Ritter: Iraq 'No Threat'

NewsMax.com ^ | Monday, Nov. 19, 2001 5:30 PM EST | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[Jean S]

NewsMax has reported before how former UN Arms Inspector Scott Ritter has become an apologist for Saddam Hussein's regime.

As the administration has pointed a clear finger at the Iraqi regime for building weapons of mass destruction, Ritter took to the airwaves to pour cold water in the allegations.

Ritter said he had "no doubt" Hussein was building such weapons -- but only up until 1993.

Since then, Ritter told Fox News' John Gibson, Iraq's "determination to acquire such weapons isn't there."

He claimed Iraq's doesn't have the "industrial infrastructure" to build such weapons, and that their number one goal is to have "sanctions lifted."

It all sounds good, but diametrically contradicts what Ritter said in 1996, when he quit the UN team claiming the Clinton administration had not allowed inspectors to do their job.

Ritter's claims don't jibe with claims of the head of Iraq's nuclear weapons program who now believes Saddam has built one or more nuclear devices.

If, as Ritter claims, the Iraqi's had no interest in building such weapons, they would have allowed in UN inspectors, which would have automatically lifted sanctions.

Ritter of all people should know this.

Instead, Hussein has kept the inspectors out, and has lost billions. Hussein obviously believes the weapons are more important than money.

[backhoe]

-Iraqi Work Toward A-Bomb Reported U.S. Was Told of 'Implosion Devices'--

[backhoe]

He seems to have switched gears:

Scott Ritter: Iraq's Hot Season, Redux

[spycatcher]

Schippers is still on the side of truth

[I'mAllRightJack]

Schippers is still on the side of truth

I agree.

I too have seen Ritter saying this time and again in TV interviews and I can not figure out how he can say that. Even when we were in Iraq and trying to find out what was going on the Iraqi's didn't allow us to do the job.

Does not make any sense.

[spycatcher]

I suspect Ritter has been bought and paid for by Saddam. He talks like a double agent with a Swiss bank account.

[CommiesOut]

November 18, 2001

Ex-U.N. official predicts war with Iraq

By Scott Freeman
Odessa American
http://www.oaoa.com/news/nw111801b.htm

ALPINE — A former United Nations inspector responsible for hampering Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction capability says the United States will most likely target Saddam Hussein once the war in Afghanistan ends.

“We are on the inevitable path to war with Iraq,” said Scott Ritter, a former Marine who fought against Iraq during Desert Storm and was hired on as a weapons inspector in 1991 following the war.
Ritter told an audience at Sul Ross State University last week that the United States government is obsessed with the idea of removing Hussein from power in Iraq, and will move against him after removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and bringing international terrorist Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network to justice.

Ritter said he strongly supports the war effort in Afghanistan, but questions the need for an attack on Iraq.

“After Sept. 11, you could hear the drumbeats of war in Washington and talk of attacking Iraq,” Ritter said. The premise is that Iraq is a terrorist nation that builds weapons of mass destruction, a notion Ritter said is false.

“Iraq doesn’t pose a threat to the United States or the world,” Ritter said.

“It’s a devastated country that hasn’t had a chance to rebuild. They are a threat to no one.”

Ritter said he knows Iraq isn’t a threat because he personally oversaw the destruction of their weapons of mass destruction programs during the seven-and-a-half years he spent there as a weapons inspector.

Ritter described weapons of mass destruction as nuclear, chemical or biological in nature. Ritter said he resigned his position as weapons inspector in 1998 after he determined the U.S. government was using him to locate the positions of Hussein’s security forces instead of finding possible weapons of mass destruction.

“We had destroyed their weapons programs,” Ritter said. “They were using us as an excuse to keep the economic sanctions in place, a mission I didn’t agree with.”

Ritter said the economic sanctions against Iraq levied by the United States and the United Nations have destroyed that country’s economy and is in effect starving the Iraqi people while Hussein thrives.
“He’s more powerful now than he was during the Gulf War,” Ritter said. “And because of a failed U.S. foreign policy, he is now a sympathetic figure in many parts of the world.”

That sympathy, Ritter says, is a result of economic sanctions that are literally starving the Iraqi people. Ritter said that as many as 1.2 million Iraqis, almost half of them children, have starved to death since the Gulf War, or died from drinking untreated water.

“Economic sanctions are a harsh instrument,” Ritter said. “The target was Saddam, but the victims were innocent people.”

Ritter said that Iraq is an example of how U.S. foreign policy causes hatred of Americans in many Arab and third-world countries. He said this hatred eventually leads to terrorist attacks against U.S. interests.

“I’m not saying that what we have done to Iraq has led to the Sept. 11 attacks, because it hasn’t,” Ritter said. “What I am saying is that by supporting oppressive regimes around the world, like the current Saudi government, we engender hatred.”

Ritter said a large number of people in the world live in abject poverty under oppressive regimes supported by the United States government, and learn to hate America.

“This hatred leads people in many parts of the world to act out,” Ritter said. “They feel compelled to act out, not with F-16s or cruise missiles, but with their own lives.”

Ritter said that instead of supporting dictatorships and monarchies around the world, the U.S. should instead push for democracy and the creation of a stable middle class in these countries.

Ritter said Americans should actively demand a change in U.S. foreign policy.

“Until Sept. 11, foreign policy didn’t seem to matter to most Americans,” Ritter said. “But after those planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it did.”

Ritter said that the U.S. is right to go after those responsible for those attacks, but that it would be remiss if it did not address the root cause of the attacks — namely what causes people to hate the United States.

“People in this country are wrapping themselves up in the flag and saying that whatever comes out of Washington, D.C., is right,” Ritter said. “I say that’s wrong. Challenge them, and don’t believe everything they say.”

Ritter said the current U.S. foreign policy is too unfocused to be effective, that its goal to eliminate all terrorists no matter how long it takes is too unclear and certainly not fair. “I fear it will supply more fuel to future terrorists,” he said.

Ritter was in Alpine Thursday night as the keynote speaker in Sul Ross State’s Diamond Jubilee Lecture series.

University President R. Vic Morgan said Ritter was a Florida native “raised all over the world” as part of a military family.

He said Ritter recently brought his military and foreign affairs expertise to the Fox News Network, where he is employed as a political and military analyst.

Morgan said Ritter was brought in to speak because of the recent terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the current war on terrorism.

“This is a timely visit by Mr. Ritter,” Morgan told an audience of more than 500 people gathered in the school’s Marshall Auditorium.
The audience was largely appreciative of Ritter’s speech, loudly applauding several times during the lecture.

As part of his visit, Ritter also signed copies of his new book, “Endgame,” which explores future approaches to the situation in Iraq.

[DentsRun]

Laurie Mylroie (sp?) was on Prager a few weeks ago and she said, "he has gone bad" and that he was not even standing behind things now that he has written in his book. Obviously, she disagreed strongly with Ritter. It is obvious to me as well...he isn't living in the real world. Don't know why.

I heard that show too. Prager asked her how she knew Iraq was behind the attacks on the U.S. She was surprisingly inarticulate. She had no specifics. Her answer, basically, was it stands to reason. Well shoot, if you're going to bomb someone, you've got to have, as Sharon would say, some "facts on the ground." Did Saddam or didn't he?

And that's another thing about Prager's radio show these days. It sounds like a fifties' rock and roll song--"bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iraq." In the weeks following September 11th, he got to talking about how there was a "time to live and a time to die, a time to love and a time to hate." Well now it was our time to "hate." I think he needs to get a grip. You don't win a world wide war on terrorism by getting emotional about it and there's no positive side to hate. It just causes you to make stupid mistakes. The Godfather had it right. When someone knifes you, don't get mad, get even.

[jmp702]

Interesting article.

A lifetime of economic sanctions against Cuba have done nothing to diminish Castro's rule or tyranny. I would be interested to hear why this policy is utilized. A policy which in fact weakens the very people that might be in a position to effect change.

Oh... never mind.

[jmp702]

I agree with you. I had been a fan and listener of Prager since his original show "religion on the line" over 20 years ago at KABC.

I had always taken him at face value and appreciated the moral compass he promoted on his show. Finding out that he has been an actor all this time has been a disappointment and I no longer am able to listen for reasons you elucidate.

[CommiesOut]

Feel like crying in the wilderness, eh?
At least you understand now why millions of sheeples in other parts of the globe turned to vodka and said: "To h*ll with politics!"
I wouldn't be surprised to find alcohol prices going down (for a while, of course).

[StoneColdGOP]

No threat, huh?

Call me crazy, but I'll believe that when they're all dead.

[veronica]

Scott Ritter - The Stepford Arms Inspector.

[jmp702]

Yeah. That's why I post goofy pictures of Bill, Hilary, and Chelsea on FR. It's almost as fun and no 2 day hangover.

[DentsRun]

David Brock, Scott Ritter, and David Schippers must be toking from the same bong.

I understand what the complaints against Ritter and Brock. But what was it that Schippers did?

[nightowl]

I saw John Gibson's (FOX) interview with Ritter yesterday. I think he is a traitor, but he DEFINITELY is an apologist for Saddam Hussein. Ritter has certainly done a 360 since he testified before the Senate in 1998. I would rather believe the defectors from Iraq who have told their stories to authorities about Iraq's capabilities. I think Ritter need's looking into & FOX needs to get rid of him as an analyst.

[DentsRun]

I had been a fan and listener of Prager since his original show "religion on the line" over 20 years ago at KABC. I had always taken him at face value and appreciated the moral compass he promoted on his show. Finding out that he has been an actor all this time has been a disappointment and I no longer am able to listen for reasons you elucidate.

I'll tell you what bugs me about Prager these says is his continual use of the word "evil." I was making coffee and listening to him the other day and I swear he used evil six times in eight seconds. He claims that the problem with most Americans is that they won't admit the existence of evil. But he uses the word evil like a club to beat up anyone who says "hey, let's not go off half-cocked." Once he puts the label "evil" on some foreign figure the discussion is over. There's no need to think the matter through, acknowledge the possibility of error or admit that maybe the other side has a point or two.

I was telling someone the other day that American foreign policy in the Mid-East was making a lot of people hate us. He was aghast. He said, "what you're saying is, 'reward terrorism.'" And I was saying, "Look, there's no wrong time to quit doing something dumb."

[Mixer]

When Iraq envaded Kuwait that was just an isloated case much like the Anthrax cases here in the States /sarcasm off

Yeah right Iraq is no threat. Will someone please bring this guys up on trial for harboring terrorists.

[Cincinatus]

Three words: Swiss Bank Account.

[aculeus]

Is he on Saddam's payroll?