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Scott Ritter

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Scott Ritter speaks at SUNY New Paltz on March 16, 2006.

William Scott Ritter, Jr. (born July 15, 1961) is noted for his early career as an intelligence officer, as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, and more recently as a critic of United States foreign policy in the Middle East.

Military background

Ritter was born into a military family in 1961. He graduated from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with a Bachelor of Arts in the history of the Soviet Union and departmental honors. He joined the United States Marine Corps in 1984, where he served for twelve years as an intelligence officer. He initially served as the lead analyst for the Marine Corps Rapid Deployment Force concerning the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq War. During Desert Storm, he served as a ballistic missile advisor to General Norman Schwarzkopf. Ritter later worked as a security and military consultant for the Fox News network.

Weapons inspector

Ritter served from 1991 to 1998 as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq in the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), which was charged with finding and destroying all weapons of mass destruction and WMD-related manufacturing capabilities in Iraq. He was chief inspector in 14 of the more than 30 inspection missions in which he participated.

In January of 1998, his inspection team into Iraq was blocked from some weapons sites by Iraqi officials and Ritter was accused by Iraq of being a spy for the CIA. He was then expelled from Iraq by its government in August 1998. Shortly thereafter, he spoke on the Public Broadcasting Service show, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

I think the danger right now is that without effective inspections, without effective monitoring, Iraq can in a very short period of time measured in months, reconstitute chemical and biological weapons, long-range ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons, and even certain aspects of their nuclear weaponization program

[1]

When the United States and the UN Security Council failed to take action against Iraq for their ongoing failure to cooperate fully with inspectors (a breach of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1154), Ritter resigned from the United Nations Special Commission on August 26, 1998. [2]

In his letter of resignation, Ritter said the Security Council's reaction to Iraq's decision earlier that month to suspend co-operation with the inspection team made a mockery of the disarmament work. Ritter later said, in an interview, that he resigned from his role as a United Nations weapons inspector over inconsistencies between United Nations Security Council Resolution 1154 and how it was implemented.

The investigations had come to a standstill, were making no effective progress, and in order to make effective progress, we really needed the Security Council to step in a meaningful fashion and seek to enforce its resolutions that we're not complying with." [3]

On September 3, 1998, several days after his resignation, Ritter testified before the United States Senate Committee on Armed Services and the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and said that he resigned his position "out of frustration that the United Nations Security Council, and the United States as its most significant supporter, was failing to enforce the post-Gulf War resolutions designed to disarm Iraq." [4]

During Ritter's Senate testimony about the inspection process, Senator Joseph Biden stated "The decision of whether or not the country should go to war is slightly above your pay grade." Senator John McCain later rebutted by stating that he wished that the administration had consulted with somebody of Ritter's pay grade during the Vietnam War. "

Opinions on US policy in the Mideast

Following his resignation from UNSCOM, Ritter continued to be an outspoken commentator on US policy toward Iraq, particularly with respect to the WMD issue.

Commentary in the post-inspection period

In 1999, Ritter wrote Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem - Once and For All in which he reiterated his claim that Iraq had obstructed the work of inspectors and attempted to hide and preserve essential elements for restarting WMD programs at a later date. However, he also expressed frustration at alleged attempts by the CIA to infiltrate UNSCOM and use the inspectors as a means of gathering intelligence with which to pursue regime change in Iraq – a violation of the terms under which UNSCOM operated, and the very rationale the Iraqi government had given in restricting the inspector’s activities in 1998.

In the book’s conclusion, Ritter criticized the current US policy of containment in the absence of inspections as inadequate to prevent Iraq’s re-acquisition of WMD’s in the long term. He also rejected the notion of removing Saddam Hussein’s regime by force. Instead, he advocated a policy of diplomatic engagement, leading to gradual normalization of international relations with Iraq in return for inspection-verified abandonment of their WMD programs and other objectionable policies.

Ritter again promoted a conciliatory approach toward Iraq in the 2000 documentary In Shifting Sands: The Truth About UNSCOM and the Disarming of Iraq, which he wrote and directed. The film tells the history of the UNSCOM investigations through interviews and video footage of inspection missions. In the film, Ritter argues that Iraq is a "defanged tiger" and that the inspections were successful in eliminating significant Iraqi WMD capabilities.[5] Detroit businessman Shakir al Khafaji, an American citizen of Iraqi descent, gave Ritter $400,000 to produce the film. Al Khafaji later disclosed to media sources that he had profited from the sale of oil allocations distributed by the Iraqi government under the Oil-for-Food programme run by the UN. [6]

Commentary on Iraq’s lack of WMDs

Despite identifying himself as a Republican and Bush-voter, by 2002 Ritter had become an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq possessed significant WMD stocks or manufacturing capabilities, the primary rationale given for the US invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. His views at that time are well summarized in War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You To Know, a book which consists largely of an interview between Ritter and anti-war activist William Rivers Pitt, the book’s author. In the interview, Ritter is asked, based on his experience as a chief UNSCOM inspector, whether he believes Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Ritter’s quotes include the following:

There’s no doubt Iraq hasn’t fully complied with its disarmament obligations as set forth by the Security Council in its resolution. But on the other hand, since 1998 Iraq has been fundamentally disarmed: 90-95% of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capacity has been verifiably eliminated… We have to remember that this missing 5-10% doesn’t necessarily constitute a threat… It constitutes bits and pieces of a weapons program which in its totality doesn’t amount to much, but which is still prohibited… We can’t give Iraq a clean bill of health, therefore we can’t close the book on their weapons of mass destruction. But simultaneously, we can’t reasonably talk about Iraqi non-compliance as representing a de-facto retention of a prohibited capacity worthy of war.

We eliminated the nuclear program, and for Iraq to have reconstituted it would require undertaking activities that would have been eminently detectable by intelligence services.

If Iraq were producing [chemical] weapons today, we’d have proof, pure and simple.

[A]s of December 1998 we had no evidence Iraq had retained biological weapons, nor that they were working on any. In fact, we had a lot of evidence to suggest Iraq was in compliance.

In the Pitt interview, Ritter also remarked on several examples of members of the Bush or Clinton administration making statements he knew to be misleading or false with regard to Iraqi WMD’s

While the motives behind Ritter’s criticism of US-Iraq policy have been called into question by some (see below), he is notable as being one of the only highly knowledgeable commentators on the Iraq WMD issue who correctly predicted that Iraq did not possess any significant WMD’s prior to the 2003 war.

Statements on US-Iran policy

On February 18, 2005 Scott Ritter told an audience in Olympia, Washington that George Bush had signed-off on preparations to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, and that these preparations would be completed by June of 2005. On the same occasion, he also made reference to the Iraqi elections, saying that the United States had manipulated the 2005 parliamentary election, changing the percentage of United Iraqi Alliance votes from 56% to 48%. [7]

Ritter reiterated and clarified his statements about Iran in a March 30 article published by Al Jazeera. [8]

In a June 20, 2005, article published by Al Jazeera, after noting that the Iraq war, which supposedly began in March 2003, in fact began with military operations authorized by the president in late August 2002 and executed in September 2002, Ritter wrote: "The reality is that the US war with Iran has already begun." [9]

On October 21, 2005, Ritter was interviewed by Amy Goodman of the radio and TV show "Democracy Now!" and commented on his earlier statements about U.S.A. policy toward Iran, as they had been reported by some sources.

I was very clear, based upon the information given to me, and it's 100% accurate, that in October 2004, the President of the United States ordered the Pentagon to be prepared to launch military strikes against Iran as of June 2005. That means, have all the resources in place so that if the President orders it, the bombing can begin. It doesn't mean that the bombing is going begin in June. And a lot of people went, "Ah, you said they were going to attack in June." Absolutely not. [10] (transcript) [11] (mp3)

Although there were no air strikes against Iran by the United States in June of 2005, there were bomb blasts in the southern west Iranian city of Ahwaz on June 12 2005. [12]. Some believe the attacks were carried out by the Mujahideen_al-Khalq (MEK) organization. Scott Ritter as well as other sources have claimed that the United States, after the invasion of Iraq, have been working with Mojahedin-e-Khalq to continue covert operations in Iran. [13]

Ritter has also made the following two statements regarding military intervention in Iran.

The real purpose of the EU-3 intervention - to prevent the United States from using Iran's nuclear ambition as an excuse for military intervention - is never discussed in public.

The EU-3 would rather continue to participate in fraudulent diplomacy rather than confront the hard truth - that it is the United States, and not Iran, that is operating outside international law when it comes to the issue of Iran's nuclear programme.

On February 06, 2006, in James A. Little Theater Santa Fe, Ritter stated about a US war with Iran: "We just don't know when, but it's going to happen," and said that after the UN security Council will have found no evidence of WMD, Bolton "will deliver a speech that has already been written. It says America cannot allow Iran to threaten the United States and we must unilaterally defend ourselves." and continued "How do I know this? I've talked to Bolton's speechwriter," [14]

Criticism of Ritter

Documentary

Ritter has been criticized for accepting $400,000 from Iraqi American businessman Shaker Al-Khaffaji for the financing of his 2000 documentary In Shifting Sands: The Truth About UNSCOM and the Disarming of Iraq[15]. According to a Washington Times article, Al-Khaffaji obtained the money from the U.N. Oil-for-Food program for goods imported into the country in violation of U.N. sanctions [16]. Ritter denies any quid pro quo with Al-Khaffaji and according to a Financial Times article, when Ritter was asked “how he would characterise anyone suggesting that Mr Khafaji was offering allocations in his name, Mr Ritter replied: "I'd say that person's a fucking liar. Quote unquote. And tell him to come over here so I can kick his ass." [17]

Ritter came under further criticism following a September 14, 2002, Time article where he refused to provide details regarding the conditions of the children's prison at the Iraqi General Security Services headquarters he inspected in January 1998. Ritter refused to provide details on the prison, containing "toddlers up to pre-adolescents," for fear that the information "...can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq." [18]

In 2001, Ritter was arrested near Albany, NY. News reports say Ritter had brushes with police on two occasions (in April and June), both involving allegations of intent to meet underage girls after chatting on the Internet.[19] [20]

Prosecutors initially agreed to charge Ritter with a misdemeanor with a view to dropping the charges if no further allegations against him arose in the following six months, and asked for court records to be sealed. Ritter himself says all charges were dismissed. However, it was claimed by WTEN-TV citing unnamed sources, that Ritter underwent court-ordered sex offender counseling from an Albany psychologist.[21]

Following the dismissal of charges in the state jurisdiction, federal law enforcement officials looked into the possibility that Ritter violated federal law, but no charges were filed. [22]

According to a CNN report, the dismissal of the charges was the result of a deal between Ritter and Albany County Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Preiser and without the knowledge of Albany County District Attorney Paul Cline. Cline fired Preiser for failing to "inform him of the existence of a sensitive case." Clyne told the Schenectady Daily Gazette, "I was shocked and angered to learn that the case had been disposed of by one of my assistant district attorneys without consulting me," [23]. CNN reported that "Clyne refused to discuss the case, noting there is no public record of it."[24]

In the CNN report of January 21, 2003 Ritter raised the question of why CNN would be reporting on this already dismissed misdemeanor charge a year and a half after it occured. The CNN report stated: "Ritter, who has recently appeared in major newspaper and television news reports warning that a U.S. attack on Iraq could kill thousands of U.S. soldiers and Iraqis, said he was angered that a case more than a year old would come to public attention now... 'obviously what you are not mentioning here is the timing of all of this,' Ritter told "Newsnight." 'Why did it come up now?'" [25]

In an opinion piece published September 12, 2002 in the Toronto Star entitled "CNN's Hatchet Job on Scott Ritter", Antonia Zerbisias raised the issue of CNN's possible bias against Ritter. She quoted several CNN reporters, pundits and interviewees making demeaning comments about Ritter: "Ritter was characterized as 'misguided,' 'disloyal' and 'an apologist for and a defender of Saddam Hussein.'" [26]

See also

Bibliography

  • Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Hardcover), 2005. Foreword by Seymour Hersh. ISBN 1-56025-852-7
  • Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America (Context Books, 2003) ISBN 1-893956-47-4
  • War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know (with William Rivers Pitt). Context Books, 2002. ISBN 1-893956-38-5
  • Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem - Once and For All (Simon & Schuster, 1999) ISBN 0-684-86485-1 (paperback: Diane Pub Co, 2004; ISBN 0-7567-7659-7)
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References

Criticism of Ritter

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