Scott Ritter in Pro-Iraq Movie Deal, 9/1/02
...Ritter's reported involvement in a pro-Iraq movie deal that depends on financing from an Iraqi-American supporter of Saddam Hussein.... [H]is documentary film, "In Shifting Sands," the goal of which was to chronicle the weapons-inspection process and, according to Ritter, "de-demonize" Iraq.... [H]e told the Standard it was produced with the approval of the Iraqi government and features interviews with numerous high-level Iraqi officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz... Saddam's one-time nemesis managed to secure the unprecedented access through the help of Shakir al-Khafaji, an Iraqi-American real estate developer who ponied up $400,000 for Ritter's movie
From kcvl:
U.S. citizens are prohibited from traveling to Iraq under an embargo imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait. Violators face up to 12 years in prison and $1 million in fines, though there is an exemption for journalists, which Ritter maintains he meets...
The documentary project has aroused the interest of federal law enforcement authorities. Ritter said that FBI agents have followed and questioned him and the film's producer, Tom Osborne, about their contacts with Iraqi officials and warned that Baghdad would seek to manipulate them into joining the Iraqi cause or at least into presenting a more favorable portrait of the regime...
Ritter said he was first invited to Baghdad last year by the Iraqi government after the publication of his book "Endgame," which argued that the continuation of economic sanctions on Iraq was more "evil" than doing business with Saddam Hussein. "They were shocked by my position in the book," Ritter said.
Scott Ritter Interview, 9/02/02
Well, I've been very frank with the FBI from day one. The first FBI investigation began back in 1991 after I married my wife. She's a former citizen of the Soviet Union, currently an American citizen, and they initiated something. It was dropped in 1992 after they found out that nothing was going on. It was of no concern to the national security of the United States, never came close to representing a violation of any law...
getting the UN job as an intelligence officer caused a lot of concern and consternation in the CIA because now they have an intelligence person they no longer control, engaged in a position of some influence. That's why the FBI was brought in, basically, as a vehicle of intimidation...
By our going out to Israel and getting an extremely effective alternate source of information, the CIA lost its influence. The way they dealt with it was to fabricate charges that I was somehow spying for the state of Israel. They turned the FBI loose on me on that one. That's still an ongoing investigation to this date... When I resigned and started speaking out against American policy in Iraq, a third investigation was initiated. I was made aware of it when I decided to make a documentary film in Iraq called 'On Shifting Sands.' ...
No traditional outlet for documentary films – PBS, Frontline, CNN, etc., wanted to come forward and put money up to back this idea.
Yeah, riiiiiiight. I suppose Louie the Loonie meets the exemption for journalism too.