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Edited on Wed Oct-22-03 01:02 PM by welshTerrier2
I had the opportunity to meet Scott Ritter today and speak to him at some length about his views ... He was speaking in Massachusetts at a conference for adult educators. I was invited to attend the speech by a member of MCAE (Massachusetts Commission of Adult Educators).
Ritter was standing outside the conference hall before his speech. Being the typical shy DU'er, I went up to him and thanked him on behalf of DU for all the good work he was doing ... I asked him if he had ever heard or participated in DU? He said he's not big on the internet but his wife "visits" the democraticUnderground all the time ... he said he didn't know her screen name.
Ritter's speech left a large audience of educators with their jaws wide open. He was great. He was not left; he was not right; he was powerful and armed with facts ... The following is based on the notes I took during his speech and on an hour I spent with Scott, a local journalist and two or three other people after his speech ended ...
Ritter began his speech by talking about what it meant to be a "good American" ... he said that the American public is both fearful and uninformed. He said that the current Iraq policy is being driven by ideology (more on this later). The most dangerous weapon used by this administration has been fear. Even the term "Weapons of Mass Destruction" is used to instill fear ... far more people die from car accidents than die from WMD's ... there's no sense of proportion ...
He said that to truly be a "good citizen", Americans must do a better job learning what's in the Constitution ... The Patriot Act is a direct "frontal assault" on the Constitution and it sailed through the Congress with virtually no debate.
And as for Iraq, some of the allegations against Saddam's regime are true ... there are, indeed, mass graves and there were horrible human rights abuses ... but this was never the justification for war ... the primary reason provided to justify the war was Saddam's failure to comply with the U.N. resolution that said he had to destroy his WMD's ...
If you dig deep enough in Iraq, you will certainly find at least some evidence of WMD's, but you'll find more botulinin toxins in Boston than you ever would in Iraq ...
Many people say they support the troops in Iraq ... Stop and think about what we're doing over there ... Think about what makes a good war memorial ... when will we be satisified? Would it be a good war memorial if we had 200 dead? How about 1,000? or 10,000? When will it be enough? The Pentagon knows all too well that we can never win in Iraq because we went there on a lie ...
Powell's presentation of "evidence" to the U.N. couldn't pass the easiest cross-examination ... Powell held up a white vial suggesting that Saddam was producing "dry powder anthrax" ... he knew this was a lie and was totally unsupported by any evidence produced by inspections ... The last batch of "liquid anthrax" (less dangerous) was produced in 1991 and has a maximum shelf-life of only 3 years ... and we blew up the factory that was producing this liquid anthrax in 1996 ... so even if he had continued to produce it, there was no way he still had a supply or any production capabilities by 2002 or 2003 ...
Powell then spoke about remotely piloted vehicles that allegedly could disperse this "agent of death" dry powder anthrax (that did not exist) ... we saw the state of that program during our inspections ... Saddam's technology was not anywhere close to toy aircraft that you could readily buy in a toy store ...
Powell also presented ominous photos of a chemical storage depot with a wet ring around the bunker and a decontamination vehicle nearby ... Chemical weapons would have had to leave a very clear marker or "footprint" ... after we invaded Iraq, it was determined that the bunker was stocked with explosives that had the exact same lot numbers as the ones we reported at that same site during our inspections ... and the wet wring and the decontamination vehicle? the truck parked outside the bunker was the same firetruck we described in our report ... it was being used to water down the dust to prevent the dust from destroying the fusing systems on the explosives ... No chemical weapons, or traces of chemical weapons, were found on this site after the invasion ...
There was never a threat to this country from Iraq ... the invasion was pushed by a group of ideologues (wt2 - he mentions PNAC in his book) and was promoted without the "informed consent" of the American people. Your senator, Senator Kerry voted for the IWR to "give the President the tools he needed to lead the U.N." ... Senator Kennedy correctly understood that the evidence was a pack of lies.
What we need to do is to turn this whole thing over to the U.N. and support the troops by bringing them home now. I condemn Bush, Congress for their IWR vote, the media for not disclosing the truth and the American people for being so poorly informed on the issues. The only way we can extract ourselves from the mess we're in is to have a more educated people who know the Constitution. What we're seeing now is an oligarchy consolidating its power.
Question from audience: Can we simply "walk away" from Iraq now? Could the U.N. fill the void?
Ritter: My #1 priority is not the Iraqi people but rather the well-being of our troops. We must protect the lives of our troops by bringing them home. Most of you don't go to sleep panicked because you have not heard from a loved one who is serving in Iraq ... you wake up and it consumes your every waking moment ... if you don't get a call, you worry about whether something horrible has happened ... when the phone rings, you worry about whether this will bring the bad news ... If we want the U.N. to play a role, we must remove the
"America Only" presence ... until we do, no other nation will send in troops in a meaningful way ...
Question from audience: McCain said that he supports what we're doing in Iraq because it goes way beyond Iraq by showing that America is strong after we were attacked on 9/11 ... he sees it as a necessary component in the war on terrorism ... what are your thoughts about that ??
Ritter: Almost every country in the world opposes what we're doing in Iraq ... our presence in Iraq is doing nothing but making the U.S. a more likely target for terrorism ... we are not safer now ... we are less safe ... McCain doesn't know what he's talking about ...
My question: Eisenhower warned us as he was leaving office to "beware of the military-industrial complex" ... you stated that the reason Iraq is happening is because of ideological reasons ... do you think the primary motivation is ideological or commercial ??
Ritter: I think it's ideological ... I think it goes way beyond just making profits for the military-industrial complex ... i think they want to run up massive deficits ... i think it's ideological because part of their domestic agenda is to destroy Federal programs by making sure there's no money to fund them ... this isn't to say that there isn't a defense department, corporate agenda here ... there is ... but I think the motivation is much greater than that ...
At the book signing after the speech I asked Scott three additional questions ...
My question: Some have cited the U.S. government's slow reaction to the hijacked airliners as evidence that Bush was integrally involved with 9/11 and allowed it to succeed ... do you think evidence such as the failure to scramble military aircraft indicates that the military was ordered to stand down and let 9/11 happen?
Ritter: I think Bush was responsible for letting 9/11 happen ... i think he had extensive information that a terrorist attack was imminent ... and he did nothing to protect the U.S. ... i do not think, however, that he had prior knowledge of or any involvement in the specific events of 9/11 ...
My question: Do you think that the Bush family's close ties to the bin Laden family has had a major influence on the policies of this adminstration?
Ritter: In one word, "absolutely" ...
My question: Which presidential candidate most closely reflects your thinking on the issues?
Ritter: It's going to take much more than a Howard Dean or anybody else to solve this problem ... It will take the Congress and the American people to change the direction we're going in ... it will take much more than a new President ...
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