monitoring

Last June, leading neoconservative Richard Perle received an unexpected phone call at his home. It was Larry Franklin calling. Franklin is the veteran Iran specialist in the Pentagon\’s Near East South Asia office and the key Iraq War planner who had been pressured by the FBI into launching a series of counterintelligence stings. Perle, a former chairman of the Pentagon\’s Defense Policy Board, was an architect of the 2003 Iraq War.

Franklin, who never had phoned before, asked Perle to \”convey a message to Chalabi\” in Iraq, according to sources aware of the call. Ahmad Chalabi is the embattled president of the Iraqi National Congress. He is currently at the vortex of a Pentagon-intelligence community conflict over pre- and post-war policy, but is still endorsed by neoconservatives, such as Perle.

Something about Franklin\’s unexpected call struck Perle as \”weird,\” according to the sources. Why was Franklin calling?