Pentagon adviser Richard Perle said Tuesday that the recent Israeli attack
on an alleged training camp for Palestinian militants in Syria was long
overdue and that he would not rule out U.S. military action against the Arab
state.
Perle, a close adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush and Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, spoke at a Jerusalem conference of conservatives
from the United States and Israel.
"President Bush transformed the American approach to terrorism on Sept. 11,
2001, when he said he will not distinguish between terrorists and the states
who harbor them," Perle said.
"I was happy to see that Israel has now taken a similar step in responding
to acts of terror that originate in Lebanese territory by going to the rulers
of Lebanon in Damascus."
Israel has said the training camp it targeted in an Oct. 5 airstrike was
used by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian militant group that had carried out a
suicide bombing in the Israeli port city of Haifa two days earlier, killing 20
people.
Israel has accused Syria of allowing Palestinian militant groups to train
and operate from its territory. The Israeli air strike was the first attack on
Syrian soil in three decades.
Perle said he hoped the air strike reflected a new Israeli policy similar
to the Bush doctrine.
"We have problems with the Syrians who continue to support terrorism. We
have to find a way to get them to stop," Perle later told The Associated
Press.
Asked whether this would include possible U.S. military action against
Syria, he said: "Everything's possible."
Perle said it would not be difficult to commit forces to Syria despite
heavy U.S. troop commitments to Iraq and the Korean peninsula, along with a
continued presence in areas such as the Balkans and Liberia.
"Syria is militarily very weak," he said.
Perle stepped down from his position as chair of the Pentagon's Defense
Policy Board this spring, following allegations that he had used his position
with the Pentagon to further business deals in Singapore and the United
States. He is still a member of the board.
Perle said that the Bush administration's "road map" to peace between
Israel and the Palestinians by 2005 had failed, but that he supported the
ideas Bush introduced in a speech on June 24, 2002.
In that speech, Bush outlined his vision for the creation of a Palestinian
state alongside Israel, and called for a change in Palestinian
leadership.
