The definition of "war profiteering"

Influential former Pentagon official Richard Perle has been exploring going into the oil business in Iraq and Kazakhstan, according to people with knowledge of the matter and documents outlining possible deals. A neoconservative architect of President Bush's Iraq occupation could be preparing to personally reap the spoils of war, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Documents suggest that Richard Perle, top aide to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, has been in talks with government officials and its Washington envoy, and Turkish AG Group International, over a plan to drill for oil near the Kurdish city of Erbil. Perle is also in talks with the oil-rich nation of Kazakhstan, whose ruler, Nursultan Nazarbayev, has been involved in a US oil bribery investigation.

"Mr. Perle has publicly lauded President Nazarbayev as a 'visionary and wise,'" the Journal added.

Mr. Perle, one of a group of security experts who began pushing the case for toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein about a decade ago, has been discussing a possible deal with officials of northern Iraq's Kurdistan regional government, including its Washington envoy, according to these people and the documents.