Posted on 01/19/2003 1:15:49 AM PST by kattracks
ALBANY - Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was secretly prosecuted in Albany County in 2001 after he was snared in an Internet sex sting operation, law enforcement sources told the Daily News.Ritter, who lives in the Albany suburb of Delmar, is now a high-profile critic of President Bush's war preparations.
He was arrested by Colonie Police in June 2001 on a misdemeanor charge after he allegedly had a sexual discussion on the Internet with an undercover investigator he thought was an underage girl, law enforcement sources disclosed on condition of anonymity.
The case was sealed, and Colonie officials declined to release the arrest records, explaining the matter was adjourned in local court in contemplation of dismissal.
The Schenectady Daily Gazette reported yesterday that Albany District Attorney Paul Clyne fired veteran Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Preiser last week for failing to inform him of the case against Ritter.
Clyne said that as a "sensitive" case, it should have been brought to his attention.
Ritter, who has made frequent appearances on network television after speaking to the Iraq National Assembly last year, could not be reached for comment.
Joe Mahoney
Not if he was like a special forces member, or was one at one time- if not, in his UNSCOM job his security clearance his records may be treated similarly to those fo a SF vet and so, the records typically be sealed. He may or may not have sealed records since I don't know if he fell under those rules, but I am guessing that he does. When the cops tried to look up his name, they would discover that he was former military, but nothing else. They could then contact the military or FBI since they wouldn't be able to dig without them, but they would get nothing if his records were sealed for national security reasons.
I'm not sure what that would do to a local civilian police investigation in the case of a misdemeanor. Maybe they could proceed just as if it was a one-time offense since they wouldn't know otherwise, but the proceedings and the results would be still be sealed, guilty or not. That doesn't mean such a person cannot be convicted or punished or dishonorably discharged discretely- it just means that his records will remain sealed and any arrests will draw the attention of the military. Maybe there is a lawyer around who would know what would happen in such as case.
Could you outline the third scenario in greater detail? I always thought the definition of the verb "to frame" was "To make up evidence or contrive events so as to incriminate falsely".
Of course, if we don't end the regime- and that requires bombing targets like this where he has doubtlessly placed other prisoners, possibly even Commander Speicher, if he is still in one piece- then these prisoners will die slowly anyway, and Hussein will continue to add more to his collection, and his sone will probably make Saddam look like a piker when he takes the reins.
The irony is Ramsey Clark's fools who want to be human shields for Iraq- they are totally unneccessary as Iraq already has human shields. And unlike Ramsey's group, who deserve what they get, I prefer that these others in Iraq's prisons get to live.
Mr Schiff, reporting Mr Ritter's disclosures, said: "Unscom inspectors also came up with evidence suggesting that Iraq carried out biological weapons tests on human beings in 1995." No details are available about this claim. It is not known, for instance, if prisoners of war were involved in the alleged test. "Ritter also discovered that Iraq had deliberately reported an exaggerated number of chemical bombs that it had used in the [1991 Gulf] War. The reason: so that Baghdad could hide thousands of such bombs and seven tons of chemical components."- "Ritter: Baghdad 'possesses three nuclear bombs' ," by Christopher Walker, Times of London, 9/10/98
Why?
Perhaps they just didn't see it. His real first name is William. Besides, non-communication among various governmental agencies is legend.
There's something very fishy about this whole affair in that noone is talking about what they are going to do to us.
Ritter was cut out because of questions arising from his marriage to a Russian and because of Washington's fears that a Justice Department investigation into allegations that Ritter had improperly given classified information to Israel would provide anti-UNSCOM propaganda fodder for Saddam Hussein.
(*My note : so it wasn't just Israel which the US was afraid he was leaking info to, it was also Russia. )
In August, shortly after Iraq expelled the arms inspectors, Ritter resigned and made the explosive accusation that the United States had undercut UNSCOM by cutting off the flow of crucial intelligence data. U.S. officials say they did not cut off UNSCOM, only Ritter personally.
... At one point, UNSCOM officials were so suspicious that Washington was withholding data that U.S. officials arranged a visit to Fort Meade to let them inspect the raw material.
- "U.S. Says It Collected Iraq Intelligence Via UNSCOM, " By Thomas W. Lippman and Barton Gellman, Washington Post , Friday, January 8, 1999; Page A01
This would definitely get his goat- he tries to claim moral outrage by saying UNSCOM was cut out, but his outrage was really that he personally was cut out. That could anger a spy or an innocent person, but an innocent person would be smart to just get over it the insult and do his job as best he can with what he was allowed to work with. As a soldier he should know that the job isn't about him. Instead, he went on a rampage, tried to spoil the relationship between UNSCOM and the US, and the US had to reassure UNSCOM by letting them come to see what Ritter had not been allowed to see.
What Ritter forgot was that the purpose of inspections was to give Iraq a chance to cooperate and so have peace. It was not to "destroy Hussein's weapons," since everyone knows full well that if Hussein would not change, the problem could not be resolved no matter how efficient the inspections process. The cease fire agreement was a chance for Hussein to make clear he was sincere so the war could end and so everyone could go home. He demonstrated instead that he was not sincere at all, and the war never ended. The cease fire should have been called off as soon as Iraq balked the first time, but instead, Hussein was allowed to keep resisting endlessly with little or no penalty, as if the war was over. And in people's minds, they have come to think the war is over, and assume that we must go on an easter egg hunt to find yet MORE redundant things in order to justify our participation in a "new war" when we are in fact one fo the targets of an offensive war that Hussein has been engaged in from the moment he invaded Kuwait to this present day.
***
(snip) On Iraq's official website--www.uruklink.net--after a few words of token criticism of the former weapons inspector, there is a tribute to Ritter, in a rather fractured translation from the original Arabic.
"The admittance of Scott Ritter and his enthusiastic in calling for the lifting of the unfair embargo and to halt the continuous bleeding of Iraqi people is a conscience scream." Then there is an appeal to other former U.N. inspectors to follow in his footsteps. "The truth veiled by the American poisoned propaganda . . . sooner or later the truth will shine. . . . He who will not participate in revealing the truth and support Iraq will regret in the future. He who says the truth, as Scott Ritter did, will be happy, conscientious, and proud to be one of the honest people who participated in revealing the truth. Those who will be so, we will admire and greet."
The part about admiring and greeting is literal. Ritter was welcomed back to Baghdad in July 2000, with the blessing of Saddam Hussein. The reason for his trip? To produce a documentary film, "In Shifting Sands," that would chronicle the weapons-inspection process and, he says, "de-demonize" Iraq. The 90-minute film, which he says he is close to selling to a broadcast outlet, was produced with the approval of the Iraqi government and features interviews with numerous high-level Iraqi officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.
U.S. intelligence officials and arms control advocates say Ritter has been played--perhaps unwittingly--by Saddam Hussein. "If you're Scott Ritter," says one arms expert, "the former 'cowboy' weapons inspector, kicked out by Saddam Hussein, you're not going to get back into Iraq unless Saddam Hussein invites you and wants you there."
Ritter doesn't entirely disagree. Though he claims the film is an attempt to be "objective" about the situation in Iraq, he predicted before its completion, "the U.S. will definitely not like this film."
He acknowledges, as well, that the U.S. government doesn't like how the film was financed. Shakir al-Khafaji, an Iraqi-American real estate developer living in Michigan, kicked in $400,000. By Ritter's own admission, al-Khafaji is "openly sympathetic with the regime in Baghdad." Al-Khafaji, who accompanied Ritter as he filmed the documentary and facilitated many of the meetings, travels to and from Iraq regularly in his capacity as chairman of "Iraqi expatriate conferences." Those conferences, held in Baghdad every two years, are sponsored and subsidized by Saddam Hussein. (/snip) -"Saddam Hussein's American Apologist " by Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, November 19, 2001 issue: "The strange career of former U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter." 11/19/2001, Volume 007, Issue 10
***
This is fun:
AUGUST 1998 : (RITTER RESIGNS FROM UNSCOM) SEPTEMBER 3, 1998 : (RITTER QUOTE) "Once effective inspection regimes have been terminated, Iraq will be able to reconstitute the entirety of its former nuclear, chemical, and ballistic missile delivery system capabilities within a period of six months." - Scott Ritter, September 3, 1998
DECEMBER 1998 : (RITTER SPEAKS IN SENATE HEARING) "Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production." - Scott Ritter, December 1998
JUNE 1999 : (RITTER INTERVIEW WITH LEADERS OF THE FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION, A PEACE ORGANIZATION BASED IN NYACK, NEW YORK) "When you ask the question [does] Iraq possess militarily viable biological or chemical weapons? The answer is 'no.' It is a resounding NO! Can Iraq produce today chemical weapons on a meaningful scale? No! Can Iraq produce biological weapons on a meaningful scale? No! Ballistic missiles? No. It is 'no' across the board. So from a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has been disarmed. Iraq today possesses no meaningful weapons of mass destruction capability." - Scott Ritter, June 1999
(* My note: Ritter went on in that same interview to try to tone down that remark, but it is clear something happened between December 1998 and June 1999 that put him over the edge.)
JUNE 2000 : (RITTER FLIES TO BAGHDAD TO MAKE FILM SPONSORED BY AL-KHAFAJI, AN IRAQI-AMERICAN SUPPORTER OF SADDAM HUSSEIN's REGIME, AND IS APPROVED BY SADDAM HUSSEIN ) Ritter flies to Baghdad to produce a documentary film, "In Shifting Sands," that would chronicle the weapons-inspection process and, he says, "de-demonize" Iraq. The 90-minute film, which he says he is close to selling to a broadcast outlet, was produced with the approval of the Iraqi government and features interviews with numerous high-level Iraqi officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. He acknowledges, as well, that the U.S. government doesn't like how the film was financed. Shakir al-Khafaji, an Iraqi-American real estate developer living in Michigan, kicked in $400,000. By Ritter's own admission, al-Khafaji is "openly sympathetic with the regime in Baghdad." Al-Khafaji, who accompanied Ritter as he filmed the documentary and facilitated many of the meetings, travels to and from Iraq regularly in his capacity as chairman of "Iraqi expatriate conferences." Those conferences, held in Baghdad every two years, are sponsored and subsidized by Saddam Hussein. -"Saddam Hussein's American Apologist " by Stephen F. Hayes, The Weekly Standard, November 19, 2001 issue: "The strange career of former U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter." 11/19/2001, Volume 007, Issue 10
SEPTEMBER 18, 2000, Monday : (THE NEW RITTER & HALLIDAY MAKE PUBLIC APPEARANCES AT LEFTWING MEETINGS) Two former United Nations officials who resigned due to economic sanctions against Iraq spoke in Berkeley of the devastating effects of the sanctions they witnessed. Denis Halliday, former assistant secretary general and coordinator of the Oil for Food program in Iraq, and Scott Ritter, former senior weapons inspector, spoke at the Berkeley Friends Church Friday.
So I wonder what Denis Halliday has been up to? And when was Ritter actually paid for his film? Before delivery or after?
(Maybe Ritter was a little angry at that, too?)
DECEMBER 15, 1998 : (UNSCOM WITHDRAWS DUE TO IRAQI NONCOMPLIANCE) UNSCOM weapons inspectors withdraw from Iraq, saying Saddam has not delivered the unfettered access he promised, rendering the team unable to perform their mission.- Iraq - Scotsman says Saddam has weapons to wipe out world's population, nuclear bomb within 3 years "The Scotsman dossier - SPECIAL REPORT ON IRAQ" by Fraser Nelson, Westminster Editor
DECEMBER 15, 1998 : (UNSCOM DISBANDED)
This would anger Ritter, too. He thought he WAS UNSCOM.
DECEMBER 16 - 20, 1998 : (OPERATION DESERT FOX, RITTER) On Dec. 16, 1998, the United States, with British support, launched Operation Desert Fox, four days of bombing. With the Clinton administration finally hammering Saddam, one might have expected Ritter to be elated, but in fact, he thought it a travesty. Desert Fox had come without the approval of the Security Council. In Ritter-think, America was bound to the United Nations by treaty, and treaties were backed by the United States Constitution. ''We've broken the law and compromised our morality,'' he says. Besides, speaking as a Marine intelligence officer, he also thought the operation nothing more than a futile pinprick. If they wanted to bomb, they should have hit Saddam for a full 60 days. ''I could've shown them the targets,'' he says. - "Scott Ritter's Iraq Complex: One man's continuing war with Saddam, Washington -- and himself ," by Barry Bearak, New York Times Magazine, November 24, 2002
An interesting tidbit about Desert Fox was it was not the best of missions we carried out... some considered it a failure since it hit few targets. But it was during Desert Fox, when a corner of a building's roof was blown off, that the CIA discovered Iraq had fitted aircraft with crop-dusting equipment.
Here is what else was going during and after Operation Desert Fox:
1998 (near year's end) : (AFGHANISTAN, IRAQI AMBASSADOR TO TURKEY, HIJAZI, MET WITH BIN LADEN IN KANDAHAR ) The source added that Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which has now effectively merged with al-Qaeda, maintained regular contacts with Iraq for many years. He confirmed the claims first made by the Iraqi National Congress - that towards the end of 1998, Farouk Hijazi, Iraq's ambassador to Turkey and a key member of the Mukhabarat leadership - went to Kandahar in Afghanistan, where he met bin Laden.
DECEMBER 18, 1998 : (SOUTH KOREA SINKS NORTH KOREAN SPY SUB) The South Korean navy sinks submersible North Korean spy vessel, with one frogman found dead in the Sea of Japan east of the Korean peninsula. http://asia.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/29/korea.navy.timeline.reut/
DECEMBER 19, 1998 : (CHANG, DNC, MCAULIFFE, TORICELLI) Mr. Chang attends holiday dinner at the White House with 465 other guests.
DECEMBER 20, 1998 : (OPERATION DESERT FOX ENDS) End of Desert Fox, a 72-hour operation. Clinton says more may follow.- Iraq - Scotsman says Saddam has weapons to wipe out world's population, nuclear bomb within 3 years "The Scotsman dossier - SPECIAL REPORT ON IRAQ" by Fraser Nelson, Westminster Editor
DECEMBER 23?, 1998 : (BIN LADEN TIME INTERVIEW, FATWA, SOMALIA) Usama Bin Laden was asked by Time magazine whether he was responsible fo rthe August 1998 attacks. He replied:
"The International Islamic Jihad Front for the Jihad against the US and Israel has, by the grace of God, issued a crystal clear fatwah calling on the Islamic nation to carry on Jihad aimed at liberating the holy sites. the nation of Mohammed has responded to this appeal. If intigation for jihad against the Jews and the Americans... is considered to be a crime, then let history be a witness that I am a criminal. Our job is to instigate and, by the grace of God, we did that, and certain people responded tot his instigation."
He was asked if he knew the attackers:
"...those who risked their lives to earn the pleasure of God are real men. They managed to rid the Islamic nation of disgrace. We hold them in the highest esteem. "
And what the US could expect of him:
"...any thief or criminal who enters another country to steal should expect to be exposed to murder at any time... The US knows that I have attacked it, by the grace of God, for more than ten years now... God knows that we have been pleased by the killing of American soldiers (in Somalia in 1993.) This was achieved by the grace of God and the efforts of the mujahadeen... Hostility towards America is a religious duty and we hope to be rewarded for it by God. I am confident that Muslims will be able to end the legend of the so-called superpower that is America. "
It is a choice between allowing ourselves to be nibbled to death by ducks, in which case the duck will continue to produce more ducks until we are overwhelmed and are destroyed anyway... or fighting to prevent it, and maybe having them try to do it quicker, while their flock is still afraid and small, and their bodies still tender.
We've been nibbled for years and at first lost a few here or there; then later we lost hundreds; and in 2001 we lost thousands because we did nothing, the country did not even rouse itself after the embassy bombings or the USS Cole, and the attempt on the USS The Sullivans. Saddam, by the way, has built a model of a US destroyer in a lake on which his people - or others- may practice. Terrorist supporting states now have nukes, chemical weapons, and/or biological weapons- it is only a matter of time before they kill tens of thousands. Indeed, on 9/11, had those buildings not remained standing for an hour after being struck, the death toll would have been higher. And we knew from the first WTC bombing that they had intended to utterly destroy the WTC from the beginning, knowing that many more thousands were at stake- those buildings can hold 50,000 people.
They clearly have the will.
MAY 2000 : (SCOTT RITTER MEETS IRAQI) In May 2000, appearing at a Congressional briefing, he said Saddam was incapable of "world or regional domination" and admitted that "a lot of the blame for the perceptions" to the contrary could "be laid at my doorstep." That briefing proved significant, not for what Ritter said but for whom he met. Shakir al-Khafaji, a wealthy Iraqi-American businessman, was in the audience. The two men struck up a conversation. Within weeks, Ritter was telling al-Khafaji about a documentary he hoped to make, a film about Unscom that might find the audience that "Endgame" had missed. The two agreed to become partners in Ritter's production company, with al-Khafaji's real-estate development firm, the Falcon Management Group of Southfield, Mich., investing $400,000. While the businessman did not have any control over the editorial content, both men say, al-Khafaji would be supplying his connections as well as his money, easing Ritter's way back into Iraq. As a veteran intelligence officer, Ritter knew he ought to be wary of this deal. The F.B.I. probe had not resulted in any charges, but here he was, about to receive cash from a wealthy Iraqi with important friends in Baghdad. Ritter said he went to great lengths to check things out, though on this score he is less than convincing. Where did he get his information? "I called a reporter who has sources in the C.I.A." Does he know where the $400,000 came from? "They showed me the stocks and bonds that were being liquidated." Was al-Khafaji getting any quid pro quo from the Iraqi government? "Shakir said he didn't," Ritter told me on one occasion. On another he said, "That was always in the back of my mind, that the Iraqis have an interest in funding the movie." Before going to Baghdad, Ritter informed the F.B.I., he said. This candor was a supposed safety net. "I raised our profile so high that the F.B.I.'s got us dead to rights. If he is getting a quid pro quo, you'd think the F.B.I. would know about it."- "Scott Ritter's Iraq Complex: One man's continuing war with Saddam, Washington -- and himself ," by Barry Bearak, New York Times Magazine, November 24, 2002
1995 (IRAQ AND CHEMICAL WARFARE REVELATIONS THAT IRAQ HAD TESTED WMD CHEMICALS ON HUMAN BEINGS) Mr Schiff, reporting Mr Ritter's disclosures, said: "Unscom inspectors also came up with evidence suggesting that Iraq carried out biological weapons tests on human beings in 1995." No details are available about this claim. It is not known, for instance, if prisoners of war were involved in the alleged test. "Ritter also discovered that Iraq had deliberately reported an exaggerated number of chemical bombs that it had used in the [1991 Gulf] War. The reason: so that Baghdad could hide thousands of such bombs and seven tons of chemical components."- "Ritter: Baghdad 'possesses three nuclear bombs' ," by Christopher Walker, Times of London, 9/10/98
(*My note : A correction for the clip I gave you : I am pretty sure the Iraqis claimed they used these chemical bombs in he Iran-Iraq War, which is also known as the Gulf War, and not in the later 1991 Gulf War with the US.)
U.S. CONGRESSMEN TO HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE IN BAGHDAD
For more information, please contact:
In Baghdad:
Bert Sacks or Shakir Al-Khafaji - Al-Mansour Hotel
tel. (964-1) 537-3328
ivoices@uruklink.net
In Basra (Saturday evening & Sunday daytime ONLY, 28-29 Sept):
Bert Sacks or Shakir Al-Khafaji - Sheraton Hotel
tel. (964-4) 212-001
In USA (Detroit):
Mohammad Al-Omari
LIFE for Relief and Development
tel. 248-424-7493
mail@faair.org
In USA (Seattle):
Citizens Concerned for the People of Iraq & Interfaith Network of Concern Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation
tel. 206-789-5565
info@endiraqsanctions.org
WHEN: Monday, September 30th; 10am Three United States' Congressmen currently on a humanitarian fact-finding mission in Iraq, announced plans to hold a press conference to discuss their trip on Monday, September 30th, at 10am, at the Rostomeya Sewage Treatment Plant, south of Baghdad. The lack of access to safe drinking water, caused in part by the failure of facilities such as Rostomeya, has been a contributing factor in Iraq's humanitarian crisis.
The delegation of American legislators are in Iraq to gather information about Iraq's humanitarian crisis, and to help convince Iraqi officials of the necessity to allow immediate and unfettered access to UN weapons inspectors in order to avoid another war. The delegation includes, Rep. David Bonior (D-MI), Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), and Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA).
During their trip, the delegation scheduled meetings with UNICEF, UNOHCI - the UN Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, as well as with Tariq Aziz, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, and Naji Sabri, Iraq's Foreign Minister, among others.
The Congressmen also scheduled visits to hospitals in Baghdad and Basra, the "Sindibad" Children's Diarrhea Clinic in Basra, and a visit to al-Jumariyyah, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Basra.
DECEMBER 7, 2001 : (FORMER UNSCOM INSPECTOR RITTER DISCUSSES ATTA'S TRIP TO PRAGUE) Mr. Ritter's arguments lately have deteriorated, from discrepant to disturbing. On Dec. 7, in a speech delivered at the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine in Washington, Mr. Ritter suggested that Saddam would be justified in working with al Qaeda to blow up a U.S. government building. Here is Mr. Ritter's take on the Prague meetings between an Iraqi spy and Mohamed Atta, as transcribed by the Center: "What it appears transpired was that the Iraqi intelligence officer spoke with Mohamed Atta at length about an attack, but it was an attack on a radio transmission tower of Radio Free Europe in Prague, Czechoslovakia. If you're the Iraqi government and you're looking at the Iraqi National Congress (the prominent opposition group), they are a legitimate enemy. Indeed, you could make the case that the Radio Free Europe transmission tower, under international law, is a legitimate target." - "Ritter of Arabia," By Stephen F. Hayes, The Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2002
Yep...I'm wondering what they have on Ashcroft...MUD
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