Posted on 05/05/2008 5:56:20 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Here is a partial transcript of the interview Matthew Rothschild conducted with Scott Ritter on April 18 for Progressive Radio. To listen to the entire interview, click here.
Q: For several years now, you’ve been warning of the possibility that the Bush Administration will attack Iran. What do you think the likelihood is now in the waning months of the Bush Administration?
Scott Ritter: I think we’ve never been at a greater risk of American military action against Iran.
Q: Really? Why do you say that?
Scott Ritter: Because the Bush Administration has made it clear that they seek to resolve the Iranian problem before it leaves office. They have defined the Iranian problem in quite stark terms. It’s a nation pursuing an illegal nuclear weapons program. It’s a nation that retains the status, according to the United States, as the largest state-sponsor of terror in the world today. And if you listened to the testimony of General Petraeus and Admiral Crocker, it’s the nation solely responsible for all that ails the United States in Iraq today. President Bush responded to Petraeus and Crocker’s testimony by calling the Iranians criminals, noting that they will be crushed.
I think the American people need to understand that when we speak of conflict between Iran and the United States, we’re not talking about a repeat of Operation Iraqi Liberation, later known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. We’re talking about a limited military strike, at least initially.
We’re talking about a five to seven day aerial bombardment that can be extended to thirty days. This is the status of planning taking place in the Pentagon today. This is what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about the invasion and occupation of Iran.
A lot of Americans are dismissive of conflict with Iran because they envision it involving hundreds of thousands of American troops occupying this nation that’s over two and a half the times the physical land mass of Iraq with a population similarly larger. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about punitive aerial intervention. And this is something very much on the books.
Q: But how limited would that be? I’ve read some accounts: Sy Hersh in The New Yorker saying this could involve 10,000 bombing strikes. Then things could spin out of control. The Atlantic magazine did a war games plan on this, and the thing just spun and spun and spun. So it wasn’t just a simple seven-day or two week or three week affair.
Scott Ritter: I concur with these assessments. But again when we talk about the initiation of the conflict, the Bush Administration continues to live under the illusion that it can limit this conflict. I concur that once we initiate . . . I was always trained in the military that the enemy has a vote. There’s the other side of the coin. When you start something, you’ve suddenly lost control. No plan survives initial contact with the enemy.
Q: What are some of those predictable negative consequences?
Scott Ritter: The easiest one is that the Iranians won’t roll over and play dead, and the Iranian people won’t rise up and embrace the United States for bombing them. The Iranians aren’t stupid. They know the region better than we know it, and they are planning as we speak appropriate retaliatory measures. It’s up to the Iranians to decide how they want to escalate this problem. And I’ve told the Iranians, I’ve told the Iranian ambassador, that it would be foolhardy of Iran to escalate in a large fashion, that the best thing that Iran could do is suck it up and take the five-day aerial bombardment and let the condemnation of the international community to come into play and hold America in check.
Because if Iran retaliates, it will lead to the spinning out of control. If they shut down the Straits of Hormuz, which they can do, if they intervene into Saudi oil production in the eastern oil fields, if they shut down Kuwaiti oil production, if they unleash the hounds of war in southern Iraq and shut down oil production there, and tie down American troops there, if they fire ballistic missiles against the state of Israel, thereby prompting an Israeli retaliation—all of these things are well within the realm of the possible, I would even say probable in terms of Iranian retaliation, but all of them will create a massive escalation of the conflict, spinning dangerously out of control.
Q: Scott Ritter, how will Bush be able to get away with this?
Scott Ritter: Well, he’s already gotten away with it. There’s no constitutional impediment to prevent the President from launching a military strike against Iran.
Q: Well, there’s Article 1, Section 8, which says Congress has to declare war.
Scott Ritter: Congress has declared war. Congress has given this President two standing war powers resolutions that clearly link the use of military force to the global war on terror. And the President has successfully defined Iran as the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today. And the United States Senate has gone further, giving the President a de facto target list by naming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Command as a terrorist organization.
Q: This is the Lieberman bill, right?
Scott Ritter: Kyl-Lieberman. I will say again, there is no constitutional impediment to this President going to war.
Q: The Kyl-Lieberman Amendment also says that the Iranian government is engaged in a “proxy war” against the United States in Iraq, which is what Ambassador Crocker said when he testified. I guess it’s not a big leap from there. Some members of Congress have tried to pass a bill that says no, Dick Cheney and George Bush if you want to do this, you’ve got to come to Congress first. But that bill died.
Scott Ritter: It died for some of the most curious reasons, too. Nancy Pelosi, the erstwhile leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, stated that she opposed this legislation because she did not want to tie the President’s hands when it came to securing the national security interests of—and now we can have a drum roll—Israel. And here we have an elected American official stating that she is willing to push the Constitution of the United States aside not for American interests, which I would still disagree with, but for a non-American entity, in this case, the state of Israel. I find this as repulsive as can possibly be.
I give up. Is Scott getting money from Ahmedinajad’s friends now?
Is he by any chance working for the Carter Center?
Somebody, find out who’s paying his bills now.
We should’ve bombed ‘em when Reagan took office.
Sounds like a plan to me.
He was right about Iraq. He may have just been lucky, but he was right. There were no WMDs.
Google "Syria."
There have been quite a few chemical finds. And some half-assed chemical attacks.
MSM just plays them down.
Scott had to find a new arab to kneepad for after they hanged Saddam.
Haven’t they always?
Right.....like nobody else ever said the same thing. Honestly, was there ever any real debate over this?
The Deranged DemoKooks have been wringing their hands for 2 or 3 years, worrying that Bush might attack Iran. But not a peep from them when Hillary Clinton says she’d be ready to “obliterate” Iran.
“[L]aunching some missile strikes into Iran is not the optimal position for us to be in, given the ongoing war in Iraq. On the other hand, having a radical Muslim theocracy in possession of nuclear weapons is worse.” ~ Barack Hussein Obama, 9/26/04
“Senator John Kerry echoed this sentiment on May 29, 2004, when he told the Washington Post that the Bush Administration has not ‘been tough on the [Iran] issue...which is the issue of nuclear weaponry, and again just like I said with North Korea, you have to keep your eye on the target.’”
http://www.antiwar.com/frank/?articleid=4521 These quotes are from a Big Old Lefty Site; Enter at your OWN Risk!
Wasn’t this guy up to some no good ? Porno, Chasing young girls, Doing something. But if so , why is this guy a specialist ?
Ping. No MAD deterence with people who don’t give a damn about MAD.
The USSR was led by people who want to live. Iran is led by people who look forward to fire cleansing the ummah to make way for the Mehdi(their Messiah) who will cleanse the earth of Christians and Jews.
Welcome to Free Republic.
The Iranian people are NO more propagandized by their government than US citizens are propagandized by their government. That is to say, we are ALL subject to the manipulative and predetermined decisions of our authoritative governments, regardless of constituent lives or money spent.
Those who have not figured this out are sadly naive.
Incidentally Iraqi's, Saudi's, and most "Arabs" are every bit or more "Semitic" than Israel's Jews.
And those who have not figured that out are sadly naive.
Its the one they sneak into New York we're worried about.........Go back to DU.
Is there a college which trains people like Ritter for degrees as weapons inspectors? Or does the UN just hold mass interviews where applicants are asked to disrobe in the dark and find their bare ass with both hands? Then they hire only those who fail the test.
>> Or does the UN just hold mass interviews where applicants are asked to disrobe in the dark and find their bare ass with both hands? Then they hire only those who fail the test. <<
Funny, I thought Ritter was quite experienced at doing that...
If saddam could bury Migs in the sand, how many WMD could he bury in the sand, that we have not yet found. Ritter has been bought.
Geeze! Wasn’t his 15 minutes of fame up, like, years ago? I am so tired of the time of day be given to these people with so-called re-habbed (Dick morris comes to mind)reputations. Ritter is a pervert.
I command you to write 100 times on the blackboard:
Iraq's WMDs were moved by Soviet special forces to Syria.
NONONONO...NO!!! He said it was going to be in June of 2004 so Bush could win re-election. At least that was what he was preaching with Joe Wilson to the looney left at Universities. Wolf,Wolf, Wolf, Wolf etc.. etc..
Consult the Kurds about that.
He had them. He used them. They are somewhere.
In 1998 during an interview on NBC TV, Scott Ritter called his former UNSCOM boss Richard Butler "an honest, objective, independent United Nations official." In 2002 during a Today Show interview, Scott Ritter said ""Richard Butler on the other hand is contradictable across the board"…"Kaidia Hamza and Richard Butler are a fraud and a liar respectively" September 16th, 2002) So what happened between 1998 and 2002, when Scott Ritter seemingly, magically changed his mind about Saddam Hussein and Iraq?
In 1999, Scott Ritter was approached by a Detroit area businessman with links to Saddam Hussein, to make a film about the "devasting effects" that U.N. Sanctions have had on Iraq. Ritter completed the film in July of 2000. Ritter was paid $400,000 to complete a one person, two camera, ninety-minute "documentary." Was Scott Ritter "bought and paid for" to change his story by Saddam Hussein? Scott Ritter claims he made no money on the documentary, but did he? On September 13th 2002, Scott Ritter was interviewed by CNN's Paula Zahn. In the interview, Zahn asked Ritter if he thought $400,000 was an "unusual amount" of money to film a documentary. Ritter's response was "no" he didn't think the amount was high. Ritter then went on to say that "other funding sources" had also been located to help pay the expenses of the trip. These sources include anti-war movements such as "not in our name" and the "Institute For Public Accuracy" a San Francisco based organization with ties to "The Workers Party of America" and the "Socialist Workers Party" and at the forefront of mobilizing and organizing Anti War protests. Ironic that the "Institute For Public Accuracy's" communications director is named Sam Husseini.
Ha! That’s right pal. Google Gen. George Sadas, Iraq general who specifically speaks on it, and the role of Syria. But largley nobody on the Left cares anymore...everyone just wants cheaper gas, but they don’t want to take military actions to keep the market stablized to ensure it.
But I care...amongst a few others. Bush needs one last hail mary on Iran before he leaves to set things right.
On two separate occasions within weeks of each other, Scott Ritter solicited two very young teen girls in online chatrooms. He asked them to watch him masturbate, and arranged to meet them at a Burger King, where he was subsequently arrested by undercover detectives. He's a pervert, which makes him a perfect spokesperson for Progressive Radio.
Welcome to FR. If not sure of spelling or just for good orderly work, please use the spell check feature. My head explodes when I read so many misspelled words and incomplete sentences and I can’t take it much longer. No comment on your questionable ideas.
We only gave hussein about 9 months advance notice we were coming while the president obtained UN, and congressional authorization. Plenty of time to move (likely to Syria, Bekaa Valley Lebanon) bury or destroy anything incriminating. It's quite presumptuous to conclude that "there were no WMDs". We just haven't found any.
When someone is murdered and a weapon is never found, can it be concluded that "there was no murder weapon" since none was found?
At last- a lucid comment pertaining to the situation.
Thank You
Did Ritter issue this statement in front of a local Burger King?
To clarify: When someone is found stabbed to death, and the knife is never found; can we conclude that there never was a knife simply because it wasn’t found?
And all this time I thought they promised over and over the program was for energy only
Huh? He USED them on the kurds.
It’s fascinating to know the U.S. and Rummy were accused of “selling wmd’s” to Saddam and were blamed for them being used...
but yet, it’s as if it’s simply impossible for him to have somehow had them once we liberated Iraq!?
When did he and his sons turn over a new leaf?
Besides, there were many reasons to liberate Iraq. Saddam was shooting at our pilots enforcing the no fly zone, so the treaty was broken from the first gulf war.
He exploited the oil for food debacle.
He was a dangerous terrorist, an enemy of America and so were his sons.
He wasn’t indicating he had learned from attacking Kuwait, Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
And ummmm Scott Ritter has zero answer as to why so many hypocrats DEMANDED Saddam be removed, let alone voted for the war in the first place!
What was Scott Ritter into?
Was it little girls or little boys?
Little boys, I think it was.
Little, 8 year old boys.
Would somebody tell me why this ego-maniac jerk is not in Leavenworth for treason???
Welcome to FreeRepublic.
Member since 5/5/08
Yep. Ritter is like Helen Thomas at a press conference - “What about the Jews?”
“What about the Jews?”
Ritter, bought and paid for by the Arabs. Would be worth a congressional investigation into his income since about 1998.
I’m sure Saddam was just saving this stuff for a rainy day.
By James Glanz NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE May 22, 2004
VIENNA – The United States has informed an international agency that oversees nuclear materials that it intends to move hundreds of tons of uranium from a sealed repository south of Baghdad to a more secure location outside Iraq, Western diplomats close to the agency say.
However, the International Atomic Energy Agency has taken the position that the uranium is Iraqi property and the agency “cannot give them permission to remove it,” a diplomat said.
There were 500 chemical weapons found. But we’re not supposed to talk about those.
Failed logic.
A large segment of the culture doesn’t respect their OWN lives, so a first strike and the impending 72 virgins reward is fine with the few in control of the red button.
Moreover, they don’t necessarily need to “launch” a nuke, they could theoretically set one off, and/or utilize a dirty bomb inflicting mass casualties on Israelis.
Besides, al-qaeda isn’t a country or government that the U.S. or Israel can target, they could set up a rocket base in the desert or a cave in Iran and then scurry back into their rat holes after launching a nuke at Israel and Iran could act like they know nothing about it!
Hitler ordered his generals to destroy Germany, because the Germans didn’t deserve to survive since they’d failed him. And THESE loons actually BELIEVE God would somehow see fit for children to strap explosives on themselves and murder other children.
So counting on the insanely irrational to behave rationally is insanely dangerous!
Sure, the vast majority of Iranians wouldn’t pull the trigger, but of course they don’t hold the gun, as usual!
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