Send neocons Wolfowitz, Perle to Iraq, says GOP lawmaker Nick Juliano

Published: Tuesday May 29, 2007 Print This Email This A Republican lawmaker has an unorthodox suggestion for Paul Wolfowitz's future employment now that the neoconservative war architect has been ousted as World Bank president -- send him to Iraq. Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., suggested the Middle East assignment for Wolfowitz during a hearing of the House Armed Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee last week, as reported by ABC News's blog, The Blotter. "I would like to suggest ... that maybe we give Paul Wolfowitz a new job and send him over there as mayor of Iraq, since the neocons got us in over there," Jones said. "And maybe Mr. (Richard) Perle could be co-mayor or co-chairman." Wolfowitz served as deputy secretary of defense from 2000 to 2005, and he was among the key players in the administration who sold the idea of an Iraq invasion based on the wrong-headed assumption that US troops would be greeted as liberators and the war would finance itself from Iraqi oil revenues. Perle, another of the war's main proponents, served on the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee during President Bush's first term. In an interview with Vanity Fair published last year, Perle said he regretted his support of the war. As RAW STORY reported last week, recently de-classified pre-war intelligence estimates predicted the turmoil Iraq found itself in after Saddam Hussein's ouster, despite the pre-invasion public assurances from Wolfowitz and other war supporters. Jones was initially a staunch supporter of the American invasion, but he has since recanted, and become one of few anti-war Republican voices in Congress. He called on the House cafeteria to rename French fries to "freedom fries" to protest France's lack of support for the US invasion, before he switched his position on the war. "I will tell you that the American people are fed up, and I'm frustrated and fed up" with the lack of progress in the war, Jones said at last week's hearing.



