Free Republic

In the months that have passed since Iraq's much-hyped democratic elections, one word keeps creeping into my mind as I assess the tragic events unfolding in Mesopotamia today: Vietnam. The American press and punditry, intimidated and compensated into slavishly reporting on Iraq solely along lines that will not overly alienate them from the powers that be inside the administration of George Bush, have long ago foregone drawing comparisons between the ongoing conflict in Iraq and the one America lost in Southeast Asia some three decades in the past. The lack of a basis for direct comparison makes accomplishing the denigration...

Does Scott Ritter know something?The controversial ex-Marine turned UN weapons inspector said President George W. Bush has approved plans to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons installations.The date: June 2005.The method: A massive air attack.

So we have Scott Ritter running around on the Ed Schultz show and most of the Air America hotheads interviewed him. Scott is blathering about the Bush plan to attack Iran in 2005. Don't these nitwit liberals understand that Scott is a reporter for Al Jazeera now? I wonder if he still hangs around McDonalds picking up teeny boppers.

Late last year, in the aftermath of the 2004 Presidential election, I was contacted by someone close to the Bush administration about the situation in Iraq. There was a growing concern inside the Bush administration, this source said, about the direction the occupation was going. The Bush administration was keen on achieving some semblance of stability in Iraq before June 2005, I was told. When I asked why that date, the source dropped the bombshell: because that was when the Pentagon was told to be prepared to launch a massive aerial attack against Iran, Iraq's neighbour to the east, in...

Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter said Tuesday that January's historic election in Iraq, which set off a wave of democratic reform throughout the Middle East, was fixed. Claiming he was vindicated when the U.S. failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Ritter insisted that the election results were changed using a "secret recount" held three days after the vote. "It's as obvious as anything," the former weapons expert told WWRL Radio's Steve Malzberg and Karen Hunter. Ritter maintained that in initial election results, the Shia majority won nearly 60 percent of the vote, giving them control of...

Left-wing websites are reporting that Scott Ritter, a (1) former U.N. Weapons inspector, (2) one-time arrestee for soliciting an underage girl on the Internet, and (3) recipient of $400,000 (from an associate of Saddam Hussein) used to finance an anti-Iraq war film, recently stated at an anti-war "talk" that the Bush Administration has authorized plans to "bomb" Iran in June 2005. Not surprising, the evil/mischievous/mystical "neo-conservatives" are thrilled with this idea and see it as an opportunity to further promote their idealistic agenda democratic reform in the Middle East. Additionally, Ritter put forth that the United States "cooked" the election...

(Scott) Ritter said that President George W. Bush has received and signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June 2005. Its purported goal is the destruction of Iran’s alleged program to develop nuclear weapons, but Ritter said neoconservatives in the administration also expected that the attack would set in motion a chain of events leading to regime change in the oil-rich nation of 70 million -- a possibility Ritter regards with the greatest skepticism... ...Scott Ritter said that although the peace movement failed to stop the war in Iraq, it had a chance to stop...

SCOTT RITTER SAYS U.S. PLANS JUNE ATTACK ON IRAN, ‘COOKED’ JAN. 30 IRAQI ELECTION RESULTS By Mark Jensen United for Peace of Pierce County (WA) February 19, 2005 Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday in Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered to a packed house in Olympia’s Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq. Olympians like to call the Capitol Theater "historic,"...

Scott Ritter may be the Bush reelection team’s worse nightmare. The former UN chief weapons inspector in Iraq and card-carrying Republican is barnstorming America with a blunt message: George W. Bush’s war on Iraq was waged on a “bodyguard of lies.” “We need regime change, and we need it quick,” Ritter told a gathering of peace activists in New Jersey on Sunday. “George W. Bush does not have the right…to represent the American people, if he told a lie. And he told a whopper.” That whopper, said Ritter, was claiming that the US government had evidence that Saddam Hussein was...

February 1, 2005 -- WASHINGTON — An Iraqi-American businessman under investigation in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal was placed on an honor roll of former regime thugs by Saddam Hussein's demonic son Uday just months before the war, The Post has learned. Detroit-area real-estate developer Shakir al-Khafaji, who received millions of dollars worth of vouchers to buy discount Iraqi crude in the U.N. oil-for-food program, appeared on an "Honor List" of Iraqis considered most valuable to Saddam that was published by the Uday Hussein's newspaper, Babil, in November 2002.

The invasion of Iraq was a crime of gigantic proportions, for which politicians, the media and the public share responsibilityThe White House's acknowledgement last month that the United States has formally ended its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq brought to a close the most calamitous international deception of modern times. This decision was taken a month after a contentious presidential election in which the issue of WMD and the war in Iraq played a central role. In the lead-up to the invasion, and throughout its aftermath, President Bush was unwavering in his conviction that Iraq had WMD,...

The invasion of Iraq was a monstrous crime for which everyone shares the blame, writes Scott Ritter. The White House's acknowledgement last month that the US has formally ended its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq brought to a close the most calamitous international deception of modern times. This decision was taken a month after a contentious presidential election in which the issue of those weapons and the war in Iraq played a central role. George Bush was unwavering in his conviction that Iraq had such weapons. When one looks at the situation in Iraq today, the only...

The White House’s acknowledgement last month that the United States has formally ended its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq brought to a close the most calamitous international deception of modern times. This decision was taken a month after a contentious presidential election in which the issue of WMD and the war in Iraq played a central role. In the lead-up to the invasion, and throughout its aftermath, President Bush was unwavering in his conviction that Iraq had WMD, and that this posed a threat to the US and the world. The failure to find WMD should have...

By any standard, the ongoing American occupation of Iraq is a disaster. The highly vaunted US military machine, laurelled and praised for its historic march on Baghdad in March and April of 2003, today finds itself a broken force, on the defensive in a land that it may occupy in part, but does not control. The all-out offensive to break the back of the resistance in Falluja has failed, leaving a city destroyed by American firepower, and still very much in the grips of the anti-American fighters. The same is true of Mosul, Samarra, or any other location where the...

DELMAR, N.Y. – On Christmas Eve 2004, the Russian Strategic Missile Force test fired an advanced SS-27 Topol-M road-mobile intercontinental ballistic Missile (ICBM). This test probably invalidated the entire premise and technology used in the National Missile Defense (NMD) system currently being developed and deployed by the Bush administration, and at the same time called into question the validity of the administration's entire approach to arms control and disarmament. From 1988 to 1990, I served as one of the American weapons inspectors at the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant in Russia, where the SS-27 and its predecessor, the SS-25, were assembled....

The U.S. is engaged in a bloody war in Iraq for the purpose of eliminating the remnants of a terrorist regime, foreign terrorists, and bringing democracy to Iraq and the region. It is a big gamble that has put radical Islam on the defensive around the world. But shocking evidence demonstrates that controversial former U.S. Marine and former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who now writes for the anti-American Arab "news" organization Al Jazeera, was involved in a controversial effort to stop the war by enlisting prominent personalities in a "peace" campaign.

If Ritter had been successful, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein could still be in power threatening his neighbors and the U.S. and rebuilding his capability for producing weapons of mass destruction with money stolen from the corrupt U.N. oil-for-food program. The Plan Unfolds The evidence shows some interest in the Ritter plan by former President Jimmy Carter and former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev—and support by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But were the media secretly supporting the ploy? Ritter says famed investigative journalist Seymour Hersh kept it confidential. Another key question: Was the leak of an Internet sex sting involving Ritter an...

The U.S. is engaged in a bloody war in Iraq for the purpose of eliminating the remnants of a terrorist regime, foreign terrorists, and bringing democracy to Iraq and the region. It is a big gamble that has put radical Islam on the defensive around the world. But shocking evidence demonstrates that controversial former U.S. Marine and former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who now writes for the anti-American Arab "news" organization Al Jazeera, was involved in a controversial effort to stop the war by enlisting prominent personalities in a "peace" campaign. If Ritter had been successful, Iraqi dictator Saddam...

Lee Feinstein of the Council on Foreign Relations was on MSNBC assuring the public that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has a good record of supporting the U.S. Feinstein, a former Clinton administration official, said the only exceptions have been a few comments critical of U.S. policy in Iraq. But he indicated that now that the White House has endorsed Annan and he has announced that he wants to send U.N. personnel back into Iraq to help with the elections, the U.S.-U.N. relationship is back on track. In fact, however, Annan’s anti-American record is a long one. .... Made a deal...

One of the next big chapters in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal will involve the family of the secretary-general, Kofi Annan, whose son turns out to have been receiving payments as recently as early this year from a key contractor in the oil-for-food program. The secretary-general's son, Kojo Annan, was previously reported to have worked for a Swiss-based company called Cotecna Inspection Services SA, which from 1998-2003 held a lucrative contract with the U.N. to monitor goods arriving in Saddam Hussein's Iraq under the oil-for-food program. But investigators are now looking into new information suggesting that the younger Annan received...