March 9, 2003: Neoconservative Calls Journalist ‘Terrorist’ over Accusations of War Profiteering

Neoconservative and Defense Policy Board (DPB) member Richard Perle calls journalist Seymour Hersh a “terrorist” to a CNN audience. Hersh has published an article speculating that Perle’s investments in firms providing homeland security services put him in the position of profiting off of an invasion of Iraq, and subject to conflict of interest charges (see March 17, 2003). Perle retorts that Hersh is “the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist.” Host Wolf Blitzer twice asks Perle why he calls Hersh a terrorist, giving Perle the chance to call Hersh “widely irresponsible” and say, “[T]he suggestion that my views are somehow related for the potential for investments in homeland defense is complete nonsense.” Perle continues, “[Hersh] sets out to do damage and he will do it by whatever innuendo, whatever distortion he can…” Blitzer concludes the interview by saying: “All right. We’re going to leave it right there.” [CNN, 3/9/2003; Unger, 2007, pp. 256] Later in the month, Perle will resign from the DPB over his conflicts of interest as detailed by Hersh (see March 27, 2003).