| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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One reply over the phone from a friend is: "It's because Carl Rove made a speech to some Republican bigwigs and also inadvertently dropped a floppy disc from his briefcase which contained an outline of above referenced speech. from disc: "If the November election is about the sorry state of the sick economy, Enron, WorldCom and other corporate malfeasance, we (the Republicans) lose." "If the election is about national security, we win." Andrew Card, chief of staff and head shrub handler was last month quoted as saying, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce a new product in August." NEW PRODUCT = INVASION OF IRAQ In the abscence of all the buzz about what's making Bush ANGRY on any particular day, the national news mantra was the Republican-unfriendly topic of the economy and corporate corruption. He can't help remembering that his dad lost the presidency when Iraq's eviction from Kuwait was speedily concluded way before the presidential election whose theme then became: "It's the economy, stupid!" ("W" was about to lose control of the House of Representatives and have even less control of the Senate and the House.) Everybody on every news outlet sticks to no more than 3 ponts that they harp on continually. 3 years ago it was Monica, Bill, Linda (that stocky woman who taped all of Monica's phone calls), Ken, Lucianne, etc. 13 months ago it was Chandra Levy and her boyfriend with the weird hair wedge the Hon. Gary Condit. For 5 or 6 whole months it was Rudy and "W." Then Enron (of course those phone calls from "Kenny Boy" Lay to the president whose gubernatorial and then presidential campaigns he was the chief bankroller) weren't to beg for help in saving that Houston house of cards from collapse. It was a warning from the CEO of a company whose stock was about to tank to make sure he warned all his sisters and his cousins and his aunts left holding any soon to be worthless stock to get out. When Martha Stewart got the same kind of calls from Sam Waksal of Imclone she was raked over the coals and is stil just two steps ahead of the sheriff. What great leadership qualities Rudy and "W" developed under the inspiration of camera lights and non-stop live news network feeds. Suddenly the warmed-over stump speech ("It's great to be in DesMoine today in spite of the circumstances, before I refuse to take questions, let me make a few important points about the axis of evil. . . ") was swallowed whole by a traumatized and bewildered public. |
http://feinstein.senate.gov/Speeches02/fs-iraq.htm keep talking the good word Farad. The least we can hope for is that this war will commence with major domestic backlash and we run those fuckers out of the white house, either ahead or on schedule. eitherway, if there's war, im pretty confident he's sealed his deal as a one-term president. |
L.A. WEEKLY: What can you tell us about Saddam and nuclear weapons? SCOTT RITTER: Clearly Iraq had a nuclear-weapons program. Of the four categories of prohibited weapons, nuclear is the one we most thoroughly eradicated. Especially the part of their nuclear program that was dedicated to enrichment, to producing the highly enriched uranium needed for the fissile core of a nuclear device. This was wiped out, there was nothing left. For Iraq to reconstitute that would require not only tens of billions of dollars of investment, but also the reconstitution of entire industrial facilities that are easily detected by our intelligence services. It would also require technology to be purchased abroad, which is tightly controlled and not something Iraq could do without being detected. I find it hard to believe the vice president when he says Iraq is close to developing a nuclear weapon -- they weren't anywhere near close in 1998, when inspectors left. If some new development has transpired in the last four years, I wish the White House would share that evidence with the American people. L.A. WEEKLY: What about chemical weapons? We know that in the Iran-Iraq war Saddam used mustard gas and the nerve agent sarin on the Iranians, and he also used chemical weapons on the Kurds at that time. What happened to that chemical-weapons capability when you and the U.N. inspectors were there from 1991 to '98? SCOTT RITTER: Iraq had a massive chemical-weapons industry, with gigantic factories dedicated to the production of these deadly agents. They did use them against the Iranians and against the Kurds, which is one reason why the international community outlawed them in 1991. Once inspectors went into Iraq, we not only destroyed the factories and equipment that produced these agents, we also rounded up the weapons and the precursor chemicals that are mixed together to produce the deadly agent, and we eliminated them. We achieved tremendous success in this area. We eradicated their mustard-agent and their sarin- and tabun-agent production capability. If Iraq managed to hide some of their nerve agent from us, it has a shelf life of only five years, so today, with their factories destroyed, Iraq has no nerve-agent capability -- unless they reconstituted their manufacturing base, which no one has demonstrated. VX is a different subject altogether. Iraq lied to us from day one about VX . Iraq said they never had a VX program. But we uncovered their entire research-and-development plant, which had been bombed during Desert Storm and destroyed. Using documentation recovered from that, we were able to track down and discover Iraq's stockpile of VX, confirming that it had been destroyed. We also exposed another Iraqi lie -- that they had never stabilized VX. We even proved that they put it in warheads, contrary to what they had declared. [But] the bottom line is -- even though the Iraqis lied to us about VX, and we still might have some concerns about this program, there is no VX production capability in Iraq today -- unless Iraq went out after 1998 and acquired all this technology that we had destroyed. L.A. WEEKLY: The third category of weapons of mass destruction is biological. I wanted to ask especially about anthrax. SCOTT RITTER: For a biological weapon to work, you have to either turn it into an aerosol, with particles of a certain size which can be inhaled into your lungs, or a dry powder of a certain size, such as we found in the letters that were mailed in October. Iraq successfully produced biological agents: They produced anthrax and botulism toxin. But they never successfully produced a biological weapon. They did put agent -- liquid sludge -- into bombs and warheads, but the fact is, the only way that was going to kill you was if it actually landed on you. They had no way of disseminating the agent, it would have simply soaked into the ground where it landed. We destroyed the factories that produced this agent, we destroyed the production equipment, and we destroyed the pieces of technology that Iraq could have used to weaponize this agent. There was some concern that Iraq might have produced more anthrax than they declared. But liquid bulk agent of the type that Iraq produced has a maximum shelf life under ideal conditions of three years. After that it germinates and becomes useless sludge. For Iraq to have biological weapons today, they would not only have to reconstitute the manufacturing base to produce biological agent, but they would have to perfect the technology to turn that agent into a weapon, to aerosolize it or turn it into dry powder. They didn't have that capability in December 1998, and no one has demonstrated that they have that capability today. L.A. WEEKLY: Vice President Cheney in a recent speech said, "Saddam devised an elaborate program to conceal his programs to develop chemical and biological weapons." And he said, "The inspectors missed a great deal" and that "The inspectors were actually on the verge of declaring that Saddam's programs . . . had been fully accounted for, a shutdown, but then Saddam's son-in-law suddenly defected and began sharing information. Within days, inspectors were led to an Iraqi chicken farm. Hidden there were boxes of documents and lots of evidence regarding Iraq's most secret weapons program." What's your comment on that? SCOTT RITTER: A harsh comment. Either the vice president has been misinformed or lied to by his own intelligence services, the CIA and others, or he himself is lying. Let's set the record straight: In the spring of 1995, the executive director of UNSCOM (United Nations Special Commission), my boss, was prepared to make a finding that Iraq had been fundamentally disarmed. We weren't going to give them a clean bill of health. But we wanted to progress the issue of disarmament to the point where we could talk about lifting economic sanctions. They were crippling Iraq, causing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children to lose their lives. We had fundamentally disarmed Iraq: That meant 90 to 95 percent of Iraq's weapons capability had been accounted for. Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected in August 1995. We achieved our final breakthrough prior to his defection. I have the transcripts of the debriefs of the son-in-law, Hussein Kamal. Listen to what he said: "I ordered in 1993 that all remaining weapons be destroyed. Today in Iraq there are no weapons. We destroyed them all." How does Dick Cheney turn that statement into one saying Saddam Hussein's son-in-law spilled the beans about Iraq's weapons program? All he did was confirm our conclusion that in fact these weapons had been destroyed. So Dick Cheney is misleading the American public. L.A. WEEKLY: What were the circumstances that led the U.N. weapons inspectors to leave Iraq in December 1998? The Bush administration and the media often repeat that Saddam "kicked out" the weapons inspectors, and that's why we face the necessity of war today. SCOTT RITTER: Nothing could be further from the truth. The Iraqis did not kick the inspectors out in December 1998. The Americans ordered the inspectors out, and then bombed Iraq using intelligence information gathered by the inspectors to target Saddam Hussein and his security apparatus. It's impossible to talk about the return of unfettered access until there's some guarantee that the U.S. won't again use the weapons inspectors as a vehicle for spying on Saddam, and targeting Saddam. As long as the Americans continue to say that regime removal is their number-one policy priority regarding Iraq, even ahead of disarmament, we have no chance of getting weapons inspectors back in. L.A. WEEKLY: What if we are shown evidence that Iraq now possesses weapons of mass destruction? SCOTT RITTER: I believe that not only would the Security Council approve military action against Iraq under those circumstances, but we would have a large and viable coalition supporting us. But if Iraq has these weapons, the Bush administration needs to back up its rhetoric with evidence to support it. The fact that they haven't suggests they don't have the evidence, and that this is strictly about domestic American politics. L.A. WEEKLY: You spoke to the Iraqi parliament, urging them to re-admit U.N. weapons inspectors. What kind of response did you receive from them? SCOTT RITTER: First let me explain why I spoke there. It was not in order to address Iraqi democracy. There is no democracy in Iraq. Their parliament is a Baath Party organization. I picked the parliament to use it as a platform to address the Iraqi government and also, frankly, to reach an American domestic audience. Decisions in Iraq are made not by the parliament but by the government -- and they were listening closely. Not only at the parliament but in my meeting with [Foreign Minister] Tariq Aziz and other ministers who advise the president. I told them all the same thing: If they didn't let inspectors in, and give them unfettered access, there would be war, and it would destroy their country. That message was received openly and understood clearly. L.A. WEEKLY: How do you interpret Bush's speech to the U.N. on 9/12? SCOTT RITTER: If I believed the Bush administration was committed to disarming Iraq, that their final objective was eliminating weapons of mass destruction, I would be supportive of that speech. But it was a hypocritical speech -- because the final objective of the Bush administration is regime removal, pure and simple. Bush was saying the U.N. has to agree to remove Saddam's regime. But that runs counter to the U.N. Charter. The U.N. has never authorized regime removal in Iraq. That is purely a unilateral U.S. policy. It's been promoted since 1991 by James Baker under George Herbert Walker Bush. Baker made it clear at that time that even if Iraq complied with U.N. resolutions, sanctions would continue until Saddam was removed from power. This statement undermined the ability of the inspectors to work in Iraq. What motives do the Iraqis have to cooperate when the U.S. says their cooperation is irrelevant? Clinton and Madeleine Albright said the same thing. But no U.N. Security Council resolution talks about removing Saddam Hussein from power. L.A. WEEKLY: What's the next move? SCOTT RITTER: The ball is now clearly in Iraq's court. The most important force that can head off this war is the government of Iraq itself. They must allow the unconditional return of U.N. inspectors with unfettered access. They've made it clear that they won't agree unless they can guarantee that inspectors won't be used to spy on them. There are some promising developments on that front. The Canadian prime minister appears to be ready to offer to serve as an honest broker between the inspectors and Iraq. Canada would monitor their interaction to ensure the inspectors don't go off task. Canada could be joined by South Africa, the leader of the nonaligned movement. And the government of Belgium, another member of NATO, is likewise contemplating serving as a guarantor of proper behavior by the inspectors. The question is whether these countries have the will to step forward. No nation has exhibited that yet. L.A. WEEKLY: How much time do we have before war begins? SCOTT RITTER: The U.S. Central Command is deploying battle staff to Qatar. Six hundred officers will be positioned there in November. This means we're going to war soon. We're already bombing the Iraqis frequently. We already have troops deployed in the region. Deploying the battle staff in November, I think, means war is going to start maybe as soon as December or January. L.A. WEEKLY: Who did you vote for in the presidential election in 2000? SCOTT RITTER: I voted for George Bush. |
Many former inspectors do not share Ritter's controversial views. One particular inspector at Ritter's level reported to a Senate committee that UN inspections, "Iraq, today is not disarmed, and remains an ugly threat to its neighbors and to world peace." Who is this other inspector? Surprise! That was Scott Ritter, too. It would seem that Mr. Ritter had a change of heart. Certainly, Iraq cannot be both "an ugly threat to its neighbors and to world peace" and "not a threat to its neighbors." Yet Ritter does not see it that way. He has never been wrong. Just ask him. In a Fox News interview, Ritter declared, "I don't disagree with anything I've ever said. Why in God's name would I disagree with something I've said?" Moreover, Ritter is not a scientist, and he has never been an expert on biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. As a marine and an intelligence expert, Ritter's job was to gain access to facilities so the more qualified weapons experts on his team could make their assessments. To this day, the true experts on his team agree that Iraq indeed possesses chemical and biological weapons, presenting a clear threat to the world. Iraq has now gone four years without an inspection. According to Ritter himself, Saddam was not disarmed in 1998. Saddam likely is more heavily armed today. Given Ritter's recent denial of Iraq's capabilities despite his contradictory remarks and making assessments that are "above his pay grade," as Senator Joe Biden once put it, it's best to get a second opinion - and maybe a third, fourth, and fifth opinion as well. Scott Ritter's former boss, Richard Butler reported to the UN that Iraq retains weapons of mass destruction. An independent investigation initiated by Russia confirmed the veracity of Butler's report. David Kay, Chief U.N. Nuclear Weapons Inspector in Iraq from 1991 through 1993, told a Senate committee that "There should be no doubt that Iraq, under Saddam, continues to seek nuclear weapons capability and that given the time it will devote the resources and technical manpower necessary to reach that goal." As for the use of force, Kay told CNN "It's only when Saddam fears for his very survival that there's any hope that he will admit inspectors. So if you want to give peace a chance, you need to authorize the president early to use military force if he fails to." Richard Spertzel, Chief Biological Weapons Inspector from 1994 through 1998, reported to a Senate committee, "There is no doubt in my mind that Iraq has a much stronger BW program today than it had in 1990. Perhaps of most concern would be anthrax and tularemia bacteria and smallpox virus as well as antianimal and anticrop agents." Dr. Khidir Hamza provides an insider's opinion on Saddam's capabilities as Iraq's former Director of Nuclear Weaponization, and the highest-ranking scientist ever to defect. He told PBS that Iraq is very close to getting nuclear weapons. "If it managed to get [fissile material], either from Russia, from some of the ex-Communist states, one way or the other, then it is within two to six months ... because they already built a mock-up, complete." Ritter - who recently addressed the Iraqi National Assembly to speak out against the United States, claiming the US "seems to be on the verge of making a historical mistake" - also contradicts many prominent and informed leaders, including President George Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Senator Joe Lieberman. Even former President Bill Clinton - not known for taking a hard line against Hussein - spoke about Saddam at a Democratic fundraiser: "There's no question ... he has significant stocks of chemical and biological agents." The case against Scott Ritter's credibility is already firm. This begs the question, why did he change his tune? Circumstantial evidence suggests a possible explanation for his erratic behavior with personal politics - and some plain old lucre - impaired his judgment. Scott Ritter believes that sanctions kill more people that Sadaam's brutality. "[Saddam] may torture to death 1,800 people a year. That is a lot. That is terrible. I am not saying this is acceptable. We kill 6,000 a month. Let's put that on a scale." - Nicholas Arons, "Fellowship of Reconciliation," June 24, 1999 Ritter believes UN sanctions are "pure racial politics, there is no doubt about that." He believes that the sanctions would have been long gone if the children of Iraq were Christian or Jewish. - ibid. Ritter accepted over $400,000 from an American businessman with ties to Saddam's government to make a documentary film. Ritter acknowledged to the Washington Post this benefactor "opened the door" to the Iraqi government. The head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate, Hussam Mohammed Amin, told Reuters that Ritter was in Iraq "to film a documentary on the impact of the unjust embargo on the Iraqi people and (show) that Iraq has no more weapons of mass destruction." The precise reasons for Ritter's actions are unclear. What is perfectly clear, however, is that he is not a credible authority on the question of Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Four years ago, Scott Ritter was a competent weapons inspector. Today, Scott Ritter, the activist, tells a different story than Scott Ritter, the inspector. He is not a technical expert on weapons of mass destruction, he is not an expert on foreign policy, and he is no longer an active member of the intelligence community. Yet Ritter presents himself as all of those things. It borders on irresponsible for the media to continue to provide him a platform to air his views. Richard Butler described Ritter's actions best: "What Scott Ritter has been saying is baffling, but whether or not it is baffling, it is this: It is wrong." Yet the media still listens to Ritter. That too is baffling. And it is wrong. Source: Tec Central Station |
Dateline: November 03, 1998 Saddam Hussein now has taken the final step in breaking his promises of cooperation with the United Nations. He had for three months been blocking surprise inspections by U.N. arms experts trying to ferret out his clandestine nuclear- biological- and chemical-weapons programs. Now he has said he will block even the regular, announced visits by U.N. monitors whose work had been continuing. Absent a response from the Clinton administration and the United Nations, nothing now will impede Saddam Hussein's ambitions to maintain and rebuild the weapons of mass destruction he promised to give up. Secretary of Defense William Cohen said that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan "should be concerned because his credibility and that of the Security Council is on the line." Mr. Annan's spokesman immediately sought to deflect the responsibility. The squabbling was unseemly and discouraging. In fact, Mr. Annan's credibility is on the line, but President Clinton's is more so. It was Mr. Clinton who sent Mr. Annan to Baghdad last February to defuse a similar crisis; it was Mr. Clinton who promised a military response if Saddam Hussein violated the agreement Mr. Annan negotiated; and it was Mr. Clinton who failed to respond when Iraq shredded the pact in August. No wonder Iraq's vice president can say, "Iraq does not fear the threat of the United States because it has been threatening Iraq for the past eight years." The United States must respond with force if Iraq does not allow U.N. teams - passive monitors and surprise inspectors alike - to resume their work. It should respond as part of a U.N.-backed alliance if possible, alone if necessary. Its bombing campaign should not be symbolic but designed to destroy as much of Saddam Hussein's capability to make and use weapons of mass destruction as possible. Yes, even such a serious military effort might end with Saddam Hussein still in and U.N. inspectors still out. That is why a serious strategy to deal with Iraq must include a willingness to bomb more than once, if Saddam Hussein again tries to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction. A serious strategy also must include support for Iraqis seeking to replace Saddam Hussein's criminal regime with something more democratic and less bellicose. Mr. Clinton, in signing the Iraq Liberation Act on Saturday, vowed support for such a transformation and said, "The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership." This is not a matter of the United States and other countries meddling without right in Iraq's internal affairs. Iraq began this by invading Kuwait. The United Nations authorized a U.S.-led military campaign to reverse that aggression. Having defeated Iraq's army, the United States chose to accept, in place of Saddam Hussein's total surrender and relinquishing of power, his pledge to disarm. His failure after all these years to honor that pledge gives the United Nations every right to reconsider its merciful cease-fire terms. ****HAVE THINGS GOTTEN BETTER SINCE 1998?***** |
"l Quaeda. Algeria cancelled its elections a couple of years ago when it became obvious that its public was about vote in an Ayatollah style theocracy. As brutal as Sr. Hussein's Stalinist method of repressive governing is and how undemocratic it is compared to what we once had in our country, the New Yorker piece made me realize that it takes a heavy dose of repression to install and perpetuate a highly modern, westernized culture in that neighborhood. (cf Attaturk |
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if not, just print, shread, then eat this message, what message ? those that are into this at all, enjoy and pass it on. d. <http://www.digitido.com/Camejo/Camejo2.html> http://www.votecamejo.org/ http://www.news10-tv.net/news-story/September2002/091702/_video/DavisFai.rm http://globalsecurity.org/ http://californiapeaceaction.org/ http://www.notinourname.net/ |