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
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.
An ACOD means that it's expunged from the record, as if it never happened,
I love my country more than anything. I spent 12 years in the United States Marine Corps. I know what it means to defend this country.
Iraq has not been disarmed 100 percent [but] in terms of what they [Iraqis] have accomplished there are no meaningful weapons or weapons production capability in Iraq today.
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.
We just don't know when, but it's going to happen.
Both these men could be pulled up as war criminals for engaging in actions that we condemned Germany in 1946 for doing.
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.
There is a lot of inaccurate information and irresponsible speculation today, particularly from the U.S. government.
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,
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.