Richard Perle, 2003 News

government adviser, resigned in March as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an independent committee that counsels the Pentagon, after being widely criticized for a glaring conflict of interest. Perle was hired as a consultant to Global Crossing, a bankrupt telecommunications company that owns fiber optics networks, to advise the firm on how to gain Defense Department and FBI approval for its joint-venture sale to companies in Hong Kong and Singapore. Perle served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration and is among the hawks in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's inner circle who have long argued for a foreign policy of preemption and regime change in Iraq.