Scott Ritter: Iraq war ‘deliberate deception'

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/652/652p7b.htm

Many pro-war politicians attribute the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to mistakes made by Western intelligence agencies. For Scott Ritter, former chief United Nations weapon inspector in Iraq between 1991-98, it was “deliberate deception” designed to force regime change.

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Ritter said that after President Bush Snr laid waste to Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War, his government voted for UN economic sanctions on Iraq while disarming the country. Comprehensive weapons inspections by the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) virtually eliminated Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons capability by 1998, a fact the CIA also recognised, Ritter said. Despite this, the primary reason Washington gave for the 2003 invasion was Iraq’s supposed stockpile of WMDs.

“These were politicised intelligence reports designed to sustain a policy of regime change, as opposed to being a genuine effort to disarm Iraq. We had fundamentally disarmed Iraq; we had accounted for 90-95% of their WMDs.” The primary motivating factor for Washington’s disarmament policy, Ritter said, was “to provide justification for initiating actions that would terminate the regime of Saddam Hussein”.

Asked about recent revelations surrounding the US military’s use of white phosphorous and depleted uranium munitions in Iraq, Ritter replied that the main issue remained the illegal nature of the invasion — the ultimate war crime. “The crime isn’t the use of white phosphorous; the crime is American troops in Iraq pummeling Falluja in violation of international law. When we set the military loose they’re gonna do their job, they’re gonna terminate life.”