Scott Ritter
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Author, former Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter joins Charles in the studio to discuss some of the repercussions of being right, the rewards for those who lie us into war, the high probability of a war with Iran, the complicity of the Democrats in Congress, the military’s readiness for a fight, the extent of the Iranian nuclear program, the history of the weapons inspections in Iraq, how the Clinton government prevented him and his colleagues from finishing their work in the 1990′s, the fight between the vice president’s office and the professional military over the next war and why relying on them to stand up to Bush/Cheney is a bad idea.
MP3 here. (42:09)
As a chief weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq, Scott Ritter was labeled a hero by some, a maverick by others, and a spy by the Iraqi government. In charge of searching out weapons of mass destruction within Iraq, Ritter was on the front lines of the ongoing battle against arms proliferation. His experience in Iraq served as the basis for his book Endgame, which explored the shortcomings of American foreign policy in the Persian Gulf region and alternative approaches to handling the Iraqi crisis, and for Iraq Confidential, which detailed his seven year experience as a weapons inspector.
Scott Ritter has had an extensive and distinguished career in government service. He is an intelligence specialist with a 12-year career in the U.S. Marine Corps including assignments in the former Soviet Union and the Middle East. Rising to the rank of Major, Ritter spent several months of the Gulf War serving under General Norman Schwarzkopf with US Central Command headquarters in Saudi Arabia, where he played an instrumental role in formulating and implementing combat operations targeting Iraqi mobile missile launchers which threatened Israel.
In 1991, Ritter joined the United Nations weapons inspections team, or UNSCOM. He participated in 34 inspection missions, 14 of them as chief inspector. Ritter resigned from UNSCOM in August 1998, citing US interference in the work of the inspections.
He is the author of many books, including “Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein†and most recently “Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change.†He lives in New York State. Ritter was born in Florida, and raised all over the world in a career military family. He is a graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, with a B.A. in Soviet History.
epppie
October 14th, 2007 at 2:49 am
All we need is one Republican with some knowledge and evidence and a shred of conscience to come forward.
epppie
October 14th, 2007 at 3:48 am
I would disagree with Scott on two points. He says that the oil companies did not want the Iraq war. I don’t think that’s true. I think SOME of the oil companies may have had the forsight to not want it, but others (eg. Exxon) don’t do forsight and are rolling in record profits, partly because of the war.
Also, Scott points out that the neocons wanted war with Iraq because they wanted control over Middle East oil, for the sake of the control and power it would give them over the international economy. I agree with that, but i don’t think it goes far enough. What we need to understand, in my opinion, is that the destruction of the productive US economy since Reagan, and the devaluation of the US dollar since Nixon, carried to extremes by the currrent fed, and the massive slide into debt of the the US Government AND the US People: all of these factors have given us an economy that is hanging by one single thread: military hegemony.
The real purpose of the Irag and (future) Iran wars are to clamp the US military boot down firmly in the Middle East and Central Asia – in the faces of Russian and China and over the world’s most vital resources. It’s control over resources and – more importantly – military hegemony.
That’s why Bush MUST double down on his bet. Our hegemony has been weakened in Iraq. Destroying Iran would not only shred any doubts at home or abroad about our hegemony, but would also force a draft, which would replenish our ground forces, which would allow us to massively increase our ground forces in the region.
The rational way forward would be to slowly allow the depreciation of our currency to ocurr, which would take care of most of our international debt, while imploding our economy. If we allowed that to happen in such a way that the pain was shared, we could get through it, and come out in a few years with the best economy we’ve ever had.
But to take that step, we’d have to stop waving the flag for a sec., look long and hard at each other, and shake hands: poor/rich, black/white, christian/nonchristian: if we come together and share the pain and pool our resources, we can weather any crisis and come out stronger.
Ryan Dawson
October 14th, 2007 at 9:57 am
There is an appetite for truth. The cabal networks are owned by media conglomerates whose boards of directors are comprised of the same individuals who are on the boards of directors for major aerospace and weapons companies. So naturally war propagandist get rewards despite being dead wrong on everything they say. Webb is my state senator. I am proud that people like him and Ron Paul are at least trying to stick to the constitution. I have been saying that the race to Iran is with the AIPAC trial. The trial date has been moved 7 times. Now Ritter says between December and March is the prime time to strike Iran. I would shorten that to between December and Jan 14 unless the trial date in moved yet again. We all know that the marching orders come from Israel and when we say “Israel” it means the leading cash-cow for the MIC. The DoD heads, the private equity firms and the OSP propagandist from PNAC are all the same people. The MIC no longer has to ‘influence’ the government, they are the government and press now. The lies that were told about the WMD in Iraq were written practically verbatim in PNAC papers from the 90s by the same Neocons Perle, Wolfowitz, Libby, etc) who made their way into the DoD and office of the vice president. Scott Ritter is a truth teller and has a reputation for it. It is a sad state of the Republic that we even think of relying on the military to intervene because our congress is so hopeless and so tied to Israel. McGovern has talked about a mass resignation in the military as well and I would rather it not even have to get that far.
By the way the Neocons do not understand Plato they understand Strauss and Machiavelli. The US support of Israel is disgusting. The Zionist state has racial colonies built by force with a brutal military occupation. Iran is being forced to prove a negative just like Iraq. “There can be no doubt” is exactly what these crooks said about Iraq. Ritter also pointed out before that the 10 years away quote from the IAEA means ground zero. It takes 10 years. We are not in Iraq over interests of oil companies. I am so glad Scott went over that. Scott’s books have been vindicated and we support him on anti-neocons.com I wish Charle had asked Scott about what Philip Giraldi had said last week about Israel’s strike on Syria and what that was really about because I would like to hear Ritter’s opinion on that.
Dave
October 14th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
I’m mildly disappointed that Scott Ritter considers himself a true friend of Israel. He should be speaking out because he loves America, not because he thinks current Israeli and American policy is bad for Israel. The Israelis look upon Americans as expendable and those that support them are nothing more than useful idiots.
I have a great deal of respect for Scott and his outspokenness on the ulterior motives for the Iraq war, but he needs to realize Israel is no friend of America. Their history with the U.S. is replete with treacherous acts such as the Lavon Affair, the U.S.S. Liberty attack in 1967 and the Jonathon Pollard spy scandal. By their actions Israel has shown itself to be an archenemy of this country and should be treated as such.
G5
October 14th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Please read, ” The Israel lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” by
Mearsheimer and Walt.