Posted on 02/03/2003 2:26:26 PM PST by OneLoyalAmerican
Editors Note: Some will call what you are about to read a "smear campaign" against Scott Ritter. We disagree. What you are about to read comes from credible sources cited above, and throughout our expose of UNSCOM's most controversial, combative Weapons Inspector. Throughout our expose we use Scott Ritter's own words from his book "Endgame" and surround his comments with interviews from sources that seemingly contradict what Ritter said in the past, and is saying now. If we are to believe Scott Ritter is telling the truth about Iraq and that no one else - Including President Bush, former UNSCOM inspectors, Ritter's own former UNSCOM boss, and the CIA then we'd be wise to question his character and integrity as a foundation to determine whether Ritter is being truthful in his statements. What you are about to read examines Scott Ritter's character and integrity, and even by his own admission which you will read for himself, he has his failings. Those failings cost American's their very lives, Scott Ritter his integrity, and ultimately allowed Saddam Hussein to conceal much of his WMD programs and rebuild them between 1998 and 2002. Clearly Scott Ritter is a liar at best, traitor to his country at worst. We trust you our reader will come to the same conclusions we did after our extensive research into Scott Ritter's past. --Editor, ROPMA
Much has been said and written about Scott Ritter, former UNSCOM Weapons Inspector, and Marine in the last year. Much has also been left out of the story of this UNSCom Weapons Inspector "gone bad." Could it be that the personal life of Scott Ritter has tainted his view of Iraq, the United States Government, his fellow UNSCOM Weapons inspectors and Marine brethren? Not only is the answer to that question YES it could, the fact of the matter is, it has.
Let's start with the basics first: In order to believe Scott Ritter is telling the truth that Iraq has been disarmed and no longer contains the capacity or capability to produce WMD's (whether they are nuclear, chemical or biological) you the reader absolutely must believe that every other UNSCOM, and IAEA inspector is wrong or lying, and that Scott Ritter is the ONLY person in UNSCOM, IAEA and in fact the entire US Intelligence Services who knows the truth. This statement is irrefutable, as Scott Ritter is the ONLY former UNSCOM or US Based Intelligence "source" on record as saying that Iraq has been sufficiently disarmed, and no longer poses a threat to its neighbors, or the United States of America.
In order to understand Ritters "flip" over the Iraq issue, it's important to understand Ritter's history with UNSCOM, and his role during the US/USSR Disarmament process in the mid to late 80's. It is his personal life and frankly his sexual demons that play a key role during this time period, in Scott Ritter's change of heart with Iraq, at least in this author's opinion.
Scott Ritter served as a Nuclear Disarmament specialist from 1988 to 1990 in Votkinsk in the Soviet Union. During this time, Scott Ritter was married to his first wife. It was in Votkinsk that Scott Ritter met Marina Khatiashvili, who would later become Ritter's second wife. Marina Khatiashvili served as a Soviet supplied "escort" and translator, working directly for the KGB. It is well documented that during this critical period of the US/USSR Nuclear Disarmament process, the former Soviet Union was using young, Russian models in an attempt to sexually compromise American disarmament specialists. In fact, Ritter complained openly at the time of the "pressure" being applied to America's disarmament specialists and issued a report to the CIA of the affects of the "pressure." In an interview in Time Magazine in Sept. of 2002, Ritter admitted to writing a series of reports in 1988 on Soviet Penetration techniques used against US disarmament specialists who were using young girls, of which his current wife Marina was one, to sexually compromise US specialists. All of Ritters filed reports - save for one - claimed this to be the case. The sole exception was his current Wife Marina's assignment of Votkinsk - ironically where Ritter first met her. Was this Scott Ritter laying the groundwork to "cover" his tracks? I report, you decide, but it appears to this author that Ritter had been sexually compromised already.
Still married to his first wife at the time, Ritter said a romance was out of the question. He was working as a US counterintelligence officer. "I was living under a microscope," he says. "All my contacts [with her] were authorized." (Source: Ritter's book.) But the truth is, Ritter had an affair with a different Russian KGB Agent, and this was the reason for his divorce from his first wife.
Sent to the Persian Gulf for the Desert Storm campaign in 1991, Ritter was a captain assigned to a battle damage assessment unit. He concluded that U.S. pilots were not destroying any of Iraq's Scud missile launchers, only decoys, or had misidentified the targets. This contradicted what the coalition commander, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, was telling the world, and with Ritters statements of today that Iraq has been successfully "disarmed."
After the Gulf War, Ritter resigned from active duty and returned to the Soviet Union to look into a job with an American firm and to look up Khatiashvili. After they got married in early 1991, the FBI launched an investigation into whether Ritter represented a risk to national security. While Scott Ritter claims in his book the FBI never found anything "close to resembling a violation of the law" the fact is, the FBI deemed Ritter to be "sexually compromised." Marrying a foreign national would ultimately cost Ritter his high-level security clearance when he became a U.N. weapons inspector and had to, as he put it, "interact with the intelligence community." Again, this is a critical piece of information moving forward, as this directly affects Ritters' ability to do his "job" during the UNSCOM inspection period from 1991 - 1998. Ritter from this point forward lacks critical security clearance and access to intelligence reports critical during the disarmament of Iraq.
In September of 1991, Ritter began working for UNSCOM in Iraq, and as he put it in his book "Endgame" became involved in a perilous game of "hide and seek" with Iraq.
The first executive chairman of UNSCOM, Rolf Ekeus, of Sweden, was a diplomat and arms-control expert with an amiable personality that masked a determination to run UNSCOM as an independent U.N. operation, and not as an adjunct of American foreign policy. Ekeus did turn to an American, however, for help in setting up an intelligence unit. He chose Scott Ritter, who had served as an intelligence officer in the Gulf War. In the security-conscious world of intelligence, Ritter arrived at the U.N. with high-risk baggage: earlier, while serving in a top-secret Pentagon arms-control job in the Soviet Union, he had been suspected of being romantically involved with a Georgian national. (He subsequently married the woman.) With this shaky security file, he was nobody's choice in Washington for the UNSCOM job, and some C.I.A. officials chose to be skeptical of his bona fides. Initially, the agency insisted that Ritter be excluded from its own intelligence briefings to UNSCOM, although Nikita Smidovich, a former Russian diplomat and arms-control expert, who was also assigned to UNSCOM's intelligence unit, was allowed to attend them. An internal C.I.A. review by a senior intelligence official named Samuel Hoskinson, however, quickly concluded that Ritter was not a security risk, and the agency dropped its restriction. "I never thought Ritter was going to give anything away," Hoskinson told me. "Anyway, we're not stupid. We don't share everything with the U.N." - an apparent recognition of the security risks and baggage that Scott Ritter brought to the UNSCOM table.
Between 1991 and 1994, there were many battles between UNSCOM, IAEA and US Based intelligence sources regarding oversight, and who reported to who for intelligence reporting and gathering purposes. These battles and the personalities behind them are too numerous and lengthy to detail.
In early 1994, Rolf Ekeus the executive chariman of UNSCOM was privately approached by an Israeli intelligence official, and he agreed to open discussions with Israel on the sharing of UNSCOM information. The first meeting, in New York, provided an electric moment. The Israelis had turned over a stack of intelligence reports, and the UNSCOM staff began rapidly flipping through the pages. At first, the documents seemed humdrum--"mostly an account of Iraqi stockpiles," Scott Ritter recalled. But one paragraph revealed the existence of the Iraqi weapons-concealment operation and the elite units in Saddam's Special Security Organization that were assigned to it.
Ritter now saw an opportunity, and envisaged a joint Israeli-United Nations signals-intelligence (SIGINT) operation aimed at Saddam's Special Security Organization. This prospect triggered acute anxiety at the C.I.A. because now Scott Ritter was getting access to CIA intelligence that he was not supposed to receive - and Ritter knew it. This is the beginning of Ritters now infamous running feud with the CIA.
In August, 1995, an Israeli intelligence report, provided to Ritter revealed that a Russian export company had been bringing Iraq sophisticated gyroscopes--guidance devices, salvaged from ballistic missiles in decommissioned Russian submarines, that could dramatically improve the accuracy of the Iraqi missile fleet. The report, based on intercepted telephone calls and other forms of intelligence, also provided additional evidence that Saddam had managed, despite UNSCOM's efforts, to hide advanced missiles somewhere in Iraq. The gyroscopes had been flown from Russia to Amman, and were picked up there by a Jordanian trucking company operating on behalf of the Russian merchants, and driven across the border to Baghdad. Ritter was in posession of this information, the CIA was not. While Israel claims to have offered this information to the CIA first, the CIA claims otherwise. Ritter took this information to the CIA in an attempt to get the CIA to forceably cooperate with UNSCOM. His goal was to get C.I.A. operatives to open the gyroscopes in Jordan and implant beacons--homing devices--that would enable UNSCOM to find the secret site of a long-suspected major missile-assembly plant. The plant could then be targeted for a surprise inspection. The CIA refused to cooperate with Ritter, or provide any backup or information. (Keep in mind also, that Ritter's new wife Marina was a former KGB agent and "sexual weapon" used by the KGB to infiltrate American intelligence in 1988-1990. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that Marina was still working with the KGB and providing counter-intelligence to Iraq on UNSCOM's efforts. Remember: Russia had much to hide here, as they were knowingly exporting technology to Iraq in direct violation of numerous UN Resolutions.)
After the C.I.A. upset UNSCOM's effort to intercept the Russian gyroscopes, Ekeus ordered the senior Russian on his staff, Nikita Smidovich, to present Primakov with a complete dossier of Russian front companies that were illegally trucking contraband goods into Iraq. Ekeus also saw to it that Primakov was informed, in writing, of "all the details" of how UNSCOM had learned about the firms--via intercepted telephone calls and other communications. Ekeus considered the material "proof of Russian smuggling to the Iraqi nuclear program," but Primakov, he said, "insisted that there was no state organization involved"--that the shippers were operating on their own. What happened next, he said, was that "we requested that they conduct their own investigation, and UNSCOM never saw the results of that." In a similar smuggling case involving a direct complaint to Primakov, he added with a wry laugh, "the Russians read the reports and, instead of arresting the guys, they changed their signals."
Early in 1996, the C.I.A.'s Near East Division, with approval from a high-level authority, had begun a separate, illicit SIGINT operation inside Iraq, sending in teams disguised as UNSCOM inspectors, to install listening devices aimed at Iraqi military, movements. The highly secret operation, which was publicly disclosed early this month by Barton Gellman, of the Washington Post, used UNSCOM equipment throughout Iraq and UNSCOM office space in Baghdad.
Ritter learned of the C.I.A.'s spying prior to the execution of CIA operatives in the summer of 1996 and had formally notified Charles Duelfer, the senior American in the UNSCOM chain of command. Ritter understood the seriousness of the issue: the C.I.A.'s intelligence-gathering, if it should be uncovered and made public by the Iraqis, would seriously erode UNSCOM's standing inside Iraq and among members of the international arms-control community. Ritter, who had been sharing everything he knew with Rolf Ekeus (Chairman of UNSCOM), did not share this discovery with him, and he acknowledges that it was not his finest moment. "I was walking the line between being a good American, which I place above all else, and doing my UNSCOM duties with full integrity." "I knew that Charles was probably not going to tell Rolf Ekeus, but I--perhaps cowardly so--had washed my hands of the affair."
Late in the summer of 1996, Steven Richter, a former CIA official and operative was working with a group of defectors from the ruling Ba'thist Party in Iraq. Ricther and the defectors were tied to the CIA's efforts to bring about the long-awaited coup, which was scheduled to take place that summer. The plan ended in spectacular failure when one of Saddam's loyal officers contacted the C.I.A. station chief in Amman on a supposedly secure agency communications link and informed him that Saddam knew all the detailed plans of the coup and had rounded up and executed scores of those involved.
Steven Richter, former C.I.A. official, asked later about Ritters actions confirmed that the Directorate of Operations believed that "any use of Israeli SlGINT"--by Ritter--"was espionage,'' because Ritter was acting on intelligence supplied by a foreign entity. Ritter had a different explanation for the C.I.A.'s stance. "They were gunning for me," he said, because of his role in getting the U-2 photography into Israeli hands. "From then on, it was war," Ritter said of Richter. "He was always moving in on the UNSCOM intelligence, and I was always beating him back"
Thus goes the running feud between Scott Ritter and the CIA, which cost American CIA Operatives, and opponents of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, their very lives.
By the spring of 1998, the CIA had taken Ritter and UNSCOM out of the intelligence loop, but Ritter still had authority subject to Richard Butler, Chief UNSCOM Inspectors approval, to initiate inspections action anywhere in Iraq. (It's important to stop and note at this point that in the Spring of 1998, Ritter was still on-record as saying that Iraq still possessed WMD and was not cooperating with the UNSCOM weapons inspection teams. But then why would Iraq do so? UNSCOM had already been compromised by Iraq, and apparently Scott Ritter was the only one who didn't know. According to Sandy Berger the National Security Advisor and Madeline Albright, Secretary of State, it's Ritter's aggressiveness and confrontational manner with Iraq that finally turned the Clinton administration against Ritter, and was one of the deciding factors within the Clinton administration to recall the UNSCOM inspectors from Iraq in late 1998. UNSCOM had been successfully infiltrated and replaced by the CIA. Intelligence gathering was more effective and accurate, and in the words of Madeline Albright, Secretary of State "we can't have our schedules dictated by when Ritter choses to have his confrontations with Iraq."
No sooner had UNSCOM been removed from IRAQ in 1998 that the U.N. inspection process began to unravel in public, and all that Saddam had to do to keep up with the story was to turn on CNN. There were immediate consequences. Intelligence reports began to pour into Washington describing the large volume of Russian arms and technical goods that were being trucked and flown into Iraq. The materials were believed to include spare parts for the surface-to-air missile systems that now defend Iraqi radar sites in the no-fly zones to the north and south of Baghdad, and also more sophisticated gear for Saddam's missile systems. These same missle systems are being fired at our pilots on a daily basis in the No Fly Zone.
We have but two conclusions we can draw from thus far. First, in the Spring of 1998 shortly before being pulled out of Iraq, Scott Ritter still believed that Iraq either had WMD, or had the potential to create them with what they had left over from the Gulf War. Remember: Ritter claimed that US Weaponry failed to take out a significant enough portion of Hussein's military machine or capabilities to develop WMD during the Gulf War, in defiance of General Norman Schwartzkopf. Second, we have a clear indication from the Clinton Administration that they were willing to turn a blind eye to Ritter's claims in deference to the CIA, even though the CIA failed miserably to overthrow Hussein in what can only be called a complete, total, breakdown of Operational Intelligence in 1996. No doubt, the de-funding and de-stabilization of America's Intelligence Services during the 8 year reign of terror that was the Clinton Administration contributed to the breakdown of intelligence, the loss of CIA Agents, and the loss of an opportunity to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
But it gets worse still.
The collapse of UNSCOM in 1998 freed Russia, France and Germany, alleged allies of the United States, from any constraints on the sale of Arms and Technology to Iraq. France is now the largest purchaser of Iraqi oil, accounting for 20% of it's fuel on the black market from Iraq. Could this possibly explain their opposition to an invasion of Iraq? Or how about Russia's transfer of nuclear, and nuclear guidance technology to Iraq? Might Russia be afraid of what we'll find? Then there's Germany, who attempted to provide the infamous "aluminum tubes" we've heard so much about, which were capable of helping Iraq's nuclear program. And finally, what about those Tae Pong missile's that were shipped from North Korea originally intended for Yemen, and intercepted by the Spaniards? Our intelligence services "lost track" of them after releasing the ship, and ironically the very guidance systems that Russia has provided to Iraq will work on those missiles. After all, The Tae Pong missile is originally Russian SCUD missile technology, and the SCUD was designed for retro-fits and updates. Do we really believe those missiles were bound only for Yemen? Can we trust a demonstrably failed US based intelligence system?
Back to Scott Ritter. 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.
Perhaps the most telling parts of Scott Ritter lie in the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind. In 1990, Scott Ritter divorced his wife to marry 19 year old Marina Khatiashvili, a Russian Model recruited and used by the KGB to sexually compromise US Intelligence Sources in the 1980's during the Nuclear Disarmament Period. Remember that Ritter acknowledged himself that the KGB used young women in this fashion, but not his "Marina". Then there are his two arrests for soliciting under-age girls for sex via the Internet. Scott does seem to like 'em young. One girl solicited in April of 2001 was 15 years old. The second girl, allegedly 17 years old (but really a Colonie NY policie officer posing as an under-age girl) was solicited for sex two months later in June of 2001. Are all these indications of Scott Ritter being sexually compromised and blackmailed by the Russians or the Iraqi's who preyed on his penchant for liking young women?
It's not so far fetched when you listen to Paul Wolfowitz's comments last week, in which he said:
"In the past, Iraq did not hesitate to use pressure tactics to obtain information about the inspectors," Wolfowitz said today in a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Noting that often the pressure was "quite crude," Wolfowitz said that during the previous inspection period in the 1990s,
"one inspector was reportedly filmed in a compromising situation and blackmailed."
Scott Ritter served during this period under the auspices of UNSCOM, the United Nations Special Commission. Could Paul Wolfowitz have been referring to Ritter? In my opinion, YES.
Then there's the last lie of Scott Ritter: He's been setup by the Bush Administration to "shut him up." Ritter's claims of a "setup" and the timeline of events surrounding his being sexually compromised in Russia and Iraq, and his subsequent arrests for soliciting sex with under-age girls simply don't justify each other. Ritter's own arrests for soliciting sex with two minor girls occurred in April, and again in June of 2001. The court records of these events were sealed until last week when the FBI obtained a court order un-sealing them to pursue their own charges against Ritter. Ritter himself began speaking out against the War in Iraq and against the Bush Administration specifically in mid to late 2002. Does Ritter intend for us to believe that the Bush Administration "arranged" his arrests in 2001 for soliciting minors for under-age sex?
Perhaps the most telling part of Scott Ritter's "dark side" comes from a Time Magizine interview of last year:
Q. You've spoke about having seen the children's prisons in Iraq. Can you describe what you saw there?
Ritter: The prison in question is at the General Security Services headquarters, which was inspected by my team in Jan. 1998. It appeared to be a prison for children — toddlers up to pre-adolescents — whose only crime was to be the offspring of those who have spoken out politically against the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was a horrific scene. Actually I'm not going to describe what I saw there because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I'm waging peace.
So while Scott Ritter was filming a documentary showing the "affects of the U.N. Sanctions" on Iraq - a film he was paid $400,000 to film, he was covering up the horrific deaths of young children suffering at the hands of Saddam Hussein. Children who's only crime it was to be born to Iraqi Dissidents. Children, who undoubtedly, are no longer alive. Scott Ritter could've spoken up for these children - but didn't. Why? Could it be their deaths didn't suite his agenda?
Scott Ritter a "patriot?" We think not.
Visit continuing thread: Was Scott Ritter Compromised By Amn Al-Khass!
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