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
When I resigned, I put the U.S. Government on notice that I'm going to stick to policy issues, that I have no intention of going out and blowing the cover off of the intelligence operations, that those are truly sensitive and they should not be exposed.
It is a pro-U.N. movie. It's a pro-American movie. It's a pro-American movie. It's a movie people should be watching and not denigrating.
It is complicated because you need members of all fields, including chemists, physicists and biologists. They are the heart and soul of the process.
This refusal means we can't carry out our inspections -- it is a failure of Iraq to comply with obligations,
This refusal ... in effect means we cannot carry out our inspection and is a failure of Iraq to comply with its obligations.
We have thousands of American veterans who continue to suffer,
You know we can't expect the inspectors to accomplish anything in a country the size of Iraq.
I'll put my record of service up against anyone, bar none.
I have a credibility on the subject that most people don't.
Where did it come from? Did they suddenly grow factories? ... You build factories, not in a basement, not in a mountain cave. It's a modern industrial capability. Where did it come from?
has not been demonstrated to pose a threat worthy of war at this time.
I believe that this inspection was rushed through, and the sites weren't chosen for disarmament reasons, but rather to be provocative in nature so Iraq would respond in a predictable fashion,
We had the proof. We couldn't present it. And that's where we are today.
We had the information. We had the goods on the Iraqis, clear and irrefutable evidence of Iraq's prohibited activities. We caught them red-handed.