as most Americans share, and that is our deep desire to have an orderly country in Iraq that is free and at peace, where the average citizen has a chance to achieve his or her dreams."

But Bremer has some quite hard-line views and is close to leading neo-conservatives in the Pentagon. It is said Bush chose him on the recommendation of Rumsfeld, from a list of 50 candidates. Bremer is a senior advisor to Americans for Victory Over Terrorism (AVOT) set up by William J. Bennett after 9/11.

In an article in the Washington Times on January 13, 2003 Bremer argued that the war on terror is not about Israel and Palestine and that "to argue that America must 'reengage' in the 'peace process' as a way of dealing with the root causes of Islamic extremism is fundamentally to misunderstand the nature of the new terrorist threat." He said that the fight cannot be won on the defensive and "we must go on the offensive. To be blunt, we have to kill the terrorists before they kill us." He said this is the year to deal with state sponsors of terrorism. "Regime change in Iraq, long a sponsor of terror, would be an excellent way to bring home to friends and foes that we are serious about terrorism and show that opposing the U.S. has a high cost."

Some human rights groups were worried over his appointment. When he was the chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism, Bremer advocated abandoning CIA guidelines restricting the recruitment of sources with records of human rights abuses. The executive director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth said after Bremer was appointed to Iraq: "His wiliness to strike a deal with an abusive figure could be problematic in Iraq, if he takes a similar approach."

Bremer joined the diplomatic service in 1966 and was assistant to William P. Rogers and Henry Kissinger when they were Secretaries of State. He was the U.S. ambassador-at-large for counter-terrorism from 1986 to 1989, responsible for developing and implementing U.S. global anti-terror policies. He was the top advisor to the President and Secretary of State on terrorism during this time. In 1983 President Reagan appointed him ambassador to the Netherlands, and he was there for over three years.

Bremer joined Kissinger Associates (Henry Kissinger's consulting firm) as managing director after leaving government in 1989.

Bremer headed the National Commission on Terrorism in 1999-2000 investigating the vulnerability of the U.S. to terrorist attacks. The commission's June 2000 report said the Defense Department should have plans to deal with a terrorist attack in the U.S. that could kill thousands of people and said Syria and Iran should remain on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. In June 2002 President Bush appointed Bremer to the 16-members Homeland Security Advisory Council.

Since 2001, he has been chairman and chief executive of Marsh Crisis Consulting, part of Marsh &McLennan Companies Inc. It advises companies on overcoming crises ranging from terror attacks to natural disasters.

Bremer has warned of the threat of Islamic terrorism to the U.S. In 1995, in an article in New Perspectives Quarterly , he said there is a new type of "decentralized, religion-motivated terrorism" fuelled by hatred of Americans and bent on destroying American society in a "holy war."

He particularly warned against Iran, alleging it is a major sponsor of terror groups. A report in the New York Times says that during deliberations over the final report for the National Terrorism Commission, "he pushed for strong language castigating the Clinton administration for not doing enough to press Iran to help in the investigation of the bombing at Khobar Towers (Saudi Arabia) in 1996 that killed 19 American military personnel, members said."

The report said U.S. efforts to signal support for political reform in Iran could be misinterpreted in Iran or by U.S. allies as signaling a weakening resolve on counter-terrorism.

After September 11, Bremer became more hawkish on Iraq and told an interviewer from The San Diego Union-Tribune in September 2001, referring to Iraq, "We're in for a major war here one way or the other."

Dr. Stephen D. Bryen

Stephen Bryen is a member of the board of advisors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), as is his old friend Richard Perle. His wife Shoshana Bryen is a Senior Director of JINSA, in charge of Special Projects.

Bryen is of particular interest as an example of someone who has embraced the "Israel first" concept fully. A keynote of his career has been his close friendship with Richard Perle, based on their shared love of Israel; the two have sailed extremely close to the wind in misusing their official positions for the benefit of Israel.

The close links between the two arch-Zionist neo-conservatives go back to the 1970s, and were shown to be in excellent working order in March 2003 when Bryen leapt to the defense of Perle, who was planning to launch a libel case against journalist Seymour Hersh. Bryen told the New York Sun (which belongs to Perle's London patron Lord Conrad Black) Perle should "get the Medal of Honor" for the work he's done on Iraq.

Bryen worked for Senator Clifford Case for seven years from 1971, in charge of foreign affairs issues from 1973, which he used in favor of Israel, promoting a stepping up of military aid to Israel while opposing aid to Arab governments. It has been said Bryen turned Clifford Case into "a Republican Henry Jackson."

Bryen and Perle are the focus of the book The Armageddon Network by Michael Saba (Amana Books 1984), which highlights how Bryen, Richard Perle and others were part of a network of influential officials who act as if "what is good for Israel is good for the United States." 

On March 9, 1978, in a coffee shop in Washington, Saba overheard Bryen, who was on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, with members of the Israeli government talking about how to influence U.S. policy to make it in favor of Israel. Bryen told them he had a Pentagon document "on the bases," which they were welcome to see. Saba told the Justice Department and submitted an affidavit. The story was eventually run by AP, which said a Pentagon source had disclosed that on March 8, a map of Saudi air bases to do with the sale of F-15s to Saudi Arabia had been released. An FBI inquiry into the affair was quietly dropped.

Bryen left his job on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and went to work for the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, founded in 1973 by Henry 'Scoop' Jackson and other hawkish Democrats. He was already a close friend of Jackson's most active staffer Richard Perle.

In 1979 Bryen's support for Israel became overt when he became executive director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which was dedicated to communicating "the need for greater American military support for Israel." JINSA had been set up in 1976, and became fully operational when Bryen was appointed. The board of directors included Michael Ledeen.

One main theme of the JINSA newsletter was the need for U.S. military presence in the Middle East, in cooperation with Israel. A major part of Bryen's strategy was to equate Arabs and Soviets. Bryen's wife Shoshana took over as executive director and as editor of the JINSA newsletter in summer 1981 after her husband moved to the Pentagon.

Bryen returned to government when after the 1980 Reagan presidential election victory Richard Perle was appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy and appointed Bryen as his deputy. Bryen served in this position from 1981 to 1988. He was responsible for technology security policy and hi-tech trade matters affecting national defense. He was twice awarded the Defense Department's highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Public Service Medal.

Bryen has numerous business interests, and has been an adjunct fellow of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He played a role in originating the funding of Israel's Merkava tank program.

He is the managing director of Aurora Defense, a consultancy specializing in national security and homeland defense. Aurora is playing an increasing role in the Homeland Defense effort. The company boasts that its "extensive high level contacts in government and the military facilitates clients access to decision-makers and informs decision-makers about break-through technologies vital to the Homeland Defense effort.

He was a founder of the Defense Technology Security Administration (DTSA) and served as its first director. He is on the board of directors of the U.S.-Israel Business Exchange which is "the champion of Israeli technology and business in Washington DC and its vicinity." It accelerates the entry of Israeli technology companies into the U.S. market and provides access for U.S. companies to opportunities coming from Israel.  He is also a member of the U.S.-China Security Review Commission.

In a 2001 article in the Baltimore Sun he highlighted the dangers from chemical and biological terrorist weapons and argued that events in Israel and the risk of sleeper agents in the U.S. made it questionable that self-defense measures would be enough. He said that Bush is right to say the only alternative open is to go after the terrorists and their supporters and destroy them.

Stephen A. Cambone

Stephen Cambone was sworn in as Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence on March 11, 2003. The position was created by Rumsfeld to emphasize the importance of intelligence gathering and interpretation in the new security environment of the 21^st Century. Cambone had been Special Assistant to the Secretary and Director for Program Analysis & Evaluation. Prior to this, he served as Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

Cambone has served as Director of Research at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. He has also served as a Senior Fellow for Political-Military Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In 1993, while serving at the Department of Defense as Director of Strategic Defense Policy, he received the Secretary of Defense Award for Outstanding Service. He graduated from Catholic University and went on to earn a master's degree and Ph.D. from Claremont University Graduate School.

Ahmad Chalabi

Leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), his supporters include Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld who had pushed for him to be leader of the post-war Iraq. Has also been referred to as Vice President Dick Cheney's protégé. But the State Department and CIA are opposed to him and have seen him as a charlatan. He has long-standing links going back years with Wolfowitz, Perle, and after George W. Bush became President he established ties with others in the administration; including Rumsfeld, Feith, and Libby. Former CIA chief James Woolsey also supports him. He is backed by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), which he has addressed, and he is linked to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). JINSA organized a trip for him to Israel.

Chalabi was convicted in absentia in Jordan for his part in a massive bank embezzlement scandal, but Chalabi claims that in the scandal he was framed under pressure on Jordan from Saddam. Chalabi received up to $12 million from Washington after the first Gulf War.

Richard B. Cheney

Vice President Dick Cheney (62) was Defense Secretary in 1989-1993 under George Bush Sr., and has been described as "Capitol Hill's resident hawk-in-chief." He was harder line than Colin Powell during the first Gulf War, although like Powell he did not support overthrowing Saddam Hussein at that time. It was Cheney who brought the Arab members of the coalition on board in the first Gulf War.

Cheney is said to be the most powerful Vice President ever, and some refer to him as the  "Co-President." He has confirmed that he is to be George W. Bush's running mate in the re-election campaign. His daughter Elizabeth Cheney is Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs (her husband Philip is general counsel at the Office of Management and Budget)

When Bush needed a new national security strategy for the changed situation after September 11, Cheney was able to point him to the study Paul Wolfowitz and Libby Lewis had prepared for Cheney in 1992 when he was Defense Secretary. This study has been incorporated into policy.

Cheney has fully backed Bush in applying the President's unilateral powers, such as setting up military tribunals by presidential order rather than through Congress.

Cheney played a key role in making the case against Saddam Hussein in public, particularly in his speech to the Veterans of Foreign wars in Nashville in August 2002 when he catalogued Saddam's crimes and threats and warned that the U.S. would go after Saddam alone if need be.

Cheney's career in public service started in 1969 when he joined the Nixon administration and he also served under President Ford. In November 1975 he was named Assistant to the President and White House Chief-of-Staff, a position he held throughout the remainder of the Ford administration. He then became a Republican Congressman for Wyoming.

Cheney was a founding member of Project for a New American Century (PNAC), signing its 1997 Declaration of Principles, and was on the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) board of advisors. His wife Lynne Cheney is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Victoria Nuland, who is married to neo-conservative pundit and author Robert Kagan and was U.S. deputy chief of mission to NATO, has been appointed as Cheney's number two foreign policy advisor.

Before becoming vice-president, Cheney was for five years chairman and chief executive officer of the oil company Halliburton, based in Dallas. His former association with Halliburton comes back to haunt him from time to time. Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root won contracts from the U.S. army corps of Engineers to put out oil well fires in Iraq.

There was embarrassment for Cheney when it was revealed in early May 2003 that Halliburton had been given a far bigger role in Iraq than previously disclosed. Its subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root was already pumping up oil despite earlier claims that its contract with the U.S. government was to fight oil fires.

Douglas J. Feith

Douglas Feith (49) is Under-Secretary for Policy at the Pentagon, (the job Paul Wolfowitz had in the first Bush administration), number three civilian at the Pentagon after Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Feith is a former Reagan official. And chooses members of the Defense Policy Board. His job is seen as very powerful job.

Feith is a graduate of Harvard and of Georgetown Law Center, and served as Middle East specialist on the National Security Council in the Reagan administration and then had a variety of posts at the Pentagon, becoming Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense. He was a Pentagon placement when Richard Perle was Assistant Defense Secretary in the 1980s. He left in 1986 to found his Washington DC law firm Feith & Zell. On his departure from the Department of Defense, he received the Department's highest civilian award, the Distinguished Public Service Medal. In 1989 Feith established International Advisors Incorporated, a lobbying firm whose main client was the Turkish government.

Feith has been on the board of advisors of JINSA. He hired Michael Mobbs to work at his law firm Feith and Zell; Mobbs has been appointed in Iraq to oversee 11 ministries. Feith has been consistently anti-Palestinian. He criticized Jimmy Carter's Camp David initiative to bring about a comprehensive peace. Feith is one of those who drew up A Clean Break in 1996 for the Netanyahu government.

A prolific author, Feith's essays about Israel and other subjects have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New Republic, Commentary and elsewhere. Feith was a founding member of the Center for Security Policy's board of advisors and was a director of CSP before joining the Bush administration.

Feith's father Dalck Feith was in 1930s Poland active in Betar, the Zionist youth movement founded by Ze'ev Jabotinsky. Dalck Feith later joined the Zionist underground, fought in World War II with the U.S. Merchant Marine, and went on to become a business leader in Philadelphia. Dalck Feith has served as General Chairman of the Federation Allied Jewish Appeal of Philadelphia, and was a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He has been honored for his good works by numerous prominent institutions and organizations, including Brandeis University, Hebrew University, and Israel Bonds.

At a dinner in November 1997 Douglas Feith and his father were honored by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Dalck Feith received the ZOA's special Centennial Award, for his lifetime of service to Israel and the Jewish people. Douglas Feith received the Louis D. Brandeis Award.

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.

Frank Gaffney is the president and CEO of one of the main neo-conservative think tanks, the Center for Security Policy (CSP) in Washington. He has served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy (1987), Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy (1983-1987) - under Assistant Secretary Richard Perle - and Professional Staff Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee, chaired by Senator John Tower (1981-1983). In the late 1970s, Gaffney was an aide to Senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson in the areas of defense and foreign policy.

Gaffney was a signatory to the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) Statement of Principles in 1997 and is extremely supportive of Israel.  Gaffney is a columnist for the Washington Times, a monthly contributor to Defense News and Investor's Business Daily, a contributing editor to National Review Online and a columnist for American Spectator Online, WorldNetDaily.com and JewishWorldReview.com

Although Gaffney is regarded as a neo-conservative, he professes to dislike the term and prefers to describe himself, Richard Perle and others of their ilk as 'realists.' Some disagree with his use of the term, pointing out that in the field of international relations and strategic studies, 'realists' consider that peace is best maintained by realizing a balance of power between states; thus former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger would be seen as a realist, while the neo-conservatives who disparaged his approach are 'idealists.'

Jay M. Garner

Jay Garner was in effect demoted when Paul Bremer was appointed to head the reconstruction effort in Iraq in early May.

A shadow had been cast over the retired army general Lieutenant-General Jay Garner's appointment as head of the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) in Iraq when it was revealed that he had visited Israel in 1998 on a trip organized by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).

Garner had put his name to a JINSA-sponsored statement in October 2000 blaming the Palestinians for the outbreak of violence saying that during the current upheavals, "The Israeli Defense Forces have exercised remarkable restraint in the face of lethal violence orchestrated by the leadership of a Palestinian Authority that deliberately pushes civilians and young people to the front lines." 

The statement accused Palestinians of filling their children with hate. It added, "What makes the U.S.-Israel security relationship one of mutual benefit is the combination of military capabilities and shared political values - freedom, democracy and the rule of law… America's responsibility as a friend to Israel, the only country in the Middle East that shares our democratic and humanitarian values, should never yield to America's role as a facilitator in this process. Friends don't leave friends on the battlefield."

More than 40 retired U.S. admirals and generals signed the statement. JINSA regularly pays retired U.S. military officers to visit Israel for security briefings by Israeli officials and politicians.

Some observers saw Garner's appointment as a monumental Pentagon misjudgment.

The JINSA statement created intense suspicion of the agenda Garner was serving, and earned him the label of Zionist. Ibrahim Hooper of the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations said: "It sends completely the wrong signal. From the perspective of the Muslim and Arab world, it is inappropriate to have someone who has exhibited strong pro-Israel sentiments as the veritable ruler of Iraq. It will be seen as confirming the sense that it is not a war of liberation but a war to promote the state of Israel."

And in any case many in Iraq, especially Islamic groups, resented being governed by an old soldier they see as a U.S. colonialist. He has been referred to by terms such as president-designate, viceroy, regent, pro-consul, Sheriff of Baghdad and so on. But he insisted that he is not there to represent American imperialism, but to "create an environment inside Iraq so that they can build a nation for themselves."

Garner did show a remarkable lack of tact on occasion. On April 30, he reprimanded reporters traveling with Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad for focusing on the deficiencies in the effort to restore civilian order and services. He said, "We ought to look in a mirror and get proud, and stick out our chests and suck in our bellies and say 'Damn, we're Americans!'"

Garner has also been criticized for his presidency of SY Coleman, the Defense contractor that gives technical assistance for the Patriot and Arrow missiles used by Israel. SY Coleman is now part of a communications-led outfit L3. A spokesman of L3 said the firm does not make military hardware but specializes in the guidance systems.

One reason Garner was chosen for his position in Iraq was that he helped create the Kurdish autonomous area of northeastern Iraq in the early 1990s. His appointment is due to the personal ties he subsequently formed with Donald Rumsfeld. The two got to know each other well in the late 1990s when Garner served on a missile defense commission headed by Rumsfeld.

Garner was born in 1938 in the hamlet of Arcadia in Florida. He fought in Vietnam and was a counter-insurgency fighter in the central highlands and became fluent in Vietnamese. By 1994 he had become Commander of the U.S. Space and Strategic Defense Command, then Assistant Chief-of-Staff until he retired from the army in 1997.

Reuel Marc Gerecht

Reuel Marc Gerecht is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Director of the Middle East Initiative at the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). He contributed to the PNAC book Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign Policy (Editors Robert Kagan & William Kristol; Encounter Books, 2000) and is the author under the pseudonym of Edward Shirley of Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey into Revolutionary Iran (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997).

A Farsi-speaking former CIA agent, Gerecht writes frequently on the Middle East, Central Asia, terrorism, and intelligence, in such publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Middle East Quarterly, Playboy and Talk. He has been critical of the un-preparedness of the CIA for the role thrust upon it by the war on terror.

Robert Kagan

Robert Kagan is co-founder with William Kristol of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). He is a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a contributing editor at the Kristol-edited Weekly Standard and a columnist for the Washington Post. Dick Cheney has chosen Kagan's wife Victoria Nuland as his Deputy National Security Advisor. Nuland was previously U.S. deputy chief of mission to NATO.

From 1985 to 1988 Kagan was Deputy for Policy in the State Department's Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. Prior to that, from 1984 to 1985, he was a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff. In 1983 he served as foreign policy advisor to Congressman Jack Kemp and as Special Assistant to the Deputy Director of the U.S. Information Agency and in 1981 he was Assistant Editor at the Public Interest.

Kagan is author of the book Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, which has been in the New York Times bestseller list. Its most famous lines are: "Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus: They agree on little and understand one another less and less."

Robert Kagan and his brother Frederick are the sons of Donald Kagan who has taught at Yale for 34 years and last year became Sterling Professor of Classics and History. Donald Kagan was a liberal Democrat, and became a neo-conservative in the 1970s. For more than a quarter of a century he taught the popular Origins of War course. The three Kagans often write articles and columns urging even greater spending on defense.

Donald and his son Frederick, a professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, jointly wrote the book While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today, published in 2000, which argues in favor of missile Defense and warns of the future threats to the U.S.

Frederick Kagan is author of The Military Reforms of Nicholas I and has written numerous scholarly and technical articles, including in the Wall Street Journal.

Irving Kristol

Irving Kristol is one of the fathers of the neo-conservative movement. He is a Senior Fellow of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

Kristol researches culture, ethics, and religion. He is publisher of The National Interest. Irving Kristol was born in New York City in 1920, graduated from the City College of New York in 1940, and was managing editor of Commentary magazine from 1947 to 1952; cofounder with Stephen Spender of the British magazine Encounter (which was funded by the CIA) and its editor from 1953 to 1958. He was professor of social thought at the New York University Graduate School of Business from 1969 to 1988.

Kristol is the founder of The Public Interest and The National Interest. He was co-editor of The Public Interest (first with Daniel Bell, then with Nathan Glazer) from its founding in 1965 until 2002 and publisher of The National Interest from its founding in 1985 to 2001. Since 1972, he has been a member of the Wall Street Journal Board of Contributors. He is the author of numerous books including On the Democratic Idea in America, Two Cheers for Capitalism, and Neo-Conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea.

The National Interest, founded in 1985, claims to one of the three premier journals in the field of international affairs, along with Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy.  "In 1989 we shaped the post-Cold War debate by publishing Francis Fukuyama's famous and controversial article The End of History?. Later we dedicated a whole issue to a searching inquiry on The Strange Death of Soviet Communism, contributors to which included the Soviet specialists Richard Pipes and Robert Conquest, along with Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow."

William Kristol

Irving Kristol's son William is a pivotal figure among the neo-conservatives, being a founder in 1997 and the chairman of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and the editor of The Weekly Standard, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Writer and political analyst Jim Lobe describes him as 'Crown Prince of the neo-conservative clique.'

William, or Bill, is seen of being of similar importance to the neo-conservative movement as his father was in earlier days. Early in his career he worked for Democrats including Hubert Humphrey and Henry 'Scoop' Jackson, but by 1976 he had become a Republican.

After George Bush Sr. was elected in 1988, Kristol was appointed Chief-of-Staff to Vice President Dan Quayle (the New Republic dubbed him "Dan Quayle's Brain"). Under President Reagan, he had been Chief-of-Staff of Secretary of Education William Bennett.  Before going to Washington in 1985, he taught politics at the University of Pennsylvania and at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

From 1993 to 1994 Kristol was chairman of The Project for the Republican Future, which helped shape the strategy that produced the 1994 Republican Congressional victory. In 1993 he was director of the Bradley Project on the 1990s at the Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee.

In 1994, after the Republicans took over Congress, Kristol approached right-wing media tycoon Rupert Murdoch to back his new conservative magazine The Weekly Standard, which is an 'in house' newspaper for the neo-conservatives, many of whom express their views through its pages.

The Weekly Standard has a circulation of 55,000, far less than The Nation (which is liberal) circulation of 127,000 and the National Review (conservatives) 154,000 readers. But it has an influence way out of proportion to its circulation, and its articles are widely circulated through websites and e-mails.

William Kristol is the co-author, with Lawrence F. Kaplan, of the book The War Over Iraq: Saddam's Tyranny and America's Mission published in February 2003, which, looks at the new Roadmap, needed after September 11 destroyed the "complacent assumptions'" of the post-Cold War era.

The book, which puts the case for the "liberation" of Iraq, argues that the decision on what course to take in dealing with Iraq is particularly significant because it is about so much more than Iraq - it is about more even than the future of the Middle East and the war on terror. "It is about what sort of role the U.S. intends to play in the world in the 21^st century." Hence, the reasons for choosing war against Saddam and the lessons to draw from it will be as momentous as the choice itself. Iraq, which has seen a record of U.S. failure, can provide a model for success.  Bush speaks of engaging Iraq, and the world, in accord with American principles.

The authors speak of a more "hopeful future"- "The wisdom of regime change, the merits of promoting democracy, the desirability of American power and influence - these issues extend well beyond Iraq. So we dare to hope that this work will prove useful even after Baghdad is finally free." Some dismissed the book as mere propaganda and as assuming everything American is best.

In an article in The Weekly Standard on May 5, 2003, entitled The End of the Beginning, Kristol writes: "The liberation of Iraq was the first great battle for the future of the Middle East." The next "great battle - not we hope a military battle - will be for Iran. We are already in a death struggle with Iran over the future of Iraq. Iran is the tipping point in the war on proliferation, the war on terror and the effort to reshape the Middle East. If Iran goes pro-Western and anti-terror, positive changes in Syria and Saudi Arabia will follow much more easily. And the chances for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement will greatly improve."

He adds: "On the outcome of the confrontation with Tehran, more than any other, rests the future of the Bush Doctrine--and, quite possibly, the Bush presidency--and prospects for a safer world." He says the war should be taken to Iran through measures ranging from "public diplomacy to covert operations."

Kristol is an advisor to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies set up after September 11 to focus on the war on terror.

Michael A. Ledeen

Michael Ledeen holds the Freedom Chair and is resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington. He is also on the board of advisors of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). Ledeen is a particularly hawkish neo-conservative, with a lot of influence among policymakers. He lectures on war and peace, terrorism, the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. He is an advisor to Bush advisor and to presidential campaign mastermind Karl Rove.

In 1981-86, Ledeen was a special advisor and consultant to top policy officials in the Reagan administration, including the Secretary of State, National Security Advisor and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Ledeen was deeply involved in the Iran-Contra affair while a consultant to National Security Advisor Robert C. McFarlane, and there was much controversy over the intricate details of Ledeen's role including his involvement with various Israeli figures and with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. He gave his version of the affair in the book Perilous Statecraft: An Insiders Account of the Iran-Contra Affair.

Ledeen's biographical notes, posted on the AEI website and elsewhere, boast that he is one of the world's leading authorities on intelligence, contemporary history and international affairs, and that "in a few years in government he carried out some of the most sensitive and dangerous missions in recent American history." They quote a profile as saying "this is a man who has helped shape American foreign policy at its highest levels…as Ted Koppel puts it, 'Michael Ledeen is a Renaissance man… in the tradition of Machiavelli."

Ledeen is the author of 15 books, among them The War Against the Terror Masters  (published in 2002, highly-praised by Bernard Lewis); Tocqueville on American Character; Machiavelli of Modern Leadership, and Freedom Betrayed: How American Led a Global Democratic Revolution, Won the Cold War and Walked Away.

Ledeen writes for the Wall Street Journal, The International Economy, the American Spectator, the New York Sun and National Review and so on. (In addition to promulgating his ultra-hawkish views, he writes about contract bridge for the Wall Street Journal and New York Sun).

Following the military campaign in Iraq, Ledeen has been urging that the U.S. take on Iran and Syria, in terms that are worry some observers. He dubs Iran "the mother of modern terrorism," and told JINSA on April 30, 2003 that now is the time for Iranian "liberation." He also said it is "clear that Saudi Arabia is the main financier of terrorism, and that mosques and schools built by the Saudis continue to preach the Wahhabi doctrine of global Jihad (holy war) against non-believers and urging that arms be taken up against the U.S., Israel and their allies."

Ledeen said the Middle East is on the verge of drastic change, and concluded by saying, "the time for diplomacy is at an end; it is time for a free Iran, free Syria and free Lebanon."

According to Ledeen, the process by which this should be achieved is a violent one, termed "total war." "Total war not only destroyed the enemy's military forces, but also brings the enemy society to an extremely personal point of decision, so that they are willing to accept a reversal of the cultural trends," Ledeen writes. "The sparing of civilians lives cannot be the total war's first priority… The purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another people."

He wrote an article in March 2003 in the New York Post about "The story of Iran's mad dash to develop nuclear weapons." He claimed that "the relationship between Iran and North Korea is still under appreciated," and that "the mullahs are determined to obliterate Israel." He suggested that Iran could be like a state suicide bomber, attacking Israel with nuclear weapons even if it knows that Israel would retaliate and wipe Iran off the map. "Why are we doing nothing to support the Iranian people's efforts to rid themselves of their monstrous regime?" He criticized Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage for saying that Iran is a democracy. "Why are we making deals with Iranian-sponsored Shiites regarding the future of Iraq?" Ledeen asked. "Will we finally move against all the components of the "Axis of Evil," or must we wait until President Bush's analysis is confirmed by a new act of horror?"

In an April 14, 2003 article in The Australian he called for regime change in Syria and Iran. "No one I know wants to wage war on Iran and Syria, but there is now a clear recognition that we must defend ourselves against them. They are an integral part of the terror network that produced 11 September. Left undisturbed, they will kill us in Iraq and Afghanistan and mount new attacks on our homelands." He said unlike Iraq there is no need for a military campaign. "Our most potent weapons are the peoples of Syria and Iran and they are primed, loaded and ready to fire. We should now pull the political lanyards and unleash democratic revolution on the terror masters in Damascus and Tehran."

I. Lewis Libby

Lewis 'Scooter' Libby is Chief-of-Staff of Vice President Dick Cheney. He worked in the Defense Department during George Bush Sr.'s presidency, and is a particular friend and confidant of Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

Libby was a founding member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and he was one of the participants in the PNAC's 2000 report Rebuilding America's Defenses - Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, along with Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Gary Schmitt and others.

In March 1992 Libby was appointed to the new position of Deputy Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy. Prior to that he had been Principal Deputy Under-Secretary for Strategy and Resources at the Defense Department. From 1985 to 1989 he was a partner with the law firm of Dickstein, Shapiro and Morin in Washington. In 1982-85 he was Director of Special Projects at the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the State Department, and he was on the Policy Planning Staff in the Office of the Secretary in 1981-82. He is a graduate from Yale and Columbia University School of Law.

Libby is particularly associated with the report 'Defense Planning Guidance,' which he and Wolfowitz produced for then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in 1992.  At the time, the report, which called for pre-emptive action against states developing weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was seen as reckless and over-aggressive, but since September 11 the policy of pre-emption has become mainstream administration policy.

Libby is on the board of the Rand Corporation, which has many contacts with the Pentagon. He owns shares in armaments companies and has oil interests. He is a consultant to Northrop Grumman, the defense contractor, which has an active presence in the Defense Policy Board of the Pentagon.

Libby's reputation has been tainted by his having been chief defense counsel to Marc Rich, who had faced federal charges of evading more than $48 million in taxes, fraud and taking part in illegal oil deals with Iran. Libby became embroiled in the controversy over Marc Rich's pardon by President Bill Clinton just before he left office.

Clinton has asserted that it was pressure from Israel rather than donations from Marc Rich and his ex-wife Denise that led him to the pardon. Libby represented Rich for several years ending in spring 2000. Libby told the House Government Reform Committee on March 1, 2001 that he believed Rich was not guilty of the tax and racketeering charges filed by federal prosecutors in 1983. He declined to say whether he approved of the decision to pardon Rich, but conceded that he did call Rich two days after the pardon to congratulate him, making it clear he did this in a personal capacity, calling from home, rather than as a representative of the Bush administration.

Michael H. Mobbs

Michael Mobbs (54) is a Pentagon lawyer and consultant who was to take charge of 11 of 23 ministries in Iraq. He is a notorious hawk who is a close friend of Richard Perle, and who worked for the law firm of Douglas Feith. He inspired what has become known as the "Mobbs declaration," a document presented to the U.S. courts on behalf of the Pentagon claiming that the U.S. president has wide powers to indefinitely detain American citizens alleged to be enemy combatants.

Mobbs created the legal framework for the indefinite detention of Al Qaeda suspects at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay. In his role at the Pentagon, Mobbs has been helping determine the legal fate of terror suspects and other detainees held by the U.S. military in Cuba and Afghanistan.

During the Reagan administration, Mobbs worked at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, where he became known for his hawkish views on national security and American-Soviet relations. On these issues he was closely aligned with the Assistant Defense Secretary at the time, Richard Perle. Mobbs later joined a Washington law firm where Douglas Feith - now Under-Secretary for policy at the Pentagon - was a partner. In the 1980s, Feith hired him to help with lobbying for Turkey. 

Richard N. Perle

A member of JINSA's board of advisors. Richard Perle, nicknamed the Prince of Darkness, is probably the most high profile and brazen of the neo-conservatives. Perle is a frequent commentator on TV and in the press, and is himself often the subject of unfavorable reporting.

Perle's deep commitment to Israel and his readiness to work within the U.S. political establishment in Israel's interests have been apparent over the past three decades. At the same time he has a marked tendency to mix his political and business activities in questionable ways, and such activities led to his quitting the chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board in March 2003.

Perle has for years expertly maneuvered his way in and out of the highest levels of government. He has great influence with the administration through his close contact with senior administration hawks - Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Under-Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith and the State Department's Under-Secretary for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton. Some call this group of contacts "the string of Perles."

Perle used his platform as the chairman of the quasi-official Defense Policy Board to argue that a full-scale pre-emptive strike against Iraq must be the next move in the post-September 11 "war on terror." He has also been very hostile to the UN, as an unnecessary encumbrance to U.S. unilateralism, and wrote a newspaper article entitled Thank God for the Death of the UN.

Perle was born in New York in 1941 and has a BA from the University of Southern California and an MA in political science from Princeton University. He was in the 1970s a staffer for Democrat Senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson, one of the most anti-communist and pro-Israeli members of the Senate.

Perle was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy from 1981 to 1987, and he opposed arms-control agreements with the Soviets. He was chairman of the Defense Policy Board from July 2001, until he was forced to resign. He remains a member of the Board.

Perle is a member of many of the neo-conservative think tanks and of the various neo-conservative initiatives in recent years. He is a resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He was an advisor to the lobbying firm run by Douglas Feith, now the Pentagon's Under-Secretary of Defense.

He worked as an aide to former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and was an author of the 1996 report 'A Clean Break' prepared for Netanyahu, which has proved to outline with uncanny prescience the way things have developed - or from the Arab point of view deteriorated - in the Middle East since then. Perle is an advisor to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, set up after September 11 to focus on the war on terrorism.

In his business life, he was advisor to International Advisors Incorporated in 1989-1994, director of the Autonomy Corporation, managing partner of Trireme Partners LP, and advisor to Global Crossing Ltd. He is a director of the Jerusalem Post and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Conrad Black's Hollinger Digital Inc. He was a producer of PBS's The Gulf Crisis: The Road to War in 1992.

In his introduction to David Wurmser's book Tyranny's Ally - America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, published in 1999, Perle said the book was important not only for investigating the policy into Iraq, but also on a broader level for opening a debate about the premises and quality of Middle Eastern policy makers and scholars.

Perle said there had been two wrong assumptions; one that toleration of tyranny rather than support for freedom best secures stability, and the other is that a strong and resolute America would be regarded in the Middle East as provocative and insensitive. Such ideas have led the U.S. to failure.

Perle's own books include Reshaping Western Security published in 1991, and was paid $300,000 by Random House to write Hard Line (1992) about his time in the Reagan administration.

Perle accepted an offer from Donald Rumsfeld in mid-2001 to chair the Defense Policy Board and under his chairmanship it has become increasingly powerful. At the same time his chairmanship has attracted unwelcome publicity. In July 2002 Perle invited Rand Corp. analyst Laurent Murawiec, a former follower of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche, to address the Board on Saudi Arabia. The Washington Post reported on the briefing on its front page on August 6.  Murawiec claimed Saudi Arabia was active at every level of the terror chain "from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader."

Murawiec recommended that the U.S. target Saudi Arabia's oil, financial holdings and even its holy places unless it stamped out anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli writings, stopped funding fundamentalist mosques and prosecuted or isolated "those involved in the terror chain, including in the Saudi intelligence services."

Secretary of State Colin Powell told Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal the briefing had no bearing on U.S. policy. Donald Rumsfeld also distanced himself from the presentation, while Perle told Time magazine he had not known what Murawiec was going to say in advance.

As a member of the Defense Policy Board, Perle is a federal government employee and he should not use his position to benefit himself financially. Perle resigned as chairman on March 27 after publication in the media of reports on two matters. The first was that he had been employed as a consultant by bankrupt telecommunications firm Global Crossing Ltd, which was trying to get Pentagon clearance to be sold to Asian investors. Perle had an arrangement with Global Crossing to get $600,000 on top of his retainer of $125,000 if the Pentagon and other government agencies approved its sale. The second was that he had been seeking investments from a Saudi businessman who was seeking to influence U.S. policy on Iraq.

In his letter of resignation, Perle told Rumsfeld he was resigning because "I have seen controversies like this before and I know that this one will inevitably distract from the urgent challenge in which you are now engaged."

Details of Perle's dealings with two Saudi businessmen were given by Seymour Hersh in an article published in March 2003 in The New Yorker. Hersh wrote that there had been a private lunch in Marseilles on January 3, attended by Perle and Iraqi-born Saudi industrialist Harb Saleh Al Zuhair, arranged by Adnan Khashoggi. Perle is a managing partner in the venture-capital company Trireme Partners, whose main business is to invest in companies dealing in technology, goods and services that are of value to homeland security and defense.

Two other Defense Policy Board members, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Gerald Hillman are also associated with Trireme. Hersh said it wanted to attract more investors such as Khashoggi and Al Zuhair.

Khashoggi and Al Zuhair told Hersh that they understood one of Trireme's objectives was to seek the help of influential Saudis to win homeland security contract with the Saudi royal family. Khashoggi told Hersh that he was the intermediary. Al Zuhair was keen to discuss the situation over Iraq with Perle, in order to see if war could be avoided. The two Saudis said the lunch had two purposes. Al Zuhair wanted the chance to propose a peaceful alternative to war. The second was to pave the way for Al Zuhair to assemble a group of ten Saudi businessmen to invest $10 million each in Trireme. Perle stuck to the line that Saddam must be got rid of.

Perle acknowledged he had met two Saudis at the lunch but denied there was any discussion of Trireme or indeed any money matters. He stated the lunch was not about money. Hersh says when Perle's lunch with the two Saudis and his connection with Trireme became known to a few high ranking members of the Saudi royal family they reacted with anger and astonishment. Perle has often expressed anti-Saudi views in public, with sentiments such as "the Saudis are a major source of the problem we face with terrorism."

Perle declared he would sue Hersh, in London rather than in the USA. He obviously thought he would stand a greater chance of winning in London.

There was a further outcry about Perle's business dealings when the Los Angeles Times revealed on May 7, 2003 that in February the Defense Policy Board received a classified presentation from the super-secret Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) on the crises in North Korea and Iraq. Three weeks later Perle, who was still chairman of the Defense Policy Board, offered a briefing of his own at a Goldman Sachs investment seminar on ways to profit from possible conflicts in both countries.

Perle and his fellow advisors on the Board also heard a classified address about high-tech military communications systems at the same closed-door session in February. Perle runs a venture capital firm that has been exploring investments in that very area.

"The disclosures in recently released board agendas and investment documents are the latest illustrations of how Perle's private consulting and investment interests overlap with his role on the board, which advises the Secretary of Defense," the Los Angeles Times commented. It quoted Retired Rear Admiral Thomas Brooks, who served on the Board during the Clinton administration, as saying Perle's actions were certainly "questionable" and that "it sounds like he's squeezing every nickel out of the Defense Policy Board."

The question marks over Perle go very far back, as is shown by the book The Armageddon Network by Michael Saba (Amana 1984) in which he is a central character. At the time Perle was Assistant Secretary of Defense and Stephen Bryen was his deputy, the two were part of a network of individuals working in Israel's interests. Both were seen as hawks in a hawkish administration.

Before that, when Perle was working as the most active staffer of Democratic Senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson, he already had a reputation as someone who leaked sensitive information. Perle was leaked a top-secret document by a CIA analyst on Soviet missile strength, which he passed to Jackson. CIA director Stansfield Turner fired the CIA agent and told Jackson he should fire Perle, but Perle and Jackson merely apologized to Turner. Perle was also caught out, through wiretapping, discussing classified information with the Israeli Embassy. The incidents started in 1978. Perle called for increased military spending, was an ardent supporter of Israel, hard-line against the Soviets.

By 1983 Perle had appointed Bryen as his deputy. Their brief was not the Middle East, but in practice Perle continued to involve himself in Middle Eastern affairs. Perle also opposed the Kuwait takeover of Santa Fe International Corp. the oil drilling equipment company. Perle opposed it on grounds of national security.

In April 1983 the New York Times published a front page saying that Perle, the Assistant Secretary of Defense, had recommended that the U.S. Army consider buying weapons from an Israeli company a year after he accepted a $50,000 consultancy fee from the company's owners. He got the fee the same month he entered government in 1981. Before publication Perle made every effort through influential friends and so on to get the story pulled from the New York Times. Other newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe condemned Perle's actions.

As Michael Saba wrote in The Armageddon Network, "Richard Perle proved he could make his military expertise and allegiance to Israel pay handsomely."

Perle's wife Leslie Barr shared his views. In October 1981 she was appointed to a high-level position in the Department of Commerce and in late 1981 and early 1982 she helped to develop a Reagan administration plan to force U.S. oil companies to stop operations in Libya. She claimed Libyan oil imports were a risk to U.S. national security.

Saba found a clear alliance between Perle, Bryen and between their policies and an array of people inside and outside government. Perle and Bryen had technology transfer as part of their brief at the Pentagon. Perle fought for much tougher controls, and this was to Israel's benefit. As Israel, which wanted to develop its high technology exports, could export what the U.S. was not allowed to.

Perle's mentor Albert Wohlstetter, who played an important role in drawing up the Pentagon's strategic and nuclear blueprints during the Cold War, cherished the idea of a Turkey-U.S.-Israel axis. When Perle was in the Defense Department in the Reagan years, he fostered relations with Turkey, and it was he who in 1986 reached the agreement for a five-year Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement with Turkey. In the late 1980s Perle started lobbying on behalf of Turkey, obtaining  $231,000 for these activities between 1990 and 1994.

Norman Podhoretz

Norman Podhoretz is a veteran neo-conservative who has exerted an enormous pull. He is married to Midge Decter, and together they helped found the Committee on the Present Danger in the late 1970s and the Committee for the Free World in the early 1980s, which Decter co-chaired with Donald Rumsfeld.

Norman Podhoretz joined Hudson Institute as a senior fellow in May 1995 after retiring from Commentary, where he had been editor-in-chief since 1960. Podhoretz studies, writes, and speaks on social, cultural, and international issues. He also serves as editor-at-large of Commentary.

Podhoretz still appears on TV - on BBC-2's Newsnight on May 7, he called for regime change throughout the Middle East in order to fight terrorism. As editor of Commentary he published articles by many of those who become known in the neo-conservatives movement since then. (Many will remember how Commentary tried to destroy the reputation of the most effective Palestinian voice in the USA, that of Edward W. Said, just when Said was on the verge of publishing his memoir out of place in 1999.)

Podhoretz started off advocating liberal political views, but by the early 1970s he became unsympathetic to the liberals who favored cuts in military spending and a reduction on American intervention abroad. He became part of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority founded in 1973 by Senator Henry Jackson, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and other Democrats with hawkish tendencies.

Elliott Abrams, Podhoretz' son-in-law, was a member, and he joined the State Department at the time of the Reagan presidency as Assistant Secretary for Human Rights.

In his book Breaking Ranks, Podhoretz stressed the link between a strong U.S. military machine and the future of Israel. He saw an inextricable connection between the survival of Israel and the "military adequacy" of the U.S., as had been demonstrated by the airlift of U.S. arms in the 1973 War.

In the book Podhoretz describes how he supported Patrick Moynihan's race against Bella Abzug and Ramsey Clark for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in New York in 1976. He countered the calls of Abzug and Clark for deep cuts in military spending. "It was in the course of raising this issue that Moynihan was able to demonstrate more vividly than anyone had done before that there was a direct contradiction between caring about the survival of Israel - as both Abzug and Clark professed to - and opposing, as they both did, the defense appropriations out of which aid to Israeli had to come."

Norman Podhoretz' son John is a columnist for the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch, and often appears on the Fox Channel, also owned by Murdoch. John Podhoretz wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan and then for George Bush Sr. He has written against America putting any pressure on Israel, and even claims that Israel refuses to defend itself so, as to show its "good faith" in seeking peace.

According to Eric Alterman writing in Salon magazine, John Podhoretz has "spent virtually his entire life supping at the table of strange right-wing foreigners seeking to buy their way into respectability by courting the American right." Starting with the Reverend Sun Myung Moon of the Moonies "who hired John and his college roommate Todd Lindberg to provide a Nice-Jewish-Boy front for his nefarious activities." 

Karl C. Rove

White House advisor Rove, who was born in 1950, was the chief strategist for the Bush presidential campaign. He manages the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison and the Office of Strategic initiatives. Rove is regarded as Bush's most powerful aide, and like Dick Cheney and Chief-of-Staff he routinely has private meetings with Bush.

Bush calls Rove 'Boy Genius' or 'Turd Blossom.' Rove is a Christian, born on Christmas Day in 1950. Rove is credited with bringing the right-wing Christian Coalition into the Bush family camp in 1988 after Bush Sr. was elected.

Rove had answered the call to go to Texas in 1978 when a Democrat held every state office. Now almost all of them are Republican and every Republican campaign was run by Rove. In 1994 his client running for the state governorship was George W. Bush. Rove has said that after Bush had been governor for a year, it dawned on him that Bush should run for president, and in 1997 he began secretly planning the campaign. In March 1999 Bush ordered Rove to sell his consulting firm and run in the presidential campaign.

As Ed Vulliamy of the Observer puts it: "By the time George W. became President, Rove was the hub of a Texan wheel connecting the family, the party, the Christian right and the energy industry." Rove's accomplishment was the 'Texanization' of the National Republican Party under the leadership of the Bush family.

In theory, Rove has no role in foreign policy, but after September 11, he started to take a much greater interest than before in foreign affairs, and his relationship with the neo-conservatives and especially Paul Wolfowitz developed.

As Ed Vulliamy writes: "Rove's position dovetailed with the beliefs of Paul Wolfowitz and the axis between conservative Southern Protestantism and fervent, highly intellectual East Coast Zionism was forged - each as zealous about their religion as the other."

Rove is regarded as having a broad vision of politics and an ability to play the political game. He is called a "political animal," some see him as Machiavellian. To him is attributed masterminding the stunning victory in the Congressional mid-term elections in 2002.

Rove has a network of advisors including some who talk to him about terrorism and foreign policy, among them Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Ledeen's specialist subjects include the Middle East and terrorism, and his latest book urges America to "topple the regimes of the terror masters to eliminate the threat of terrorism."

Rove got to know Ledeen after Bush was elected. The Washington Post quotes Ledeen as saying: "Anytime you have a good idea, tell me." Every month or six weeks, Ledeen would offer Rove "something you should be thinking about." More than once Ledeen has seen ideas he has faxed to Rove become part of official policy or rhetoric.

The Washington Post attributes much of Rove's success to his network of around 150 politicians, lobbyists, strategists, academics, and executives. They have input into many subjects and suggest political strategies and tactics.

More than half of them are Republication Senators and House members. Two dozen are well-known Washington political hands. A score are Rove's old business and political associates from Texas. Others are governors, corporate executives, state GOP officials, legislative staffers, scholars and conservative leaders. There are even a few Democrats. He also regularly exchanges tips with Donna Brazile, Al Gore's 2000 campaign manager, who tells him how Bush's proposals are going down among Democrats. On the whole, the network shares the goals of Bush's re-election and the achievement of a Republican majority.

Before joining the presidential campaign, Rove was president of Karl Rove and Company, a public affairs firm based in Austin. He attended the University of Utah, the University of Texas at Austin and George Mason University. He has taught at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and in the Journalism Department at the University of Texas, Austin.

Already, Rove is preparing for the 2004 election, trying to get Bush re-elected. There are warnings that for George W. Bush, it will be like it was for his father, he will fail to be re-elected after winning the war. This is one reason why the war is being positioned as an ongoing war against terror, whereas the Gulf War had a clear end. Rove has been skilful at maximizing benefits for the administration of the events since September 11. They will play the national security card to the maximum. George W. Bush added Commander in Chief to his CV.

Eric Boehlert has written in Salon magazine: "Today, in Rove's hands, the permanent war on terrorism is like a political gold mine." James Moore, co-author with Wayne Slater of the book Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove made George W. Bush Presidential, says "He has a great skill at keeping messages simple and accessible. And the message today is the war and economy are wrapped up in security, that there's unfinished business with the war on terrorism and why would you change commander in chief in the middle of a war? It's a helluva saleable message."

"With little-known presidential Democratic candidates currently trailing Bush badly in the polls, particularly over the issue of national security, Rove and the increasingly brash White House are openly using the might of the U.S. military to make sure this president does not suffer the same fate as his father, who chronically battled his own wimp factor."

Rove has helped change Bush's image - particularly with the Bush high profile visit to an aircraft carrier to mark the end of the war on Iraq which was a carefully-staged televised event.

Donald H. Rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld is the Defense Secretary, the second time in his career that he has held this position. He has long had a hawkish point of view and has been firm in his stand against arms control treaties. The result of the military campaign in Iraq, after a jittery start, was a victory for Rumsfeld, and his concept of going into battle relatively light, and for his reforms of the Pentagon. Rumsfeld overruled his generals and argued that Saddam could be toppled with fewer forces than they were arguing for. The bombing campaign against the Republican Guard positions was also judged a success. The campaign was seen as a victory for Rumsfeld as against the view of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In the Ford administration, Rumsfeld was from 1975 to 1977 the youngest U.S. Defense Secretary ever. He had a hawkish stance, building up the military and opposing the SALT II strategic arms reduction treaty. After Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976, he went into the corporate world. From 1977 to 1985 he was Chief Executive Officer, President and then Chairman of the international pharmaceutical company GD SEARLE & CO. From 1985 to 1990 he was in private business and from 1990 to 1993, he was chairman and CEO of General Instrument Corporation. In 1998, Rumsfeld chaired the bipartisan U.S. Ballistic Missile Threat Commission. His report supported the Republicans' contention that a missile Defense was needed. In 2000, he chaired the U.S. Commission to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization.

During his business career, he continued his public service in a succession of federal posts, including being a member of commissions and a presidential envoy.

Rumsfeld has undertaken a sweeping review of U.S. military strategy and operations. His position was further strengthened when on May 7, 2003 President Bush announced that Air Force Secretary James Roche was being transferred to Army Secretary, and that oil executive Colin McMillan was to be Navy Secretary.

Like some other neo-conservatives, his business activities have conflicted with his political role. In early May, it was disclosed that Rumsfeld had been on the board of the Zurich-based engineering giant ABB when it won a $200 million contract in 2000 to provide the design and key components for two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea - a country he has since 2002 regarded as part of the "axis of evil." The reactor deal was part of President Clinton's policy of persuading North Korea to engage positively with the West.

Many members of the Bush administration opposed Clinton's plans, warning that weapons-grade nuclear material could be extracted from the type of light water reactors that ABB sold.

Dr. Gary J. Schmitt

Schmitt is executive director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). In the early 1980s, Schmitt was a member of the professional staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and, from 1982-1984 he served as the committee's minority staff director.

In 1984, President Reagan appointed Schmitt to the post of executive director of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the White House. He served in that position until 1988. Since then, he has held visiting fellowships at the National Interest, a foreign policy journal, and the Brookings Institution, served as Coordinator for the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence's Working Group on Intelligence Reform, and worked as a consultant to the Department of Defense. In addition, he has been an adjunct professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Schmitt has written articles in a number of areas, including the American founding, the U.S. presidency, the American political system, intelligence and national security affairs. He is the co-author with Abram N. Shulsky, of Silent Warfare: Understanding the World of Intelligence (2002); co-editor of, and contributor to, U.S. Intelligence at the Crossroads: Agendas for Reform (1995); co-author of The Future of U.S. Intelligence (1996), a monograph prepared for the Working Group on Intelligence Reform; co-author of What Does "High Crimes and Misdemeanors" Mean? (1998), a monograph of the Henry Salvatori Center of Claremont McKenna College; and co-editor of the forthcoming volume China's Rise and America's Response.

Schmitt is a graduate of the University of Dallas (B.A./1974) and the University of Chicago (Ph.D./1980).

Abram N. Shulsky

Director of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. A scholar in the works of the political philosopher Leo Strauss. In the early 1980s he was on the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee and served in the Pentagon under Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle in the Reagan administration. He then joined the Rand Corporation.

Dr. Paul D. Wolfowitz

Deputy Defense Secretary since March 2001, and seen by many as the chief architect of the war on Iraq. He has been described as "the highest-flying hawk in the Pentagon." It is said that as far back as 1977 he predicted that Saddam Hussein would launch an attack on Kuwait. Wolfowitz is known for his acute intelligence and for his habit of trying to persuade his colleagues that the U.S. must prepare for the very worst case scenarios because they may well occur. He is considered something of a lone wolf.

His philosophy has been urging change where necessary and encouraging democratic movements. This is unlike traditional Republican thinking, one of Realpolitik adapting to existing rules who would say, "he may be a son of a bitch but he's our son of a bitch."

Wolfowitz (59) has a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University in mathematics and a Doctorate in political science in 1972 from the University of Chicago. Some think his mathematical mind is still evident in his approach to international affairs. He has combined his career in government with an academic career and has been Dean and Professor of International Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the John Hopkins University.

Wolfowitz is the most senior Jewish member in the political and defense apparatus of the U.S. administration. He has consistently been ahead of his time in putting forward audacious neo-conservative views, which then become official administration policy some years later. In 1992, he and Lewis Libby wrote Defense Planning Guidance for Dick Cheney. This was a classified document, but excerpts were leaked to the New York Times. Senator Joseph Biden was horrified, and described the documents as a prescription for "literally a Pax Americana."

The document's blueprint to 'set the nation's direction for the next century' has now become the foreign policy of George W. Bush. It puts the onus on the Pentagon to 'establish and protect a new order' under an unchallenged America and recommends unilateral pre-emptive military strikes against hostile countries seeking to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

At a press conference three days after September 11, Wolfowitz declared that American policy is "ending states who sponsor terrorism." At the time, Colin Powell disagreed with him.

Wolfowitz is a protégé of Albert Wohlstetter, and started out as a Democrat. He and Richard Perle went in 1969, at the suggestion of Wohlstetter, to Washington as volunteers where they interviewed Senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson, and Perle subsequently went to work for Jackson.

Wolfowitz is a strong advocate of prevention and is very keen on national missile defense as he thinks it is quite possible an enemy of the U.S. will try to attack it with missiles. He is a unilateralist.

Wolfowitz is a strong supporter of Israel, where he has family members, including a sister. He is well acquainted with many Israeli politicians. His support for Israel was shown when on April 15, 2002 he spoke at a rally on Capitol Hill in support of "Israel's fight against terrorism and violence," alongside former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It was on this occasion that the crowd booed when he said, "Innocent Palestinians are suffering and dying in great numbers as well, it is critical that we recognize and acknowledge that fact." They also booed when he talked of a Palestinian state.

Wolfowitz also said, "since September 11, we Americans have one more thing in common with the Israelis. On that day America was attacked by suicide bombers. At that moment every American understood what it was like to live in Jerusalem or Natanya or Haifa. And since September 11, Americans now know why we must fight and win the war on terrorism."  He added, "No people craves peace more than the Israelis."

In 1973-77 Wolfowitz was in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and in 1977-80 he was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Regional Programs. From 1981 to 1982 he was Head of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and from 1989 to 1993 he was Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy in charge of the 700-person Defense policy team answering to Secretary Dick Cheney. He and his staff had major responsibilities for reshaping strategy at the end of the Cold War. Wolfowitz also served as ambassador to Indonesia for three years in the Regan administration when he said Suharto would have to make way for democracy. When he first joined the Pentagon, he was ahead of others in warning President Bush Sr. that Mikhail Gorbachev was yesterday's man and that the emerging power in Russia was Boris Yeltsin.

In 1991 Wolfowitz, but not the then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, nor Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, believed that the war aim should be extended to removing Saddam. At that time, Wolfowitz was Under-Secretary for Policy at the Pentagon.

From 1991 onwards, Wolfowitz argued that the U.S. should try to remove Saddam by backing the Iraqi opposition, and after September 11, he thought America must act more decisively. He argued that Saddam Hussein should be overthrown before he could pass on weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) to terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda. And because he considered lack of freedom in the Middle East was a prime factor in the birth of terrorism so a move to democratize the region would reduce the risk of terrorism. Wolfowitz and his allies won Bush round to their point of view in competition with Powell at the State Department.

In the lead-up to the war on Iraq, Wolfowitz and other hawks had not wanted the UN involved in the process at all, fearing this would tie their hands. Their leverage was resolution 1441's warning of "serious consequences" for Iraq if it failed to make full disclosure. Even before Iraq delivered its report in December, Wolfowitz said if he denies he has weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), this is good evidence of his guilt, and if he comes up with new programs that is good evidence also. So Saddam was guilty until proven otherwise, without any suggestion as to how he might prove he is innocent.

R. James Woolsey, Jr.

The former director of the CIA and a long-time supporter of war on Iraq, Woolsey is a member of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). He was a partner in the law firm Shea and Gardner, which acted for the Iraqi National Congress (INC).

He is vice president of consultancy firm Booz Allen Hamilton, which won a contract to develop a computer model of post-war society after the First Gulf War. Booz Allen is closely linked with the Defense Policy Board. Woolsey has said: "Only fear will re-establish respect for us... we need a little bit of Machiavelli."

He has also said: "We really don't need the Europeans. Anyways, they will be the first in line patting us on the back following our success and saying they were with us all along."

David Wurmser

David Wurmser is special assistant to John R. Bolton at the State Department. He was one of those who prepared the report A Clean Break for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996. Author of the book Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, published in 1999 with a glowing foreword by Richard Perle, who said the book was important not only for investigating the policy into Iraq, but on a broader level for opening a debate about the premises and quality of Middle Eastern policy makers and scholars. The book claims there have been "two wrong assumptions;" one that toleration of tyranny rather than support for freedom best secures stability, and the other is that a strong and resolute America would be regarded in the Middle East as provocative and insensitive. Such ideas have led the U.S. to failure. The main thrust of the book is against Arab nationalism. It is the enemy. Wurmser wants it destroyed and the Arabs domesticated. In a way, it is the revenge of the Zionists. After the Arabs in the 1970s, riding the wave of oil power, succeeded in equating Zionism with racism at the UN, Israel and its allies later repealed the resolution, and the century closed with them seeking to ban, or discredit, Arab nationalism.

Dr. Meyrav Wurmser

Meyrav Wurmser is the wife of David Wurmser, and like him, was one of those who worked on A Clean Break for Benjamin Netanyahu. She was the co-founder, with Yigal Carmon, of the Middle East Research Institute (MEMRI) and was its executive director for four years. Wurmser is currently a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the Hudson Institute and is writing a book on the failure of Oslo.

Wurmser's biographical details on the Hudson Institute website claim she is a leading scholar of the Arab world, and that through her work at MEMRI she "helped to educate policymakers about the Palestinian Authority (PA) two-track approach to 'negotiating peace' with Israel: calling for peace in the English press and with Western policymakers while inciting hatred and violence through official Arab language media." The biography adds that whereas almost every other Western and Israeli observer allowed their hopes for peace to cloud their judgement of the Oslo process, Wurmser's "acute knowledge of the Palestinian Authority's tactics led her to realize that the Oslo process was doomed from the outset."

Wurmser's PhD thesis was on the ideas that informed the Revisionist/Herut/Likud Party, from Ze'ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky through Menachem Begin to Yitzhak Shamir. She regularly contributes to the Jerusalem Post and appears on radio and TV.

"Her highlighting of the alleged hatred and anti-Semitism in Arab education and discourse is shown in her most recent book The Schools of Zionism - a Study of Syrian Schoolbooks (Washington DC, MEMRI, 2000)." Wurmser has taught political science at the John Hopkins University and the U.S. Naval Academy, and has published articles in various academic journals.

In an article she wrote in January 2003 on the crisis in Israeli politics, she wrote "A week or so ago, I was reminded of the depth of my own sense of insult. Reading one of the Israeli dailies online I came across a story-which shocked me-about a husband and wife who disagreed about whom to support in the upcoming elections. The husband, who supports Likud, insisted that his wife, a Labor supporter, vote for Likud. Their fighting over the issue almost brought about a divorce. As a last resort they decided to bring their case before the local religious rabbinical court, which is responsible for matters of family law. The rabbis ruled that the woman had to vote according to her husband's wishes. This was a sad statement about the treatment of women in Israel. But what really outraged me was a response by a reader of the article who wrote to the paper that she was "a proud Ashkenazi" who was disgusted with the barbarity of "these people." Her comment, irrelevant since the article did not mention the family's ethnic background, was enough to open my old Sephardi-Israeli wounds. In the eyes of some members of the WASP Israeli elite, Sephardim will always remain backwards and unequal. As long as Sephardim, immigrants, settlers and religious people in Israel continue to be slighted by the Left they will keep supporting the Right."