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

Reuters | 9/08/02

[angkor]

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

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[Brian Allen]

shades of Hanoi Jane

Eerie that you should take the words from my mouth.

Wonder if he worked with a lot of cheese-eating-surrender monkey socialist-slut-staters during his time with the un.

[And to think I thought the hair-job bank-robber "senator" from Delaware got it wrong when he told him he was talking out of his pay scale!]

[mystery-ak]

I wonder if Ritter has any off-shore or overseas bank accounts?.....just wondering!

[TexasCajun]

When the President outlines all the evidence before we level Bagdad, I'd like to see the Bush-Hating, "Hanoi Jane" Ritter arrested for treason.

I don't even think Hanoi Ritter has been bought and paid for or is being black-mailed. I just think he is a Bush-Hating, New-World-Order, U.N.-Loving ego-maniac that became addicted to the camera and is using his celebrity to promote his self-interest propaganda!

[TexasCajun]

"You are making a case for Iraq being involved in the development of a nuke but most people do not understand why this is bad.",

Geezzzz!! ...and obviously you are one of these "most people'?

The rest of your "most people" are over at DU!!

...maybe you can catch a plane flight and join your brother Hanoi Jane Ritter in kissing Saddam's ugly ass!!

[CatoRenasci]

I agree. Given that when he had access to information he believed we were not tough enough, and that he has accepted employment from Iraq, he is simply not to be believed. Indeed, he seems to be adhering to an enemy of the United States, giving aid and comfort to such enemy at least, and doing so for money. If here were sincere, but misguided, as, for example former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, it could be tolerated as a monument to free speech. However, since the man is manifestly not sincere or honest, he should be investigated for treason once war actually breaks out.

[PGalt]

Thanks for the backgroung info on Ritter. The bombing on Baghdad (Mecca or Medina) should begin on 9/11. Give them their own day to remember. Let's play terrorism.

[kinghorse]

Did you read what I wrote. I am down with kicking the shyatt out of the enemies of the USA. The case hasn't been properly communicated to the public. I don't want it to backfire and cause a divide in the USA. When Bush starts talking about the threat of blackmail he needs to spell it out in D-E-T-A-I-L so the avg dumbass will get it. He can't just come off the plane and sound bite a comment about it and expect the avg dumbass to get it. OK?

[FreedomPoster]

Going to visit his secret paymaster?

[hflynn]

Ritter said the trip was at his own initiative "...as an American citizen concerned about the direction that my country is taking, I think that's the reason why I'm here."

. Who paid for the trip and is anybody looking into Ritter's finances?

[hflynn]

Could it be that he's telling the truth?

If he were telling the truth there wouldn't be any reason for Saddam to keep inspectors out of Iraq.

Saddam and Rittter are trying to make inspection the issue when in fact it isn't an issue on the table anymore in the Bush Administration. Saddam is going, inspections or no inspections, and sooner than he thinks. Ritter would be smart to get on board his Iraqi paid for return flight before it is to late.

[Theodore R.]

The Logan Act of the 1790s forbids a private citizen from attempting to make foreign policy over the heads of the nation's leaders. However, this has become an inoperable law in the wake of actions by popular liberals like Jane Fonda Turner and the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. Isn't Ritter regarded as something of a "conservative"? He did speak out against AR Bill in the late 1990s at great risk to himself. I would not yet write off Ritter as a "traitor." We will have to wait and see what he can or cannot accomplish.

[Teacher317]

Iraq being involved in the development of a nuke but most people do not understand why this is bad. Really. A lot of countries have nukes (too many for sure) but they aren't using them except as a deterrent.

But the distinction between Saddam and the members of the nuclear club can be made easily. From this thread yesterday:

Saddam is a brutal military dictator (his first job was as an assassin); he has taken over weaker neighbors in search of power prestige, and resources; he has rattled his sabre towards America repeatedly; he pays $25,000 to the families of terrorists to reward them for killing innocent civilians; he has used WOMD against Iran and against his own people; he believes in the superiority of his brethren over the rest of the world; he is trying to develop nuclear and chemical weapons in violation of the resolutions that ended the Gulf War; he refuses to allow weapons inspectors into Iraq unless he has had a chance to hide them...

in short, he's an evil tyrant who needs to be removed from power before millions are decimated trying to remove him in a global war. Saddam (and Iraq, and the soon-to-be-destabilized Middle East) can avoid war by his ouster, replacing him with a popular-election Republic that will not allow terrorists to stand unmolested in their land. The free flow of oil at market prices will be necessary, as Iraq will need an economic recovery from this shake-up (Marshall Plan, anyone?).

And from the US Department of State's webpage:

Saddam Hussein's Anfal Campaign in the 1980s against the predominantly Kurdish civilians in northern Iraq was characterized by gross violations of human rights. It included the worst ever chemical weapons attack against a civilian population, mass summary executions, disappearances, arbitrary jailing and warehousing, forced displacement, and destruction of some 2,000 villages (4,000 destroyed since 1975), including schools, mosques, farms, and power stations. The campaign resulted in the death of at least 50,000 to 100,000 Iraqi Kurds, according to Human Rights Watch reports. During the 1991 Iraqi repression of the post-Gulf war Kurdish insurrection, thousands of Iraqi Kurds died, 500,000 became refugees along northern Iraq's "no-fly zone" bordering Turkey, and 1.2 to 1.4 million other refugees fled to Iran.

Saddam Hussein launched about 40 gas attacks against Iraqi Kurdish villages and targets in 1987-88 with thousands killed, including the largest attack in March 1988 on Halabjah, a Kurdish town of 45,000 in northern Iraq, causing 3,500 to 5,000 deaths, according to Human Rights Watch. Chemical agents used were a "cocktail" of Mustard gas (which affects skin, eyes, and the membranes of the nose, throat, and lungs), and the nerve gases Sarin, Tabun, and VX.

An excerpt of a quarterly report (shown below) indicates Iraqi aircraft bombed the headquarters of the "sabotage bands" (Iraqi code word for Kurdish resistance) in Iraq's Kurdish villages of Sayw Sanan (Saywan) and Balakajar in a chemical strike on 22 March 1988, killing 50 and wounding 20 others. This Iraqi state document contains the first official direct reference to a chemical attack carried out by Iraqi forces.

The idea that Saddam could be trusted with nuclear weapons (or any WOMD) is easily refuted.

[dalereed]

"Nothing else makes sense"

It's my estimation that he was always on the side of Iraq and actually sabatoged the inspection mission by giving them the itinary of the inspection teams in advance so they would find nothing.

All his retoric and testimony is pure BS!

If he ever returns to the US he should be tried as a traitor.

With any luck he will join the British idiots and try for his 72 virgins along with them.

[aculeus]

I have more respect for Fonda than Ritter. Fonda is basically stupid and didn't go to Hanoi for money. Ritter is not stupid and if he hasn't accepted a big (one million plus dollars) bribe from Iraq then I'm a monkey's uncle.

[Maelstrom]

Link failed to provide needed information.

[stevem]

If Joe Biden was correct, I think we can truly believe Ritter today. He's likely making much more money now than he was when he testified before Biden's committee. It was Biden himself that said credibility in such matters is entirely dependent on how much money you make. That should tell us all we need to know.

What I am curious about though, is I once heard that Ritter was a Marine (now ex-Marine). I just wonder what happened. Is he an example of what the Marine Corps produces? Time was I had a good deal of confidence in our military. Ritter really undermines that. I s'pose it's a logical error to assign to the group the characteristics of the one.

Do other Marines and ex-Marines still claim him as one of their own?

[Polybius]

Unless he's able to show that he found proof of Iraq's innocence in the PI studio or in a cornfield in Iowa, I'd say this is an open and shut case of selling out for cash.

Or receiving death threats to himself or his family?

[Jaidyn]

Some Arab or whatever, sympathizer in the US financed the trip. I had the name but forgot. Will get back with it in a few minutes.

[OReilly]

I'm just seeing if others think this explains part of the 180 done by Ritter.

Ritter watched Butler be booked on innumerable Cable Talk Shows and then watched as Ritter himself was booked on the same shows. Not only did neither of them make any money doing this (even with their books that they tried to hawk on the shows) but after a while, everyone stopped calling.

What can one do when one's only expertise is no longer in demand? Switch sides and negotiate a good deal?

Is that why these "quasi-journalists / political-hacks" switch sides (even back and forth like David Brock) as in Blinded By the Right.