Ex-U.N. inspector visits Iraq to "prevent a war" (Ritter)

Reuters | 9/08/02

[Spook86]

The answer to your question is simple: money. In case you haven't heard, Ritter signed on last year to "produce" a documentary on Iraq. The project is being funded by an Iraqi national with close ties to Saddam. For his participation in the project, Ritter reportedly received $400,000. The documentary, of course, will never enter production.

BTW, I saw an interview with one of Ritter's former inspection team colleagues (David Kay) on FNC yesterday. Kay was emphatic that, to a man, none of the former inspectors agree with Ritter's position on WMD. In fact, they believe that Saddam is hard at work on WMD (duh). According to Kay, Ritter was soured by his "treatment" by Joe Biden (and others) during his Congressional testimony on Capitol Hill. I've also heard from other sources that Ritter was disappointed that he wasn't offered a high-level post at a think tank, or in government. When that happened, he literally sold himself to the highest bidder. Of course, the liberal media never mention Ritter's Iraqi connection. He's just a useful tool to bash U.S. military action against Saddam...

[ohioman]

Ritter is a traitorous piece of shit.

[Constitutional Patriot]

"Makes you wonder what happened to make Ritter do a 180."

$ happened.

[PoorMuttly]

He may be on our payroll, too.

[piasa]

I wonder if this can be found on the way back machine or some such archived site too verify that this really did appear in the Times of London (I found it on a different site):

"Ritter: Baghdad 'possesses three nuclear bombs,'" by Christopher Walker, Times of London, 9/10/98

Former UN inspector claims that despite the information, no order has been given for a surprise inspection, reports Christopher Walker in Jerusalem

Baghdad 'possesses three nuclear bombs'

IRAQ is hiding three technologically complete nuclear bombs and is lacking only fissionable materials to make them operational. This is the view of Scott Ritter, the United Nations arms inspector who resigned on August 26.

Mr Ritter made his claim at a recent meeting of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It was published for the first time yesterday by Zeev Schiff, military editor of Haaretz, the Tel Aviv daily.

The disclosure, and others about biological and chemical weapons held by Baghdad, came as another showdown between Iraq and the UN loomed.

Prakash Shah, the UN special envoy to Iraq, returns there today after telling the Security Council of his failure to persuade President Saddam Hussein to resume co-operation with arms inspectors.

Iraq has refused since August 5 to work with the UN Special Commission (Unscom) set up to ensure that it dismantles any weapons of mass destruction in its possession. Baghdad has demanded that the UN body be re-structured, its alleged US influence reduced, and its headquarters moved from New York to Europe.

According to Mr Schiff's report on the claims by Mr Ritter, the longest-serving American weapons inspector, Unscom knows where the three nearly complete nuclear bombs are hidden.

The UN team is also said by Mr Ritter to have information on the method used to conceal the bombs, the units and officers responsible for guarding them, and the types of vehicle employed to transport them in the game of cat and mouse between Saddam and the UN experts.

Mr Ritter claimed that, despite the information available, no order was given to the team to conduct a surprise inspection of the site. He claimed that the Security Council and the Clinton Administration had blocked the work of the inspectors just as they were "on the doorstep" of uncovering Iraq's hidden non-conventional weapons of mass destruction. His revelation about the existence of the three bombs has again heightened tensions in the Middle East and raised the stakes in any new confrontation between Iraq and the West. Israel has long believed that it would be the first target of any Iraqi nuclear strike.

As the news about the nuclear devices broke, Security Council members were in the middle of discussing a US-British draft resolution to suspend regular 60-day reviews of UN sanctions until Iraq co-operates with the inspectors.

Yesterday Babel, the Baghdad paper owned by Uday, Saddam's eldest son, issued a warning that, if the resolution were to be adopted, Iraq would boycott the Security Council.

Mr Schiff, reporting Mr Ritter's disclosures, said: "Unscom inspectors also came up with evidence suggesting that Iraq carried out biological weapons tests on human beings in 1995." No details are available about this claim. It is not known, for instance, if prisoners of war were involved in the alleged test. "Ritter also discovered that Iraq had deliberately reported an exaggerated number of chemical bombs that it had used in the [1991 Gulf] War. The reason: so that Baghdad could hide thousands of such bombs and seven tons of chemical components."

Iraq claimed on Tuesday that a new report by Richard Butler, the chief UN weapons inspector, that his arms experts had been barred from three sites was politically motivated and a lie aimed at discrediting Baghdad.

The inspectors have to be satisfied that they have accounted for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before sanctions imposed in August 1990, when Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait, can be lifted.

Haaretz quoted Mr Ritter as revealing that proof also existed that Iraq had been manufacturing chemical weapons outside its borders since the Gulf War. He said that Unscom wanted to pursue this lead in Sudan, but its mandate limited its activities to Iraq.