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Scott Ritter

William Scott Ritter Jr. (born 1961) was a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. He later worked as a security and military consultant for Fox News.

On Iraq

  • Iraq is not [100 percent] disarmed, the commission can not verify that all weapons and capability to produce weapons are indeed disposed of, destroyed, removed, or rendered harmless in accordance with provisions of the Security Council resolution.
    • Weapons inspector: Stop catering to Baghdad. CNN August 27, 1998

  • While we were never able to provide 100 percent certainty regarding the disposition of Iraq's proscribed weaponry, we did ascertain a 90-95 percent level of verified disarmament. This figure takes into account the destruction or dismantling of every major factory associated with prohibited weapons manufacture, all significant items of production equipment, and the majority of the weapons and agent produced by Iraq.

  • The UN stopped using Chalabi's information as a basis for conducting inspections once the tenuous nature of his sources and his dubious motivations became clear. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the mainstream US media, which give prominent coverage to sources of information that, had they not been related to Hussein's Iraq, would normally be immediately dismissed.
    • The Christian Science Monitor, 28 January 2002

  • This is not about the security of the United States. This is about domestic American politics. The national security of the United States of America has been hijacked by a handful of neo-conservatives who are using their position of authority to pursue their own ideologically-driven political ambitions. The day we go to war for that reason is the day we have failed collectively as a nation.
    • Truth Out, 24 July 2002

  • Our guys working this area for a living all believe Chalabi and all those guys in their Bond Street suits are charlatans. To take them for a source of anything except a fantasy trip would be a real stretch. But it's an article of faith among those with no military experience that the Iraqi military is low-hanging fruit.
    • Knight Ridder, 1 November 2002

  • [War] isn't a Nintendo game… There's no hitting reset and coming back to life. If you turn your head around the corner in the streets of Baghdad and take one between the eyes, your brain is gone. Maybe you turn around the corner and you take one in your chest and it'll sever your spinal cord and you can spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair. That's war! Maybe you step on a landmine and there goes your leg, you lose an arm, you lose eyesight. That's war! And we're talking about going to war. There better be a hell of a good reason for this. There better be a reason worthy of the sacrifice we're asking Americans to make. And you know, it's not just going to be Americans dying in this war; we're going to be killing Iraqis, by the thousands. I have to tell you, as a former Marine, I was involved with the worlds most efficient killing machine. We were the best led, best trained, best equipped warriors anybody's ever seen, and we are today. When we go to war we will slaughter those who oppose us, because that's what we do, and we do it better than anyone else. If you get in my way, I will kill you. You try hurt one of my marines, I'm taking you down. And I will continue to go until my government tells me to stop. We are the dogs of war and when we are unleashed there is nothing but hell. That's the reality of war. For God's sake, don't unleash the dogs of war unless there's an absolute necessary to do so.

  • [Operation] Rockingham was spinning reports and emphasizing reports that showed non-compliance (by Iraq with UN inspections) and quashing those which showed compliance. It was cherry-picking intelligence.
    • Sunday Herald, 8 June 2003

  • This is a book about a lie and the liars who told it to the American people. It is also about citizenship and the responsibility of all Americans to hold themselves to the highest standards of citizenship, including holding accountable those we elect to represent us in higher office. It is about truth, justice and the rule of law and the danger imposed on us all by those who lie, pervert justice, and absolve themselves from the rule of law.
    • Frontier Justice: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America, 2003

On Israel

  • I consider myself to be a true friend of the Israeli people. But I define friendship as someone who takes care of a friend, who just doesn't use or exploit a friend. And, you know, there's that old adage: 'Friends don't let friends drive drunk'.

On Diplomacy

  • I'd like to think that the best bunker buster is a diplomat.
    • Interview with the Memphis Flyer

http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/Content?oid=oid%3A42834

On Clinton and Bush

  • I really am tired of all the Clinton Democrats running around getting all-sanctimonious over Iraq. It was them who killed 1.5 to 2.2 million Iraqis through sanctions. Sanctions that Madeline Albright, their illustrious Secretary of State, when confronted with the fact of 500,000 dead Iraqi children, said it was a price she was willing to pay.
    • Interview with the Memphis Flyer

http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/Content?oid=oid%3A42834
 
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