Replies

Here's a pretty good timeline of his turnabout, from The Weekly Standard:

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."

angkor thanks for post this time line of the sudden behavior change of Ritter re his sugar daddy, Uncle Soddomite.

I had just posted a reply to Miss Marple about this sudden turnaround without the time line. Thanks! Here are some snips from your reply re the timeline of his turnabout:

Here's a pretty good timeline of his turnabout, from The Weekly Standard:

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."

Ritter is one of many modern day Judases out trying to defend Uncle Soddomite. Money and records of their dark side life styles are probably the key motivitators. Ritter's case is right out of the KGB handbook of how to turn an enemy into your ally.