Democracy Now! March 31, 2003

8:00-8:01 Billboard 8:01-8:10 Headlines 8:10-8:11 One Minute Music Break 8:10-8:30 The prince of darkness resigns: A look at the controversial businesses dealings of Pentagon adviser Richard Perle Last week, Richard Perle, the influential Pentagon adviser, was speaking on his mobile phone outside a Senate office building when trouble came from an unlikely source: the parking attendant. "It's not about the oil," Mr Perle was heard to shout at the attendant in apparent frustration before returning to his call. It was that sort of week for Mr Perle, one of the leading architects of the US policy on Iraq, who has been embroiled in a storm of controversy over his outside business interests. That was the opening of a piece in the Financial Times on Saturday. The paper went on to report: Mr Perle was appointed chairman of the Defense Policy Board in 2001 by Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary. Although the board members are not paid government employees, they have grown in stature because of Mr Perle's close ties to the administration's hawks. His role came under scrutiny after the New Yorker magazine reported that Mr Perle had attended a lunch in January with two Saudi businessmen to seek funding for his venture capital group, Trireme Partners, which invests in defence and security companies. One of the Saudis was alleged to be Adnan Kashoggi, the arms dealer at the centre of the Iran-Contra scandal. Mr Perle denied the allegations, and threatened to sue the publication for libel in London. But the controversy did not end. He finally resigned his chairmanship on Thursday night after his work for Global Crossing, the bankrupt telecommunications company, sparked calls in Congress for an ethics investigation. Mr Perle was to be paid $750,000 by the company to help win government approval to sell its assets to a Chinese-controlled company. The deal has been blocked by the defense department and the FBI, which object to a Chinese company controlling the vital fiber-optic network that the government uses. Mr Perle had bristled at the suggestion that he has done anything improper, or should leave the board altogether. He said in a letter to Mr Rumsfeld that he was resigning his post to prevent a political distraction. Asked about the controversy last week, he suggested it was the work of a leftwing conspiracy. He told the Financial Times, "I'm beginning to think that people who've been saying on the internet that I am part of a small neo-conservative cabal that runs the world actually believe what they are saying." Guest: Frida Berrigan, Senior Research Associate with the Arms Trade Resource Center of the World Policy Instituteand author of the piece Richard Perle: It Pays To Be the Prince of Darkness which appeared recently in In These Times. Links: http://www.inthesetimes.com/comments.php?id=126_0_7_0_C 8:20-8:21 One Minute Music Break 8:21-8:30 Perle Cont d 8:30-8:40 Three Dominican nuns face 50 years in prison for conducting citizens weapons inspections: Trial begins today in Colorado In Colorado, three Dominican nuns stand trial today for staging a peaceful protest at a Minuteman III missile silo. The cut through a fence at the site used their own blood to paint a cross on the side of the silo and hammered away at the military structure. The women, Ardeth Platte, 66, Carol Gilbert, 55, and Jackie Hudson, 68, could face 50 years in prison. The nuns, jailed since their Oct. 6 protest near Greeley, maintain they were a ``Citizens Weapons Inspections Team'' that was symbolically disarming the United States. About 50 peace advocates are expected to attend the trial, including Elizabeth McAlister, the widow of longtime peace activist Philip Berrigan, and their daughter, Frida Berrigan who joins us on the phone. Gilbert and Platte both lived at Jonah House, the communal residence Berrigan founded in Baltimore. Hudson belongs to a similar group in Poulsbo, Wash. Guest: Frida Berrigan, speaking to us from Colorado before the trial begins 8:40-8:41 One Minute Music Break 8:41-8:58 What will a U.S. occupation of Iraq look like? A speech by Asla Bali of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Asli Bali recently spoke a Not in Our Name conference in New York. Bali is an attorney in a private practice and a Board member of the American-Arab anti-Discrimination Committee s New York Chapter Guest: Asla Bali, an attorney in private practice and a Board member of the American-Arab anti-Discrimination Committee s New York Chapter 8:58-8:59 Outro and Credits Democracy Now! is produced by Kris Abrams, Mike Burke, Angie Karran, Ana Nogueira and Elizabeth Press. Mike Di Filippo is our music maestro and engineer.