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Ex-weapons inspector prefers patriot label

VANCOUVER -- Former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter is a bit uncomfortable with the role of an activist.

"I'm not a humanist. I'm not even a pacifist," the card-carrying Republican and former U.S. Marine said during an interview, insisting that he was a "hard-nosed SOB" during his struggles to enforce Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions during his stint in Baghdad in the 1990s.

Mr. Ritter is on a one-man crusade to warn of the dangers of a war in Iraq and to highlight the importance of upholding international law.

His impassioned speech at Vancouver's First Baptist Church last week had all the markings of a revival-hall meeting, his rapt audience crying "shame, shame" -- the activist's amen -- at every criticism of U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy.

"Friends don't let friends drive drunk," he told a crowd estimated at 1,600 that spilled out of the packed church. "And friends, we have a drunk at the wheel of American foreign policy. Let's pull the key out of the ignition before he drives the vehicle over the cliff!"

Mr. Ritter, 41, was invited by an antiwar coalition to speak in Vancouver (along with NDP foreign affairs critic Svend Robinson). He insisted both in the interview and the speech that he is not an activist, but an American patriot.

"I care about the kind of country my children will grow up in," he said. Although war can be necessary, he said, he has seen its horrors and wants to avoid it "at all costs."

He said that having taken Baghdad to task himself as a member of the UN Special Commission in Iraq (known as UNSCOM) between 1995 and 1998, he feels that "America should abide by the same rigorous standards for itself." He maintained that weapons inspectors should be allowed to return to Iraq and resume their work.

"This is bigger than Iraq. This is about a bunch of neo-cons who have hijacked U.S. foreign policy to promote their political agenda," he charged.

Although he said that "Iraqi obstructionism" was the biggest obstacle to his weapons inspections, he likened Washington to "a corrupt cop" who "planted evidence" during inspections for its own spying purposes, thereby "corrupting the whole process."

Asked what he thought of Western intelligence analysis asserting the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, he responded: "It's only an assessment, not a grand statement of fact."

He warned of the potential for catastrophic consequences in the case of an invasion of Iraq, which appeared more likely yesterday after majority leader Tom Daschle predicted that the U.S. Senate will pass a resolution authorizing Mr. Bush to take military action.

Mr. Ritter, who has previously accused Washington of pursuing "regime change" in Baghdad ahead of disarmament, ridiculed the notion and implied that Washington should learn to live with Saddam Hussein.

"Saddam is not a product of America, but rather an internal Iraqi political dynamic," he said -- one that allows a minority of Sunni generals to rule over a predominantly Shiite majority and significant Kurdish minority. "Saddam will never change until that dynamic changes," he said.

"[The] American idea of democracy evolved over 226 years; went through a revolution, civil war, two world wars and the civil-rights movement," he added. The concept of "exporting" that kind of democracy to a completely different political and cultural terrain is arrogant, he said, and not even genuine. "When the administration talks about 'democracy in Iraq' and 'regime change,' they don't mean an Iraq where there's full participatory democracy. They mean an Iraq run by another Sunni general," he said.

On a personal note, Mr. Ritter spoke of the price he has paid for his outspoken criticism of U.S. policy on Iraq. He said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched three probes against him -- one on the grounds that he is an Israeli spy, another on the grounds that he is an Iraqi spy and another based on his "violation" of sanctions. His wife is under investigation.