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Throughout 2001, 2002, and 2003, Perle continued to advocate war with Iraq as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. According to one report, he claimed that only 40,000 troops would be required for the invasion, which in his view would involve taking control of the north and south, thus cutting Saddam off from the oil fields. He is also quoted as saying that "[t]he Army guys," who had been calling for far more troops, "don't know anything."<ref name="AlterNet">[http://www.alternet.org/story/13098/ AlterNet article on Richard Perle]</ref> Perle later stated that his view on this had been "distorted" and his proposal for 40,000 troops referred to "a different strategy in which we were working with the opposition."<ref name="PBS">[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/interviews/perle.html Frontline Interview with Richard Perle]</ref>
Throughout 2001, 2002, and 2003, Perle continued to advocate war with Iraq as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. According to one report, he claimed that only 40,000 troops would be required for the invasion, which in his view would involve taking control of the north and south, thus cutting Saddam off from the oil fields. He is also quoted as saying that "[t]he Army guys," who had been calling for far more troops, "don't know anything."<ref name="AlterNet">[http://www.alternet.org/story/13098/ AlterNet article on Richard Perle]</ref> Perle later stated that his view on this had been "distorted" and his proposal for 40,000 troops referred to "a different strategy in which we were working with the opposition."<ref name="PBS">[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/interviews/perle.html Frontline Interview with Richard Perle]</ref>
His views on the Iraq war have changed in several ways:
* ''Neoconservative involvement in planning for the war.'' In a 2003 interview, Perle stated that the [[Office of Special Plans]], headed by fellow [[neoconservative]] [[Douglas Feith]], was "the organization within the policy side of the Defense Department that was responsible for planning with respect to the war....You could have called it the Iraq war-planning group."<ref name="PBS" /> In a 2006 interview with [[Vanity Fair]], however, he stated that "neoconservatives...had almost no voice in what happened...and certainly no voice in what happened after [Saddam’s] downfall.<ref name="AmConMag">[http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_12_18/cover.html American Conservative article on the Iraq war].</ref>
* ''Legality of the war under "[[international law]]".'' In the 1998 PNAC letter, Perle and his cosigners stated that "we believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf."<ref name="PNAC" /> In 2003, however, he stated that "international law...would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone."<ref name="Guardian">[http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1089158,00.html ''Guardian'' story describing Perle's comments on the legality of the invasion</ref>
* ''Overall opinion of the wisdom of the war.'' As noted above, Perle was originally a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq. In a 2006 [[Vanity Fair]] article, he stated: "I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, 'Should we go into Iraq?,' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists'....Could we have managed that threat by means other than a direct military intervention? Well, maybe we could have."<ref name="Vanity Fair">[http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/12/neocons200612 Vanity Fair interview of several neoconservatives]</ref>
Perle is clear about where the buck stops. "At the end of the day," he has said, "you have to hold the president responsible."<ref name="Vanity Fair" />
==References==
==References==