What’s up with Scott Ritter? The former US Marine is the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq is now sounding the “Iraq is weapon-free” drum. Granted, he may have a vested interest, as it was Ritter’s team that attempted to certify Iraq’s compliance with UN Sanctions in the late 90’s.
The irony hasn’t been on TV, newspapers, or radio yet, at least not that I’ve heard. But I remember Iraq accusing Ritter of being a “US spy” during his tenure at UNSCOM. I did a little Google-ing and found these for reference:
The weird thing is Iraq wanted to throw Ritter (and any team he was with) out of the country. So they did. In 1999, Ritter says to Salon magazine: “We’re going to have to go to war. We’re going to have to put in a couple hundred thousand troops, defeat Saddam, overthrow Saddam, occupy Iraq, then rebuild Iraq economically and socially.”
Now, Ritter is in Iraq saying the US shouldn’t attack because he believes Iraq does not posses weapons of mass destruction.
So let me see if I can connect a few dots here:
Ritter is Chief Inspector in Iraq. After several years of daily incidents with the Iraqis and countless allegations that the former Marine is a US spy, Ritter abruptly quits his job with the UN. Then, he writes a book saying that Iraq has a ceaseless quest to build weapons of mass destruction.
Hmm…guy tries to certify Iraq weapons free, quits his job when the UN doesn’t certify Iraq, writes a book, and then gets unabated travel within Iraq to do interviews about how the US shouldn’t attack.
I wonder if Iraq had it correct. Maybe Ritter is a secret agent. Now, who do you think he’s working for?