| Author | Message | | Guest-c651 | | Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2003 8:02 am Post subject: Richard Bulter on Ritter: "it is really pathetic" |
| It seems we know more today on why Ritter's claims were indeed pathetic.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/10/butler.cnna/index.html
| Quote: | Butler calls Iraq weapons claim 'pathetic'
September 10, 2002
(CNN) --Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter has raised eyebrows recently with his assertions that there is no evidence Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and that the United States used the weapons inspectors to spy on Iraq.
Ritter also criticized his ex-boss, former chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler, saying that Butler allowed the inspection process to be corrupted.
Butler forcefully disagrees, and he stated his case in an interview Tuesday with CNN's Paula Zahn.
ZAHN: There is a lot for you to react to here. For starters, your reaction to [Ritter's] accusation that you allowed the inspectors to be used as spies for the U.S. government?
BUTLER: Well, it is really pathetic. I don't know what has come over Scott to make him say these things and behave in the way that he is.
One of Iraq's charges against us four years ago is that we were American spies. We were not. It was most obvious possible thing for them to say as they sought to avoid inspection, as they sought to shut us out to protect their weapons program. It is pathetic and sad to hear Scott repeating their propaganda.
Look, I want to make this clear. Until the day he left UNSCOM, Scott was robustly advising me, in writing -- you know, the papers are out there to prove it -- that Iraq continued to retain illegal weapons. He begged me to authorize him to go in and do what he called "kick in the doors and find those weapons." Sometimes, I authorized him to lead inspections; sometimes I rejected his proposals because, quite frankly, they were a little bit off the wall.
Now, his advice to me then, on the basis of good evidence which I knew, was that Iraq continued to retain illegal weapons. He resigned. A few months later, he crossed the road and for some reason -- I don't know why, I am not a psychoanalyst -- but he crossed the road and started to tell the world that there were no such weapons.
So I put it to you this way. Either he was misleading me when he worked for me, or he began to mislead the world's public later. Now, I know which one it is. He was not misleading me, rather, he is now misleading the world's public. And I find that sad, wrong, and frankly, a touch dangerous.
ZAHN: What do you think is his motivation if your charge is, in fact, accurate here?
BUTLER: I don't know. I don't know why he has decided to do this. I know what the facts are. I find it incredible to hear some of the things he is saying, when he knows what the facts were then and are today. I don't know why he is doing this. As I said, I am not a psychoanalyst. I don't know.
ZAHN: What about the very specific accusation that you knew for "darn sure that the Iraqis were not moving weapons from his weapons inspectors." That is his quote.
BUTLER: It is nonsense. I mean -- I don't know what to say to you. It is "he said, he said."
But, look, this is so utterly documented. Utterly. When we were thrown out of Iraq, we were under the most difficult political circumstances, in particular the Russians wanted us to be disassembled, dismissed and, you know, taken out of Iraq forever. We had the most hostile environment in the U.N. Security Council.
Nevertheless, I furnished the council a final report on Iraq's weapons status. The Russians, hostile though they were, insisted that there be an independent investigation because clearly nothing that I or my organization said could be accepted.
That independent investigation took place, at the end of which -- notwithstanding all of that hostility, the will on the part of the Russians and others to say that Iraq was clean and clear -- they concluded, that independent investigation concluded, that Iraq continued to retain weapons of mass destruction, and that they had misled us, that they had concealed weapons.
Now, you know, that is as clear as possibly can be. It is in documents, on the record, backed up by evidence. So, you know, what Scott Ritter has been saying is baffling, but whether or not it is baffling, it is this: It is wrong.
ZAHN: All right, Richard. You shot down his accusation that you allowed your inspectors to be used as spies by the CIA, but I wanted to play a small part of the interview that Bill Hemmer did earlier with Senator [Chuck] Hagel, when the senator confirmed that he thought there were a couple of interesting issues that Scott Ritter has raised.
SEN. CHUCK HAGEL, R-Nebraska (ON VIDEO): Certainly we cannot use the inspectors as a front for our intelligence operation. Intelligence is part of this. Of course it is. Everybody understands that. But we have to be careful. And I think the only way we are going to be able to get the world community with us on this is, in fact, to have a real team of inspectors and not have it suspected of being or, in fact, of being a CIA front.
ZAHN: So what is the role, Richard, as you see it for an inspector, and when the senator raises the issue of not using them for a front for intelligence operations?
BUTLER: Look, looking for weapons of mass destruction is a very, very tough business. Above all, it is a technical and scientific business. Your basic stock in trade is information, to know where to go, where to look, what possible weapons programs to look for.
Now, intelligence was provided to my organization for that purpose. In fact, that was completely legal. When the Security Council created the inspectors, it called on all states, all member states of the U.N., to give us all possible assistance. Now some 40 countries did that, and many of them provided us with intelligence information.
I made that clear then, and I repeat it now: You can't do that job unless you have intelligence information, and it was legal that that be provided to us. That is what was called for, and it was done by up to 40 countries.
Now, some proposed to us -- and I have already made this plain, in public, years ago -- that we ourselves undertake intelligence-type investigations. I rejected that. I made very clear that our mandate was to look for the weapons, not to look for other kinds of intelligence. That would represent a distortion of our mandate, and activities. And those are the facts. | | |  | | Guest-400c | | Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2003 10:08 am Post subject: President Bush wants war, not just |
| Please refer to the bold type below for the truth as written by award winning journalist Robert Fisk of the London Independent newspaper (http://www.independent.co.uk):
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=334318
Robert Fisk: President Bush wants war, not justice - and he'll soon find another excuse for it
You've got to hand it to Saddam. In one brisk, neat letter to Kofi Annan, he pulled the rug from right under George Bush's feet. There was the American president last week, playing the role of multilateralist, warning the world that Iraq had one last chance – through the UN – to avoid Armageddon. "If the Iraqi regime wishes peace," he told us all in the General Assembly, "it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and all related material." And that, of course, is the point. Saddam would do everything he could to avoid war. President Bush was doing everything he could to avoid peace. And now the Iraqi regime has put the Americans into a corner. The arms inspectors are welcome back in Iraq. No conditions. Just as the Americans asked.
No wonder the United States was whingeing on about "false hopes" yesterday. No wonder the Americans were searching desperately for another casus belli – be sure that they will find one – in an attempt to make sure that their next war keeps to its timetable. Be sure, too, that Saddam, that master of the post-agreement conditional clause, will have a few surprises for the UN inspectors when they do turn up in Baghdad. Will the UN boys be allowed to visit the Beast of Baghdad's palaces? Will they be waved through all checkpoints when they want to visit Tuwaitha or any of the other horror factories in which the Iraqis once cooked up their biological weapons?
But for now, the Americans have been sandbagged. It will take at least 25 days to put the UN inspection team together, another 60 for their preliminary assessment – always assuming they are given "unfettered" access to all Iraqi government facilities -- then another 60 days for further inspections. In other words, George Bush's latest war has been delayed by more than five months. Saddam, of course, must have his own worries. Back in 1996, the Iraqis were already accusing the UN inspectorate of working with the Israelis.
Major Scott Ritter, Iraq's nemesis-turned-saviour, was indeed – as an inspector – regularly travelling to Tel Aviv to consult Israeli intelligence. Then Saddam accused the UN inspectors of working for the CIA. And he was right. The United States, it emerged, was using the UN's Baghdad offices to bug Iraq's government communications. And once the inspectors were withdrawn in 1998 and the US and Britain launched "Operation Desert Fox", it turned out that virtually every one of the bombing targets had been visited by UN inspectors over the previous six months. Far from being an inspectorate, the UN lads – though they didn't all know it – had been acting as forward air controllers, drawing up an American hit list rather than monitoring compliance with UN resolutions.
But a glance back at George Bush's UN speech last week shows that a free inspection of Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction was just one of six conditions which Iraq would have to meet if it "wishes peace". In other words, stand by for further UN Security Council resolutions which Saddam will find far more difficult to accept.
The other Bush demands, for example, included the "end of all support for terrorism". Does this mean the UN will now be urged to send inspectors to hunt for evidence inside Iraq for Saddam's previous – or current – liaisons with guns-for-hire?
Then Bush demanded that Iraq "cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shia, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans and others". Notwithstanding the inclusion of Turkomans – worthy of protection indeed, though one wonders how they turned up on the Bush list – does this mean that the UN could demand human rights monitors inside Iraq? In reality, such a proposal would be both moral and highly ethical, but America's Arab allies would profoundly hope that such monitors are not also dispatched to Riyadh, Cairo, Amman and other centres of gentle interrogation.
Yet even if Saddam was prepared to accede to all these demands with a sincerity he has not shown in response to other UN resolutions, the Americans have made clear that sanctions will only be lifted – that Iraq's isolation will only end – with "regime change". For Mr Bush's sudden passion for international adherence to UN Security Council resolutions -- an enthusiasm which will not, of course, extend to Israel's flouting of UN resolutions of equal importance – is in reality a cynical manoeuvre to provide legitimacy for Washington's planned invasion of Iraq.
My own suspicion is that the Americans may try for a war crimes indictment against Saddam Hussein. Mr Bush's crocodile tears for the victims of Saddam's secret police torturers – who were hard at work when the president's father was maintaining warm relations with the Iraqi monster – suggest that somebody in the administration is playing with the idea of a war crimes trial. The tens of thousands of Iraqis subject to "summary execution, and torture by beating, burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation and rape" could provide the evidence for any war crimes prosecution. Indeed, when the Americans sealed off northern Iraq in 1991 to provide a dubious "safe haven" for the Kurds, they scooped up masses of Iraqi government documents, flew them out of Dohuk in a fleet of Chinook helicopters and squirrelled them away in Washington as evidence for a possible future tribunal.
But even this idea has a hand grenade attached to it. Today, for example – and you will look elsewhere in vain for any mention of this – marks the 20th anniversary of the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre, the slaughter of 1,700 Palestinian civilians by Israel's Phalangist militia allies, a bloodbath which Israel's own army watched and noted – and did nothing about. Lawyers for the families of the victims are even now appealing against a Belgian decision not to allow Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon – then the defence minister who was judged "personally responsible" by Israel's commission of inquiry – to be tried for these mass murders.
If Saddam Hussein can be charged with war crimes – and he should be – then why not Ariel Sharon? Why not Rifaat Assad, the brother of the late president of Syria, whose Special Forces killed up to 20,000 Syrians in the rebellious city of Hama in 1982? Why not the Algerian police officers who have routinely tortured and murdered civilians in the country's dirty war against the "Islamist" insurgency?
But justice is not what President Bush wants – unless it's a useful way of putting America's enemies out of the way, of effecting "regime change" or of providing a useful excuse for a military invasion which will leave US oil companies – including Mr Bush's own buddies – in control of one of the world's largest reserves of oil. Saddam Hussein's own cynicism – for he could have given UN inspectors free rein years ago – will be matched by Mr Bush's cynicism. Saddam's letter to Mr Annan was a smart move, as contemptuous as it was inevitable. Stand by, then, for an equally contemptible response from President Bush. | | | | Guest-400c | | Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2003 10:24 am Post subject: Re: President Bush wants war, not just |
| | Guest-400c wrote: | Please refer to the bold type below for the truth as written by award winning journalist Robert Fisk of the London Independent newspaper (http://www.independent.co.uk):
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=334318
Robert Fisk: President Bush wants war, not justice - and he'll soon find another excuse for it
You've got to hand it to Saddam. In one brisk, neat letter to Kofi Annan, he pulled the rug from right under George Bush's feet. There was the American president last week, playing the role of multilateralist, warning the world that Iraq had one last chance – through the UN – to avoid Armageddon. "If the Iraqi regime wishes peace," he told us all in the General Assembly, "it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and all related material." And that, of course, is the point. Saddam would do everything he could to avoid war. President Bush was doing everything he could to avoid peace. And now the Iraqi regime has put the Americans into a corner. The arms inspectors are welcome back in Iraq. No conditions. Just as the Americans asked.
No wonder the United States was whingeing on about "false hopes" yesterday. No wonder the Americans were searching desperately for another casus belli – be sure that they will find one – in an attempt to make sure that their next war keeps to its timetable. Be sure, too, that Saddam, that master of the post-agreement conditional clause, will have a few surprises for the UN inspectors when they do turn up in Baghdad. Will the UN boys be allowed to visit the Beast of Baghdad's palaces? Will they be waved through all checkpoints when they want to visit Tuwaitha or any of the other horror factories in which the Iraqis once cooked up their biological weapons?
But for now, the Americans have been sandbagged. It will take at least 25 days to put the UN inspection team together, another 60 for their preliminary assessment – always assuming they are given "unfettered" access to all Iraqi government facilities -- then another 60 days for further inspections. In other words, George Bush's latest war has been delayed by more than five months. Saddam, of course, must have his own worries. Back in 1996, the Iraqis were already accusing the UN inspectorate of working with the Israelis.
Major Scott Ritter, Iraq's nemesis-turned-saviour, was indeed – as an inspector – regularly travelling to Tel Aviv to consult Israeli intelligence. Then Saddam accused the UN inspectors of working for the CIA. And he was right. The United States, it emerged, was using the UN's Baghdad offices to bug Iraq's government communications. And once the inspectors were withdrawn in 1998 and the US and Britain launched "Operation Desert Fox", it turned out that virtually every one of the bombing targets had been visited by UN inspectors over the previous six months. Far from being an inspectorate, the UN lads – though they didn't all know it – had been acting as forward air controllers, drawing up an American hit list rather than monitoring compliance with UN resolutions.
But a glance back at George Bush's UN speech last week shows that a free inspection of Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction was just one of six conditions which Iraq would have to meet if it "wishes peace". In other words, stand by for further UN Security Council resolutions which Saddam will find far more difficult to accept.
The other Bush demands, for example, included the "end of all support for terrorism". Does this mean the UN will now be urged to send inspectors to hunt for evidence inside Iraq for Saddam's previous – or current – liaisons with guns-for-hire?
Then Bush demanded that Iraq "cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shia, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans and others". Notwithstanding the inclusion of Turkomans – worthy of protection indeed, though one wonders how they turned up on the Bush list – does this mean that the UN could demand human rights monitors inside Iraq? In reality, such a proposal would be both moral and highly ethical, but America's Arab allies would profoundly hope that such monitors are not also dispatched to Riyadh, Cairo, Amman and other centres of gentle interrogation.
Yet even if Saddam was prepared to accede to all these demands with a sincerity he has not shown in response to other UN resolutions, the Americans have made clear that sanctions will only be lifted – that Iraq's isolation will only end – with "regime change". For Mr Bush's sudden passion for international adherence to UN Security Council resolutions -- an enthusiasm which will not, of course, extend to Israel's flouting of UN resolutions of equal importance – is in reality a cynical manoeuvre to provide legitimacy for Washington's planned invasion of Iraq.
My own suspicion is that the Americans may try for a war crimes indictment against Saddam Hussein. Mr Bush's crocodile tears for the victims of Saddam's secret police torturers – who were hard at work when the president's father was maintaining warm relations with the Iraqi monster – suggest that somebody in the administration is playing with the idea of a war crimes trial. The tens of thousands of Iraqis subject to "summary execution, and torture by beating, burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation and rape" could provide the evidence for any war crimes prosecution. Indeed, when the Americans sealed off northern Iraq in 1991 to provide a dubious "safe haven" for the Kurds, they scooped up masses of Iraqi government documents, flew them out of Dohuk in a fleet of Chinook helicopters and squirrelled them away in Washington as evidence for a possible future tribunal.
But even this idea has a hand grenade attached to it. Today, for example – and you will look elsewhere in vain for any mention of this – marks the 20th anniversary of the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre, the slaughter of 1,700 Palestinian civilians by Israel's Phalangist militia allies, a bloodbath which Israel's own army watched and noted – and did nothing about. Lawyers for the families of the victims are even now appealing against a Belgian decision not to allow Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon – then the defence minister who was judged "personally responsible" by Israel's commission of inquiry – to be tried for these mass murders.
If Saddam Hussein can be charged with war crimes – and he should be – then why not Ariel Sharon? Why not Rifaat Assad, the brother of the late president of Syria, whose Special Forces killed up to 20,000 Syrians in the rebellious city of Hama in 1982? Why not the Algerian police officers who have routinely tortured and murdered civilians in the country's dirty war against the "Islamist" insurgency?
But justice is not what President Bush wants – unless it's a useful way of putting America's enemies out of the way, of effecting "regime change" or of providing a useful excuse for a military invasion which will leave US oil companies – including Mr Bush's own buddies – in control of one of the world's largest reserves of oil. Saddam Hussein's own cynicism – for he could have given UN inspectors free rein years ago – will be matched by Mr Bush's cynicism. Saddam's letter to Mr Annan was a smart move, as contemptuous as it was inevitable. Stand by, then, for an equally contemptible response from President Bush. |
Keep in mind that Zionist Jew Joe Lieberman pushed hard to successfully get Clinton to bomb Iraq for Israel back in 1998 as such is why this Israeli dual loyalist (who pledges unconditional support for the rogue state of Israel and its brutal oppression of the Palestinians in violation of international law) should never become president of the USA as it should be the duty of every patriotic American to prevent such from happening:
Zionist Jew Joe Lieberman Should NEVER be US President
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/15/zionist-jew-joe-lieberman-should-never-be-us-president.php | | | | Guest-400c | | | | Guest-400c | | | | Guest-400c | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
