October 16, 2002
Former weapons inspector implores students to act
(photo - Recorder/Peter MacDonald)
DEERFIELD - A former weapons inspector in Iraq told students and community members that they needed to be involved citizens to prevent war.
"Participate, participate, participate," said Scott Ritter, a Marine for 12 years and a United Nations weapons inspector for seven. "Voting is the great equalizer. We all get to go back there and pull the lever."
He spoke at Deerfield Academy Tuesday evening to a crowd that packed the 700 capacity auditorium and poured out into the lobbies surrounding the auditorium.
It's too late to avoid a war in Iraq, but Ritter urged people to hold their representatives and senators in Congress accountable and vote out of office those who gave President Bush power to use force against Iraq.
A war with Iraq will kill 20,000 to 30,000 Americans, Ritter said. "It's a war that could be every bit as bad as Vietnam," he said.
"War is forever. You don't come back. Sometimes you do come back, missing an arm, a leg or both legs."
The way to capture Saddam is to indict him in the International Court and set up economic sanctions contingent upon turning him over, he said.
Although Ritter detests Saddam, he said President Bush has not made the case to go to war. Instead, Bush relied on the fear many 
Americans have after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and on the ignorance many have about the situation in Iraq, said Ritter. "The president of the United States is telling you Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but he's not telling you how he knows."
A 1998 U.S. bombing campaign of 91 Iraqi targets destroyed weapon inspectors' credibility because it showed the U.S. was more concerned with routing out Saddam rather than eliminating Iraq's ability to produce and store weapons of mass destruction, Ritter said. (Photo at right - Charlie Jenks.)
According to Ritter, of those targets, only 11 were involved in producing weapons; the rest were targets like Saddam's bedroom, his bodyguard's facilities or his office, all sites designed to kill Saddam. It's a move that violated international law, he said, one of unilateral imperialism.
Before then, weapons inspectors had eliminated 90 to 95 percent of weapons of mass destruction as well as Iraq's ability to make those weapons, Ritter said.
Ritter has written a book, many articles and made a movie about the inspections. A recent Newsweek article criticized Ritter for taking $400,000 from an Iraqi-American to make the film. That money was a loan from the man's personal assets, said Ritter, adding that he took pains to make sure the money was not coming from the Iraqi government, letting the FBI investigate the transaction.
Lindsey Wei, a senior from Pennsylvania, was among a group of students trying to organize a school sponsored trip to a war protest in Washington D.C. on Oct. 26. She said she hopes students will stay inspired from the speech and be driven to try to make a difference.
"He's definitely one of our great Americans,:" said Vinny Natale of Montague, adding he was especially impressed by the description he gave of the realities of war.
You can reach the reporter, Arn Albertini at aalberti@recorder.com or (413) 772-0261, ext. 280.
http://www.reformer.com/
October 15, 2002
Ritter Defines Iraqi Weapons Capabilities
by Leslie Staudinger
Special to the Brattleboro Reformer, October 17, 2002
Deerfield, Mass. -- Scott Ritter, the former head of the U.N. weapons
inspections team in Iraq, spoke to a packed auditorium of students
Deerfield Academy Tuesday night. The former Marine and ex-intelligence
officer, who is also a Republican, told eighth- through 12th-grade students
that war is "not a video game." "War is terminal," he said. "War is about
death and destruction."
The Constitution, Ritter said, "is what defines us as Americans." He said
when he joined the Marines, he took the same pledge as all members of the
military: to protect the Constitution. "Not to protect the president or
Congress, but to protect the rights in our Constitution."
Ritter said Iraq has produced agents of mass destruction, not weapons of
mass destruction. To make an agent into a weapon is not easy, he
said. For example, Iraq has or had an anthrax sludge, but it would not be
an effective weapon unless the Iraqis could make it into a specific aerosol
or dust. "Biological weapons are not the issue. The fear factor must be
ratcheted down," he pleaded.
"Iraq never produced a good chemical weapon," Ritter maintained.
Ritter compared President Bush's push to attack Iraq to a doctor who tells
a patient with a headache that he has a brain tumor, and that the only
option is to cut off the top of his head, yet refuses to show the patient
X-rays or the MRI. "Would you do it?" he asked, "or would you insist upon
seeing the evidence?
The Bush administration, Ritter said, is saying that there is this 'tumor'
named Saddam who needs to be cut out, yet they are not showing the American
public the evidence.
Ritter said his team found 95 percent of the weapons they were sent to
find. There were no weapons in the Iraqi presidential palaces, he said.
Shortly after Ritter's team inspected the palaces, the United States
withdrew the inspectors and bombed the palaces, targeting Hussein's
bedrooms and offices.
Ritter criticized what he called the politics of fear and ignorance. "You
know, sometimes these presidents of your country lie to you," he told the
audience. "Every four-star general that has fought in that region has come
out against the war," he said.
Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and France are also asking Washington
to show restraint.
Ritter pointed out that prior to the Gulf War, Iraq was a strong, secular
state where women had the right to vote, and there was universal health
care. During Operation Desert Storm, the United States and its allies
bombed water filtration systems and raw sewage seeped into the water
supply, resulting in widespread dysentery. Since 1991, under U.N.
sanctions, many common medicines are no longer available.
Between 350,000 and 1.2 million Iraqi people have died, Ritter said, most
below the age of 5." There's no love for Saddam among the Iraqi people, he
said, but now, "as the result of the sanctions there is less than that
towards the United States. If the United States attacks Iraq, it will
compel the Iraqis to fight for their homeland." he added.
Click below to hear the Speech or Questions and Answers on ReadPlayer. If you don't have RealPlayer, you can get it for free by following the Real Player link below.. You may also contact Traprock Peace Center to request a copy of the speech on cd. You may also download the speech and Q and A as an MP3 file. If you do not have broadband, the MP3 downloads will take quite a while.
Scott Ritter's Speech as Streaming RealAudio
MP3 Download (11.1 mg)
Transcript - Speech (pdf) or Word (doc) file
Scott Ritter's Questions and Answers in Real Audio It may seem as though the audio stops - it does not. Some gaps occur because the microphone was not able to pick up questions from the audience. Wait for a bit and the answer to the question will start.
Page and RealAudio/MP3 prepared by Charlie Jenks.
