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[casi] Ex-Inspector's Book Attacks Bush, U.N.



Ex-Inspector's Book Attacks Bush, U.N.
Tue Jul 15, 1:53 AM ET

By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS - Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter released a
new book, accusing President Bush (news - web sites) of illegally
attacking Iraq (news - web sites) and calling for "regime change" in the
United States at the next election.


Ritter criticized key figures caught up in the U.S.-led war at Monday's
U.N. news conference. He said Bush lied to the American people and
Congress about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction; U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) lacked courage; former
chief weapons inspector Hans Blix was "a moral and intellectual coward."


Ritter, a former U.S. Marine, was a weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991
to 1998. He has been a vocal critical of the Bush administration's
policy on Iraq.


Ritter said he wrote "Frontier Justice, Weapons of Mass Destruction and
the Bushwacking of America" to educate people. The 209-page paperback,
published by Context Books, has on its cover a picture of Bush in jeans
and a cowboy hat, behind the wheel of a truck.


In the book, Ritter notes that the Bush administration's stated reason
for launching the war was to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.
The book argues that there is no evidence that Iraq possesses, produces
or concealed nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Therefore, Ritter
argues that "the United States carried out an illegal war of
aggression."


Bush, responding Monday to similar charges about the lack of evidence of
illegal Iraqi weapons, insisted: "When it's all said and done, the
people of the United States and the world will realize that Saddam
Hussein (news - web sites) had a weapons program."


Ritter said Bush's real goal was to get rid of Saddam Hussein's regime.
"What is needed in America is regime change," Ritter writes. "Anything
but Bush and (Vice President Dick) Cheney."


At the news conference, Ritter accused France and Germany of failing to
get a Security Council or General Assembly resolution calling the war
illegal and demanding a U.S. withdrawal.


Ritter had kind words for Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International
Atomic Energy Agency. He said ElBaradei was "much more honest" than Blix
about appraising Iraq's nuclear weapons and the threat they posed.







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