STATEMENT OF SCOTT RITTER, Former UNSCOM Inspector (Part Five)
MR. RITTER: Yes, sir.
As I indicated I believe earlier, in May of 1997 there was a coordination meeting between the
Special Commission and the United States-United Kingdom in which a specific course of
action was agreed upon -- that is, to conduct inspections designed to expose how Iraq
conceals its weapons of mass destruction. And in June and September we carried out
inspections towards this goal. And in September we also deployed full-time into Iraq a team
under my control -- again, under the control of the executive chairman but I was tasked with
controlling this team and tasking it -- to do concealment-oriented inspections.
There was a confrontation with Iraq. There was a diplomatic solution reached. The teams
were expelled. The teams were brought back in. Once the teams were brought back in, we
tried to get back on with the task of doing our job.
And yet, throughout November and December, we were specifically advised by the United
States not to let this team carry out inspections of Iraq's concealment mechanism which would
lead to confrontation.
REP. TAYLOR: Okay. Who from the government specifically advised? And were you directly
advised of this, or was Mr. Butler advised?
MR. RITTER: Mr. Butler was advised directly of this. I know on at least one occasion it was
done by the secretary of State. On other occasions it may have been her instructions passed
through the US mission in New York. It occurred on several occasions.
REP. TAYLOR: Then Mr. Butler advised you of this, so that's how you know about it.
MR. RITTER: Mr. Butler -- I had briefed him on a course of action. He had signed the
appropriate documentation, we had forwarded the documentation, via secure means, to our
team in country. They were prepared to go out and do this inspection. And he came to me
and said, "Have them stand down." And he gave me the reasons, the reasons primarily being
the U.S. would not support this confrontational inspection.
REP. TAYLOR: Did he give you any indication of why he was told they would not support
this?
MR. RITTER: That basically, the U.S. was trying to build a diplomatic consensus, and felt that
by carrying out these inspections, we would get ahead of their ability to back them up in the
Security Council. We were respective of that. We thought that if we can't be backed up,
there's no need in going forward with these inspections at that time.
The same thing occurred in December. We were told to put together a major concealment
oriented inspection, headed by myself. We had hard information about concealment activity
taking place at several sites. Once we got into Iraq, again, the U.S. intervened, advised Mr.
Butler that several sites they felt we were going to inspect, were too confrontational, and they
asked that they be dropped from the list. This is after the team was deployed to Baghdad.
We did drop these sites from the list, we did modify the inspection regime. The reason we
were given, is because of the upcoming holiday period, the U.S. would not be able to justify
military action on a domestic level, or sustain the kind of diplomatic initiative to get
international consensus. We were told we had the green light to resume these inspections in
January. In January, I went in with another team. We started our inspection activity. We
were stopped by the Iraqis. We were told by the Iraqis and Security Council the objection
was around the nationality mixture of the team: too many Americans, too many British. The
Russians advised the executive chairman that if we would redo the mixture of the team, they
could convince the Iraqis to allow the inspection to take place.
We did do this over our objections. It was a matter of principle. We said in principle, we don't
like somebody dictating the composition of the team, but we will do this to avoid a
confrontation. But we sought to do inspections of sites that would be particularly
confrontational, because we had good intelligence about what was at that location.
And yet, even after these sites had been approved by the chairman, he had given me the
authority to go forward, I was pulled out a day early, the mission was canceled without reason
given.
REP. TAYLOR: I see the red light is on. I'm going to interrupt you, and, Mr. Chairman, with
your permission, ask one brief follow-up question, if I may. Just one.
REP. SPENCE: Permission granted. Go ahead.
REP. TAYLOR: I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've read newspaper reports where Mr. Butler has
characterized your chronology of events as not accurate, and has -- at least, if these
newspaper reports are true -- has criticized what you have said. Do you know what he meant
by that? Have you spoken with him? Can you shed any light on what he may have meant by
that?
MR. RITTER: I can say that the chronology, as I have presented it, along with every other fact
that I have presented, is accurate. And that's why I've said it. If someone has a problem with
my chronology, I wish they would say more than just they have a problem with my
chronology, and they would say what exactly with my chronology they have a problem with,
whether it was Richard Butler or anybody else.
I stand by my chronology of events. I think it was accurate. If I was wrong, I will state so for
the record, if somebody could tell me where I was wrong. Why he would say that, is
something that of course would have to be posed to -- REP. : You've not spoken to him.
MR. RITTER: I have not spoken to him directly, no, sir.
REP. TAYLOR: Thank you, sir. You strike me as a great man of integrity. Mr. Chairman, it
might be good to get some of these other players before the committee who are of the pay
grade that they can answer these questions, and I'd like to urge you to consider that.
REP. SPENCE: Of course.
REP. TAYLOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. SPENCE: Let's hear from Mr. McHale, another Marine.
REP. PAUL MCHALE (D-PA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ritter, I want to join my
colleagues in expressing to you my deep respect for your extraordinary moral courage, and
what I think is your exceptional professional judgment in all of the areas where you have
testified. You have been given ample opportunity, principally in the other body, to respond in
a way that would have diminished the substance of your testimony. You have avoided a
response when you were baited, you have carried yourself with great dignity, you have
spoken very thoughtfully, and I think we as a nation owe you a great deal. I want to
acknowledge that at the beginning of my questioning.
I also want to say that I think more than any other official that I can identify, either at the
United Nations, or within our government, you have kept faith with the men and women who
fought the Gulf War, and I thank you.
Back in August 1990, I was on active duty. And when I deployed to the Gulf, from the
perspective of someone also who had a very junior pay grade at that point, I felt there were
three strategic reasons why we fought, or were about to fight the Gulf War.
The first was the physical removal of forces from the territory of Kuwait. We achieved that.
Secondly, I thought we needed to guarantee international access to the Gulf oil supplies that
were then being threatened by Saddam Hussein. And through our military action, I think we
achieved that as well.
But frankly, what motivated me more than anything else -- and I remember vividly looking at
the photos at the time, of Kurdish women and children who were slaughtered by the chemical
munitions of Saddam Hussein. I felt that ultimately, protecting that region of the world from
weapons of mass destruction under the control of Saddam Hussein, was the principal reason
justifying military conflict under those circumstances. From your testimony earlier, I gather
that we have not yet achieved that third strategic goal. You made reference to the chem- bio
capabilities possessed by the Iraqi government, with specific reference to VX. Seven years
after the Gulf War, does Iraq, under the command of Saddam Hussein, possess an operational
chem-bio capability?
MR. RITTER: The answer to that question right there is right now, no, in terms of could Iraq
today load a missile warhead on to a missile and fire it, as a threat. The assessment that we
have, is no, because part of their concealment is to dismantle these weapons into their various
components, and move them around the country, making it very difficult for us to find them.
It's also part of the Iraqi strategy to challenge us today to find the weapons. They say there
are no weapons in Iraq. And I might have to agree with them. There are weapons components
that, put together, would constitute a weapon. There are agents, if loaded on to those
weapons, would then be used.
REP. MCHALE: You indicated, in your judgment, to assemble a nuclear capability, assuming
access to the appropriate fissile material, would take approximately three years. And you fully
qualified that, in terms of the admission that perhaps others with qualifications equal to or
superior to your own, might come up with a different timeframe. But your estimate is three
years for a nuclear threat, an operational nuclear threat.
MR. RITTER: To come up with a weapon, yes, sir.
REP. MCHALE: Yes. What is your timeframe on a chem-bio operational capability?
MR. RITTER: Under six months.
REP. MCHALE: So here we are, seven years after the war in which Americans fought and
died, and we're six months away from their operational capability, in an area that I defined as
one of our essential strategic goals in fighting the war in the first place. Is that accurate?
MR. RITTER: Yes, sir.
REP. MCHALE: I don't think we Americans fought that war to buy six months. I think we
wanted to guarantee into the foreseeable future, stability and security in that region, so that
no one in that region of the world, would face a WMD threat from Saddam Hussein again.
You have no faith that sanctions will achieve that goal, do you?
MR. RITTER: No, sir.
REP. MCHALE: Do you believe that re-initiated and effective inspections can achieve that
goal?
MR. RITTER: That is the route that the international community agreed to in April of 1991.
And as a weapons inspector, that is the route that I have dedicated myself to for seven years.
REP. MCHALE: I understand. Did we agree wisely at that time? I guess really, what I'm
asking, is, if we follow the course of action that you have outlined, and we stand firm in our
resolve, and inspections such as those that you previously conducted, are once again carried
out, will that in fact provide the strategic outcome that I described earlier, or did we agree to a
regime of inspections seven years ago, that will in fact fail to eliminate the continuing WMD
threat?
MR. RITTER: No, sir. If the Special Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency
were given the capability to carry out their tasks as envisioned in the provisions of the
Security Council resolution, carry them out fully and complete, without hindrance, without
restriction, I firmly believe that we could achieve the level of disarmament in Iraq which was
intended.
But the problem is that that is an extremely difficult task. It's not an easy task.
REP. MCHALE: I understand that.
MR. RITTER: And is it realistic to think that we can do that? My job was to try and
accomplish that mission. I believe that we could accomplish that mission, if given the
wherewithal by the Security Council. Without Security Council backing, there is no way that
the Special Commission or the IAEA will be able to achieve that mission.
REP. MCHALE: Recognizing that it is difficult, isn't it true that the distance from here to there
is measured in terms of political will?
MR. RITTER: Yes, sir. I would agree with that statement.
REP. MCHALE: Mr Chairman, my red light's on. I would simply say that in determining what
is realistic and what is achievable, we need to bear in mind the sacrifice that was made by
some our fellow citizens seven years ago, where those citizens gave their lives, so that this
region of the world would not face this kind of threat.
And we have an obligation to keep faith with those men and women who sacrificed their lives,
by guaranteeing that ultimately the strategic goal that we defined -- the elimination of Saddam
Hussein's strategic WMD threat -- will in fact be achieved. We break faith with those dead
Americans, if we do any less than that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. REP. SPENCE: Thank you
very much. And we're going to proceed now to the other panel. But Mr. Ritter, before we
leave you, I again want to say how much we appreciate your appearance today, and what
you've done for us in this committee in helping us to understand the problem we're faced
with. We owe you a debt of gratitude.
I think that history will reflect that what you've done, was the defining moment in the events
that led us to the realization that our foreign policy, relative to Saddam Hussein and Iraq, and
the weapons of mass destruction, the things that we've been working on, the defining moment
has been what you've done in bringing us to the realize that it's failed.
We've got to go on from here now, and try to pick up the pieces, and pursue it. People are
suggesting maybe that this will set the stage for an "October Surprise," and the administration
will be forced to bring some kind of action now, because of it. But in any event, you have
contributed greatly to what this is all about, and thank you very much for your help.
MR. RITTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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