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thedrifter
02-24-04, 05:45 AM
02-23-2004

Some Questions for Scott Ritter



Part 1 of a Series



By Roger Moore



Did former Maj. Scott Ritter have it right all along regarding the current controversy over the absence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?



After all, absence of proof does not mean that proof doesn’t exist.



In the duplicitous events of world and political affairs, things are simultaneously sometimes – and never – what they seem to be. This holds especially true in the debate over our pre-war intelligence assumptions of Iraqi WMD and the failure thus far to unearth any major weapons stockpiles or production facilities.



Before concluding flat-out that the intelligence was wrong, consider this:



There is growing evidence that hundreds and possibly thousands of veterans of Gulf War I are suffering from Gulf War Illness and Lou Gehrig’s disease. There also is evidence that these ailments have at least a casual link to Iraqi Sarin gas that escaped from chemical weapons that were concealed in larger caches of conventional weapons destroyed by our combat engineers after the end of hostilities in 1991. (See my earlier article, “Is a Potential ALS Epidemic Driving Opposition to ‘Concurrent Receipt?’ ” DefenseWatch, Nov. 1, 2003).



That plus Iraq’s documented use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in 1988 led U.S. and western intelligence agencies to conclude that Saddam’s defiance against the U.N. meant he had something to hide.



In their 1995 book, The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of Conflict in the Gulf, retired Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor and New York Times military correspondent Michael R. Gordon reported extensively on what Iraqi WMD capabilities were overstated and what facts were underreported.



The two co-authors had access to highly classified post-war reports while researching The General’s War. On Page 459 in a map inset, they wrote:



“The full scope of Iraq’s nuclear program was not known until after the war. At the start of the war, Al Tuwaitha and Al Qaim were the only known [emphasis added] nuclear targets. By the end of the war, the number of nuclear targets had grown to eight [emphasis added]. Thirty-nine nuclear facilities at 19 locations were later discovered [emphasis added].



It’s a funny thing about intelligence: At some point you have make a decision based on the best available information in hand. Rarely is it perfect, and if you wait too long or not long enough, people die. Our government’s role as a protector is to keep our citizens from dying and to preserve our republic. Sometimes that necessitates taking action on less than perfect information.



The same reality confronted the U.N weapons inspectors as they struggled against Saddam’s “cheat and retreat” obstructionism throughout the 1990s.



In 1998, Ritter resigned as an intelligence analyst and United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector on grounds that the U.N. Security Council and the Clinton administration lacked the resolve to enforce the 13 U.N. resolutions in effect against Iraq since the Gulf War cease-fire of March 1991. Ritter’s position was chronicled by Elizabeth Farnsworth of “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” on Aug. 31, 1998.



In that interview, Ritter clearly stated that he believed Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction and the means to produce more. He told reporter Elizabeth Farnsworth:



“Iraq still has prescribed weapons capability. There needs to be a careful distinction here. Iraq today is challenging the special commission to come up with a weapon and say where is the weapon in Iraq, and yet part of their efforts to conceal their capabilities, I believe, have been to disassemble weapons into various components and to hide these components throughout Iraq.”



“I think the danger right now is that without effective inspections, without effective monitoring, Iraq can in a very short period of time measure the months, reconstitute chemical biological weapons, long-range ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons, and even certain aspects of their nuclear weaponization program.”



If, as his critics have suggested, President Bush be held accountable for launching a war against Iraq based on flimsy evidence, so be it.



However, along with the president’s political head, there are a number of other players who should be held accountable for sustaining what some now call “a big lie.”



By his own statements in 1998, Ritter himself was part of an international consensus that Iraq had covertly maintained WMD capabilities in defiance of the U.N. The fact that he later changed his mind does not lessen his own accountability as part of the U.N. inspection process. Nor does the failure to date to unearth Iraqi WMD evidence confirm his credibility as an intelligence operative.



It’s still too soon to arrive at a verdict on this mystery.



Roger Moore is a Contributing Editor of DefenseWatch. He can be reached at rmoore_dw@yahoo.com. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.


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Sempers,

Roger
:marine: