Scott Ritter: Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy

[Guest guest]

S

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 23:54:50 -0700 (PDT)

Scott Ritter: Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy

 

 

 

 

 

Scott Ritter: Untold Story of the Intelligence

Conspiracy

 

Friday, October 21st, 2005

Scott Ritter on the Untold Story of the Intelligence

Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam

Hussein

 

We speak with Scott Ritter, the chief United Nations

weapons inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998 about

his new book: " Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of

the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and

Overthrow Saddam Hussein. " It details how the CIA

manipulated and sabotaged the work of UN departments

to achieve the foreign policy agenda of the United

States in the Middle East. [includes partial

transcript]

--

In a major article in The New York Times this weekend,

reporter Judith Miller admitted she was wrong when she

wrote several of the key articles that claimed Iraq

had an extensive weapons of mass destruction program

ahead of the 2003 invasion. Miller wrote, " W.M.D. -- I

got it totally wrong. The analysts, the experts and

the journalists who covered them -- we were all

wrong. " Today we are joined by someone who was not

wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -

Scott Ritter. He was the United Nations " top weapons

inspector in Iraq at UNSCOM between 1991 and 1998.

Before working at the UN he served as an officer in

the US marines and as a ballistic missile adviser to

General Schwarzkopf in the first Gulf war.

Scott Ritter has just published a new book titled

" Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the

Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and

Overthrow Saddam Hussein. " The book details how the

CIA manipulated and sabotaged the work of UN

departments to achieve the foreign policy agenda of

the United States in the Middle East.

 

 

Scott Ritter, was the United Nations' top weapons

inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. Before

working for the UN he served as an officer in the US

marines and as a ballistic missile adviser to General

Schwarzkopf in the first Gulf war. He is author of a

new book, just out, titled " Iraq Confidential: The

Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to

Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein. "

 

--

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

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AMY GOODMAN: Welcome to Democracy Now!.

 

SCOTT RITTER: Thank you.

 

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Well, what

do you think is the greatest misunderstanding of the

American people right now about what has happened in

Iraq?

 

SCOTT RITTER: Well, first of all, the reason that

we're there. They think that this was an accident,

that this was a noble cause, that people like the

president, like Bill Clinton before him, like their

respective administrations, journalists like Judith

Miller just honestly got it wrong. And I don't think –

you know, here we are today in Iraq and it's a

disaster. I don't think anybody's going to debate that

statement. Some people say though, `We're working

towards a continuation of this noble objective. We got

rid of Saddam Hussein. That's a good thing. And now

we're going to try to build on that good.' I'm not

going to debate whether or not getting rid of Saddam

Hussein is a good thing or not. But, you know, if you

embrace the notion that the ends justify the means,

that's about as un-American a notion as you can

possibly get into. We're talking about solving a

problem. We have yet to define the problem. The

problem isn't just what's happening in Iraq but it's

the whole process that took place in the United States

leading up to the war, this dishonest process of

deliberately deceiving the American public. And it's

not just George W. Bush. For eight years of the

Clinton administration, that administration said the

same things. The C.I.A. knew, since 1992, that

significant aspects of the Iraqi weapons programs had

been completely eliminated, but this was never about

disarmament

 

AMY GOODMAN: How did they know this?

 

SCOTT RITTER: They knew it, (a) because of their own

access to intelligence information and (b) because of

the work of the weapons inspectors. In October of

1992, I personally confronted the C.I.A. on the

reality that we had accounted for all of Iraq's

ballistic missile programs. That same year they had an

Iraqi defector who had laid out the totality of the

Iraqi biological weapons program and had acknowledged

that all of the weapons had been destroyed. The C.I.A.

knew this. But, see, the policy wasn't disarmament.

The policy was regime change. Disarmament was only

useful in so far as it facilitated regime change.

That's what people need to understand, that this was

not about getting rid of weapons that threatened

international peace and security. This has been about,

since 1991, solving a domestic political

embarrassment. That is the continued survival of

Saddam Hussein, a man who in March 1990 was labeled as

a true friend of the American people and then in

October 1990 in a dramatic flip-flop was called the

Middle East equivalent of Adolph Hitler.

 

JUAN GONZALES: You were involved for quite a long time

with UNSCOM. At what point did you, as you were

working for the United Nations, reach the conclusion

that regime change really was the intent of the

program that – well, the United States intent behind

the program that you were involved with?

 

SCOTT RITTER: It wasn't a matter of reaching a

conclusion. When I joined in September of 1991, that

was already the stated policy of the United States

government. I outlined this in the book. The fact that

in April, 1991, the United States helps draft and then

votes in favor of a Chapter 7 resolution 687 that

creates the weapons inspections, call upon Iraq to

disarm and in Paragraph 14 says if Iraq complies,

economic sanctions will be lifted. This is the law. A

few months later, the president, George Herbert Walker

Bush and the Secretary of State say economic sanctions

will never be lifted against Iraq, even if they comply

with their obligation to disarm, until which time

Saddam Hussein is removed from power. It's the stated

policy of the United States government. What we

weren't quite aware of is just to what extreme they

would go in undermining the credibility and integrity

of the United Nations inspection process to achieve

this objective.

 

AMY GOODMAN: Something that has been repeated over and

over again is that Saddam Hussein kicked out the U.N.

weapons inspectors. Can you tell us what happened?

 

SCOTT RITTER: Well, there are several periods of time,

but the most dramatic is the December 1998 period

right before Bill Clinton got on national TV, talked

about the threat of W.M.D. and said he is launching an

air campaign, 72 hours of bombardment called Operation

Desert Fox. No, Saddam did not kick the inspectors

out. Actually, what was happening at that point in

time is that the Iraqi government was complying with

every single requirement set forth by the Security

Counsel and the inspectors. They were cooperating with

the inspectors, giving the inspectors access in

accordance to something called the `modalities of

sensitive site inspections.'

 

Public perception is that the Iraqis were

confrontational and blocking the work of the

inspectors. In 98% of the inspections, the Iraqis did

everything we asked them to because it dealt with

disarmament. However when we got into issues of

sensitivity, such as coming close to presidential

security installations, Iraqis raised a flag and said,

" Time out. We got a C.I.A. out there that's trying to

kill our president and we're not very happy about

giving you access to the most sensitive installations

and the most sensitive personalities in Iraq. " So we

had these modalities, where we agreed that if we came

to a site and the Iraqis called it `sensitive,' we go

in with four people.

 

In 1998, the inspection team went to a site. It was

the Baath Party headquarters, like going to Republican

Party headquarters or Democratic Party headquarters.

The Iraqis said, " You can't come in – you can come in.

Come on in. " The inspectors said, " The modalities no

longer apply. " The Iraqis said, " If you don't agree to

the modalities, we can't support letting you in, " and

the Iraqis wouldn't allow the inspections to take

place.

 

Bill Clinton said, " This proves the Iraqis are not

cooperating, " and he ordered the inspectors out. But

you know the United States government ordered the

inspectors to withdraw from the modalities without

conferring with the Security Council. It took Iraqis

by surprise. Iraqis were saying, " We're playing by the

rules, why aren't you? If you're not going play by the

rules, then it's a game that we don't want to

participate in. " Bill Clinton ordered the inspectors

out. Saddam didn't kick them out.

 

JUAN GONZALEZ: Your point that this kind of deception

occurred under both Democrats and Republicans would at

least suggest that what's happened in Iraq is not just

a question of a bunch – of a cabal of zealots in the

White House right now that are conducting this – that

are hijacking policy but that there are deeper

interests involved in the United States and the kind

of policy that we've had in Iraq. You get into some of

that in the book. Could you talk about that a little

bit?

 

SCOTT RITTER: Well, I don't want to sound – I'm not

somebody who's into conspiracy theories, and I'm not

somebody who's out there saying this is about global

oil. The tragedy of Iraq is that it's about domestic

American politics. This is a president, George Herbert

Walker Bush, who in 1990, traps himself rhetorically

by linking Saddam Hussein to Adolph Hitler. Once you

do that, once you speak of a Nuremburg-like

retribution, you can't negotiate your way out of that

problem. Now it's either deliver Saddam Hussein's head

on a platter or you failed. He tried to during the

Gulf War. I was part of a team that was targeting

Saddam. We didn't succeed.

 

Now the C.I.A. says, " Don't worry, Saddam will be gone

in six months. All you have to do is contain him, put

these sanctions in place and keep him bottled up and

he'll collapse. " Six months later Saddam Hussein is

still there. His continued survival became a political

embarrassment that had to be dealt with.

 

This was inherited by Bill Clinton. The irony is that

Bill Clinton – and I'm very critical of Bill Clinton,

but you know, in the period between his election in

1992 and his being sworn in, his administration

reached out to the Iraqis in saying, " Look, this is a

ridiculous policy, let's figure out how we can get

sanctions lifted and get you back into the family of

nations. " But when politicians in Congress, both

Democrat and Republican, found out about this, they

said, " You can't do this. We have told our

constituents this man is Hitler, and we can't

negotiate with the devil. "

 

We were trapped by this policy. And this cabal we

speak of, the neoconservatives, they may not have

originated this policy but they exploited eight years

of Clinton administration's ineffective policy of

dealing with Saddam. Saddam's survival for eight years

empowered the neoconservatives to use regime change as

a rallying cry for the Republican Party. [break]

 

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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/21/144258