RICHARD PERLE, a key adviser to the Bush Administration and one of the chief architects of the policy to remove Saddam Hussein from power, unexpectedly resigned last night as chairman of the Pentagon’s Defence Policy Board.

Mr Perle, an Assistant Secretary of Defence during the Reagan Administration, is perhaps the best-known among Washington’s powerful group of foreign policy hawks who have advocated Saddam’s demise since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991, and whose long-stated goal of reshaping the Middle Eastern geopolitical map through US might has recently been taken up by President Bush.

Mr Perle’s abrupt resignation was influenced by allegations of a conflict of interest between his role as a senior Pentagon adviser and as a consultant to the bankrupt telecoms company Global Crossing, which is seeking government approval of its sale to two foreign companies. Mr Perle denies any conflict of interest.

He was also accused by John Conyers, a Democrat congressman, of having participated in a conference that discussed investment opportunities in postwar Iraq and of having received share options from a company doing business with the US military. Mr Conyers said: “I would submit that it is a conflict of interest for a high-ranking government official to be proffering advice on how to profit from the war.”

Mr Perle, 61, a presidential campaign adviser to Mr Bush who has access to the highest echelons of the Administration, as well as close personal ties within it, was appointed chairman of the Defence Policy Board, a group of private-sector heavyweights that advises the Government on foreign policy and strategic issues, by Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, in 2001.

Although technically Mr Perle’s position was not a government appointment, he was covered by government ethics rules prohibiting the use of public office for private gain.

This week he denied any conflict of interest in his dealings with Global, which was bought by two Asian companies for $250 million (£160 million) in August. The deal requires federal approval and is under government review.

“The guiding principle here is that you do not give advice in the Defence Policy Board on any particular matter in which you have an interest,” Mr Perle said in an interview. “And I don’t do that. I haven’t done that.”

He added: “I’m beginning to think that all these people who have been saying . . . I am part of a small neoconservative cabal that rules the world actually believe it.”

Earlier this month the New Yorker magazine reported that Mr Perle met Saudi Arabian businessmen, including the Saudi industrialist Adnan Khashoggi, alleging that discussions during the meeting inappropriately mixed Mr Perle’s business and political interests. Mr Perle has fiercely denied the claims made in the article and said that he was consulting his lawyers over the possibility of taking legal action.

Noting criticism of a possible conflict of interest over his roles as corporate adviser and Defence Department consultant, Mr Perle wrote to Mr Rumsfeld: “As I cannot quickly or easily quell criticism of me based on errors of fact concerning my activities, the least I can do is to ask you to accept my resignation as chairman of the Defence Policy Board.” He added that he would donate any money from the sale of Global to the families of soldiers killed and injured in Iraq.

Mr Rumsfeld said in a statement: “He has been an excellent chairman and has led the Defence Policy Board during an important time in our history. I have known Richard Perle for many years and know him to be a man of integrity and honour.”

Mr Perle has been a Washington insider since the early 1970s, is a personal friend of the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a fellow of the influential right-wing think tank the American Enterprise Institute, and chief proponent, along with the Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, of a pre-emptive foreign policy aimed at rogue states.

The business of politics

Mr Perle said on January 22, 2001: “We’re in favour of seeing this (Iraqi) regime change.”

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