Dump the Party Line

[fintstone]

Originally posted by techweenie
I'm not sure Scott Ritter's position has changed at all. I've read about him in testimony and interviews from 1996, 1998, 1999, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

His problem with the Clinton administration was that he felt the U.S. and Britain were interfering with his efforts to inspect for that 'last 5%' or WMD programs/capabilities/facilities to reach a certainty that there were none -- which in turn would allow lifting of sanctions that were 'costing the lives of 6,000 Iraqi children a month.' These deaths seemed to be pissing him off.

His problem with the Bush administration was/is the same: interference with inspections and sabre rattling, which later became a war predicated on wrong assumptions that he felt could have been disproven.

I'm not finding an inconsistency in his positions excepting that he appears to have come to believe that the rumors of WMD materials -- and even programs -- were untrue. It would be disingenuous for him to think otherwise, now that we've been there a year, and all the 'exact locations of WMD programs' that Powelll touted have been sifted through.

He quit in 1998 during the the Clinton administration after claiming that Iraq had not disarmed and that he felt that Clinton was not nearly hard enough on Iraq. After 4 years of not going to Iraq or receiving any type of intelligence...suddeny he started claiming Iraq was disarmed. Of course his current liberally funded lecture circuit story is otherwise. I guess it is good to be a liberal and when things don't work out as you planned...all you have to do is change your story and all your supporters ignore your previous mistatements..Kerry has that flip-flop down to an art also.

[CamB]

That Ritter was paid $400,000 to make the case that there were no WMDs in a documentary??

I'd like to put forward an alternative hypothesis. Maybe, just maybe, they weren't there. I put forward as evidence Hans Blix and David Kay.

[techweenie]

"He quit in 1998 during the the Clinton administration after claiming that Iraq had not disarmed and that he felt that Clinton was not nearly hard enough on Iraq."

That's not what my reading of his 1996 and 1998 interviews told me. Please cite a source on this.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by techweenie
"He quit in 1998 during the the Clinton administration after claiming that Iraq had not disarmed and that he felt that Clinton was not nearly hard enough on Iraq."

That's not what my reading of his 1996 and 1998 interviews told me. Please cite a source on this.

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040321-101405-2593r.htm
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001904477_collin16.html
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110004976
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/605fgcob.asp
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/International%20figures'%20positions%20on%20invasion%20of%20Iraq

[araine901]

Hey CamB,

Do you guys get the oil for food scandle in the news down there? Seriously currious.

Boy I miss those meat pies Kliberne

[CamB]

Actually, we don't really - not a lot anyway. I got more information out of the top link fint posted than I have thus far.

It is damning stuff, but I view it the same way I see Haliburton etc. I believe generally that specific corporations and persons are responsible for these sorts of aberations. I don't blame countries or governments, unless there is a clear link (I don't think the US govt invaded Iraq for oil, for instance).

I had a pie for lunch. Bloody good. About US$1...

[techweenie]

Finstone: you post a bunch of op-ed pieces? The standard for factual proof in op-ed pieces is far below actual reporting.

Everything the right-wing Reverend Moon's Washington Times publishes is suspect. Especially op-ed.

The Seattle Times piece is op-ed.

The Weekly Standard piece is laughable. Not even close to grade-school journalism.

The last lin k didn't work for me -- even by cutting & pasting.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by techweenie
Finstone: you post a bunch of op-ed pieces? The standard for factual proof in op-ed pieces is far below actual reporting.

Everything the right-wing Reverend Moon's Washington Times publishes is suspect. Especially op-ed.

The Seattle Times piece is op-ed.

The Weekly Standard piece is laughable. Not even close to grade-school journalism.

The last lin k didn't work for me -- even by cutting & pasting.

Perhaps you will find one of these acceptable. I have included articles written by Ritter as well as transcripts of interviews. Even an article from the Aribic News:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.html
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec98/ritter_8-31.html
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/12/21/981221-scott.htm
http://www.ceip.org/programs/npp/ritter.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A56950-2002Oct20&notFound=true
http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/980903/1998090351.html

[techweenie]

I think the issue here is that a person can hold two possibilities in his mind.

He thought through the mid-late '90s that he was close to finding WMDs. He was pissed when pulled off the job. The fact the Iraqis lied to him made him especially suspicious. But at the same time, he made it clear that one reason he wasn't finding WMDs could have been that there weren't any.

He wanted 'substantive proof', but proving a negative is particularly difficult. He now has that proof, in that all the intelligence he was relying on (and progressively came to distrust) pointed to programs and facilities that never existed.

The key phrase to understanding his thinking is this, from the Time article: "...I've said that no one has backed up any allegations that Iraq has reconstituted WMD capability with anything that remotely resembles substantive fact. To say that Saddam's doing it is in total disregard to the fact that if he gets caught he's a dead man and he knows it. Deterrence has been adequate in the absence of inspectors..."

The problem with this quote is that it seems to state more what he feels now than any of the contemporaneous quotes I found.

The best stuff is the 1998 fas.org quote, which is one I drew on. He indicates that there might be enough of several substances to fitt a couple dozen bombs or ballistic missle warheads. He then admits that wouldn't be much, but could serve as a 'seed program'. IOW, it wasn't so much what Saddam had, but what he might eventually have.

After all, anyone knows, several of the biologicals he mentioned didnt' have the shelf life to be toxic by 1998. And a couple dozen bombs with chemicals aren't a real threat to any target larger than a village.

Bottom line for me is that what Saddam had wasn't a threat to the U.S. To Iran? Maybe. To Israel? Possibly. He had rockets with a range of what? 600 miles?

Ritter didn't want the U.S. to attack Iraq. He didn't think anything there was threat enough to warrant attack. He just wanted to finish his inspections and continue monitoring. The weapons examples he used seemed to me more for the purpose of dramatizing the need for his continued employment.

[fintstone]

I am glad you find these sources (which say the same thing) more acceptable. If Ritter resigned as an inspector in 1998, he has less knowledge of current intel than even I do. How do you suppose that he is any more knowlegeable about Iraq's weapons programs after he stopped being an inspector than when he was one? We know that on the day he resigned, he felt Saddam had an active program. The only thing that really changed was where his paycheck was coming from. Of course he done a good job, aided by the liberal press, revising what he said and wrote about at the time. Sorta like Mr. Kerry does.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by CamB
Actually, we don't really - not a lot anyway. I got more information out of the top link fint posted than I have thus far.

It is damning stuff, but I view it the same way I see Haliburton etc. I believe generally that specific corporations and persons are responsible for these sorts of aberations. I don't blame countries or governments, unless there is a clear link (I don't think the US govt invaded Iraq for oil, for instance).

I had a pie for lunch. Bloody good. About US$1...

Cam
I can't find much to argue here except I cannot understand your problem with a private company like Haliburton. Do they have some kind of bad reputation where you live?

[techweenie]

Finstsone: "I am glad you find these sources (which say the same thing) more acceptable. If Ritter resigned as an inspector in 1998, he has less knowledge of current intel than even I do. How do you suppose that he is any more knowlegeable about Iraq's weapons programs after he stopped being an inspector than when he was one? We know that on the day he resigned, he felt Saddam had an active program. The only thing that really changed was where his paycheck was coming from. Of course he done a good job, aided by the liberal press, revising what he said and wrote about at the time. Sorta like Mr. Kerry does."

The answer to your statement above is in the links you sent. you seem to be suggesting that after being a weapons inspector for 7 years, he suddenly had his memory erased? Are you suggesting that he never had any further contact with David Kay and other weapons inspectors? He was in Iraq in 2000 -- you yourself told me that. Were you there, too? is that why you compare your knowledge of WMD programs to his?

Did you read nothing I quoted?
* The biologicals had a short shelf life. Most were harmless by '98.
* The chemical weapons were of limited utility.
* Saddam only had rockets capable of about a 600 mile range.
* A "program" is not a weapon.

[fintstone]

Originally posted by techweenie
Finstsone: "I am glad you find these sources (which say the same thing) more acceptable. If Ritter resigned as an inspector in 1998, he has less knowledge of current intel than even I do. How do you suppose that he is any more knowlegeable about Iraq's weapons programs after he stopped being an inspector than when he was one? We know that on the day he resigned, he felt Saddam had an active program. The only thing that really changed was where his paycheck was coming from. Of course he done a good job, aided by the liberal press, revising what he said and wrote about at the time. Sorta like Mr. Kerry does."

The answer to your statement above is in the links you sent. you seem to be suggesting that after being a weapons inspector for 7 years, he suddenly had his memory erased? Are you suggesting that he never had any further contact with David Kay and other weapons inspectors? He was in Iraq in 2000 -- you yourself told me that. Were you there, too? is that why you compare your knowledge of WMD programs to his?

Did you read nothing I quoted?
* The biologicals had a short shelf life. Most were harmless by '98.
* The chemical weapons were of limited utility.
* Saddam only had rockets capable of about a 600 mile range.
* A "program" is not a weapon.

I did not compare my knowledge of WMD with his, although I have also worked in that area. I compared my access to recent itelligence to his....which he has not had since '98 when he said that Saddam had WMD. No, I do not expect that David Kay or any of the other inspectors illegally shared any classified intelligence with him after he lost his clearance. Especially since he was working on a highly paid project that benefitted Saddam.

[techweenie]

"I compared my access to recent itelligence to his....which he has not had since '98 when he said that Saddam had WMD. No, I do not expect that David Kay or any of the other inspectors illegally shared any classified intelligence with him after he lost his clearance. Especially since he was working on a highly paid project that benefitted Saddam."

Clearly his documentary project was not highly paid -- again, requires reading -- and it didn't really beneift Saddam, did it?

Shared info between present and former weapons inspectors? I can practically *guarantee* that it happened. They were all there for the same reason: to discover something that turned out not to be there. Kay, Blix, et. al. no doubt once ate 'highly nutritious' cashews grown in Iraq. Does that make them suspect, too?

By the way, the full "intelligence" of every department of the U.S. has been available to operatives in Iraq for over a year now. And it has proven... what?

Ritter claimed a very small amount of toxic materials were 'possibly' in Iraq. Nowhere did he -- or anyone else with a shred of credibility -- claim Saddam posessed anything that was a threat to the U.S.

[araine901]

I have some broken car parts do you think I can *practicly* get them warrantied?

[fintstone]

Originally posted by techweenie

Ritter claimed a very small amount of toxic materials were 'possibly' in Iraq. Nowhere did he -- or anyone else with a shred of credibility -- claim Saddam posessed anything that was a threat to the U.S.

Scott Ritter's testimony to Congress, 3 Sept 98

Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, I cannot speak on behalf of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nuclear disarmament issues in Iraq are their purview. But what I can say is that we have clear evidence that Iraq is retaining prohibited weapons capabilities in the fields of chemical, biological and ballistic- missile delivery systems of a range of greater than 150 kilometers. And if Iraq has undertaken a concerted effort run at the highest levels inside Iraq to retain these capabilities, then I see no reason why they would not exercise the same sort of concealment efforts for their nuclear programs.