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Ritter takes on the lies they tell about Iraq Review by Elizabeth Schulte | October 18, 2002 | Page 9 BOOKS: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know, William Rivers Pitt, interview with Scott Ritter. Context Books, 2002, 95 pages, $8.95. A FORMER Marine and a member of the Republican Party who voted for George W. Bush, Scott Ritter is an unlikely voice against a U.S. invasion in Iraq. But as a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, Ritter is providing the inside scoop to cut through lies the Bush administration is using to sell its war. The short "instant book," War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know, provides a 50-page interview with Ritter from August. Ritter debunks the myth of the threat of "weapons of mass destruction" posed by Iraq, based on his personal observations before the U.S. suspended inspections in 1998. "Iraq has destroyed 90-95 percent of its weapons of mass destruction," says Ritter. "Okay. We have to remember that this missing 5-10 percent doesn't necessarily constitute a threat. It doesn't even constitute a weapons program." On the subject of Bush's claim that al-Qaeda is linked to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein--"patently absurd," says Ritter. Ritter also offers a chilling "worst case scenario" in a U.S. invasion: "If the whole situation collapses and we have 70,000 Americans cut off in Iraq facing the prospect of annihilation, we'll nuke. There's no doubt about it. We'll nuke." This book offers some worthwhile facts to chip away at Bush's mountain of lies.
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