August 8, 2003 2:30 PM

Looks like Rummy needs to clean house:

Pentagon hardliners pressing for regime change in Iran have held secret and unauthorized meetings in Paris with a controversial arms dealer who was a major figure in the Iran-contra scandal, according to administration officials.

At least two Pentagon officials (Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin) working for Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith have held "several" meetings with Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian middleman in U.S. arms-for-hostage shipments to Iran in the mid-1980s.

The senior official and another administration source who confirmed that the meetings had taken place said that the ultimate policy objective of Feith and a group of neo-conservatives civilians inside the Pentagon is regime change in Iran.

He confirmed that Secretary of State Colin Powell complained directly to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld several days ago about Feith's policy shop conducting missions that countered U.S. policy.

Harold Rhode has gotten himself in trouble before:

A delegation of Saudi diplomats attended a meeting at the Pentagon with deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz in the spring of 2001, shortly after the Bush administration had taken office. As the meeting was breaking up, one of the attendees, Harold Rhode -- Wolfowitz's Islamic affairs adviser -- approached Adel Al-Jubeir, a soft-spoken Saudi diplomat who is foreign policy adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah. Rhode told Al-Jubeir that once the new administration got its affairs in order there'd be no more pussyfooting around, according to a source familiar with the meeting. The United States would take care of Saddam and start calling the shots in the region, and the Saudis would have to fall in line. Al-Jubeir demurred.

Rhode then shoved his finger in the diminutive Saudi's chest and told him, "You're not going to have any choice!"

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