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
We are the ones responsible to determine whether the war that our marines, soldiers and airmen are fighting in is worth the cause...
The U.S. has perverted the U.N. weapons process by using it as a tool to justify military actions, falsely so. ... The U.S. was using the inspection process as a trigger for war.
One, if you attack my integrity, I will defend myself. If you attack my patriotism, I will defend myself. If you come after my family, I will counter-attack viciously, I will destroy you.
We say that we care about the war, but we don't even really know what we're fighting for.
The only way an Iraqi biological agent would kill you is if it landed on your head.
If people don't like the history, I'm sorry.
My goal in Baghdad was to facilitate a debate here in the United States on America's policy toward Iraq, a debate that's been sadly lacking.
[Operation] Rockingham was spinning reports and emphasizing reports that showed non-compliance (by Iraq with UN inspections) and quashing those which showed compliance. It was cherry-picking intelligence.
I consider myself to be a true friend of the Israeli people. But I define friendship as someone who takes care of a friend, who just doesn't use or exploit a friend. And, you know, there's that old adage: 'Friends don't let friends drive drunk'.
I really am tired of all the Clinton Democrats running around getting all-sanctimonious over Iraq. It was them who killed 1.5 to 2.2 million Iraqis through sanctions. Sanctions that Madeline Albright, their illustrious Secretary of State, when confronted with the fact of 500,000 dead Iraqi children, said it was a price she was willing to pay.
The UN stopped using Chalabi's information as a basis for conducting inspections once the tenuous nature of his sources and his dubious motivations became clear. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the mainstream US media, which give prominent coverage to sources of information that, had they not been related to Hussein's Iraq, would normally be immediately dismissed.
While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq's proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament. This figure takes into account the destruction or dismantling of every major factory associated with prohibited weapons manufacture, all significant items of production equipment, and the majority of the weapons and agent produced by Iraq.
If you call yourself an American that means that you have embraced the constitution, because that is what an American is. A citizen of the United States of America is someone who has sworn an oath of allegiance to that document, to the words, to the ideals of that document. Right now we have citizens who don't even understand what that document is.
Sanctions aren't about weapons of mass destruction. People need to understand that.