[Peace] Scott Ritter/PBS tonite

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

SCOTT RITTER

August 31, 1998
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript 


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Questioning both the United States' and the United Nation's resolve to rid 
Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, U.N weapons inspector Scott Ritter 
resigned from his post after seven years of service. Following a background 
report, Elizabeth Farnsworth speaks with Mr. Ritter about his decision. 
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A RealAudio version of this segment on media coverage. 
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NEWSHOUR LINKS: 
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August 31, 1998
A background report on Scott Ritter's resignation.

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August 14, 1998
Did the U.S. government stop surprise weapons inspections in Iraq?

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August 6, 1998
Ambassador Butler discusses the latest conflict with Iraq. 

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June 24, 1998
A Newsmaker interview with Ambassador Butler. 

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June 24, 1998
A Newsmaker interview with Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon. 

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May 4, 1998
The U.S. decides six Iraqis detainees pose a security risk and must return 
home. 

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April 27, 1998
Iraqi exiles search for an alternative to Saddam Hussein.

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March 13, 1998
A panel of experts debate whether it is time to lift sanctions on Iraq.

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Online Forum
Noam Chomsky and James Woolsey debate U.S. foreign policy.

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March 4, 1998
An interview with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

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March 2, 1998
An interview with Iraq's Ambassador to the U.N. Nizar Hamdoon.

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February 27, 1998
Congressional views of the U.N. deal with Iraq.

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February 24, 1998
James Baker and William Perry discuss the deal's impact on U.S. foreign 
policy. 

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February 20, 1998
A panel of experts examine the crisis from the Iraqi perspective.

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Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the Middle East and the United Nations. 
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OUTSIDE LINKS 
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The Homepage for the United Nations. 
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The homepage for Iraq-ArabNet. 
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ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In the latest development in the Scott Ritter story 
today Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz again charged that Ritter was a 
spy working for the United States and Israel. He's called on UN 
Secretary-General Kofi Annan to launch an investigation. Scott Ritter joins 
us now. Thanks for being with us, Mr. Ritter. 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR., Former U.N. Arms Inspector: Thank you. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What was happening in your investigations that made you 
feel you had to resign? 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Well, basically, is the investigations had come to 
a standstill were making no effective progress, and in order to make 
effective progress, we really needed the Security Council to step in in a 
meaningful fashion and seek to enforce its resolutions that we're not 
complying with. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Could you describe the most recent investigation that 
you wanted to undertake. Give us a little detail about it and what happened 
to derail it. 

Mr. Ritter's role in UNSCOM. 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Well, basically, the investigations that I was 
tasked with carrying out by the executive chairman involved looking at 
exposing the means by which Iraq hides their prohibited weapons and weapons 
capabilities from the special commission. We needed to expose this 
methodology so that they used so we could get at the weapons, themselves. And 
the investigation has been going on for several years now, and this summer we 
were in the process of resuming these inspections, you know, in accordance 
with the agreement reached by Kofi Annan and Saddam Hussein in accordance 
with the Security Council resolutions that said Iraq had to comply or face 
severe consequences, so we're trying to get back on task. We had some very 
specific information, which led us to believe we could go to locations where 
we would find aspects of this hidden weaponry, of these hidden components, 
and also uncover how Iraq actually went about hiding these weapons from the 
commission. We had very specific information, and we believe that if we'd 
been allowed to accomplish this inspection, we could have achieved meaningful 
disarmament results. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And why weren't you allowed to accomplish it?  

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Well, again, we have a problem with this-with the 
United States. On April 6th, the President of the United States submitted a 
report to Congress in which he clearly states that a diplomatic solution had 
been tried. We have a memorandum of understanding, and the marker's on the 
table now. Iraq must be held accountable for the agreement that they have 
signed with the Secretary-General and which was endorsed by the Security 
Council in its Resolution 1154. If Iraq didn't, there would be the severest 
consequences. You had this statement on the one hand, but on the other hand, 
this administration's saying, wait a minute, we can't go forward with 
aggressive inspections because they will lead to a confrontation with Iraq, 
but let's understand the confrontation is because Iraq will not comply with 
the law passed by the Security Council. So we weren't allowed to do our job 
out of fear of a confrontation in which the United States would not be able 
to muster the required support of the Security Council to respond effectively 
or to respond in a manner which they had said they would respond in 
Resolution 1154. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Who specifically blocked the investigation? 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Well, I mean, now we're getting down to who made 
the phone calls. The bottom line is the people held accountable are the 
national security policy team of the United States. Policy is made in policy 
coordination meetings, where the principal people meet. This would be Sandy 
Berger, the national security adviser; Madeleine Albright, the secretary of 
state; and other principal personnel from the State Department, from the 
Department of Defense, from the intelligence community. They will meet and 
they will decide on policy issues. And it's this body that makes a 
determination that they needed to basically put pressure on the special 
commission to slow down, to postpone, to cancel certain operations because 
they would lead to confrontation, which the United States was not willing to 
step up to.  

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And how many inspections were blocked in this way? 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Well, I mean, the list is actually quite long over 
the years. But since November there-since November of 1997, I would say that 
there have been a half dozen or so inspections, which have been either 
delayed or postponed or canceled outright, due to pressure exerted on the 
executive chairman by the United States. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now, we just heard the UNSCOM chairman, Richard Butler, 
saying that there had been conversations with the secretary of state and 
others, but that he was never pressured, that it never crossed the line. Is 
that untrue? 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Look, Richard Butler is the one that has to make 
that decision. He's the executive chairman. He makes the call. You know, 
that's his determination. What I will say is that, you know, Madeleine 
Albright, you just showed a clip of her saying that they've been the 
strongest supporter of UNSCOM. In fact, they're the ones who stand at the 
back of UNSCOM. That's absolutely correct. And you have your friend who's 
supposed to be backing you up as you carry out implementation of the law that 
they're encouraging you to execute and that friend calls you up and says 
excuse me, if you try and do this job, we're not going to be able to back you 
up, we don't agree with this. I believe Richard Butler would be under an 
awful lot of pressure, whether he wants to state that that was the case or 
not, but you just don't go forward with an inspection when the friend that 
you're requiring to back you up says they won't support it. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Ritter, as you know, this change has been described 
by some people as tactical, that the secretary of state and others wanted to 
wait until they had support in the Security Council to move forward with 
these more confrontational investigations. What's your response to that? 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: This is lunacy. The bottom line is we haven't 
had-the United States hasn't had this kind of Security Council support for 
many years now, and Security Council support is eroding, eroding in large 
part because of a lack of American leadership. I don't know what they're 
waiting for. The Security Council is on a gradual, even a steep slide 
downhill in terms of its ability to support, or willingness to support the 
special commission. And there's no indication that anything the United States 
has been doing would turn the Security Council around. So I don't know-it 
sounds an awful lot like an excuse. It seems like it's a strategic pause, 
because it's been taking place for many years now. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And, Mr. Ritter, there were-were there requests to 
specifically withdraw you? 

Mr Ritter, a troublemaker? 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Again, I'm not going to avoid the issue. The 
bottom line is that because of Iraq's choosing, they have painted me as a 
troublemaker in an effort to distract the world's attention away from its 
failure-Iraq's failure to abide by its disarmament obligations. In doing so 
they made me a lightning rod for attention, and there many in the U.S. 
administration of Madeleine Albright included, who felt that my inclusion on 
certain inspections would attract attention and would become the cause for 
conflict, and they felt that it should be the inspections, not the inspector, 
that are at issue, but they just don't get it. The executive chairman is the 
one who dictates who will be chief inspector, not Iraq. The executive 
chairman picks the personnel who are best qualified to do the job, not Iraq. 
And when the executive chairman says that Scott Ritter will be the one who 
heads his team and Iraq doesn't agree, I think that's an issue worth fighting 
for, not because of Scott Ritter, but because it's the executive chairman and 
his appointed leader that's being affected. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And the Washington Post reported that you're the 
subject of an FBI investigation into some exchange of information about Iraq 
with foreign governments, is that true, is there such an investigation? 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: My understanding is that is, indeed, true. There 
is an ongoing FBI investigation against me concerning the work that I did on 
behalf of the executive chairman to carry out the tasks given the special 
commission by the Security Council. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And that investigation goes back several years, right? 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: My understanding is that investigation began on or 
about January 1997. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Any truth to the fact that-to the charge that you- 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Absolutely-the charge of? 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Exchanging information with a foreign government? 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Absolutely-truth. I was tasked to carry out 
liaisons with any number of governments by the executive chairman, and in the 
conduct of these liaisons there was an exchange of data. But the exchange of 
data was explicitly approved by the executive chairman. It was done to 
support the goals and efforts of the special commission and fully in 
accordance with the mandate set forth by the Security Council. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Ritter, does Iraq still have prescribed weapons? 

Mr. Ritter: "Iraq still has prescribed weapons capability." 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Iraq still has prescribed weapons capability. 
There needs to be a careful distinction here. Iraq today is challenging the 
special commission to come up with a weapon and say where is the weapon in 
Iraq, and yet part of their efforts to conceal their capabilities, I believe, 
have been to disassemble weapons into various components and to hide these 
components throughout Iraq. I think the danger right now is that without 
effective inspections, without effective monitoring, Iraq can in a very short 
period of time measure the months, reconstitute chemical biological weapons, 
long-range ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons, and even certain 
aspects of their nuclear weaponization program. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And is it your contention that without a significant 
and realistic threat of military action, Iraq will not allow the 
investigations to begin again, beyond just the monitoring that's already 
going on? 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Well, in this I would only echo the words made by 
the Secretary-General and other personnel back in February, who said that you 
couldn't have had the February MOU without the real and credible threat of 
military force. That's an obvious statement. You can't expect to enforce the 
law unless you have the means to carry out the enforcement. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Ritter, you've become a subject of debate in 
Congress already. People are calling for investigations, and this has been a 
very public resignation on your part. What do you hope to accomplish with 
this? What do you wish would happen right away? 

Reasons for resigning. 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: What I want to accomplish from this resignation is 
to highlight the fact that it's incumbent upon the United States to exercise 
the leadership to turn this problem around. If the world wants to rid Iraq of 
weapons of mass destruction, as the world has said they want to do in 
accordance with the Security Council's resolution, then we're headed down the 
wrong path. We're not going to succeed if we continue to move in this 
direction. And by resigning in such a public fashion, I hope to expose the 
fallacies of this administration's policies and encourage a debate in which 
this administration might recognize that they are, in fact, heading in the 
wrong path, and seek to find ways to get us out of this mess, to turn the 
policy around, and get Iraq moving towards effective disarmament in 
accordance with the resolutions passed by the Security Council. 

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Scott Ritter, thanks very much for being with us. 

WILLIAM SCOTT RITTER, JR.: Thank you.