Scott Ritter Quotes (30 Quotes)

You know we can't expect the inspectors to accomplish anything in a country the size of Iraq.

It is complicated because you need members of all fields, including chemists, physicists and biologists. They are the heart and soul of the process.

The Bush administration has its sights set firmly on Tehran. The same deception is taking place right before our eyes and most Americans remain blind. It is going to happen. It is happening as we speak.

we can't go to war based on ignorance.

That response would be used as a justification for military action.

I believe that this inspection was rushed through, and the sites weren't chosen for disarmament reasons, but rather to be provocative in nature so Iraq would respond in a predictable fashion,

The foundation of our involvement in Iraq is as corrupt as you can possibly imagine. We went to war on a lie.

Iraq has not been disarmed 100 percent (but) in terms of what they (Iraqis) have accomplished there are no meaningful weapons or weapons production capability in Iraq today.

We had the information. We had the goods on the Iraqis, clear and irrefutable evidence of Iraq's prohibited activities. We caught them red-handed.

We had the proof. We couldn't present it. And that's where we are today.

We have inspectors on the ground. They're getting compliance. They're doing their job and they're not finding anything that warrants a threat worthy of war,

has not been demonstrated to pose a threat worthy of war at this time.

We say that we care about the war, but we don't even really know what we're fighting for.

I know that inspections did work, ... We achieved a 90 to 95 percent level of verified, absolutely certain accountability for Iraq's weapons program.

I believe Iraq will seek to reconstitute a militarized nerve agent that will be used in a last ditch defense of Baghdad, and I think the Iraqi government's efforts to acquire significant stockpiles of atropine are an indication that this is the direction that Saddam Hussein is heading, ... Crossfire.

So if Iraq has weapons today like President Bush says, clearly they would have had to reconstitute this capability since December 1998,

I was a credible voice, I am a credible voice, and I will be a credible voice in regards to issues pertaining to Iraq, and obviously what you are not mentioning here is the timing of all of this,

Where did it come from Did they suddenly grow factories ... You build factories, not in a basement, not in a mountain cave. It's a modern industrial capability. Where did it come from

In fact, the very policies that we are executing today only alienate us abroad, strengthen Saddam Hussein and give him cause to reconstitute these capabilities once he has the means,

Iraq is a nation on fire. And our troops are the fuel that feeds that fire.

Now, in Kosovo, we have NATO, a defensive treaty organization that has existed admirably for 50 years . . . being led down a path of its eventual demise by the Clinton administration, which has no effective vision of where NATO or the United States should fit in vis-a-vis Europe.

One of my biggest concerns is that people think I am a tool of the Iraqi government,

We are the ones responsible to determine whether the war that our marines, soldiers and airmen are fighting in is worth the cause.

One of the problems with President Bush issuing that kind of ultimatum is that he has no credibility. Members of his administration have said inspections don't matter. Members of his administration have said that, even if they get back in Iraq and succeed in disarming Iraq, that they're still going to seek regime removal.

There is a lot of inaccurate information and irresponsible speculation today, particularly from the U.S. government.

The guilt can be spread fairly evenly across the board,

Does Iraq have weapons of mass destruction today Does Iraq possess the ability to produce weapons of mass destruction The answer is no,

If I went to Baghdad and tried to talk responsibly about issues of war and peace, this issue would have come up and it would have been a distraction that would have actually been a disservice, ... There are people in Baghdad pursuing the initiative that I

I am assisting United States veterans, heroes. People who put on our uniform, defended our country in time of war, who have been abandoned by their government.

It was never about getting rid of weapons. It was about propaganda to justify continuing sanctions until Saddam could be removed from power.