SAMANTHA BLONS
Staff Writer
When former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter publicly criticized the Bush administration’s justification for military action in Iraq in 2002, pundits and politicians alike condemned him as unpatriotic, disloyal and bitter. When he repeatedly stated that the Iraqi weapons program had been sufficiently dismantled and posed no proven threat to the United States, Curtis Sliwa of MSNBC’s “Curtis & Kuby” said he should “turn in his passport for an Iraqi one.”
However, after five years, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and public support for the war and the Bush administration has plummeted. And Scott Ritter has no problem reminding Americans he told them so.
“How quickly we, the people, are deceived. How easily we, the people, are manipulated,” Ritter said in a recent appearance at the Santa Monica Public Library. Ritter spoke at the library on Feb. 26 in a public “conversation” with renowned political journalist Robert Scheer.
After serving as a U.S. Army intelligence officer and missile expert in the Gulf War, Ritter joined Uniscom, the U.N. weapons inspection team, in 1991. In his seven years as a team leader, Ritter frequently clashed with the Iraqi officials he was sent to monitor, as well as with the U.N. Security Council and the United States. He said this is because neither was doing enough to enforce Iraqi cooperation with the inspectors. Ritter resigned in 1998 in protest of the lack of support the inspectors were receiving from both the United Nations and the United States.
In the informal speech, Ritter explained his analysis of American policies in Iraq over the past two decades. Ritter said George H. W. Bush and his administration were the “initiators” of a policy pushing for regime change in Iraq after the Gulf War. Saddam Hussein’s existence, he said, reminded everyone of his ties with the Reagan and former Bush administrations.
“Saddam Hussein represented a political liability to George H. W. Bush, and Clinton inherited this burden,” Ritter said. His analysis depicted former presidents Bush and Clinton and the current President Bush as the masterminds of a complex plot to force regime change in Iraq. Their plan called for the eventual removal of Hussein by military force, Ritter said, which required that the global community continue to view Hussein as a powerful threat.
However, at the time, the weapons inspectors were finding no definitive evidence that such a threat existed.
“These administrations were only focused on regime change,” he said. “Clinton wanted to maintain this premise of a viable weapons program in Iraq, and in order to do that, [the administration] needed to prevent the weapons inspectors from doing their jobs.” He said the Clinton administration “refused to believe the weapons inspectors” when they reported that Iraq had been disarmed.
Though he is more well-known for his outspoken criticisms against the justification for the Iraq war, Ritter also spoke at the event about the current Washington debate of when and how quickly to end the occupation. He believes an immediate withdrawal of American military forces from the region would reduce much of the widely publicized violence.
“The American military acknowledges that 80 percent of the violence is the direct result of American presence in Iraq,” he said. “Our occupation gives more legitimacy to those with extremist views. The more moderate elements will come forward if we leave.” He believes the current Bush strategy of a troop level surge will fail because there is no plan, he said.
Ritter envisions a successful, independent Iraqi government – one that understands and accounts for the historic tribal differences of the region. However, he said if American policy makers attempt to impose a system devoid of cultural and religious accommodations, he predicts “a resurgence of a Saddam Hussein character.”
“If we want a secular Iraq that is divorced of all tribal influences, then we’ll need a dictator,” Ritter said. “If we’re willing to accept a moderate version of Islamic law, if we’re willing to accept an Iraq that allows for its natural tendencies, then we won’t.”
At the speech, Ritter also discussed his predictions for possible military action in Iran, the focus of his 2006 book, “Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s Plans for Regime Change.”
“The feeling in Washington is that in order to solve Iraq, we have to solve Iran,” he said. However, he said he foresees no positive outcome from military conflict in Iran, especially because he does not see Iran as an immediate threat.
Ritter said Iran is about 10 years away from developing a nuclear weapon, “which means they don’t have anything. Everyone knows this, except for the American people.”
Ritter has taken it upon himself to inform them, however, touring the country promoting “Target Iran” and speaking at venues such as the Santa Monica Public Library. After the speech, both Ritter and interviewer Scheer answered questions from the crowd and sold autographed copies of their respective books.
Tickets to the speech were free to the community, which yielded a diverse audience that crossed socio-economic lines. Activist Hollywood-types clad in “Impeach Bush” gear sat next to transients from the streets of Santa Monica. Outside the lecture hall, audience members passed out anti-war materials, shared their thoughts of the speech, or pushed through the masses toward the authors’ tables to buy a book and speak further with Ritter or Scheer.
Representatives from the Los Angeles-based news Website Truthdig.com recorded the event and posted it as a video podcast on their website on March 20. Scheer is editor in chief of the online news site.
04-23-2007