Dawn the Internet, dawn.com, 02.11.2002

US exerting pressure on inspector: Ritter

BERLIN, Nov 1: Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter said on Friday the
United States was trying to manipulate Hans Blix, the head of the weapons
inspections team waiting for a new UN resolution so it can resume its work
in Iraq.

Ritter also expressed a fear that Washington would try to trigger a war with
Baghdad by interfering in new arms inspections.

"The US will be doing whatever it can to provoke a confrontation," the
American told journalists at the start of a two-day peace conference in
Berlin. "There is a big group of people in the United States that want war."

A UN weapons inspector in Iraq for seven years until he quit in 1998, Ritter
said he did not believe Iraq posed a sufficient threat to justify going to
war and said Washington's real motive was to demonstrate its global
predominance.

"Iraq is merely the case study for implementation of what they call in the
United States unilateralism, but I think what they call in the rest of the
world imperialism," he said.

Since his resignation, Ritter has consistently been a fierce critic of US
policy towards Iraq.

Washington is trying to get the UN Security Council to agree a resolution
giving inspectors license to search anywhere for Iraq's suspected weapons of
mass destruction and threatens "serious consequences" if Baghdad blocks
them.

"Unless we get inspectors back in, we're going to start an air campaign in
the second half of December and then troops will be on the ground 30 to 40
days later," said Ritter, himself a former marine who fought in the 1991
Gulf War against Iraq.

"We need inspectors to get in there and disarm. But we have to make sure
that those who implement the provisions calling for the disarmament of Iraq
do not deviate off task," he said.

BLIX BEING MANIPULATED: Ritter said he was worried that Blix had done
Washington's bidding in agreeing not to return to Iraq without a tougher
Security Council resolution, and expressed concern he had met US President
George W. Bush to discuss inspections.

"There is great concern, at least in my heart, that Hans Blix may not be up
to the task of standing up to the United States," he said. "I am afraid Hans
Blix is like his predecessor Richard Butler in becoming a tool of American
foreign policy."

Former UNSCOM chief Butler has rejected Ritter's views: "It's nonsense and
I'm truly sad that a basically good man has left the rails," he said two
years ago.

Ritter has accused Washington of using Butler's inspections teams for
espionage before they pulled out in 1998 and said on Friday he was worried
the same could happen again, giving Baghdad a pretext to eject the
inspectors, in turn sparking war.

"What reason do we have to believe that if inspectors go back to Iraq the
United States won't once again manipulate the inspections to achieve a
military result?"

Ritter proposed third party monitors to oversee the new inspection regime,
"to make sure there is no falsification of reporting so the Iraqis can't say
there are spies on the team".

OPINION POLL: Ninety per cent of Americans favour the US foreign policy goal
of destroying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, with 63 per cent supporting
military action to see it through, according to a poll released Friday.
However, backing for a US-led attack is heavily qualified by the
circumstances, with a majority preferring the authorization of a vote by the
UN security council.

The Harris poll, which sampled 1,722 adult Americans across the country,
found that just over six of every 10 respondents think that military force
should be used to destroy all weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But asked
if a war should still be launched if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein allows
UN weapons inspectors back into Iraq, 50 per cent responded no, against 35
percent in favour.

On the question of UN authorization, 44 percent said they opposed a military
attack if there was no Security Council agreement, while 33 percent said an
attack was warranted either way. A significant 23 percent were undecided.

According to the poll, the background for the US public supporting an attack
on Iraq is based on the belief - shared by 75 percent of adults - that if
nothing is done, Saddam Hussein will use his nuclear, biological or chemical
weapons in an attacks against the US.-Reuters/AFP