Scott Ritter

Scott Ritter on "Target Iran:
The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change"

interviewed by Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org, 10/16/06

Twenty-five ministers from the European Union are expected to meet tomorrow to ask the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran. They say sanctions are necessary because of Iran's refusal to halt uranium enrichment. Though Iran contends its nuclear program is for generating electricity, the U.S. and some of its allies allege it is trying to develop atomic weapons.

On Saturday, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, said that Western threats to impose sanctions were part of a "psychological war" and that the Islamic Republic was more determined than ever to pursue peaceful nuclear technology.

A new book by former weapons inspector - Scott Ritter - claims that the Bush Administration is determined to wage war against Iran. In "Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change," Ritter examines the administration's regime-change policy and the potential of Iran to threaten US national security interests.

0. Scott Ritter, Ritter served from 1991 to 1998 as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq in the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). His new book is, "Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change." His previous book is "Iraq Confidential."
0.

AMY GOODMAN: A new book by former weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, claims the Bush administration is determined to wage war against Iran. In Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change, Scott Ritter examines the administration's regime change policy and the potential of Iran to threaten U.S. national security interests. He writes, "The path the United States has currently embarked on regarding Iran is a path that will inevitably lead to war. Such a course of action will make even the historical mistake we made in Iraq pale by comparison," he writes. Scott Ritter joins us in the studio now. Welcome to Democracy Now!

SCOTT RITTER: Well, thanks.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think is the key to understand about Iran right now, about the U.S., well, about your title targeting -- Target Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: Well, the most important thing is to understand the reality that Iran is squarely in the crosshairs as a target of the Bush administration, in particular, as a target of the Bush administration as it deals -- as it relates to the National Security Strategy of the United States. You see, this isn't a hypothetical debate among political analysts, foreign policy specialists. Read the 2006 version of the National Security Strategy, where Iran is named sixteen times as the number one threat to the national security of the United States of America, because in the same document, it embraces the notion of pre-emptive wars of aggression as a legitimate means of dealing with such threats. It also recertifies the Bush administration doctrine of regional transformation globally, but in this case particularly in the Middle East. So, we're not talking about hypotheticals here, regardless of all the discussion the Bush administration would like you to believe there is about diplomacy. There is no diplomacy, as was the case with Iraq. Diplomacy is but a smokescreen to disguise the ultimate objective of regime change.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the difference in approach the U.S. takes to North Korea, which has, according to their own reports, set off a nuclear bomb, and Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: Well, the only thing that the Bush administration's approach towards North Korea and the Bush administration's approach towards Iran have in common is that the endgame is regime change. Other than that, what you see -- I guess the other thing they have in common is the total incoherence of their approach. Look, North Korea and Iran, you can't compare; it's apples and oranges.

North Korea is a declared nuclear power. They even declared their intent to have nuclear weapons. They haven't hidden this from anybody. They withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in total conformity with the rule of law. They put the world on notice. They said, we will not participate. They gave them the appropriate timeline. They invited the inspectors out. And then, surprise, surprise, despite the fact that the Bush administration said, "Well, they're just bluffing," well, they're not bluffing. They just popped one off. And guess what. If we continue to push North Korea irresponsibly -- because again, what are we talking about here?

What do we want to achieve in North Korea? Do we really care about the North Korean people, want human rights to -- no, regime change. This is all about regime change. This is about the United States being able to dictate the terms of coexistence with everybody else in the world. Do people understand that our policy towards China is regime change? Do they understand what the ramifications of that is? That's what's going on with North Korea. And we shouldn't be surprised that they did exactly what they said they were going to do.

Now, we take Iran. Iran is a nation that says, "We don't have a nuclear weapons program. We have no intention." In fact, when North Korea exploded their device, the Iranians condemned it. They said nuclear weapons cannot be part of a global equation. And yet, we continue to try and lump them together as if North Korea and Iran are part and parcel of the same policy. Well, maybe they are part and parcel of the same incoherent approach that the Bush administration has taken to dealing with nuclear proliferation.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter, you just returned from Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: I came -- I was in Iran in early September, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did you do there?

SCOTT RITTER: I went there as a journalist for Nation magazine. I was there to research an article that hopefully will come out some time in November. You know, it was funny, the Iranian government, like many governments, says one thing, does another. I had a whole agenda that had been agreed upon in advance, that I was going to go and interview X, interview Y, visit sites, see etc. And I got there to find out that the Iranian government, regardless of what we had coordinated here in the United States, had no clue (a) that I was coming and (b) that I had an agenda. So, I show up in Iran, and I'm on my own.

What an eye-opening experience to be on your own in a nation that has been called an Islamic fascist state. I have been to dictatorships in the Middle East. I have been to nations that have a high security profile. Iran is not one of these nations. I'm a former intelligence officer who has stated some pretty strong positions on Iran, and yet I had full freedom of movement in Iran with no interference whatsoever. And as a result, although I didn't have the approved agenda, I had my own agenda, which allowed me to interview senior government officials, senior military officials, senior intelligence officials, and to visit sites that were deemed sensitive. The conclusion is that the American media has gotten it wrong on Iran. It's a very modern, westernized, pro-Western, and surprisingly pro-American country that does not constitute a threat to the United States whatsoever.

AMY GOODMAN: You're a former weapons inspector in Iraq.

SCOTT RITTER: Correct.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about similarities or differences you see between the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and what's happening now with Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: The biggest similarity that we need to point out is that in both cases no evidence was put forward to sustain the allegations that are being made. Iraq was accused of having weapons of mass destruction programs, reconstituting chemical, biological, nuclear, long-range ballistic missile programs. There was an inspection process in place that had access, full access to the facilities in question, and no data was derived from these inspections that backed up the Bush administration's allegations. And yet, Iraq was told, it's not up to the inspectors to find the weapons. It's up to Iraq to prove they don't exist. Iraq had to prove a negative. And they couldn't. We now know that in 1991, Saddam Hussein had destroyed the totality of his weapons programs. There weren't any left to find, discover. There was no threat.

We now have Iran. It's alleged to have a nuclear weapons program. And yet the International Atomic Energy Agency, the inspectors who have had full access to the sites in Iran, have come out and said, "Well, we can't say that there isn't a secret program that we don't know about. What we can say, as a direct result of our investigations, there is no data whatsoever to sustain the Bush administration's claims that there is a nuclear weapons program." And yet, the Bush administration once again is putting the onus on Iran, saying, "It's not up to the inspectors to find the nuclear weapons program. It's up to the Iranians to prove that one doesn't exist." Why do we go down this path? Because you can't prove a negative. There's nothing Iran can do that will satisfy the Bush administration, because the policy at the end of the day is not about nonproliferation, it's not about disarmament. It's about regime change. And all the Bush administration wants to do is to create the conditions that support their ultimate objective of military intervention.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter, one of the things you talk about in your book is that no attention has been paid to the Supreme Leader's pronouncement in the form of a fatwa, that Iran rejects outright the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, when we say "Supreme Leader," first of all, most Americans are going to scratch their head and say, "Who?" because, you see, we have a poster boy for demonization out there. His name is Ahmadinejad. He's the idiot that comes out and says really stupid vile things, such as, "It is the goal of Iran to wipe Israel off the face of the world," and he makes ridiculous statements about the United States and etc. And, of course, man, he -- it's a field day for the American media, for the Western media, because you get all the little sound bites out there, Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad, president of Iran. But what people don't understand is, while he can vocalize, his finger is not on any button of power. If you read the Iranian constitution, you'll see that the president of Iran is almost a figurehead.

The true power in Iran rests with the Supreme Leader. The Supreme Leader is the Ayatollah Khamenei. He is supported by an organization called the Guardian Council. Then there's another group called the Expediency Council. These are the people that control the military, the police, the nuclear program, all the instruments of power. And not only has the Supreme Leader issued a fatwa that says that nuclear weapons are not compatible with Islamic law, with the Shia belief system that he is responsible, in 2003 he actually reached out to the Bush administration via the Swiss embassy and said, "Look, we would like to normalize relations with the United States. We'd like to initiate a process that leads to a peace treaty between Israel and Iran." Get this, Israel and Iran. He's not saying, "We want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth." He is saying, "We want peace with Israel." And they were willing to put their nuclear program on the table.

Why didn't the Bush administration embrace this? Because that leads to a process of normalization, where the United States recognizes the legitimacy of the theocracy and is willing to peacefully coexist with the theocracy. That's not the Bush administration's position. They want the theocracy gone. They will do nothing that legitimizes that, nothing that sustains peace. They rejected peace. So, it's not Ahmadinejad that represents the threat to international peace and security when it comes to American-Iranian relations. It's the Bush administration, because the Bush administration refuses to put peace on the table. Bush talks about diplomacy. There will not be diplomacy, true diplomacy, until he puts Condoleezza Rice on an airplane, sends her to Tehran to talk to the Supreme Leader.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Scott Ritter. He has written a new book. It's called: Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change. And the picture on the cover has an image of a U.S. gun, of a gun with an American flag. Talk about the image you have here and the backdrop of it.

SCOTT RITTER: You know, I wish I could take credit for that image. But unfortunately, that is the work of -- not unfortunately, fortunately that's the work of a really good graphic designer with Nation Books who came up with, I think, a cover that is not only attractive but symbolic. But I think the point is here that Iran is the target. You know, we talk about America and the symbols of America. And yet, we have an American flag transformed into a symbol that the world recognizes when you say the United States: a weapon. And it's very sad to think of the United States, the nation that's supposed to espouse human rights, individual civil liberties, that when you talk about the United States around the world today, they think about us only in terms of violence, violence brought on by guns, because that's what we've become, a nation of violence.

AMY GOODMAN: The scenario you envision around the U.S. and Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: War. The bottom line is that the Bush administration has two more years left to govern here in the United States. They have a policy of regional transformation in the Middle East: regime change. We see that policy in play today in Iraq with all of its horrible manifestations. You'd think that they would have learned something, but they haven't. They continue to articulate that Iran needs to be transformed into a viable democracy, although, according to your news broadcast today and then other news coming out, it looks like we're going to give up on democracy in Iraq.

Look, Bush has already said that he doesn't want to leave Iran to the next president, that this is a problem he needs to solve now. And the other factor that we haven't woven in here that we need to is the role played by Israel in pressuring the United States for a very aggressive stance against Iran. Israel has drawn a red line that says, not only will they not tolerate a nuclear weapons program in Iran, they will not tolerate anything dealing with nuclear energy, especially enrichment, that could be used in a nuclear program. So, even if Iran is telling the truth -- Iran says, "We have no nuclear weapons program. We just want peaceful nuclear energy" -- Israel says, "So long as Iran has any enrichment capability, this constitutes a threat to Israel," and they are pressuring the United States to take forceful action.

AMY GOODMAN: In what way?

SCOTT RITTER: Oh, it's diplomatic pressure. We see -- starting in 2002, you saw the Israeli prime minister and the defense minister come running to the United States in the lead-up to the war with Iraq, saying, "Hey, let's not worry too much about Iraq. That's not really a big problem. I know we've got a lot of rhetoric going on about weapons of mass destruction, but the big problem's Iran." And the Bush administration said, "We don't want to talk about Iran right now. We're dealing with Iraq." In the immediate aftermath of the war, Israel came and said, "Alright, thank you for getting rid of Saddam. We now want you to focus on Iran." And the United States continued to put Iran on the back burner. And it wasn't until the Israeli government leaked some intelligence to an Iranian opposition group, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, who came out and said, "Hey, look, there's this site in Natanz. They're doing enrichment there." And suddenly the United States was forced to say, "Oh, we've got to put Iran back on the front burner." And it's been Israel that's been dictating the pace of media operations, let's say, on Iran.

AMY GOODMAN: Something the media says is that Iran doesn't need nuclear power -- it has plenty of oil -- that nuclear power is just its way of getting nuclear weapons.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, there can be no doubt that Iran has plenty of oil, but that oil is the only thing Iran has going for it, in terms of a viable world-class economy. In 1976, the Shah of Iran came to the United States, sent his representatives to intercede and say, "Look, we've done an analysis, and we've got a finite amount of oil. And right now we need to export it. And if we don't export it, we don't make money, etc. We don't have enough oil to sustain this. We need to come up with an indigenous energy policy that frees up our oil for exportation. We want to use nuclear energy." And the U.S. government went, "Good idea, Shah. We're all for it." That was Gerald Ford.

The chief of staff of the White House at the time was Dick Cheney. The Secretary of Defense was Donald Rumsfeld. So, this argument that both Cheney and Rumsfeld put out today that Iran is a nation awash in a sea of oil, there is no need for a nuclear energy program, they both supported Iran's goals of achieving nuclear energy in 1976. Not only nuclear energy, but they also supported the Shah when he said, "We cannot allow a nuclear energy program's fuel to be held hostage by the vagaries of sanctions and war. We need an indigenous fuel-manufacturing capability inclusive of the full uranium enrichment process." And guess what the U.S. government said in 1976. "No problem, Shah. Good deal." Of course, in 1979, the Islamists come in and suddenly we change our opinion. The bottom line is, Iran has every right legally to a nuclear energy program, and economically, we've already deemed it a responsible way to go.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter, both the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner have said covert actions have already begun in Iran, U.S. military. Do you think that is true?

SCOTT RITTER: I respect the reporting of Seymour Hersh. I respect the analysis of Sam Gardiner. And I respect the integrity of people who have talked to me who are in a position to know. Look, we're already overflying Iran with unmanned aerial vehicles, pilotless drones. On the ground, the CIA is recruiting Mojahedin-e-Khalq, recruiting Kurds, recruiting Azeris, who are operating inside Iran on behalf of the United States of America. And there is reason to believe that we've actually put uniformed members of the United States Armed Forces and American citizens operating as CIA paramilitaries inside Iranian territory to gather intelligence.

Now, when you violate the borders and the airspace of a sovereign nation with paramilitary and military forces, that's an act of war. That's an act of war. So, when Americans say, "Ah, there's not going to be a war in Iran," there's already a war in Iran. We're at war with Iran. We're just not in the declared conventional stage of the war. The Bush administration has a policy of regime change. They're going to use the military, and the military is being used.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have a minute, but the role of the media in all this. In the lead-up to the invasion, they slammed you, they smeared you, as you were a UN weapons inspector who was opposed to the invasion.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, you know, they can come at me again all they want. I could care less. It's like water off a duck's back. The problem's not me. The issue is not me. The issue is truth and facts. I think it's clear today that we weren't given the truth and the facts about the reality of Iraq in the lead-up to the war, and it's clear the media is not doing the same with Iran. We are being preprogrammed to accept, at face value, true anything negative about Iran. That's one of the reasons why I wrote the book, to put it into a proper perspective.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter. His book is Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change. He is a former UN weapons inspector. And tonight, you will be at the Ethical Culture Society in New York City, along with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh.

*****

CNN's Hatchet Job on Scott Ritter

Media smear ex-Marine for seeking answers on Iraq

by Antonia Zerbisias, Toronto Star

www.commondreams.org/, 9/12/02

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

Theodore Roosevelt

Of course it was just coincidental that, on Sunday, as CNN was discrediting former United Nations weapons' inspector Scott Ritter, it was running promos for the remake of Four Feathers, A.E.W. Mason's tale of the coward who would not go to war.

Ritter, who had that day urged Iraq's National Assembly to let in weapons inspectors or face annihilation, is no chicken hawk. After his 12-year turn as a U.S. Marine intelligence officer, he faced down Saddam Hussein's goons as chief inspector of the United Nations Special Commission to disarm Iraq (UNSCOM). In 1998, he quit in protest over differences between what Washington wanted and what Iraq allowed.

Ever since, he has been very vocal about what really led to UNSCOM's failure to complete its mission - a failure Ritter largely blames on Washington - and how weapons' inspectors must be allowed back in to avert what will certainly be a brutal, bloody war. He insists that, if the Bush administration has evidence showing that Saddam is building nukes, then the American people have a right to see it before they sacrifice their lives.

So, naturally, CNN talking head Miles O'Brien on Sunday questioned Ritter on his loyalty.

"As an American citizen, I have an obligation to speak out when I feel my government is acting in a manner, which is inconsistent with the - with the principles of our founding fathers," said Ritter. "It's the most patriotic thing I can do."

Not in this climate. Not when there's the ironically named U.S.A. Patriot Act which abrogates civil rights. Not when those who criticize the administration are considered to be "with the terrorists." Not when the U.S. media let President George Bush's advisers - who, with the exception of Secretary of State Colin Powell, have never served their country as Ritter has - gallop all over the airwaves.

You couldn't flip a channel on Sunday without catching one of the Bush bunch, including wife Laura, Powell, vice-president Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security adviser Condoleeza Rice, promoting an attack on Iraq as if they were actors flogging their latest project on Leno and Letterman.

Certainly, the line of questioning was no more tough. Nowhere was any of them asked seriously, if at all, about such trivia as the costs of a war, or what, if anything, is known about connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam, or what proof there is that Iraq has the ability to make and deliver nuclear weapons, or why that country as opposed to others, or what oil has to do with it, or how Cheney justifies his former business dealings with the regime he now so desperately wants to change ...

Still the demonization of Ritter continued.

First CNN had on its own news chief, Eason Jordan, who had just returned from Baghdad where he was bagging the rights to cover the war. (Imagine the ratings!) He dismissed Ritter with a "Well, Scott Ritter's chameleon-like behaviour has really bewildered a lot of people..." and a "Well, U.S. officials no longer give Scott Ritter much credibility..."

The network followed up with more interviews vilifying Ritter, neither of which cut to the heart of the matter: Why declare war? On what grounds? At what cost? Ritter was characterized as "misguided," "disloyal" and "an apologist for and a defender of Saddam Hussein."

By Monday, professional hairdo Paula Zahn told viewers Ritter had "drunk Saddam Hussein's Kool-Aid."

Over on MSNBC, Curtis & Kuby co-host Curtis Sliwa compared him to "a sock puppet" who "oughta turn in his passport for an Iraqi one." But the nadir came later on CNN when makeup job Kyra Phillips interrogated him, implying that he was being paid by Iraq -and all but calling him a quisling.

"Ha! Excuse me; I went to war against Saddam Hussein in 1991. I spent seven years of my life in this country hunting down weapons of mass destruction. I believe I've done a0 lot about Saddam Hussein," he replied. "You show me where Saddam Hussein can be substantiated as a threat against the United States and I'll go to war again. I'm not going to sit back idly and let anybody threaten the United States. But at this point in time, no one has made a case based upon facts that Saddam Hussein or his government is a threat to the United States worthy of war."

Maybe today, in his speech to the United Nations, Bush will make that case.

Maybe not.

Whatever happens, the list of cowards and traitors here won't include Scott Ritter.

Antonia Zerbisias' column appears every Thursday. You can reach her at azerbis@thestar.ca

*****

Scott Ritter - Time magazine

www.time.com, 9/13/02

Never mind the naysaying European heads of state, the anxious Arab leaders or the skeptical senators - the unkindest challenge to President Bush's plans to take out Saddam Hussein this week came from erstwhile true-blue American hero Scott Ritter. Familiar to Americans as the rock-jawed Marine intelligence officer who stood up to Saddam's bullies in 1998 while serving with the UN inspection team, and got himself singled out for expulsion even before UNSCOM was withdrawn, Ritter was back on America's TV screens this week, but with a dramatically different message: President Bush had no proof of any new weapons of mass destruction threat emanating from Iraq, Ritter says, and he was lying to the American people to get them to go to war. Once a favorite guest of hawkish Republicans who regularly invited him to testify at congressional committees about the dangers of turning a blind eye to Iraq's weapons programs, this week Ritter was instead addressing the Iraqi legislature, decrying his own country's claims - and warning that readmitting inspectors was the only way to avoid a war.

Questioned about Ritter's assertion that the White House has no basis for its warnings about Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell politely pointed out that Ritter had been out of the intelligence chain for quite some time. What Powell didn't say, though, was that four years ago, when Ritter was on the ground, he appeared to be saying something a lot closer to what the Bush administration claims today: "I think the danger right now is that without effective inspections, without effective monitoring, Iraq can in a very short period of time measured in months, reconstitute chemical and biological weapons, long-range ballistic missiles to deliver these weapons, and even certain aspects of their nuclear weaponization program," he told PBS's Newshour in August 1998, shortly after his expulsion. He went on to argue that the only effective way to ensure Iraqi compliance with inspections was to threaten military action.

But Ritter's assessment of Iraqi capability appears to have changed dramatically in the years since his departure. In a recent op ed in the Boston Globe, for example, Ritter claims that most of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons would have degraded over the past decade and that "effective monitoring inspections, fully implemented from 1994-1998 without any significant obstruction from Iraq, never once detected any evidence of retained proscribed activity or effort by Iraq to reconstitute that capability which had been eliminated through inspections."

So what's up with Scott Ritter? How did he go from the very personification of U.S. determination to hold Saddam Hussein to the agreements signed at the end of the Gulf War to a vocal and committed critic of the U.S. government's efforts to oust the Iraqi leader? There are no clear answers. Ritter has never lacked for personal courage, nor for outrage. First he directed that outrage and courage against the Iraqi officials sandbagging his inspection efforts in Iraq; then, on his return the focus of his ire became the Clinton administration which he accused of betraying UNSCOM and ignoring the dangers of failure to force Saddam to comply with the letter of the law. But soon, he was also accusing the U.S. of manipulating the inspection regime for espionage purposes - a charge often made by the Iraqis - and it emerged Ritter had also been the subject of an FBI investigation over accusations that he may, in the course of his UNSCOM work, had unauthorized contact with foreign intelligence agencies, such as Israel's. (Ritter insists that liaison with international intelligence agencies was part of his job, and that all such contacts were authorized.) The full story of the inner workings of UNSCOM and its relationship to the world of espionage clearly has yet to be told.

In 2000, Ritter made a documentary film harshly critical of UN sanctions against Iraq - a film in which he sought to demonstrate that Iraq no longer represented a threat to its neighbors or anyone else. An increasingly activist critic of U.S. Iraq policy, the Bush administration's move to prepare America for war with Iraq prompted Ritter to fly to Baghdad and attack Washington's plans.
Ritter maintains he's been consistent all along, simply demanding strict adherence to the facts and the law, whether that be in demanding that Iraq submit to inspections or in challenging the case being made by the Bush administration for "regime change." But having taken to his new role as a peace activist with the same rock-jawed vehemence as he brought to his previous role as Saddam's accuser, he's likely to find himself in the coming weeks forced to deploy it once again in defense of his claims of consistency.

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