The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
Views expressed in this archived message are those of the author, not of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
[Main archive index/search] [List information] [Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq Homepage]
[ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ] Published on Tuesday, July 15, 2003 by the <A HREF="http://www.ap.org/">Associated Press</A> Former U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter Calls for US 'Regime Change' by Edith Lederer UNITED NATIONS - Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter released a new book, accusing President Bush of illegally attacking Iraq and calling for "regime change" in the United States at the next election. Time has shown that the United Nations did a good job disarming Iraq while President Bush went to war based on 'a lie,' former U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter told U.N. reporters July 14, 2003. 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 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 "<A HREF="http://btobsearch.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=333B157DQS&sourceid=00393841934349639524&isbn=1893956474&itm=1">Frontier Justice, Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwacking of America</A>" 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 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. Roger Stroope Northern Arizona University Flagstaff USA During the war crimes trials at Nuremberg, psychologist Gustave Gilbert visited Nazi Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering in his prison cell. "We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction," Gilbert wrote in his journal, Nuremberg Diary. "Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? ... That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship ... That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk