Scott Ritter
As of August 2002, former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who believes U.N. inspections effectively verified the destruction of over 90% of Iraq's weapon capabilities, is actively campaigning against an invasion, and challenging the Bush administration to make public any evidence that Iraq has rebuilt the capabilities which were destroyed under the auspices of UNSCOM. Says Ritter, "If Iraq was producing weapons today, we would have definitive proof." However, critics of Ritter point out that four years earlier he had exactly the opposite view as inspectors were forced to leave Iraq. In 1998, upon leaving Iraq, Ritter sharply criticized the Clinton administration and the U.N. Security Council for not being vigorous enough about insisting that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction be destroyed. Ritter also accused U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan of assisting Iraqi efforts at impeding UNSCOM's work. "Iraq is not disarming," Ritter said on August 27, 1998, and in a second statement, "Iraq retains the capability to launch a chemical strike."
Read more about this topic: International Figures' Positions On Invasion Of Iraq
Famous quotes containing the words scott and/or ritter:
“It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won’t save us any more than love did.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“While it is generally agreed that the visible expressions and agencies are necessary instruments, civilization seems to depend far more fundamentally upon the moral and intellectual qualities of human beings—upon the spirit that animates mankind.”
—Mary Ritter Beard (1876–1958)