Bush Avoids Accountability in Iraq-WMD Blame Game

Interview with Scott Ritter, former chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, conducted by Scott Harris

After grudgingly accepting the evidence that no weapons of mass destruction will likely ever be found in Iraq, the White House has been engaged in damage control, countering critics - including presidential candidates vying for the Democratic party nomination - who are pounding President Bush on his "credibility gap."

Although David Kay, the former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq declared that Saddam Hussein's government probably had no WMDs at the time of the U.S. invasion, he blamed a failure of intelligence, rather than the White House. But soon after, CIA Director George Tenet stated publicly that his agency never told President Bush that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the U.S. Another key player in the pre-war drama, former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq Hans Blix, has also pointed fingers. He recently compared president Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to insincere salesmen exaggerating the importance of the evidence of WMD they used to promote their attack on Iraq.

One of the few officials with a working knowledge of Iraq's weapons systems to publicly oppose the Bush administration's march to war was Scott Ritter, a former Marine intelligence officer who served as a chief U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 through 1998. In the years before the war, Ritter challenged the president's assertion that Baghdad's weapons systems posed a grave risk to the U.S and necessitated a war. Between the Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Scott Ritter about the Capital Hill blame game and his view of the commission appointed by Bush to investigate U.S. intelligence failures.

Scott Ritter's book, "Frontier Justice, Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America," is published by Context Books.

For more information on the campaign to oppose the U.S. war in Iraq, contact United for Peace and Justice at www.unitedforpeace.org

Related links

"Distorting the Intelligence,"The New York Times | Editorial, " Feb. 17, 2004

"Intelligence Panel's Finances Will Stay Private," The New York Times, Feb. 15, 2004

"Bush's Iraq Commission Won't Be Investigating The Key WMD Issue," By John Dean, FindLaw, Feb. 13, 2004

"President Stumbles in Reacting to the Public Unraveling of White House Justification for Iraq War," Between The Lines interview with Bill Hartung, conducted by Scott Harris, week ending Feb. 20, 2004

"The Iraq War & The Bush Administration's Pursuit of Global Domination," Counterpoint interview with Scott Ritter, conducted by Scott Harris, Sept. 15, 2003

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"Secret Pentagon Unit Churned Out Dubious 'Intelligence' Used to Justify Iraq War," Between The Lines interview with journalist Robert Dreyfuss, conducted by Scott Harris, week ending Jan. 23, 2004