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
Scott Ritter quotes about
That response would be used as a justification for military action.
Our guys working this area for a living all believe Chalabi and all those guys in their Bond Street suits are charlatans. To take them for a source of anything except a fantasy trip would be a real stretch. But it's an article of faith among those with no military experience that the Iraqi military is low-hanging fruit.
It is hard as an American to support the failure of American military operations in Iraq. Such failure will bring with it the death and wounding of many American service members, and many more Iraqis.
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.
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 know that inspections did work, ... We achieved a 90 to 95 percent level of verified, absolutely certain accountability for Iraq's weapons program.
It was never about getting rid of weapons. It was about propaganda to justify continuing sanctions until Saddam could be removed from power.
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.
We just don't know when, but it's going to happen.
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.
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.