Am watching this now - a debate between Scott Ritter & Richard Butler. Butler is an Aussie & was a career diplomat who headed up the inspections program for UN - Ritter was a US marine intelligence officer & reported to Butler.

Even though Butler is a fellow Aussie I have long suspected he did exactly what Scott Ritter is accusing him of (giving in to US pressure to turn the inspections into spying on Hussien & also manipulating the inspection program).

Anyway - only history may ever reveal who is telling the lies but it is incredible to be watching Ritter telling Butler to his face the he is a liar. I personally accept what Ritter is saying as fitting the facts as I had observed them. Ritter's main case is that their mission was to ensure that any weapons of mass destruction were located & destroyed & that this was accomplished - he further argues that whilst they had lots of suspicions and 'intelligence' leds none of that ever panned out into proveable facts & he stated on CNN that they never found any credible evidence of any additional weapons of mass destruction.

Ritter is basically accusing his own govt of grossly interfering (for their own political reasons) in the inspections program that was supposed to be run by the UN he accuses Butler of giving in to US pressure and allowing the inserting of spying missions that went completly beyond the UN mission & thus were creating a climate where Iraq became hostiule & began to resist the entire mission. Put simply - Ritter is bluntly accusing the US govt of creating the breakdown of the inspections by their illegal behaviour in Iraq at the time & that Bush is now using the breakdown as if Saddam caused it, to invade.

Doug Marker

Innuendo and character assasination of someone in a position to know, is plain sour grapes.

My point was that Ritter is now stating what I had concluded over a year ago after listening to Butler and others on many occasions & at first being convinced he was a decent no-nonsense UN man.

It was when other weapons inspectors from at least three other countries more or less said what Ritter is now saying, that led me to believe Butler had something to hide.

Either back up your remark with links & evidence or butt out but lets not make up 'facts' (for want of a better word). You are a better person that that.

Cheers

Doug

Thanks for the words of sanity & wisdom -

The 1st link speaks for itself - the wisdom it contains is very self evident. I am sure there is no deliberate freudian slip in the naming of the source paper 'Weakly Standard' - that name is clearly apparant in the content starting with the 1st sentence of the article.

Re the second link, it covers part of what Ritter called Butler a liar over & included some of the words & reason that Ritter resigned over but which Ritter says was subsequently blatantly distorted into a completely different meaning. He said on CNN that this was the lie Butler was telling and reinforcing.

Point about Ritter is that apart from any vulgar and tawrdry (& as yet unproven) innuendo & character assasination, that he is being being bribed & is not capable of speaking from a position of authority, I have to say that on a scale of 1 to 100 I'll give him 90 & your sources 10 and I feel that is being generous.

Your approach seems to be ignoring that this Iraq matter, in the way it is being handled, is doing immense damage to US in the wider world but even greater than that is that people will be killed in big numbers. There is no simple way President Bush can overthrow the government of Iraq.
To do so requires from us people of the world *credible & reasonable* evidence - it isn't good enough for you to tell us Saddam is "gunna get us & we are suckers to believe he won't". It is far easier to believe that the worlds greatest statesmen of our day have more depth of perception and understanding of what is actually taking place than some of the material presented here as 'evidence' and apart from Tony Blair almost alone in UK - no other great statesmen including Powell seem to see merit in wthe line you are peddling.

Doug

"The guy (ritter)gets 400k to play with and does a 100% turnaround in his opinions.'

box - you have not proved either of these assertions (what does getting 400k to 'play with' mean ???? - what 100% turnaround has he done - did you ever read what he has said or listen to him ????)

Re my position re Saddam

What I think and what I can prove are two different things. I Think Saddam is a regular asshole. I don't think he is quite the asshole Bush says he is. I would be happy to see Saddam go to hell.

I think Saddam has been still trying to build some nuke capability - I think Saddam is a typical Arab dictator who in the past fucked up badly in choosing his friends (with friends like he thought he had, who needs enemies - ever).

I don't believe for an instant that Saddam would use a nuke against America. I believe OBL would but OBL is *not* Saddam. Overthrowing Saddam for something OBL *might* do is pure shit.

I think that if Bush produces *any* credible evidence that Saddam has evil intent toward the US then the US should do what it believes it needs to to protect itself. But Bush has not done so.

I also feel really pissed off at those people in positions of power in the US who are so bloodymindedly brainless as to be generating so much ill will to the USA after so many people worldwide felt so strongly for the US ater 9/11. I have so many valued & good frieds in the US who are good and sensible people who deserve to be thought of so much more highly than Rumz & Cheney & Bush's odium being generated. Powell at
least still has credibility outside the US and among many within but 2-gun Rumz is the man carrying the day.

Go read this weeks Newsweek & TIME & see what your own journalists are saying on this topic. I, like many of them, am angry. These power mad bastards running the US are unfit for office anywhere. It isn't as if Bush won a lanslide election and can claim he had a mandate from the elctorate. What they are doing to the image of the US will hurt decent US people for a long time to come. I truly doubt that the harm done in the past few months can be undone. As Newsweek article said Bush hasn't got a clue about diplomacy.

If this message isn't coming through loud and clear then I feel sorry for you. I have too many good friends & had too many good times in the US to hold back on what I see happening by way of growing ill-will to USA outside of the US. I believe this fact just isn't getting through the propaganda wall.

Doug Marker

It is pathetic to claim that Ritter is a spy or on the take because of making a video about conditions he has been very close to.

Take the blinkers off & see things for what they are.

Cheers

Doug

[link|http://www.casi.org.uk/discuss/2001/msg01175.html|Ritter & his issue over Iraq]

(I searched Goolge with criteria - Ritter Butler Liar -


Where Ritter finds fault with the get-Saddam campaigns
Former UN chief weapons inspector says US needs legal basis for attacks
George S. Hishmeh
Special to The Daily Star

WASHINGTON: Scott Ritter is a straight arrow. He prides himself for
telling it like it is, recognizing that he is a lone wolf caught in the
midst of an international argument that could ultimately precipitate a
war much bloodier than the one underway in Afghanistan.

The former UN chief weapons inspector who hounded Iraq's Saddam Hussein
for nearly a decade has shifted his target, and now aims his guns at his
government's 'unilateral policy' a policy of regime removal in Iraq.

Is this a new Scott Ritter?. There is no such thing as an old Scott
Ritter or a new Scott Ritter, he insisted. If I am anything, I am the
most consistent person out there on Iraq. I have never cut Saddam
Hussein any slack. As a weapons inspector my job was not to worry about
(him). My job was to worry about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. If
people ask me my opinion I would say he is a brutal dictator. That's
putting it mildly.

The views of the former American Marine stick out like a sore thumb in
the debate now underway in Washington between hawkish officials of the
Bush administration, particularly those in the Defense Department and
the less combative State Department over what some see as the unfinished
war against the Iraqi strongman. What remains unsettled, some reportedly
believe, is only the question of timing and military strategy, now that
the rout of the Taleban and Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network has made
these two points seemingly moot.

I take comfort in one thing and one thing only, and that is the truth,
the facts, Ritter told The Daily Star. Whether people rally around me
I couldn't care less. I'd like them to, I'd like them to see who is
speaking the truth, I'd like them to challenge people who make
statements. I get challenged every time I make a statement. But I can
back it up.

Am I isolated? Certainly. Do I feel alone? Yes. Does it bother me? No,
not at all.

Ritter explained the problem his inspection team had with Iraq after the
1991 Gulf War, noting that UN Security Council Resolution 687 required
total disarmament, and so 90-95 percent was not good enough, although
it meant that fundamentally Iraq has been disarmed. From a qualitative
standpoint, Ritter said, Iraq no longer possessed a weapons program
under the law (but) that 90-95 percent was not good enough. This meant
his team had to investigate how Iraq hid its programs in the past, and
how it might continue to do so what we called a concealment
mechanism.

This effort, he continued, has put us in conflict with the Iraqi
government on a number of fronts, primarily over the issue of national
sovereignty and Iraqi national security, because the inspectors tried
to gain access to presidential security, intelligence services,
sensitive military facilities, even presidential palaces.

A lot of people misconstrued that work as somehow Scott Ritter (was)
waging his own private war against Saddam Hussein, he said laughing.
All I am doing today is going forward in the same way I went forward as
a weapons inspector, mindful of the facts and operating with high
integrity.

Here, Ritter fired his first salvo. The big problem is that the US
government seems not to understand that, in order to have international
support to confront Saddam Hussein, the US has to be operating within
the framework of international law. It cannot do this by itself. And we
definitely can't do it if we are going to ignore legal fundamentals such
as the UN Charter.

The Security Council has never passed a resolution which targeted Saddam
Hussein, he said. And yet the United States pursues, as its own
unilateral policy, a policy of regime removal in Iraq and we are using
Security Council disarmament provisions as a means of facilitating our
own policy. We are creating a situation which brings immense suffering
to 22 million innocent people caught in the middle.

Ritter attributed this misguided US stance to the private, political
agenda of some key officials in the US government who, frankly, have
hijacked US national security for their own purposes. He identified
these as Defense Secretary Donald M. Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul
Wolfowitz, along with Richard Perle, head of the Defense Policy Advisory
Board, a non-governmental group, and James Woolsey, the former CIA
director. It appears they will do anything it takes to make just cause
for the United States to go to war, even though, legally, there is no
just cause.

Elaborating on the propaganda mills engaged in this anti-Hussein
campaign, Ritter cited the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East
Policy as just one of many voices clamoring for the past decade for
the removal of the Iraqi leader. They have yet to put forth a
consistent argument. Their reasons for his removal continue to change as
the political scene.

This war of rhetoric, as he put it, just demonizes a demon but
without any substantive facts on the table that are worthy of going
to war with.

Ritter also minced no words about Richard Butler, the former head of
UNSCOM, the UN agency overseeing Iraq's disarmament and who can be seen
regularly on television castigating the Baghdad regime. He said he found
Butler to be a complicated character who in time disgraced himself
as the head of the UN commission for which Ritter worked until 1998.
(Butler) destroyed his reputation as a diplomat, Ritter, who now
serves as a news analyst with Fox television, claimed. He destroyed his
reputation as a politician. The man is a liar. The man has been exposed
as somebody who has no ability to maintain integrity in positions of
high responsibility. He betrayed the special commission, he destroyed
the weapons inspection process almost unilaterally.

In turn, Ritter has been taken to task for seemingly contradictory
assessments about Iraq's weapons potential.

Statements he made before two Senate committees in 1998 seem to
contradict his current position. Once (the) effective inspection regime
has been terminated, he was quoted as saying then, Iraq will be able
to reconstitute the entirety of its former nuclear, chemical and
ballistic missile delivery system capability within a period of six
months.

He explained in the interview: Now I would say it's unlikely that it
is the case. It's unlikely that these plans are in place, it's unlikely
that Iraq would seek to implement them. But the most important thing to
point out is that even if Iraq had these plans, it can't implement them
if you had weapons inspectors in Iraq. And that's why I have always
argued for the return of weapons inspectors (for monitoring purposes).

Where he parts way with the Bush administration is in the next step. If
you want to confront Saddam, you have to do so based on the foundation
of legality. Now, if you pass (at the UN Security Council) a finding of
compliance under (Resolution) 687 and you offer to lift the oil embargo,
then in accordance with the law now the United States is adhering to
the law you demand that Iraq adhere to its obligations which are to
allow monitoring inspectors under (UN resolutions) 785 and 1051. Should
Iraq refuse to do so, now you have a clear case against Saddam. Now you
can start making the case that Iraq is a rogue nation, a lawless nation,
a nation that refuses to adhere to international standards, and you can
start making the case for war. But you cannot make that case if you, the
United States, are yourself operating outside the framework of
international law.

Ritter believes Iraq has no choice but to accept this offer. Saddam's
days would be numbered (if) the entire world recognized that Iraq has
no intention of complying with international law, he said.

According to Ritter, Iraq at present can make the argument that we did
what we are supposed to do. We got rid of our weapons and now it is up
to the Security Council to do what it's supposed to do and, until the
Security Council does that, we do not want to deal with weapons
inspectors.

Right now, he added, the United States has so clouded the situation
with its own ridiculous policy of overthrowing Saddam Hussein that it is
very difficult to make an argument that Iraq is the bad guy. Iraq right
now looks very much like the nation that is being pursued relentlessly
and irresponsibly by the United States.

George S. Hishmeh, a one-time editor-in-chief of The Daily Star, is an
Arab-American journalist now based in Washington

*********************

From my own perspective Ritter says what I have in many past posts only Ritter was there
& involved whereas I am an interestd observer. I had long ago become suspicious then
hostile to Richard Butler despite first admiring him as a tough no-nonsese guy. Now I
think he is exactly what Ritter claims (& not because Ritter 1st said so, just the way
he kept going after hussien on what seemed like increasingly shaky ground and for some
ulterior motive)>

I also came to believe he was a CIA man long before Ritter said so - that
in itself is not at all a bad thing but when someone tells fibs to ferment war that is plain
bastardry.

As mentioned in other posts - I have become quite alarmed at a rapidly escalating anti-US &
anti-Bush feeling growing throughout the western world (it was always going to be there by
the Arabs). I too have a growing anger toward Bush Rumsfelt & Cheney & have observed them
set up this Iraq attack ever since Bush slipped into office by the most dubious of margins.

I believe I well understand what their motives really are but wish to God Powell had more
influence over the situation.

In balance I think Ritter has taken an unpopular but entirely decent position on this mad
undertaking of the Republican right. Bush is not flirting with them as some suggest he is
part of them and I am willing to predict that Bush will pay dearly for his naive & misguided
support for engineering an invasion of Iraq. In my book and said with all seriousness - Bush
and his mates are no less evil that Hitler & his leadership at the time they set the world
on the path to WWII with their horrific invasion of Poland. While few people feel nice about
Saddam Hussien, many do despise unilateral and naked aggression and international deceit.

Doug Marker
******************** After posting the above I found this additional Ritter remark
that I think echos points made above....

"Our foreign policy's totally corrupt. We have a foreign policy that's
indefensible. I think what we're doing with Iraq borders on the criminal,
actually, and I'm very pro-American."

[link|http://www.jsonline.com/news/insideiraq/aug00/ritter08080700.asp|The source link]

What I want to say here is a statement.

It comes from someone who loves Texas and as an Australian sees both places interwoven in history and intent even though Texas has a much more warlike history.

In 1990 I did what in my eyes all Americans should do - visited the Alamo, was overawed by the simplicity but reverential power of that place. Moslems are supposed to pay a once in a lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca - Americans *should* pay a once in a lifetime pilgrimage to San Antonio.

Why???
- Moslems know why they do it!.
- To understand what is precious in the US and what is important to both life & liberty. The Alamo does it so much more effectively than any pilgrimage to Philadelphia to see the liberty bell, or to Washington's Lincoln memorial. The Alamo in its simple reconstruction brings home to the real American (and some of us non Americans who feel the significance) what at first were a brave 145 then with reinforcements the famous 189 who achieved great worldwide glory knowing that the outcome for them was to be death but no dishonour.

I as a non-American, can easily today cry for what those men fought for and what they achieved posthumoustly for the concepts that they so clearly saw of of liberty, feedom and integrity. They backed Travis & Bowie knowing they would be put to the sword by Santa Ana's men. But they so believed in what they were fighting for.

But from that great sacrifice we move to a Texan who has his nose up the backside of warmongers who are intent on fermenting war for reasons only they completely understand.Bush junior may well enjoy a high level of popularity - that is partly because so few Americans realise the extent to which they are being misled. Bush jnr may well one day be impeached, on the other hand he may just get away with it.


Doug Marker

#2 - toned this post down a lot as on refelection as I can't really claim that I know what is best for the US or the world, am afterall, just an observer. Bush & his advisors may well be grappling with complex issues to do with our long term survival and may have insights we don't (just wish I could see them). The fact that even his father appears to be trying to counter the war talk tells me that others are also concerned about this admin's tactics. Have posted another sep post in one of the threads following this one that attempts to offer a rationalisation as to why Bush wants control of Iraq. Am still 100% convinced that they will find a pretext & invade. The argument here is the untruths being told in order to justify the ends.