November 29, 2005


Scott Ritter spoke to capacity crowd in Amherst, MA on November 17th for Traprock Peace Center. Ritter led UN weapons inspection teams in Iraq until 1998. As an officer of the Marines. He had been an intelligence officer during the Gulf War and nuclear weapons inspector in Russia.

Audio, transcript and photos at:
http://www.traprockpeace.org/scott_ritter_17nov05.html

Excerpts:

On weapons inspections in Iraq:

"Do you understand why weapons inspections were never a valid, legitimate process to begin with? It didn’t matter what the weapons inspectors wanted. It only mattered what the policymakers wanted."

On war with Iran:

Ladies and gentlemen, the same man that got us involved in this war in Iraq (I should say men, Clinton and Bush), got us involved with a future war with Iran. The die has already been cast. The decision has been made, and, as much as Bill Clinton facilitated war with Iraq, he facilitated war with Iran by embarking on a policy of dual containment in the 1990’s, putting unilateral U.S. economic sanctions against Iran, creating the politics of demonization where the American public on a daily basis has been bombarded with nothing but negative visuals, negative information about Iran, nothing positive. According to the U.S. media, Iran is populated by 50 million anti-American whirling dervishes who want nothing more than to come out of the country and cut off our heads.

On Iraq - lies and ignorance:

"People were trapped by their own ignorance and the fear that is induced by ignorance so that they could not stand up and speak truth to power because, frankly speaking, most people didn't know what the truth was. We were told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, massive stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and, to be honest, most Americans didn't have a clue what a weapon of mass destruction was. They didn't know what chemical weapons were, biological weapons were, long-range ballistic missiles. They might have a vague understanding of what a nuclear weapon is, but not really, not what it takes to build a nuclear weapon. They were so ignorant about nuclear weapons that they bought into the argument that Iraq, a nation that is sitting on many tons of yellow-cake uranium ore, would have to go to an African country to buy new stockpiles. They were so ignorant about nuclear weapons that they bought at face value Dick Cheney's proclamation that Iraq was acquiring aluminum tubes to build a new family of centrifuges to enrich uranium when everybody who deals with the enrichment of uranium using the centrifuge method knows that aluminum tubes will never work. We don't build them with aluminum tubes. It doesn't happen. But, no, the American people, informed as always about the complexities of these very difficult issues, said 'my gosh, the President has said yellow cake, and Dick Cheney has said aluminum tubes, and there must be a nuclear threat because Condoleezza Rice has told us 'we don't want to wait for the smoking gun to become a mushroom cloud.' So like the compliant little sheep that we are, we *bah, bah* get led down the path towards a war that has been a disaster, an unmitigated disaster, a war based on a lie, a war based on not just the ignorance of the American public but the moral indifference of those whom we elect to hire office to represent us in our name, namely the congress of the United States of America." - Scott Ritter, November 17, 2005, Amherst

Hear this entire program. Radio stations are playing it for free - all we ask is email notification that it is being played. The audio program and transcript are available for free download (donations gladly accepted) for private use.

Event home page, with photos:
http://www.traprockpeace.org/scott_ritter_17nov05.html

Transcript with link to audio:
http://www.traprockpeace.org/podcasts_transcripts/

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Courtesy Charles Jenks, Traprock Peace Center