Scott Ritter
Scott Ritter
William Scott Ritter Jr.was a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, and later a critic of United States foreign policy in the Middle East. Prior to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Ritter stated that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass destructioncapabilities, becoming "the loudest and most credible skeptic of the Bush administration’s contention that Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction." He received harsh criticism from the political establishment but became a popular...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPublic Servant
Date of Birth15 July 1961
CountryUnited States of America
There are people in Baghdad pursuing the initiative that I started, and I want to give them every chance of success. I don't want to provide any distractions.
One of the problems with President Bush issuing that kind of ultimatum is that he has no credibility. Members of his administration have said inspections don't matter. Members of his administration have said that, even if they get back in Iraq and succeed in disarming Iraq, that they're still going to seek regime removal.
One of my biggest concerns is that people think I am a tool of the Iraqi government,
Now, in Kosovo, we have NATO, a defensive treaty organization that has existed admirably for 50 years . . . being led down a path of its eventual demise by the Clinton administration, which has no effective vision of where NATO or the United States should fit in vis-a-vis Europe.
Anyone who said that, doesn't know Scott Ritter. I'm a tool of no one but myself.
The Bush administration has its sights set firmly on Tehran. The same deception is taking place right before our eyes and most Americans remain blind. It is going to happen. It is happening as we speak.
We have inspectors on the ground. They're getting compliance. They're doing their job and they're not finding anything that warrants a threat worthy of war,
I know that inspections did work, ... We achieved a 90 to 95 percent level of verified, absolutely certain accountability for Iraq's weapons program.
Iraq is a nation on fire. And our troops are the fuel that feeds that fire.
How do I know this? I've talked to Bolton's speechwriter.
In fact, the very policies that we are executing today only alienate us abroad, strengthen Saddam Hussein and give him cause to reconstitute these capabilities once he has the means,
I am assisting United States veterans, heroes. People who put on our uniform, defended our country in time of war, who have been abandoned by their government.
I believe Iraq will seek to reconstitute a militarized nerve agent that will be used in a last ditch defense of Baghdad, and I think the Iraqi government's efforts to acquire significant stockpiles of atropine are an indication that this is the direction that Saddam Hussein is heading, ... Crossfire.
I brought out a series of compact discs which contained the totality of the Iraqi declaration,