The Fall of Scott Ritter

First and foremost, Scott Ritter gave a black eye to all Marine Corps officers. When he served in Votkinsk, Russia, as an OSIA monitor, he met, then married a KGB officer. Although laudable that he would place "love" before anything else, he did lose his security clearance and through some bizarre methodology, regained his clearance and commission in order to work with UNSCOM.

I read his entire post and most of the comments attached. After that, I wonder when Scott Ritter will announce his cooperative arrrangement with the peace-mom, Cindy Sheehan (and also a Stalinist, socialist stalwart anti-American)? Ritter's premise is faulty, along the lines of no war for oil. We didn't get any oil for liberating Iraq. All intelligence agencies in the world said there was WMD in Iraq. Ritter, who later produced a pro-Iraq video, paid for by pro-Saddam funds, cannot be considered a credible source within the intelligence community. To me as an assessor of a humint (human intelligence) source, I'd have to give him a 5F - he has been literally in bed with the enemy on at least two occasions.

But at least he is highly respected by the anti-war crowd. That's nice. But it does not help me to sleep better at night. Knowing that our military is engaging the enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan is much more comforting. Knowing that the U.S. Government has a strangle-hold on funds for the terrorist Hamas is also comforting. Without any money, they degenerate into civil war, limiting their ability to export terrorism. These efforts make me more comfortable.

Ritter's fifteen minutes of fame are over. He has been relegated to insignificance since Saddam is no longer able to provide for him and Russia no longer needs him. We'll see what his next book says. In my upcoming book on foreign policy, I shan't devote a word to Ritter and UNSCOM - his efforts through his entire career have made America less secure. Even if he had good intentions at some point, they were grossly misplaced by his misdeeds.

Why does Craig's comment make me feel like I'm reading a Tom Clancy Novel?

And, wasn't there an intelligence bigwig in the Ryan universe called Ritter? Is that a bit scary?

"Ritter's fifteen minutes of fame are over."

Craig Martelle · May 21, 2006 02:25 AM

Try "fifteen minutes of flame."

Ritter is a screed prince.

And now: from pathetic to pathos.

After reading his piece, I had the distinct impression that there was a lot of tinfoiling going on: Loss of individual rights and liberties... rise of the military-industrial complex... Corporate profits and greed triumphing over the individual and poor down trodden citizen in America? And the only reason a US Senator cautioned restraint in the Iranian issue is for economic (i.e., capitalist) reasons? I was waiting for him to tell me that there were gamma rays from space and aliens reading my thoughts.

But it's been a month since Ritter posted that... a month of Iran's posturing and flipping off the world and threatening other countries... wonder if he still thinks those "IAEA safeguard inspections" will still be a useful tool from under a mushroom cloud?

Given that Ritter's main claim to fame in the last few years is the fact that he was consistently right about Iraq and WMDs at a time when our entire elected leadership was totally wrong, I'd certainly trust his opinion on Iran more than, say, oh, anybody in the Bush administration.

About those quotation marks...in reading, then re-reading Mr. Ritter's rant, I can't decide whether he considers himself above the fray in defining these terms as ideas he doesn't accpept or whether he feels those terms are dismissed by the mainstream as just crazy talk. Either way--as with all Mr.Ritter's gaseous musings--he just moves further into irrellevance.

RSB,

Greenwald's post isn't exactly edifying. Ritter's the man because he says so? Ritter was braying then because he was against the invasion. He and UNSCOM were flailing about in Iraq and not only didn't find WMDs but didn't find solid evidence that the WMDs had been destroyed.

Ritter's looking for the publicity. He knows he can find it better criticizing Bush because that's what the bulk of the media want to hear.

If a Democratic president were in office doing this, S.R. (not to mention Joe Wilson, etc.) wouldn't be so much as a blip on some intelligence wonks' radar screen.

Ritter used to be a respected guy.


No he wasn't.

The Red State Baron: It's easy to be consistent from a given point onward. We just won't talk about his completely contrary opinions before that point. Okay rhetorical legerdemain, but just a tad obvious.

From his 2002 TIME interview: "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."

Good for you, Ritter. I'm sure was a great consolation to those children to know that you were nobly waging peace and that they'd stay in prison if you succeeded. I'm sure they approved you electing them to suffer for peace.

Ritter is an utterly despicable excuse for a human being. As for those who would trust him, you do the math.

Trip in the way-back machine-

"Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM [the U.N. weapons inspectors] suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production." -- Ex-Un Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter in 1998

From a liberal paper.. Ritter a shill or a tool?

Collin Levey / Times editorial columnist
Scott Ritter, apologist for a brutal regime

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001904477_collin16.html

Former U. N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter has spent the past few years imagining himself a great geopolitical riddle, independent and unfathomable. Like a half-baked military version of Arianna Huffington, he made his fame as a flamboyant dissenter. Now, revelations about a benefactor may force him to stop playing Peter Pan and grow up: It's time for him to decide whether he wants to go down in history as a shill, or a tool.

The big news (if sadly predictable) was the confirmation that the financier of Ritter's Iraq propaganda film "In Shifting Sands" was among an elite cabal that received "oil allocations" from the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. The confirmation comes from Shakir Khafaji himself, the Iraqi businessman in Detroit who set up Ritter with a $400,000 "loan" to make his film and also helped him get interviews with members of the Baathist regime.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjRkYjU0YmZhOGZlZDdlODY1OWFhNDJmNjUyMzFiOGQ=

Anybody catch Scott Ritter on Aaron Brown's show tonight? Man, what a pathetic boob. He was asked straight off about his arrest having to do with being caught in an Internet sex-with-minors police sting, and he refused to talk about it.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjRkYjU0YmZhOGZlZDdlODY1OWFhNDJmNjUyMzFiOGQ=

Yeah, a "much" more credible source than anybody in the Bush administration. I'd follow him anywhere (/sarcasm)

I remember someone commenting some time ago that it's inappropriate to use the term "ex-Marine"--that there are certain values and paying of dues which never go away. Rather, they prefer "former Marine" the way you would talk about a President or someone in Congress.

The person making this observation was quick to note, "Except for Scott Ritter--he's an ex-Marine."

I think Scott Ritter went over the edge shortly after he was arrested for soliciting sex from a minor if my memory serves me well.

Ritter was arrested in 2001.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/story/54727p-51227c.html

Set the wayback machine back a bit farther:

Wasn't there another marine who married a Russian woman at one time?

Surname: Oswald.

Lee Harvey.

Let us give the UN building and grounds over to Donald Trump for development of something useful. Land up there is at a premium. Let's raze that place and build something that would [i]generate[/i] capital rather than expend it fostering the evil they've been generating.

Of course, I was a proponent of rebuilding the World Trade Center buildings in entirety. Put 'em right back there, yessir. With a plaque.

Maybe Ritter's writing junior-high editorials because it impresses junior-high girls?

He's using quotation marks because he's quoting other people, those who blame shadowy organizations for the world's problems rather than making the rational arguments required of participants in a free democracy.

Actually, Scott is using this whole column to make the exact same points that you are. He's CRITICIZING that mode of thinking, not championing it.

Duh.

The Bavarian Illuminati will attack to control Iran, using transferable power from the Neo Cons, Israeli Lobby, and Big Oil, and will burn a card to make it a Privileged Attack.

It's simultaneously sad and hilarious to see how the world has turned into one big Steve Jackson game...

http://www.sjgames.com/illuminati/

I've met Scott on the net and he seems like a nice guy to me.

Even bought me a happy meal.

I'll get to reading the entire piece later, but John... I believe you need to reread that quotation a few more times. Lord knows it took me a few times to get through that prose, but in that chunk of text he criticizes the anti-war crowd for doing exactly what you accuse him of... pinning the blame for the Iraq war on some easily villified target, ie Big Oil or the Big Nasty Jews. I'm interested to read the piece now because he seems to be shunning those who want to say that it's all X's fault.

I was always curious why Scott fell off the radar so quickly and was never held up again afterwards, despite the WMD point being such a selling point on the left.

It isn't worth my doing now, but back when Ritter was the darling of the media in the run up to the war, I did some internet research on comments by him over a period of years.

There was a very clear and absolutely glaring disconnect that took place within the span of about 3 months. I forget the exact years...

Until about Nov. of one year, he was just as much a hot head warrior on Iraq and WMDs as he was in about May of the following year saying Iraq was being pushed around --- and he got bolder with defense of Iraq as time passed, 9/11 happened, and we started buildig toward war.

If you look back at his contressional testimony the 2nd time around --- you will find several congressmen quoting from his first round of testimony from a previous year and other interviews he did, and asking him to explain how he could be so different on whether Iraq had WMDs or not.

He could not explain it.

If you look back at his comments like I did -- there is only one conclusion you can make --- he is a liar.

He was either boldly telling lies about Iraq when he was saying it had WMDs and must be pressed by the US more forecefully to cooperate with the UN mission ---- including as he said the credible threat of force --- or he was boldly telling lies in the run up to the war when he was saying Iraq had complied.

And from a couple of interviews, we get good guesses why:

Most of all, he became enraged when the government began investigating him for passing secret information to the Israelis. In one interview not long after he had changed his tune, he said, "If you want to disagree with me fine. If you want to attack me fine. But, if you attack my family, I will attack back visciously." That is my paraphrase of the quote, but it was exactly along those lines.

He also made a movie about Iraq with the financial help of an Iraqi in the US.

And before he went over the top in a full change over --- back when he was attacking the Clinton administration for not being tough enough on Iraq ---- he was ranting about people not doing things the way he wanted them done.

So, before he decided he was justified in turning on the US government full force ---

----what you can find from him was scathing criticism about the US not providing a credible threat to Iraq to force it to cooperate with him (and the UN mission) and then scathing crictism about the 1998 bombings (I think it was 1998) because it was bad use of force, because it made Iraq kick out the UN teams ---- and thus left Iraq with much WMDs unaccounted for ---- as he was saying it then.

I got really pissed off at the media for how much air time and ink they gave Ritter in the run up to the war ---

-----when all of his track record was clearly available on the internet for anyone to track down ---

----and that track record clearly showed he is a liar.

Ok, now that I've read the full article, it's not really that bad. I'm still, to this day, for the invasion of Iraq (there, conservative creds) on the basis of an international criminal tyranically running a country now brought to 'justice'... with Ramsey as his lawyer. HA! But if you were to take the author's name off this piece and replace it with, say Krauthammer's name, there would be a wayyyyyy different response.

It's hard to disagree with his point that capitalism brings both good and bad. Economic prosperity, reaction to change, growth are good. Child-labor abuse, monopolistic practices, bad civil and environmental stewardship are bad. Scott makes just such a point. I got worried that he was going to tell us that out-and-out Communism was the answer, but he praises the system as, in invoking Churchill, the best system out there.

The point he drives home is that the current 'anti-war' crowd can't get past using villification to make its point. Reading between the lines, he indicts a system that thrives on extremes to make any headway, and if you want to be elected on the left, you must cater to the hate (just as you see on the right).

His solution is a call for the 'anti-war' crowd to put down their hammers and sickles and open dialog across the widening chasm between them and 'stupid capitalists' and commonly find a way to keep us from driving forces directly into Tehran, seeing as how both sides have a vested interest in peace; left-side not wanting war in general, right-side knowing the severe global economic impact of such a war.

Like I said, read the article again, ignore some of the anti-Bush invective and pretend you've never heard the name before, and you'll get a starkly different reaction.

That said, Scott Ritter is still a poseur, liar and freak-monkey, but this paper doesn't reflect that.

usinkorea: Interesting that a man who admits his old opinion was wrong (Iraq is a WMD threat)-- and then changes to the correct position (Iraq has no WMDs) is said to have had a "glaring disconnect" and is "a liar."

I always thought that was just the stand-up thing to do when you realize you have been wrong, and learn what is right.

Pretty clear that you have something in common with our I-can't-think-of-any-mistakes-I've-made President.

I guess it's a liberal trait to have respect for a person who has the guts to admit he was wrong about something.

MG Merkil, do you really not get it?

It's one thing to change your mind. It's another to criticise others for making the same mistake you yourself did.

As for Iraq having no "WMDs" - what are these? Cotton candy makers? Espresso machines?

As a couple of others have pointed out, John has misunderstood Ritter's intent here. Ritter's criticizing the anti-war crowd for vague, lazy thinking that blames these nebulous big bad "power nodes" for everything.

Admittedly, Ritter's prose is unclear and overheated. But he's not making the argument you attribute to him.

I know we're a few scant hours from this story washing off the front page, but I think it appropriate to reiterate that, for the credibility of this blog, this post NEEDS to be re-addressed. It's not like one goes and reads the entire Ritter diatribe in order to glean context to the chunk posted above. The ACTUAL text quoted from Scott's article in this post DIRECTLY refutes the analysis by John. If you want to maintain any level of credibility, even if this particular post isn't corrected, this type of analysis can't stay on the front page for an entire day without a simple "oops" update or even a straight-up Men-In-Black style deletion of the post.

This is the kind of crap which comes back to bite you in the ass. Either you're not reading your comments on what appears to be one of your more heavily commented posts, you don't possess the technical capabilities on the site to correct the error, or you just don't care to. None of those scenarios bodes well for future credibility of the site.

Again, Scott Ritter == opportunistic poseur. But the literate among us aren't going to think better of you if you leave posts like this hanging around.

I appologize if this becomes a double-post. 'Post' didn't do anything the first time...

I know we're a few scant hours from this story washing off the front page, but I think it appropriate to reiterate that, for the credibility of this blog, this post NEEDS to be re-addressed. It's not like one goes and reads the entire Ritter diatribe in order to glean context to the chunk posted above. The ACTUAL text quoted from Scott's article in this post DIRECTLY refutes the analysis by John. If you want to maintain any level of credibility, even if this particular post isn't corrected, this type of analysis can't stay on the front page for an entire day without a simple "oops" update or even a straight-up Men-In-Black style deletion of the post.

This is the kind of crap which comes back to bite you in the ass. Either you're not reading your comments on what appears to be one of your more heavily commented posts, you don't possess the technical capabilities on the site to correct the error, or you just don't care to. None of those scenarios bodes well for future credibility of the site.

Again, Scott Ritter == opportunistic poseur. But the literate among us aren't going to think better of you if you leave posts like this hanging around.

There has been a lot said on the WMD subject from various angles. I find the existence of / disappearance of the WMDs as inexplicable as Ritter’s reversal.

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been a while since I've known so much hate for someone for telling the truth = AMerican civil rights movement also got beaten up red white & blue - seems talking peace gets people killed; what good is an army if it's not killing people; using all that power & money to make an army to bring aid to ease suffering would be a true unifying force & inspiring example.
The executive office does not want to stop war until every 'terrorist' is wiped out as a threat - the idea of peace thru war -
is like keeping a race repressed & disadvantaged & when that group begins to fight repression the oppressor feels /believes by God they have the right to kill the repressed who seek opportunity & freedom.
I'm not explaining it well, but non the less we have blood on our hands & it is out responsibility to be part of the solution - not talkin about pulling out iraq- just make changes starting at the top where so many terrible errors have left the Nation with an identity as a thug - frat-boy drunk on the power earned thru the toil those who came before us...
thanks

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Best regards 8-), Chris.

Scott Ritter was stupid and horny and set-up. That's how our Govnt., operates!

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