"The inspectors went in, got good cooperation, got immediate access to the sites they needed to get to, and they found nothing -- nothing related to weapons of mass destruction programs," said Ritter, a former U.S. Marine and senior weapons inspector.

"And yet, we heard over and over again that 'The president knows that these weapons exist, the president knows that this is a threat that can only be responded to by the United States acting unilaterally,' because the United Nations was unable or unwilling to complete the (disarmament) task mandated by the Security Council," he told reporters at U.N. headquarters.


"The entire case the Bush administration made against Iraq is a lie," he said.


Ritter leveled his latest blast at the U.S. administration as Bush fended off critics' charges that he misled the American people by relying on faulty intelligence to justify the war.

A top inspector in Iraq for nearly seven years before resigning in 1998, Ritter was a vocal critic both before and after the war of U.S. claims that Iraq possessed illicit weapons of mass destruction. His latest book, "Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America," was just published.

Ritter said Washington had never meant to let U.N. inspectors finish the task of disarming Iraq, as assigned to them by the 15-nation Security Council.

"The policy of the United States toward Iraq was not disarmament. It has always been regime removal -- eliminating Saddam Hussein from power. It's been the stated policy of the United States since 1991," he said.

Bush has come under fire for citing an allegation in his State of the Union speech in January that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa to make nuclear weapons. Administration officials now say they have doubts about the evidence the statement was true.

Bush told reporters on Monday his administration believed the claim was true at the time and only afterward learned there were doubts about it.

DIDnt Clinton get impeached for lying to Congress?
Then what shall we do with that monkey boy GW?
The whole regime is fascist....
and make you a moron.
potential H-bomb............

Scott Ritter's credibility should be called into question by all serious observers.

Mr. Ritter traveled to Baghdad last September where he delivered an address to the Iraqi National Assembly. The United States “seems to be on the verge of making a historical mistake,” he told the Iraqi parliament. He said that Iraq poses no threat to the United States, adding, “Iraq is not a sponsor of the kind of terror perpetrated against the United States on September 11 and in fact is active in suppressing the sort of fundamental extremism that characterizes those who attacked the United States on that horrible day.”

It would be interesting to see the evidence Mr. Ritter used to make the claim that Iraq was suppressing radical Islam. We can assume, though, that he had forgotten about Iraq's payments of $10,000 to families of suicide bombers attacking Israelis.

For now, though, let's focus on Ritter's credibility.

In 1998, his stint as a weapons inspector in Iraq came to an end. Subsequently, he appeared before committees in both houses of Congress. The following is an excerpt from his testimony before the House of Representatives regarding Iraq's capability to possess weapons of mass destruction:

MAJOR RITTER: What I have indicated in the past is that the special commission had received sensitive information of some credibility, which indicated that Iraq had the components to assemble three implosion- type devices, minus the fissile material, and that if Iraq were able to obtain fissile material of the quality and of the proper physical properties conducive to such a weapon, then they could assemble three nuclear devices in a very short period of time.

REP. GILMAN: Major, one last question. You mentioned a "short period of time." Would that be weeks, months, years? What would you define as a short period of time?

MAJOR RITTER: If the components of the implosion device are operational, if they have not been damaged through moving them around the country and hiding them from the inspection teams, and the fissile core is of the correct properties, it's a matter of days, maybe weeks before they could be assembled into a device.

Days, maybe weeks. It's now four years later. Four years since Mr. Ritter was in Iraq as a U.N. inspector.

On September 3, 1998, Ritter testified before a Senate committee:

SEN. BROWNBACK: And yet you were stopped on two occasions. In your opinion, in the absence of a robust inspection regime, how quickly could Iraq restart its weapons of mass destruction program?

MR. RITTER: Iraq has -- in my opinion, within a period of six months, simply put. Six months.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Do you have any information as to whether they are continuing with it to even today?

MR. RITTER: Yes, sir.

SEN. BROWNBACK: You do?

MR. RITTER: Yes, sir.

SEN. BROWNBACK: What's your opinion about that continuation of their weapons-of-mass-destruction program today?

MR. RITTER: They're -- Iraq has positioned itself today that 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.

Six months. Again, remember that these statements were made four years ago.

On August 25, 2002, Mr. Ritter was quoted on NBC's Meet The Press as saying, “Iraq has been disarmed fundamentally. Their weapons programs have been eliminated. Iraq poses no threat to any of its neighbors. It does not threaten its region. It does not threaten the United States. It does not threaten the world.”

In the four years since Ritter's resignation as a weapons inspector, there have been no inspections inside Iraq. How does Mr. Ritter know that what he said in 1998 is no longer true? How does he know that Iraq has been “disarmed fundamentally”?

Which Scott Ritter are we to believe? Should we believe the Scott Ritter of 1998 that gave testimony under oath to the congress immediately following his gig as a weapons inspector? Or should we believe the Scott Ritter of today that is trying to sell a book?

If his testimony following his work in Iraq was factual, then we have no reason to believe that what he is saying today is in any way useful. If we believe that he is telling the truth now, then his credibility is still in doubt because we must conclude that he perjured himself before two committees of the U.S. Congress.

Scott Ritter's credibility should be called into question by all serious observers.

Mr. Ritter traveled to Baghdad last September where he delivered an address to the Iraqi National Assembly. The United States “seems to be on the verge of making a historical mistake,” he told the Iraqi parliament. He said that Iraq poses no threat to the United States, adding, “Iraq is not a sponsor of the kind of terror perpetrated against the United States on September 11 and in fact is active in suppressing the sort of fundamental extremism that characterizes those who attacked the United States on that horrible day.”

It would be interesting to see the evidence Mr. Ritter used to make the claim that Iraq was suppressing radical Islam. We can assume, though, that he had forgotten about Iraq's payments of $10,000 to families of suicide bombers attacking Israelis.

For now, though, let's focus on Ritter's credibility.

In 1998, his stint as a weapons inspector in Iraq came to an end. Subsequently, he appeared before committees in both houses of Congress. The following is an excerpt from his testimony before the House of Representatives regarding Iraq's capability to possess weapons of mass destruction:

MAJOR RITTER: What I have indicated in the past is that the special commission had received sensitive information of some credibility, which indicated that Iraq had the components to assemble three implosion- type devices, minus the fissile material, and that if Iraq were able to obtain fissile material of the quality and of the proper physical properties conducive to such a weapon, then they could assemble three nuclear devices in a very short period of time.

REP. GILMAN: Major, one last question. You mentioned a "short period of time." Would that be weeks, months, years? What would you define as a short period of time?

MAJOR RITTER: If the components of the implosion device are operational, if they have not been damaged through moving them around the country and hiding them from the inspection teams, and the fissile core is of the correct properties, it's a matter of days, maybe weeks before they could be assembled into a device.

Days, maybe weeks. It's now four years later. Four years since Mr. Ritter was in Iraq as a U.N. inspector.

On September 3, 1998, Ritter testified before a Senate committee:

SEN. BROWNBACK: And yet you were stopped on two occasions. In your opinion, in the absence of a robust inspection regime, how quickly could Iraq restart its weapons of mass destruction program?

MR. RITTER: Iraq has -- in my opinion, within a period of six months, simply put. Six months.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Do you have any information as to whether they are continuing with it to even today?

MR. RITTER: Yes, sir.

SEN. BROWNBACK: You do?

MR. RITTER: Yes, sir.

SEN. BROWNBACK: What's your opinion about that continuation of their weapons-of-mass-destruction program today?

MR. RITTER: They're -- Iraq has positioned itself today that 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.

Six months. Again, remember that these statements were made four years ago.

On August 25, 2002, Mr. Ritter was quoted on NBC's Meet The Press as saying, “Iraq has been disarmed fundamentally. Their weapons programs have been eliminated. Iraq poses no threat to any of its neighbors. It does not threaten its region. It does not threaten the United States. It does not threaten the world.”

In the four years since Ritter's resignation as a weapons inspector, there have been no inspections inside Iraq. How does Mr. Ritter know that what he said in 1998 is no longer true? How does he know that Iraq has been “disarmed fundamentally”?

Which Scott Ritter are we to believe? Should we believe the Scott Ritter of 1998 that gave testimony under oath to the congress immediately following his gig as a weapons inspector? Or should we believe the Scott Ritter of today that is trying to sell a book?

If his testimony following his work in Iraq was factual, then we have no reason to believe that what he is saying today is in any way useful. If we believe that he is telling the truth now, then his credibility is still in doubt because we must conclude that he perjured himself before two committees of the U.S. Congress.

Scott Ritter's credibility should be called into question by all serious observers.

Mr. Ritter traveled to Baghdad last September where he delivered an address to the Iraqi National Assembly. The United States “seems to be on the verge of making a historical mistake,” he told the Iraqi parliament. He said that Iraq poses no threat to the United States, adding, “Iraq is not a sponsor of the kind of terror perpetrated against the United States on September 11 and in fact is active in suppressing the sort of fundamental extremism that characterizes those who attacked the United States on that horrible day.”

It would be interesting to see the evidence Mr. Ritter used to make the claim that Iraq was suppressing radical Islam. We can assume, though, that he had forgotten about Iraq's payments of $10,000 to families of suicide bombers attacking Israelis.

For now, though, let's focus on Ritter's credibility.

In 1998, his stint as a weapons inspector in Iraq came to an end. Subsequently, he appeared before committees in both houses of Congress. The following is an excerpt from his testimony before the House of Representatives regarding Iraq's capability to possess weapons of mass destruction:

MAJOR RITTER: What I have indicated in the past is that the special commission had received sensitive information of some credibility, which indicated that Iraq had the components to assemble three implosion- type devices, minus the fissile material, and that if Iraq were able to obtain fissile material of the quality and of the proper physical properties conducive to such a weapon, then they could assemble three nuclear devices in a very short period of time.

REP. GILMAN: Major, one last question. You mentioned a "short period of time." Would that be weeks, months, years? What would you define as a short period of time?

MAJOR RITTER: If the components of the implosion device are operational, if they have not been damaged through moving them around the country and hiding them from the inspection teams, and the fissile core is of the correct properties, it's a matter of days, maybe weeks before they could be assembled into a device.

Days, maybe weeks. It's now four years later. Four years since Mr. Ritter was in Iraq as a U.N. inspector.

On September 3, 1998, Ritter testified before a Senate committee:

SEN. BROWNBACK: And yet you were stopped on two occasions. In your opinion, in the absence of a robust inspection regime, how quickly could Iraq restart its weapons of mass destruction program?

MR. RITTER: Iraq has -- in my opinion, within a period of six months, simply put. Six months.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Do you have any information as to whether they are continuing with it to even today?

MR. RITTER: Yes, sir.

SEN. BROWNBACK: You do?

MR. RITTER: Yes, sir.

SEN. BROWNBACK: What's your opinion about that continuation of their weapons-of-mass-destruction program today?

MR. RITTER: They're -- Iraq has positioned itself today that 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.

Six months. Again, remember that these statements were made four years ago.

On August 25, 2002, Mr. Ritter was quoted on NBC's Meet The Press as saying, “Iraq has been disarmed fundamentally. Their weapons programs have been eliminated. Iraq poses no threat to any of its neighbors. It does not threaten its region. It does not threaten the United States. It does not threaten the world.”

In the four years since Ritter's resignation as a weapons inspector, there have been no inspections inside Iraq. How does Mr. Ritter know that what he said in 1998 is no longer true? How does he know that Iraq has been “disarmed fundamentally”?

Which Scott Ritter are we to believe? Should we believe the Scott Ritter of 1998 that gave testimony under oath to the congress immediately following his gig as a weapons inspector? Or should we believe the Scott Ritter of today that is trying to sell a book?

If his testimony following his work in Iraq was factual, then we have no reason to believe that what he is saying today is in any way useful. If we believe that he is telling the truth now, then his credibility is still in doubt because we must conclude that he perjured himself before two committees of the U.S. Congress.

Scott Ritter's credibility should be called into question by all serious observers.

Mr. Ritter traveled to Baghdad last September where he delivered an address to the Iraqi National Assembly. The United States “seems to be on the verge of making a historical mistake,” he told the Iraqi parliament. He said that Iraq poses no threat to the United States, adding, “Iraq is not a sponsor of the kind of terror perpetrated against the United States on September 11 and in fact is active in suppressing the sort of fundamental extremism that characterizes those who attacked the United States on that horrible day.”

It would be interesting to see the evidence Mr. Ritter used to make the claim that Iraq was suppressing radical Islam. We can assume, though, that he had forgotten about Iraq's payments of $10,000 to families of suicide bombers attacking Israelis.

For now, though, let's focus on Ritter's credibility.

In 1998, his stint as a weapons inspector in Iraq came to an end. Subsequently, he appeared before committees in both houses of Congress. The following is an excerpt from his testimony before the House of Representatives regarding Iraq's capability to possess weapons of mass destruction:

MAJOR RITTER: What I have indicated in the past is that the special commission had received sensitive information of some credibility, which indicated that Iraq had the components to assemble three implosion- type devices, minus the fissile material, and that if Iraq were able to obtain fissile material of the quality and of the proper physical properties conducive to such a weapon, then they could assemble three nuclear devices in a very short period of time.

REP. GILMAN: Major, one last question. You mentioned a "short period of time." Would that be weeks, months, years? What would you define as a short period of time?

MAJOR RITTER: If the components of the implosion device are operational, if they have not been damaged through moving them around the country and hiding them from the inspection teams, and the fissile core is of the correct properties, it's a matter of days, maybe weeks before they could be assembled into a device.

Days, maybe weeks. It's now four years later. Four years since Mr. Ritter was in Iraq as a U.N. inspector.

On September 3, 1998, Ritter testified before a Senate committee:

SEN. BROWNBACK: And yet you were stopped on two occasions. In your opinion, in the absence of a robust inspection regime, how quickly could Iraq restart its weapons of mass destruction program?

MR. RITTER: Iraq has -- in my opinion, within a period of six months, simply put. Six months.

SEN. BROWNBACK: Do you have any information as to whether they are continuing with it to even today?

MR. RITTER: Yes, sir.

SEN. BROWNBACK: You do?

MR. RITTER: Yes, sir.

SEN. BROWNBACK: What's your opinion about that continuation of their weapons-of-mass-destruction program today?

MR. RITTER: They're -- Iraq has positioned itself today that 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.

Six months. Again, remember that these statements were made four years ago.

On August 25, 2002, Mr. Ritter was quoted on NBC's Meet The Press as saying, “Iraq has been disarmed fundamentally. Their weapons programs have been eliminated. Iraq poses no threat to any of its neighbors. It does not threaten its region. It does not threaten the United States. It does not threaten the world.”

In the four years since Ritter's resignation as a weapons inspector, there have been no inspections inside Iraq. How does Mr. Ritter know that what he said in 1998 is no longer true? How does he know that Iraq has been “disarmed fundamentally”?

Which Scott Ritter are we to believe? Should we believe the Scott Ritter of 1998 that gave testimony under oath to the congress immediately following his gig as a weapons inspector? Or should we believe the Scott Ritter of today that is trying to sell a book?

If his testimony following his work in Iraq was factual, then we have no reason to believe that what he is saying today is in any way useful. If we believe that he is telling the truth now, then his credibility is still in doubt because we must conclude that he perjured himself before two committees of the U.S. Congress.

Bush's law and order and "security expert" supporters usually claim that lie detecter tests really do work. So why not administer one to Bush? Surely if he has been telling the truth and if he really does agree with the legions of prosecutors and McCarthyite terrorist hunters who vote for him he will gladly take the test.

I had a look-see in Iraq and didn't find any WMD. I told Ritter. That's how he knows. Any other questions, Mr Bush Admirer know-it-all ?


From http://slate.msn.com/id/2071502/

Ritter was known for shouting down Iraqi officials during tense standoffs outside suspected weapons sites. When he concluded in 1998 that neither the United States nor the United Nations had the stomach for disarming Iraq and resigned in disgust, he was a regular on television and at Capitol Hill hearings, urgently warning of the horrors that would reward the world's wimpiness. Iraq is "not nearly disarmed," he wrote in a 1998 New Republic article, asserting that Saddam likely retained everything from nerve gas to anthrax, as well as his "entire nuclear weapons infrastructure." Iraq could completely resurrect its weapons of mass destruction programs "within a period of six months," he told a Senate committee that year. As for Saddam, Ritter said he "remains an ugly threat to his neighbors and to world peace."
....
That leaves us to consider ulterior motives. One popular theory, recently advanced by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, holds that Ritter has essentially been bought off. By his own admission, Ritter accepted $400,000 in funding two years ago from an Iraqi-American businessman named Shakir al-Khafaji. Ritter used the money to visit Baghdad and film a documentary purporting to tell the true story of the weapons inspections (which in his telling were corrupted by sinister American manipulation). As Hayes has reported, al-Khafaji is openly sympathetic to Saddam and regularly sponsors anti-American conferences in Baghdad. Al-Khafaji seems to have gotten his money's worth: The documentary was so anti-U.S., says one of Ritter's former U.N. colleagues, that Iraqi officials were passing out copies of it on CD-ROM at a recent international conference.

Those WMD's are in Iraq cause George Bush told us so. Baaaaaaaahhhhh!!! Baaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!

I must confess that I believe there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that can kill many people. They are called rifles, grenades, and small rockets, and they kill several US soldiers every week. A year from now they will have killed hundreds, perhaps thousands. That is one reason among many why we need to get the hell out.

These guerrilla operations must not be considered as an independent form of warfare. They are but one step in the total war, one aspect of the revolutionary struggle. They are the inevitable result of the clash between oppressor and oppressed when the latter reach the limits of their endurance. In the case of Iraq, these hostilities began at a time when the people were unable to endure any more from the American imperialists. Lenin, in People and Revolution, said: 'A people's insurrection and a people's revolution are not only natural but inevitable.' We consider guerrilla operations as but one aspect of our total or mass war because they, lacking the quality of independence, are of themselves incapable of providing a solution to the struggle.

one of my biggest criticisms of ritter in 98 was that he sounded like nothing more than a mouthpiece for clinton to justify his aggressions in iraq (while simultainiously diverting front page space away from blow jobs in the whitehouse).

now he's a mouthpiece for the antiwar movement.

which one to believe, indeed.

how many of those nukes, minus uranium, were found? or documented? or noted in actual intelligence?

where the hell are any of the wmds?

credibility gap? mabey. but i trust this new ritter a hell of a lot more than bush.

...in his little finger than Dubya has in his whole body. But then again, Scott Ritter served his country. Did Bush?

Both posts are coming from the same I.P.

The message "I hope we stay" was obviously posted by a provocateur. Not a very professional one, though - at least he/she could have come up with a genuine quotation from Lenin or some other communist.

"Both posts are coming from the same I.P."

And, you do realize then that BA and Josh have adopted utterly opposing views right?

Further, we must distinguish general revolutionary wars from those of a purely 'class' type. In the former case, the whole people of a nation, without regard to class or party, carry on a guerrilla struggle that is an instrument of the national policy. Its basis is, therefore, much broader than is the basis of a struggle of class type. Of a general guerrilla war, it has been said: 'When a nation is invaded, the people become sympathetic to one another and all aid in organizing guerrilla units. In civil war, no matter to what extent guerrillas are developed, they do not produce the same results as when they are formed to resist an invasion by foreigners' (Civil War in Russia). The one strong feature of guerrilla warfare in a civil struggle is its quality of internal purity. One class may be easily united and perhaps fight with great effect, whereas in a national revolutionary war, guerrilla units are faced with the problem of internal unification of different class groups. This necessitates the use of propaganda. Both types of guerrilla war are, however, similar in that they both employ the same military methods.

Everyone I've ever met on the left just loves to sit around talking like that. I'm glad the American League won the All Star game as usual, though. What kind of class analysis would you apply to that? Speaking of analysis, I bet you could get sliding scale treatment at the Los Angeles County Mental Health Department. Unless you are perfectly sane and someone is paying you to clutter up the board with nonsense.

...criminalize this site. Real slick, aren't they? These are the same people who will run you over in their car if you're not to careful. Very sloppy M.O.

Bye-Bye, Ari! Who's next? Rum-Tum-Rummy? Saw an interview on ABC (no plug intended) this AM. 3rd Infantry Pfc quoted as saying: 'If Rumsfeld was here now, I'd tell him to resign,' with nods of approval from two other young soldiers in the background. I COULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I WAS SEEING & HEARING! The end is near for the wanna-be rulers of the world.

In order to ensure popular support, essential for the good development of guerrilla warfare, the leaders should induce a positive interaction between the civilians and the guerrillas, through the principle of "live, eat, and work with the people," and maintain control of their activities. In group discussions, the leaders and political cadres should give emphasis to positively identifying themselves with the people.

It is not recommendable to speak of military tactical plans in discussions with civilians. The American foe should be pointed out as the number one enemy of the people, and as a secondary threat against our guerrilla forces.

Here is my tactical plan for you, Sans baby: tell the captain you are not really suited for this kind of work and that you want to be reassigned to traffic detail.

hello hello? 'Sansculotte' seems to be pasting random excerpts from Mao. copy a sentence and paste it into a google search and see what you come up with.

a large proportion of the rest of the commentators are comparably unconstructive.

la-imc needs to give contributors the power to avoid this waste of energy.


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anticrisis

Why pgive them any creedance?

These latest troll attacks are trying to link people on this site to the People's War in Nepal, I believe. In addition to the militant nature of the posts, the reference to 'Mao' is critical to understanding why they put this crap up. Guilt by association, I think that's what they're trying for...