Vindicated?

Recent "fallout" from the WMD issue has brought a ray of artificial sunshine into the lives of Saddam's apologists, and some are crawling out from under their rocks. However, that sense of warmth they feel isn't sunshine, it's just their ever-present burning hatred for George W. Bush. Unfortunately, Saddam had 99.9 percent of the world convinced he had WMD, thus little traction can be gained against the Bush administration per se on this issue. Hence the current Bushhaters Mantra concerns AWOL, not WMD. But standby for change if there's any indication that this could be a growth industry in the vote-seeking fields.

And if so Scott Ritter is waiting in the wings. Thus far his resurrection has been limited to C-Span, but can PBS be far behind? And, dare we hope, the NY Times?

During a recent C-Span radio appearance (30 Jan '04 archived here), Ritter called for an immediate pull out from the failure that is Iraq, and a turn-over to UN control. (Is he truly ignorant that the UN has bravely run away, but is currently slinking back? Or does he think you are?)

Later in the program Ritter "deftly handled" a couple of veterans that dared call in and question his motives:

RITTER: Hello.

CALLER: Always believed -- I'm a Desert Storm veteran, U.S. Air Force. Can you explain the cut and run that the American forces will not be cutting and running -- to turn the Iraqi situation over to the United Nations? And also can you explain to the people how you and France have been advocating that there was no reason for war and we should not be criticizing France for taking the stance that has proven to be correct?

RITTER: Well, you know, I'll start off with the cut and run. You know, it's going to be a defeat no matter what for the Bush administration. Iraq will be a defeat for the Bush administration. They will not achieve that which they had hoped to achieve going in. They were looking for a relatively quick victory. They were looking for, not only the rapid collapse of the Hussein regime, which they got, but a transformation of Iraq into a nation that accepted democratic principles, that accepted the Americans there as liberators, that would become a model nation for the transformation of the entire Middle East.

This isn't going to happen. You're not going to derive this result from unilateral American intervention in Iraq. What we now need to speak of I believe is the mitigation of this defeat and how we can minimize. I like to visualize it by saying my goal and objective is to create the smallest possible Iraq war memorial. We already have far too many names on a memorial that would be built for Iraq. I want it to be no bigger than what it is now and the only way to do that is to get American troops out. If you view Iraq as a nation on fire, the fuel that feeds this fire is the presence of American troops. We need to separate the fuel from the fire. We need to get the American troops home. That doesn't mean that we leave Iraq in a vacuum. I believe that there is a role for the United Nations to play today and that doesn't mean the United Nations minus the United States. We're a member of the United Nations. We signed the charter. We are held and bound by that charter and we have tremendous influence at the Security Council level and the rest of the United Nations. We can lead the United Nations into Iraq to take the place of unilateral American occupation so that we can create a multilateral approach towards transformation of true political and military power to the people of Iraq.

I think that's an effective role of the U.N. and it's one that France articulated. Don't view France as the enemy. If I were an American fighting man or woman today in Iraq, you know, I wouldn't be cursing the name of France; I would be saying why didn't we listen to France? France was acting as a true friend of America, maybe not a true friend of the Bush administration, but a true friend of America, saying this is bad policy. This is a war that doesn't need to be fought. Had we listened to France and Germany and our other old European allies who, you know, were thinking more in terms of a peaceful resolution and not a violent resolution to the issue in Iraq, those boys and girls who have died in Iraq would be alive today.

And that speaks volumes.

LAMB: Five minutes left with our guest. Fauquier County, Virginia. Good morning.

CALLER: Good morning. Good morning. Mr. Scott Ritter, how are you doing?

RITTER: I'm doing fine. Thank you.

CALLER: I'm active duty Air Force. And the comment that you just said a while ago about that we're going to be coming out of there with our tails between our legs is un-American and the comment that you just said about Franc, France and you know their bread and butter was arms, arms sales. A big piece of their bread and butter is arms sales. They were in bed with Saddam Hussein. And I think that you have a lot of money going into your pocket to say a lot of the things that you're saying. You're un-American.

RITTER: The gentleman is welcome to his opinion. Again, let's just address the money. I've received no money from the government of Iraq or any non-American source. To say what I say I derive my comments from my service to my country as a 12-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps who served in a combat situation during Desert Storm. I'll put my patriotism on the line.

I think it's unpatriotic to sit back and do nothing to allow Americans to die in a war that's needless and shameful. I think the most patriotic thing an American citizen can do is live up to the values and ideals that are set forth in the Constitution that you sir have sworn to uphold and defend with your life against all enemies foreign and domestic.

And when you have an administration that is acting in a way that deviates from the values of the ideals and indeed, some cases from the letter of the Constitution, you're not patriotic if you stand back and say nothing. The most patriotic thing you can do is to hold those whom we elect to higher office accountable for what they do in our name. That, sir, is what I'm doing today and I think it's very patriotic.

The callers are afforded no opportunity for response; likely they were disconnected before Ritter began his reply. Ritter is declared triumphant by default, and the host now rapidly changes the focus.

LAMB: Has anybody called you -- not just since David Kay's testimony, but since the indication was that so far they've found no weapons of mass destruction? And said to you they apologize to you for saying things that they said to you in the past about you?

RITTER: I've had some e-mails. And I've had people stop me -- traveling across the country. I've been stopped at airports. I've been stopped in a restaurant and people have come up and said, you know, I didn't agree with you in the past. I thought what you were saying was fundamentally wrong, but you've been proven right. I'm sorry for what I thought about you and please continue to do your work.

That's been the vast majority of the responses. There are a few people who continue to say that what I do is unpatriotic and somehow treasonous.

LAMB: Bel Air, Maryland. You're on with Scott Ritter. A couple of minutes left. Go ahead, please.

CALLER: Thank you and thank you for C-SPAN and Scott Ritter; you are a very patriotic man. And I appreciate what you've done and I've been following some of the things that you've said for a long time.

I guess what I'm concerned about as I listen to the hearings with Mr. Kay and everybody -- a lot of people are saying, well, we needed to go in anyway because he was a very bad man and you know he gassed the Kurds. Well, that was so, so many years ago that I don't think that we can use that as an excuse for going in. Yes, he was a bad man, but there's a lot of bad men out there. What we're failing to say, however, is what we have done as we have committed genocide ourselves. We talk about genocide, but there are over 10,000 innocent Iraqis who have been murdered because of us for a war that we should never have been in.

And I believe that if we don't want to have terrorism that we do what perhaps one of the things that Dennis Kucinich said and let's have a Department of Peace. I think that we could get rid of a lot of terrorism if we did things that were humanitarian; people wouldn't hate us. And there are always going to be people who hate somebody, however, they wouldn't be able to hide because people would appreciate what we're doing.

LAMB: Scott Ritter.

RITTER: Well, you know, I agree totally. First, I'll say two things. One, I think history is going to show that our nation will be much worse off because of our decision to go into Iraq; that we are not a safer place today because we took out Saddam Hussein. Indeed, Iraq is not a better place because we removed Saddam Hussein.

But we need to look at national security from two fronts, one, what's happening outside of our borders and as I said I think the invasion of Iraq have made things much worse for us today, but also inside our borders. Our decision making process to go to war in Iraq, the total abrogation by the Congress of the United States of their constitutional responsibilities in regards to war powers in the declaration of war, to transfer that to the President in October of 2002 without the President formally declaring his intent to go to war is cowardly and despicable and there must be an accounting.

Ritter's lust for Bush is probably exceeded only by his lust for pre-pubescent girls. However, like Ritter's quest for weapons, my search for the phrase "child molester" or even "sex offender" in the full transcript came up empty, thus Ritter had no opportunity to refute the rumors that he's banned for life from Burger King. Some vague "stories told/planted about him" are mentioned and dismissed. He's apparently above that sort of ad-hominem attack.

Surely he could dismiss such accusations with the aplomb he demonstrated in this Time magazine piece from fall '02?

Did you write a report, at the time you were doing inspections in Votkinsk in the Soviet Union in 1988 that said the group your wife worked for was full of spies?

No. I indicated that given past models of Soviet penetration techniques that these young girls, of which my wife was one, who were brought in by the Soviets to carry out translation services had been used in the past to attempt sexual compromise. I subsequently wrote a series of reports that said this did not appear to be the case in Votkinsk. In fact, because of the human intelligence work I did in the Soviet Union I was able to ascertain that the girls were actually dissatisfied with the Soviets. They showed a tendency to speak out against the KGB to the U.S. inspectors.

LAMB: Are you planning another book?

RITTER: Yes, I am. I am actually working on it right now.

LAMB: When is it going to be out?

RITTER: Well, first of all, there has to be a publisher who is interested in the book and then the publisher would set that schedule, but I'm hopeful for some time in the fall of 2004 so they can play a role in the ongoing education of the American public so that when they vote in November of 2004 they vote with as much available fact set before them.

LAMB: Are you planning to go back to Iraq?

RITTER: No. I was planning on going back. It is a very dangerous situation right now. I don't think that there's anything constructive I could do as a private citizen. Again, if the United States Government approached me and said we would like you to go to Iraq to serve your country, it's something that I would do because I am a patriot and I don't bring politics to bear when it comes to service of my country.

You've spoke about having seen the children's prisons in Iraq. Can you describe what you saw there?

The prison in question is at the General Security Services headquarters, which was inspected by my team in Jan. 1998. It appeared to be a prison for children - toddlers up to pre-adolescents - whose only crime was to be the offspring of those who have spoken out politically against the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was a horrific scene. Actually I'm not going to describe what I saw there because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I'm waging peace.

Here's my proposition: America will apologize to him after he goes to Iraq and apologizes to the children.

Under adult supervision, of course.