Teen sex scandal returns to haunt anti-war pundit
Former UN inspector Scott Ritter cancels Baghdad visit
nationalpost.com
Peter Goodspeed
National Post
Friday, January 24, 2003
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Scott Ritter has a knack for making headlines.
The 6-foot, 4-inch, former U.S. Marine and Gulf War veteran first came to the world's attention as an aggressive United Nation's weapons inspector bent on searching for weapons of mass destruction in Baghdad. He later underwent a dramatic change of heart and became one of the most vocal critics of current U.S. foreign policy in Iraq.
But this week, Mr. Ritter's public life suddenly self-destructed, when it became known he was arrested two years ago in a police Internet sex sting operation for trying to meet a 16-year-old girl he had approached in an online chat room.
The resulting scandal has all but neutralized Mr. Ritter's involvement in the anti-war movement and forced him to abort plans to travel to Baghdad this week to protest a threatened U.S. invasion.
The former military intelligence officer and ballistic missile expert has been thrown on the defensive and angrily refuses to discuss the allegations of sexual misconduct.
He insists he has been "held accountable before the law" and "stood before a judge in open court" and had the charges against him dismissed.
Earlier this week, two newspapers, the Schenectady Daily Gazette and the New York Daily News reported Mr. Ritter was arrested in June, 2001, for allegedly having an online sexual discussion with someone he thought was an underage girl. When he arranged to meet her at a local Burger King restaurant, she turned out to be an undercover policeman who had been posing online as a minor.
Mr. Ritter was charged, under his official name -- William S. Ritter -- with attempted endangerment of a child, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of 90 days in jail. When the case came before the courts, it was "adjourned in contemplation of dismissal," which means the charges were to be dropped if Mr. Ritter stayed out of trouble for six months.
According to a local television news report, Mr. Ritter underwent court-ordered sex offender counselling from an Albany, N.Y., psychologist. Afterwards, the charges against him were sealed, meaning the court could no longer make information on the case public.
According to a report in the Albany Times Union, Mr. Ritter had another brush with the law in April, 2001, when he tried to meet someone he thought was a 14-year-old girl whom he had met in another on-line discussion group.
That case was also a police sting operation but no charges were ever laid against Mr. Ritter.
Mr. Ritter refuses to discuss details of either case, saying he is "obligated, both ethically and legally, not to."
He does, however, question the timing of news leaks of his arrest, saying they were intended to discredit him and blunt his criticism of American policy on Iraq.
A day before news of Mr. Ritter's sex scandal broke, he was publicly calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush, the U.S. President, accusing him of involving the U.S. in a war Mr. Ritter regards as "illegal and based on a foundation of lies."
Mr. Ritter claims "Iraq is a defanged tiger" and insists Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons program is either accounted for or destroyed.
In 1998, after seven years as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Mr. Ritter sang a different tune when he resigned in a fit of public pique, warning that the UN Security Council was caving in to Iraq's demands that certain "sensitive sites," such as presidential palaces, not be inspected.
Then, he warned that Iraq was insufficiently disarmed and ready to restart its nuclear and biological weapons programs as soon as the UN turned its back. To compel Iraq into compliance, he said: "Iraq should be subjected to a major campaign that seeks to destroy the regime of Saddam Hussein."
The outspoken Mr. Ritter became a regular on U.S. television news and talk shows and testified before U.S. congressional committees.
But over time, he became increasingly critical of U.S. policies.
At one point he accused Washington of damaging the inspection process by using intelligence from UN inspectors to determine subsequent bombing targets. He later made a documentary harshly critical of UN sanctions against Iraq.
Last December another documentary, In Shifting Sands, which Mr. Ritter wrote and produced, opened in New York. It argues UN inspectors have already searched every nook and cranny of Iraq.
A wealthy Iraqi-American businessman, Shakir al-Khafaji, is said to have contributed $400,000 toward the costs of making the film.
While he has publicly urged Iraq to co-operate with UN weapons inspectors, becoming the first American to address Iraq's parliament, Mr. Ritter has reserved most of his criticism for the U.S. He insists: "When you go to war, you open up a Pandora's box, the results of which cannot be predicted."
But now his personal campaign against a war in Iraq has been sidelined, possibly permanently, by news of the sex scandal.
"If I went to Baghdad and tried to talk responsibly about issues of war and peace, this issue would have come up," he told CNN Wednesday. "It would have been a distraction and it would have actually been a disservice."
pgoodspeed@nationalpost.com |
