The Salvador option

Aljazeera ^ | 20 Jan 2005 | Scott Ritter

[piasa]

Speaking of al Kafajii :

JUNE 2000 : (RITTER FLIES TO BAGHDAD TO MAKE FILM SPONSORED BY AL-KHAFAJI, AN IRAQI-AMERICAN SUPPORTER OF SADDAM HUSSEIN's REGIME, AND IS APPROVED BY SADDAM HUSSEIN ) Ritter flies to Baghdad to produce a documentary film, "In Shifting Sands," that would chronicle the weapons-inspection process and, he says, "de-demonize" Iraq. The 90-minute film, which he says he is close to selling to a broadcast outlet, was produced with the approval of the Iraqi government and features interviews with numerous high-level Iraqi officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. He acknowledges, as well, that the U.S. government doesn't like how the film was financed. Shakir al-Khafaji, an Iraqi-American real estate developer living in Michigan, kicked in $400,000. By Ritter's own admission, al-Khafaji is "openly sympathetic with the regime in Baghdad." Al-Khafaji, who accompanied Ritter as he filmed the documentary and facilitated many of the meetings, travels to and from Iraq regularly in his capacity as chairman of "Iraqi expatriate conferences." Those conferences, held in Baghdad every two years, are sponsored and subsidized by Saddam Hussein. -"Saddam Hussein's American Apologist " by Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, November 19, 2001 issue: "The strange career of former U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter." 11/19/2001, Volume 007, Issue 10

[G.Mason]

Scott Ritter?

Just why would anyone here be interested in anything Scott Ritter had to say?

[piasa]

sure is:

SEPTEMBER 18, 2000, Monday : (THE NEW RITTER & HALLIDAY MAKE PUBLIC APPEARANCES AT LEFTWING MEETINGS) Two former United Nations officials who resigned due to economic sanctions against Iraq spoke in Berkeley of the devastating effects of the sanctions they witnessed. Denis Halliday, former assistant secretary general and coordinator of the Oil for Food program in Iraq, and Scott Ritter, former senior weapons inspector, spoke at the Berkeley Friends Church Friday.

We know how well & honestly those Oil for Food bureaucrats did their jobs... maybe they wanted Scott to be their internal auditor and inspect the vaults...

And look where they spoke... our friends The Friends Society has been in the news lately over in the UK:

Extremist cleric staged al-Qaeda recruiting rally
TIMESONLINE ^ | 01/19/05 | Sean O’Neill

Posted on 01/18/2005 6:40:48 PM PST by Pikamax

Extremist cleric staged al-Qaeda recruiting rally By Sean O’Neill and Richard Ford

THE radical Islamist cleric whose internet sermons are being investigated by police has held a secret conference at which British Muslims were urged to join al-Qaeda. About 600 people, including women and children, punched the air and chanted Allahu akbar (God is greatest) as they were shown videos of hijacked airliners crashing into the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001. Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical Syrian-born cleric, said that if the British Government did not relax its tough anti- terrorism laws, the response from Muslims would be “horrendous”. He added: “I declare we should ourselves join the global Islamic camp against the global crusade camp.”

The event was held this month at The Friends Meeting House in Central London, the British headquarters of the Quaker movement. Mr Bakri Mohammed’s followers booked the hall for a health conference entitled Women’s Dawah UK and the Quakers were unaware that it was a political gathering.

[Quilla]

Who originally pee'd in this guy's Wheaties?

I think it was a couple of these idiots:

Washington Post 9/6/98

"It's no surprise to find the Clinton administration treating any problem as a public-relations challenge, looking to spin instead of solve, vilifying critics instead of debating them. Even so, turning the dogs loose on Scott Ritter is a new low.. First came leaks about an FBI investigation of Ritter for sharing confidential information with other governments -- something he freely admits he did, as part of his job and at the direct order of his U.N. bosses. Then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright lashed out. Ritter "doesn't have a clue about what our overall policy has been," she told CNN. Claiming great success for Iraq policy on behalf of "the United States -- and, I must say, me personally," Albright nonetheless didn't have enough confidence in that policy to sit by as Ritter testified to Congress. She urged a House committee chairman to squelch one such hearing, while Senate Democrats did their best to prevent Ritter's testimony.."

[piasa]

1998 : (UN INSPECTORS, INCLUDING RITTER, VISIT IRAQI CHILDREN'S PRISON) Ritter said that his inspection team had first come across a children’s prison in Baghdad January 1998.

[Quilla]

Great posts piasa!

Scott Ritter on the Oil for Food Scandal ... and waiter, I'll have what he's drinking.

The corruption evident in the oil-for-food programme was real, but did not originate from within the United Nations, as Norm Coleman and others are charging. Its origins are in a morally corrupt policy of economic strangulation of Iraq implemented by the United States as part of an overall strategy of regime change.

[Maigrey]

Sorry, Scott. You sold your reputation and integrity about the children's prisons in Iraq to maintain your agenda. So, your words ring quite hollow...

[Cornpone]

"Omar Bakri Mohammed, the radical Syrian-born cleric, said that if the British Government did not relax its tough anti- terrorism laws, the response from Muslims would be “horrendous”.

Like what? They gonna kill us more horribly than they already do? This is just an appeal to Euroweasel appeasement. Maybe if we threaten to kill them more they will be happy if we just kill them a little.

[Sal]

Oh, yeah. Who can forget Scott, the guy who admits he saw a children's prison in Iraq while doing inspections and decided to cover that up and not to report it because if he had told the world about what he saw there there would be an outcry for war...

I wonder how many times Scotty-boy went back to the children's prison.

Before that he was honestly reporting his other findings with no fear of that leading to an outcry for war.

He turned when he was intimidated by the Clintons and bought off by the OilForFood scammers with their filthy blood money.

Carrot and stick. I'm wondering if there was one more stick (pictures from the children's prison) and more "carrots"...

We know what he is; we don't know how many times or where...

[conservativecorner]

Ya, I remember him. He's the guy that was sure Saddam had WMD until he was bribed into becoming a doubter.

[Condor51]

For one, Scott's full of Shi-ite (but we know that). The so-called 'Salvador Option' i.e.; 'US Death Squads has already been discredited as Bravo Sierra. Our SF guys were sent there to STOP the assassinations.

That being said he has one thing partially correct:

"the Phoenix assassination program undertaken during the Vietnam war, where American-led assassins snipers killed thousands of known or suspected Vietcong collaborators.

And Operation Phoenix was highly successful too. William Colby testified that approx 20,000 VC (and NVA officers) were taken out during its span. As such, IMO we need MORE operations like it in Iraq -- and NOW.

[SunkenCiv]

Nope, I don't quite remember him. Let's try him for treason, convict him, condemn him, and send him to the gallows. Maybe that will refresh my memory.

[FierceDraka]

Why hasn't al-Jazeera had a nice cluster bomb dropped on its transmitters? Why is their satellite not a loose collection of shredded space junk? Why hasn't Scott Ritter's citizenship been revoked?