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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PartyTime who wrote (3733)	1/25/2003 10:56:13 PM
From: Vitas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25898

"Recognizing the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with Council resolutions and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles poses to international peace and security"

To: PartyTime who wrote (3733)	1/25/2003 11:13:08 PM
From: Gordon A. Langston	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

Here's some fun reading from the days when Ritter could tell the truth. washingtonpost.com n June 1997, during an inspection in Baghdad, Ritter received a summons to the oil ministry. For nearly an hour, he held a stunningly frank verbal sparring match with Lt. Gen. Rasheed, the oil minister and, UNSCOM believed, a central figure in Iraq's weapons concealment. "We are very concerned about exposing our security organizations to experts from outside of Iraq," Rashid said. When Ritter justified the intrusion by alleging a coverup, Rashid accused Ritter of "McCarthyism" and said, "I could say that I know your links to intelligence." Ritter, according to notes taken by another participant, shot back: "I deal with governments for information. I deal with the people who handle this kind of sensitive information, not a bunch of tea-drinkers." Iraq had lied repeatedly about its weapons programs, Ritter said: "As such, we have no choice but to use the tools which we have available. . . . You brought this on yourselves." Rashid demanded to know what Ritter thought he was hiding. Ritter replied in detail: VX nerve toxins in salt form for long-term storage; a mobile biological weapons production facility, including fermenters and a drying and grinding apparatus; dried anthrax; five to seven operational ballistic missiles and up to 25 in disassembled form; and possibly a nuclear weapon "minus the core of HEU," or highly enriched uranium that would make it a bomb. "I'm sorry, I have to run," Rashid replied, finally. "I would love to stay and talk to you for hours about your flawed concepts. However, I thank you for explaining the pretext for your inspection." UNSCOM knew it was playing a very dangerous game. In February 1996, Ekeus received what he regarded as a credible intelligence tip that Iraq planned to kill him with slow-acting poison. The Swedish diplomat's family was frightened, and Ekeus confronted Nizar Hamdoon, Iraq's U.N. ambassador, with the report. Hamdoon replied that the notion was absurd, as Ekeus's murder would delay the lifting of economic sanctions. Ekeus found the answer somehow flattering, comparing the price on his head to a year's oil revenue. Adding to the commission's anxiety was knowledge that should Iraq decide to take inspectors hostage or kill them there was no rescue force immediately at hand. For nearly two years after a September 1991 parking lot incident, in which inspector David Kay and his team were held at gunpoint for four days, the Army's Delta Force had deployed to Kuwait during UNSCOM inspections. When Shake the Tree began in 1996, it did so one last time, even staging an inspector rescue exercise first in Utah. But the U.S. military halted that support, and inspectors knew they were exposed.