Word: unscom
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...commands members of the élite corps to be ever faithful. Former Marine Major Scott Ritter retains the military bearing and cropped haircut of his 12 years in the service. But he has lost faith in his government's policy toward Iraq, where he was the top inspector for UNSCOM, the United Nations weapons inspection team. He quit that post in 1998, complaining that the Clinton Administration was letting Saddam Hussein off too easily. No one would levy the same charge against the current White House, but Ritter is now even more critical of U.S. policy toward Iraq. Earlier this...
...Saddam Hussein this week came from erstwhile true-blue American hero Scott Ritter. Familiar to Americans as the rock-jawed Marine intelligence officer who stood up to Saddam's bullies in 1998 while serving with the UN inspection team, and got himself singled out for expulsion even before UNSCOM was withdrawn, Ritter was back on America's TV screens this week, but with a dramatically different message: President Bush had no proof of any new weapons of mass destruction threat emanating from Iraq, Ritter says, and he was lying to the American people to get them...
...clear answers. Ritter has never lacked for personal courage, nor for outrage. First he directed that outrage and courage against the Iraqi officials sandbagging his inspection efforts in Iraq; then, on his return the focus of his ire became the Clinton administration which he accused of betraying UNSCOM and ignoring the dangers of failure to force Saddam to comply with the letter of the law. But soon, he was also accusing the U.S. of manipulating the inspection regime for espionage purposes - a charge often made by the Iraqis - and it emerged Ritter had also been the subject...
...surveys of suppliers Baghdad has contacted seeking parts. Both suggest that Iraq's nuclear program is back in full swing. "Iraq's known nuclear scientists are gravitating to the country's five nuclear research sites," says Charles Duelfer, who was the second-ranking official on the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) on Iraq until it was disbanded in 1999. "That doesn't appear to be coincidental...
...Director George Tenet told Congress in February, "Baghdad is expanding its civilian chemical industry in ways that could be diverted quickly to chemical weapons production." Procedurally there is not much difference between making pesticides and making chemical weapons. According to former UNSCOM chief Richard Butler, Iraq takes advantage of the similarities and eludes sanctions by using Jordanian front companies to import lathes and machine tools, which, once inside Iraq, are easily adapted to the production of chemical weapons. The Iraqis consistently deny violating the sanctions or the cease-fire deal...