Mr Richard Perle has resigned as chairman of a Pentagon advisory panel after facing allegations of a conflict of interest over his work for the bankrupt telecommunications firm Global Crossing.
Mr Perle, a US architect of the war on Iraq, said he would remain a member of the Defense Policy Board while stepping down as chairman and quitting his consulting job with Global Crossing.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accepted Mr Perle's resignation as chairman but asked that he remain a member of the board, and Mr Perle said he agreed to stay on the board.
On Monday, Representative John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, asked the Pentagon's inspector general to examine Mr Perle's work as a paid adviser to Global Crossing and his guidance on investment opportunities resulting from the Iraq conflict. Mr Conyers said yesterday that Mr Perle's continued membership on the Pentagon panel was problematic.
In his resignation letter, Mr Perle said, "I am advising Global Crossing that I will not accept any compensation that might result from their pending acquisition and that any fee for past service would be donated to the families of American forces killed or injured in Iraq".
Mr Perle said the $125,000 fee received for work he had already done for Global Crossing would be donated. He had said previously that he would have been paid another $600,000 if the government approved the deal.