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Former U.N. inspector talks
'real' Iraq policy
“President Bush poses the greatest threat to America that we have seen in modern history,” Ritter told an audience in the University Union's Potomac Lounge. Though his accusations were extreme, Ritter— an unabashedly conservative Republican—argued they are not unfounded. Ritter, a former intelligence officer for the US Marine Corps who served as the UN's Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, said the U.S. government “brought us into this war on false pretenses.” Although the Bush administration says it is looking for weapons of mass destruction, Ritter explained, the government has a hidden agenda. “Our real policy has been regime change,” Ritter said. “Our plan was to dethrone Saddam, not to find weapons of mass destruction.” Ritter traced the Bush administration’s policy on Iraq back to the administration of his father, and the influence of the United States as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. After Iraq submitted a declaration of weaponry to the United Nations in 1991, U.N. weapons inspectors went into the country to uncover the unclaimed weapons of mass destruction. Ritter defined WMDs as any chemical, biological or nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles. “The job of a weapons inspector is to go in, collect a declaration of weaponry and then destroy those weapons,” Ritter said. Ritter and his team stepped into the role of detectives, questioning Iraqi scientists, tracing phone logs, confronting suppliers of production machinery and testing potential leads. By 1996 they could account for 90 to 95 percent of all the weapons in Iraq, and inspectors concluded that Iraq was no longer a threat to the international community. “We did not find in our investigation that Iraq was trying to hide or create any more weapons of mass destruction,” Ritter said. In 1991 the United Nations also placed economic sanctions on Iraq to encourage the nation to disarm. However, the United States saw economic sanctioning as a way to box Saddam in until he could be removed from power, Ritter explained. “But with disarmament, the sanction could be lifted,” Ritter said. “Without the sanctions we could no longer contain Saddam.” Despite the intense research of inspectors and evidence, Ritter said the U.S. government began to undermine the investigation. “They began feeding us false documentation to maintain sanctions and investigations in Iraq,” he said. In the following decade the policy did not change, he added. “Our mission was to dethrone Saddam, and in April 2003 we finally did it,” he said. Before going to Iraq in 2003, the media carried the message of the administration to the public, depicting Iraq as a country in trouble and a risk to the security of the United States, he explained. “We had been spoon-fed lies by our government and ate it up,” Ritter said. “Our president had betrayed the American public.” “Iraq was better off before we came there,” Ritter said. “We took their lives and made them worse.” American media also swayed public opinion of Iraqi insurgents, Ritter said. He recalled "Red Dawn," a 1980s movie in which foreign forces invade a small American town, and teenagers there become heroes for fighting back with fierce tactics. “What do you call the people in Fallujah who say ‘We will not let you come into my country?’ A terrorist.” Ritter said, “But he is really a freedom fighter.” To help stabilize Iraq, America has tried to implement a democratic government system. However, elections have not yet been held in Iraq and the country is operated by officials hand-picked by the United States. America took out one dictator in Saddam, Ritter claimed, only to replace him with coalition administrator L. Paul Bremer. “This isn’t going to work, it’s a failure,” Ritter said. “It’s not worth losing one drop of American blood. It’s a losing cause.” Democracy imposed on Iraq solves nothing, he continued. Rather, sovereignty must be restored to Iraq through an interim government monitored by the United Nations. As stability is achieved, the United Nations will give control to a new Iraqi government. “Passing over sovereignty is different than imposing a democracy,” he said. The current state of limbo is causing discontent among American soldiers, but at this point it is too late to back out of Iraq, Ritter explained. “Don’t be surprised if [the United States] instates a draft in the spring or summer of 2005,” Ritter said. “There are just not enough [soldiers in Iraq] to sustain power in that country.” November’s elections will determine what happens in the country, Ritter explained. “We are the ones responsible to determine whether the war that our marines, soldiers and airmen are fighting in is worth the cause,” he said. “You fail yourself and your country if you don’t vote.” To stop what is going on in Iraq, Ritter explained, America will have to swallow a hard pill of bad news. “We say that we care about the war,” he said, “but we don’t even really know what we’re fighting for.” |
