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Politics : Clinton -- doomed & wagging, Japan collapses, Y2K bug, etc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SOROS who wrote (28)	9/4/1998 9:09:00 AM
From: SOROS	Respond to of 1151

USA Today - 09/04/98 Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter accused the Clinton administration Thursday of undermining its own stated policy of Iraqi disarmament and warned that Iraq could, in six months, reconstitute its chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them. In New York, Ritter's former boss, chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler, told the Security Council that Iraq was now refusing to let inspectors examine sites previously allowed. "We are doing no disarmament work," Butler said. Ritter, who resigned last month from the U.N. commission on Iraqi disarmament, was the sole witness in Washington at a politically charged hearing before the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees. He was escorted to the hearing by Sen. Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., who adjourned the Senate so members of both committees could attend. Ritter, 37, an ex-Marine, said the United States hampered the work of U.N. inspectors "through interference and manipulation, usually coming from the highest levels of the administration's national security team, including the secretary of State." According to Ritter, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, national security adviser Sandy Berger and others intervened on a half-dozen occasions to block or postpone inspections that could have provoked an angry Iraqi response and potentially led to a military confrontation with the United States. Senior U.S. officials say Ritter lacks an overall understanding of U.S. policy and does not appreciate the lack of support for military action or the difficulty the United States has faced in keeping a majority of the Security Council in favor of economic sanctions against Iraq seven years after the Gulf War. "I envy you your clarity on this issue," Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, told Ritter. "I respectfully suggest that (senior U.S. officials) have responsibility above your pay grade to (decide to) take the nation to war alone." Biden also criticized the Republicans for inviting Ritter without any officials to rebut his charges. Albright and Defense Secretary William Cohen are scheduled to appear at a separate hearing next week. But Biden praised Ritter, a veteran inspector in charge of uncovering Iraqi methods of concealing its weaponry, for bringing about what Biden called "a day of reckoning about what our policy should be." Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., underlined the seriousness of the issue, asking Ritter how long it would take Iraq to put back together weapons materials it is believed to have hidden or to build new systems. Ritter said it would take several years for Iraq to be able to make nuclear devices but that "within six months, Iraq could reconstitute its biological and chemical weapons and long-range ballistic missiles." After failing to muster international or domestic support for striking Iraq last winter, the United States has focused on maintaining Security Council support for economic sanctions and a food-for-oil program that allows Iraq to sell $5 billion in oil every six months but requires a U.N. committee, including U.S. representatives, to vet Iraqi purchases. But critics of U.S. policy, now bolstered by Ritter, say the Clinton administration has essentially caved in to the regime of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator who remains in power. "Iraq clearly has been put on the back burner" given all the other crises, foreign and domestic, the administration faces, says David Kay, another former U.N. inspector. "The administration was caught in a box. It has a weak hand and hoped no one would notice. Meanwhile, the initiative has gone over to Baghdad."