| -Caveat Lector-
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=13809 Bill Berkowitz WorkingForChange 09.16.02 Scott Ritter: letting it roll Former chief U.N. weapons inspector demonized by the invade Iraq fraternity If anyone is going to provide straight talk to the American people about Iraq's nuclear weapons capability and its stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction, it might very well be Scott Ritter. Before the bombs start falling on Baghdad, Ritter could be the first United Nations weapons inspector in history to become a household word. That's because as the chief inspector of the UN Special Commission to disarm Iraq (UNSCOM), until he abruptly resigned in 1998, Ritter has been there and he's got a lot to say. These days, he is doing everything he can to cut the Bush's Administration's going-to-war-with-Iraq-media-blitz off at the pass. And the administration and some in the media are trying to shut him down. On Wednesday, September 11, in an editorial in The New York Times, President Bush reiterated his desire to pursue the terrorists who attacked the country and once again "hinted" at his intention of extending that war into an assault to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "With our allies, we must also confront the growing threat of regimes that support terror, seek chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and build ballistic missiles," Bush wrote. At the United Nations the following day, Bush threw down the gauntlet -- either get on board the invasion train, or get out of the way. Scott Ritter, the author of Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem -- Once and for All (Simon and Schuster, 240 pp.), believes that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are largely disarmed. That's what he told Salon.com's Asla Aydintasbas in a mid-March interview, and he's been repeating that story from Iraq to the studios of the Fox News Channel ever since. He also makes it clear that Iraq must commit itself unconditionally to opening up to UN weapons inspections. Ritter has an interesting background. A lifelong Republican who admits to voting for George W. Bush, Ritter served as a junior military intelligence analyst during the Gulf War. At the time, he openly challenged Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf's claims "about the number of destroyed Iraqi Scud missiles," Aydintasbas reports. "Despite pressure from the top," she writes, the Marine captain from a military family, "held his ground, challenging his superiors and the establishment." Speaking at a congressional briefing on May 3, 2000, Ritter said: "The point is today there are no weapons of mass destruction of any meaningful scale in Iraq and should United Nations weapons inspectors be brought back into Iraq and an effective program of monitoring put in place, monitoring which includes export-import control regimes as envisioned by the Security Council in Resolution 1051, Iraq will not be able to reconstitute these weapons." The New York Times' Tim Weiner wrote, in a decidedly unenthusiastic early-April 2002 review of Endgame, that Ritter was "the most famous renegade Marine officer since Oliver North." Ritter's book, Weiner writes, details his seven years in Iraq "searching for things unseen: missiles and bombs, nerve gas and anthrax." Weiner: "The failure of the United Nations inspectors to disarm Iraq fully, Ritter argues, is the United States' fault. Ritter, a former Marine intelligence officer who resigned from the special commission last year in protest, has argued publicly and forcefully that the United States deliberately undermined his mission with a muddled and mendacious foreign policy." As the U.S. inches closer to unilateral (not counting Britain's Tony Blair's poodle-like obedience to the Bush Administration) action in Iraq, Scott Ritter has appeared at a number of public gatherings as well as on a host of television talk shows. On July 23rd he spoke at a meeting in downtown Boston organized by a group called the United for Justice with Peace Coalition. In early-September, the Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, host of "The O'Reilly Factor," excoriated Ritter -- in his absence -- claiming Ritter had been "compromised." In mid-July, Ritter sat down with CNN International's Fionnuala Sweeney and talked about his experience in Iraq and his view of the weapons controversy. He also talked about one of the oft-repeated U.S.-generated media myths that Iraq expelled the U.N. inspection in December 1998. According to Ritter, it was the U.S. that ordered the inspectors out of Iraq: "Let's remember Saddam Hussein didn't kick the inspectors out. The U.S. ordered the inspectors out 48 hours before they initiated Operation Desert Fox -- military action that didn't have the support of the U.N. Security Council, and which used information gathered by the inspectors to target Iraq." Sweeney asked Ritter to describe "the weapons of mass destruction situation" in Iraq at the moment. Ritter: "As of December 1998 we had accounted for 90 to 95 percent of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability -- 'we' being the weapons inspectors. We destroyed all the factories, all of the means of production and we couldn't account for some of the weaponry, but chemical weapons have a shelf-life of five years. Biological weapons have a shelf-life of three years. To have weapons today, they would have had to rebuild the factories and start the process of producing these weapons since December 1998." While Ritter admitted that he was not completely certain that Iraq hadn't begun rebuilding its weapons supply, he told Sweeney that "we cannot go to war on guesswork, hypothesis and speculation. We go to war on hardened fact." He called on Britain's Tony Blair to reveal his so-called "dossier," and on President Bush to show the American public and the international community the proof. Ritter is no rose-colored-glasses-wearing Iraq booster. He readily admits that Iraq tried to place a number of hurdles in the way of his inspection team. "I do not trust them," he told Sweeney. "I take nothing they say at face value, [my conclusions are] based upon on the hard work of weapons inspectors who have verified that Iraq has been disarmed through their own independent sources." In early September, Ritter visited Iraq where he addressed a special session of the Iraqi National Assembly's Arab and Foreign Relations Committee in Baghdad. Britain's News Telegraph reported that Ritter "stunned Baghdad with a demand that inspection teams be allowed back immediately and unconditionally." In what the newspaper characterized as an "emotional" speech, Ritter said: "Let me be very clear, the only path towards peace is one that begins with Iraq agreeing to the immediate unconditional return of United Nations weapons inspectors. Iraq cannot attempt to link the return of weapons inspectors to any other issues regardless of justification. Unconditional return, unfettered access, this is the only acceptable option." Ritter: "The truth of the matter is that Iraq has not been shown to possess weapons of mass destruction, either in terms of having retained prohibited capability from the past, or by seeking to re-acquire such capability today... "Iraq, during nearly seven years of continuous inspection activity by the United Nations, had been certified as being disarmed to a 90-95% level - a figure which includes all the factories used by Iraq to produce weapons of mass destruction, together with the associated production equipment, as well as the vast majority of the products produced by these factories... "Iraq must loudly reject any intention of possessing these weapons and then work within the framework of international law to demonstrate this reality." Ritter's "emotional" plea may fall on deaf ears in both Iraq and in Washington. Getting definitive proof of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction out of this administration will be a mighty difficult task. TeamBush is more accustomed to perpetrating unsubstantiated allegations and creating misinformation and disinformation campaigns. While this administration is trying to drum up support for its war with Iraq, facts and truth are the last things policy-makers have in mind. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html">Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om |
