Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector for seven years, spoke at Bryn Mawr this past week. He came with the intention of addressing ‘how the U.S. got to where it is with Iraq’, and to address the seemingly imminent war that will be waged. Going against the grain, and putting himself in a negative position with the U.S. government, Ritter is persuasively anti-war.
His message is crystal clear and important: war is about “death and destruction” and is ‘not like a Play Station game where you can just press the reset button and come back to life again’. War is, “ people (y)our age dying”. Many lives will be lost on both sides if a war is waged, and the U.S. government has not given any sound evidence or reason to launch a war with Iraq. As Ritter put it, Bush is always saying, “You are either with us, or against us”, and it has become “unpatriotic” to question this war and to question what the government is doing. Ritter asks, ‘how can you have a debate if you can’t ask the question?’
Ritter likened the situation to that of a patient with a tumour, and the doctor telling the patient, ‘Just trust me. You are going to need brain surgery’. This brain surgery entails lopping off a huge section of brain, but the patient is not allowed to see the MRI. He is told to put the decision in the hands of his surgeon, and not allowed to make the decision of whether he wants to undergo this life-altering procedure by looking at the MRI evidence. He must just go by what the doctor has said. Ritter likens the circumstances with Iraq to that of the tumour. The patient (U.S. citizens) should be asking for the ‘evidence’, the proof that Iraq is really a threat, and that lopping it off (war) is really necessary.
During the course of his speech, Scott Ritter compelled his audience to look at what’s going on. He pointed out that the U.S. media has demonised Hussein and made him out to be the Middle East’s equivalent of Hitler. This creates a dangerous effect: the public is then unable to see Saddam’s human side and possibility for reason and other means of resolve of the conflict. They look upon him as a threat to their security and way of life, and they become so intent on his removal that they are not willing to see any negotiations take place. This is reflected in U.S. policy. When congress voted to give Bush the right to war, ‘none of them knew what was going on in there’, Ritter implied, but they did it because their constituents have been so hyped up with all of the media that they can’t see any other way…and nobody wants to be seen ‘dealing with the devil’—especially with November 5 just around the corner.
Scott also pointed out the real victims of this war: the children. His statistics were disturbing: over 1.5 million children have died in the last 10 years in Iraq. 3-5 thousand a month die. The U.S. led sanctions are “starving children to death”. To top that off, there is no medicine, and the water is tainted, as well as the soil. There is nowhere to turn when children need help. Ritter reminded his audience of Albright’s statement that ‘children are a price that the U.S. is willing to pay’ in order to contain Saddam Hussein, and pointed out that more than one U.S. politician has stated that the sanctions that cause so many problems in Iraq will not be lifted until Saddam is removed from power.
The question then follows: What exactly is the U.S. trying to achieve with Iraq. It becomes increasingly clear that what the U.S. is after is ‘regime removal’. No matter what they say about sanctions and lifting them if Iraq complies with this and that demand, they will not rest until Saddam is out of power; they will stop at no means to achieve this, even if it means murdering thousands of children. As Ritter put it, “America is an accomplice to the murder of Iraqi children”, and they won’t stop until they achieve their goal.
Scott Ritter also brought up another point: What the U.S. is doing has no basis under international law. It is against the constitution to remove a leader of another country by force, and it is against all international law. Who are we to decide what is best for someone else? Yet despite that, Clinton sponsored coups during his days in office, and Bush is outright and shamelessly trying to achieve the same objective.
Ritter also pointed out that during his inspections in Iraq, his team never ‘found’ any weapons. Iraq was, however, fundamentally disarmed. Weapons were found, but the process to find them was based on evidence and hunches, combined with detective skills. This lead Scott to another point: there is no evidence that Iraq has created significant weapons of mass destruction. To build weapons of mass destruction, one needs science, technology, and industry. You can’t just build a biological weapon in your closet. It takes a lot of resources and space. If such activity were going on, it would be possible to find the sites of construction by observing satellite photos and monitoring government activity. Ritter further made the point that Saddam is not aligned with Al-Qaeda by any means, but rather against the very principals of Al-Qaeda—Wahabism—that make such a group a threat even to Saddam’s own regime. There is no indication that Saddam’s government is aligned with any terrorist groups that work to harm the west or U.S. in particular.
Ritter wanted to point out that the inspections work. The inspectors found and destroyed thousands of weapons in Iraq. He also pointed out that the inspectors were not kicked out of Iraq, but rather called out of Iraq by the U.S.—24 hours later the U.S. bombed Iraq in operation ‘Desert Fox’. The public was lied to and deceived.
Also pointed out was that no diplomatic approaches have been made with Iraq because the U.S. doesn’t want Iraq to have a chance. The objective is not to remove a threat from the world, but rather to take control of the country—mainly for the sake of resources—and to impose American unilateralism. The country is trying to practice imperialism, and Iraq is an easy target. It is easy because it has been demonised, and the U.S. public is willing to support to have the U.S. go in and fix things up. This had Scott warning people to think and realize that ‘America’s policy in Iraq might not be a good policy’. The threat of war is serious, and the U.S. public is accountable for its government’s actions. Ritter encourages that we all take a more active role in society, and be informed citizens.
