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?)
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