As they used to say on Saturday Night Live....... Velly interrrresting ....
I wonder if FNC will still bring him on as an "expert".... and an expert on what?......he he
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
No tin foil hat needed here.
Rarely is a criminal caught for his/her first criminal act.
You can bet the farm Ritter has a background of this behavior in his past.
Now.....who will be the news organization to obtain and release this information?
Saddam Hussein's American Apologist
From the November 19, 2001 issue: The strange career of former U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter.
by Stephen F. Hayes
11/19/2001, Volume 007, Issue 10 [snip]
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."
[SNIP]
All inspections stopped in December 1998. That same month, in an article written for the New Republic, Ritter again warned of the continuing Iraqi threat, this time in much greater detail. "Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed," he maintained. "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."
[SNIP]
SO IT WAS, and is. But Ritter now utterly contradicts his testimony of 1998, according to which Saddam Hussein could have reconstituted a fearsome arsenal of weapons of mass destruction by the middle of 1999. By that time, in a June 1999 interview with leaders of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a peace organization based in Nyack, New York, he had changed his tune. "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."
It may be the Reynolds talking. Someone reminded me a few days ago that when Ritter testified before the Senate committee, he spend some time criticizing the Clinton adminstration Middle East policies & Maddie Albright, prompting Joe Biden to tell Ritter that he was talking above his pay grade. He detested that administration and he detests this one.
But not only do I want to know a whole lot more about this story--if there were other charges in other jurisdictions, for example (and maybe that he's being blackmailed)--but if others in the internet sex ring were treated similarly (if some or all they received secret prosecutions, for example, or was it just Scott that received special treatment). I want to know why this was covered up. I want to know who his lawyer was and who paid for that lawyer (Ritter seems to have unlimited funds for global travel).
And that's just the start of my questions.
Sooo....he wasn't convicted?
This if from an interview he did which is kind of awkward to post. If he really saw this and believes this, how could he turn his back on it? Now I have to wonder if he was just there picking up chicks. :
Q : You've spoke about having seen the children's prisons in Iraq. Can you describe what you saw there?
A: 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.
Isn't that something that the left is screaming about in regards to detained AlQueda? I guess it's OK when its one of yours.
"Hold muh beer 'n watch this!" PING....
If you want on or off this list, please let me know!
But I want to know a whole lot more about the circumstances of his arrest, if he had any priors (say...in Iraq or another state), why the asst. DA didn't think to tell her boss...and so much more.
I do hope Fox is on the ball with this story...and I wonder if the date Fox canned Ritter coincides with the date he was busted.
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