she's un weapons inspector to iraq. scott ritter, who gave r t an exclusive interview on what he witnessed watching. shortly after a quick break. we'll see you back at the top of the hour. ah ah, with no, do you have to be on with white glove? you know, we do mobile spoke with laura last within the flash from the yeah,

cuz i thought that was would enough. i just wondered, was it from the social some of the emotional discovia record what, what's in which it is word for that you will do it or who will suggest recently but no feet long all to do something more local, less room. would you do less ah, a ah! when i 1st joined the united nation special commission in september of 1991, i wasn't brought in as an inspector. i was brought in to help create an intelligence organization that would assist the special commission and evaluating the accuracy of the iraqi declarations about what weapons of mass destruction they

had. and if the iraqis were found to be wanting, if there were inaccuracies or just gaps um to help collect information that would allow inspectors to go into iraq to either find material or documents that helped answer the questions or, you know, determined what the truth was. i, or to confront the iraqis about their lies and distortions the, the, the issue as though that the united nations was not structured to handle this kind of activity. a, if you look at the phone book of the united nations, you won't find the united nations intelligence organization. this was the 1st time anything like this had ever been done. and it was, it took a while to get the united nations to accept this, this kind of a organization, this kind of work in the best way to get them to accept it was to prove its

viability and its value. and because i had considerable experience as an inspector during my time in the so union, the 1980s in 1990. i was able to take the information that i was gathering, turn it into targeting data, and then help organize inspection concepts up that the united nations used to create inspections that would go into iraq. but what we found is rather it, rather than have me create something and turn it over to somebody that it was better if i created it and let it myself. and so i became a chief inspector. we know in the immediate aftermath of the 911 terrorist attack, so when donald rumsfeld convened a m, if defense council paul wolf, what's his deputy actively articulated in favor of invading iraq early saying that

because of 911, we must have made iraq. then we know that the pentagon tried to make a case linking saddam hussein and osama bin laden cream, the nexus between terrorism and the iraqi government. and therefore, saying that it's iraqi garrett possess, weapons of mass destruction, those weapons, get it, the hands of al qaeda terrorists who can do a new 911. that would be even worse. this was the effort being made. and we know that planning for war in iraq began in 2002 by early 2003 american forces who were operating in afghanistan will be withdrawn and preparation. we also know that when george w bush met with tony blair, the british prime minister, um, something you know, in august of, of, of, of 2003 that are 2002 that they were talking about fixing the intelligence around. um, you know, w m d, meaning that the, they didn't have any information say iraq had w d,

but they wanted to prove it. so they would start with the proposition iraq has w m d, and then they would fix the intelligence around. that means cherry pick information to make the case. this was all done before they were talking about going to the united nations before weapons inspectors were allowed back in the united states was going to go to war with iraq regardless. regardless, it doesn't matter what the truth was when was, when weapons, you know, one of the things i did, and i'm very proud of this. when after the meeting between bush and blair in bushes ranch in crawford, texas, i made the decision that the only way that the united states could be stopped from going to war with iraq was if weapons inspectors are allowed back into iraq. but iraq wasn't even considering that. so i actually flew to south africa to meet with tara kaziz um, to ask him to allow me into iraq. and remember who i am. i'm the evil incarnate. i'm the inspector that was responsible for all the troubles that iraq had. i was

about to estimate the father, vol. crises, according to iraqis. and now i'm saying you got to let me back in is like why is it because i need to speak your parliament and i need to speak your leadership about letting you in weapons specters back into iraqi. so why would we do that? it? because you have no choice if you don't let him back in the bush administration's already found you guilty and they're going to go to war. and that will be the end of iraq. and i was able to convince him he contacted the saddam hussein and they said ok, you can come in. one of my pre conditions was that i got to speak to the iraqi parliament without any review of my script that had to be live broadcast. and what i said is what i was gonna say. they're like, no one's ever spoke before parliament before. this is a very big deal. i said, yeah, they agreed to it. so i dressed the iraqi parliament. i gave a speech that wasn't pre screened. and as a speech to said, if you don't let weapons inspectors back in your country will be destroyed, you have to let them back in without any pre conditions. and then i met with ta jasa ramadan, the vice president, i met with a terror kaziz. of course i met with

a the foreign minister i met with other senior iraqi officials. i made the same case. and i left iraq with people saying we'll consider it. i came back and i was invited on a c and in program called a crossfire. and i was warned by the produce when i was in the groom, they said, hey man, they're, they're going to slaughter you tonight. you know, you went over to iraq to can accuse you being an enemy, a stooge of saddam hussein, you know, a trying to hide the crimes of iraq, et cetera. i said, okay, i'm ready to ready to do that. but 5 minutes for air time that came is the same produce it. did you see the, the headlines? i said, no, said something's going to let weapons inspectors back in. i want, i succeeded. and so when i came out, this exact opposite feels like inspectors are going to be lab back. and i said, yes, you can't talk about going to war with iraq unless you allow the inspectors to complete their job. if i rec, kicks inspectors out again. if a rec doesn't cooperate, then you have justification to accuse iraq of bad stuff. but you must let the

inspectors do their job. maybe i was a little naive. maybe the iraqis were because the united states government had no intention allowing the inspectors to do their job. what we know is that the united states prepared a list of a suspect sites that we said we know these sites are being used by a rack for prohibited activity. but when the inspectors went to these sites, there was nothing there, none that none of the evidence that the united states claimed existed, existed. united states was wrong on everything that did matter. colon pal went to the security council february of 2003 and lied. and as a result, we went to war. but um, you know, i, again, that's one of the things i'm proudest of is, was a my intervention to get weapons inspectors back in. i did my job, the fact that it failed down the road. you know, it's outside of my control. it became evident early on that the iraqis were telling the truth. and so as we uncovered, there lies. i can't say that, that's what shocked me. i. we knew they were lie,

we found the evidence of their lies and we uncovered them through our, our work of the most shocking thing. wasn't the behavior of the iraqis, but the behavior, the united states. you see, i thought that the mission of the special commission was to disarm i. rec, and, and we worked in a very assiduous manner to carry out that mission. but it turned out that the disarmament of iraq was the last thing the united states wanted. united states was using the us, the notion of iraqi noncompliance to justify the continuation of economic sanctions . which were designed to contain and undermine of the rule of iraqi president saddam hussein and, and with the goal of enough to promote regime change from within or to facilitate his assassination. but the bottom line is, america's policy was a disarmament. but regime change and the more successful we inspectors became in

disarming iraq, the more threat we posed to the american policy of regime change. so the shocking thing was as much as i thought that my job involved fighting of this war with iraq, about hidden weaponry. there was a 2nd war taking place with united states where they're trying to undermine of the work we were doing using the access that we were getting in iraq, not to disarm iraq, but to gather intelligence that would enable the united states to assassinate saddam hussein. that was the shocking thing. see iraq. when they invaded kuwait in august of 1990, the united nations passed a series of, of, of resolutions that sanctioned iraq. and this, the sank, the sanctions were stringent. they put a death grip on the iraqi economy. and if the sanctions stayed in place, they would literally strangle i iraq, and it's regime in the submission the m,

the sanctions were linked however, to iraq's departure from kuwait and after the end of the gulf war, of course, a wreck was defeated its forces, left kuwait so legally speaking, the sanctions had no um, legitimate purpose for being continued. so what was needed was another legal, a framework that justified the continuation. so disarmament was chosen the discernment of, of weapons of mass destruction. but the goal wasn't to disarm iraq. you see, nobody believed that saddam could survive more than 6 months of um, of, of post war economic strangulation. he had been humiliated on the battlefield. his is military a, the belief was his military would turn on him. if we could just keep the economy week than the elite of iraq would turn on him. so the goal was to sanction i. rec, and then wait for 6 months until saddam hussein was removed from power. the problem

of course, is at saddam state, empower and a and now the united states has to do with the, the inspections because we weren't going away. so we weren't part of that. we inspectors didn't buy into this whole notion of regime change and strangulation. our job was to disarm iraq, and once iraq was disarmed of economic sanctions lifted. but that wasn't the u. s. going we recognize this early on. i mean, terror, kaziz, the deputy prime minister, a rec, continuously harangued us saying why should we cooperate with you? what do we get out? a cooperate with you? let's say we do everything you ask us to do and we are disarm and you certifies his arm sanctions when we left it. in the whole purpose of disarm is to lift the sanctions. so why should we weaken ourselves knowing that sanctions will never be left. and we said that that was the only hope iraq had was to hope that if they were certified is disarmed. that world pressure would be so great that the united states would have to back away from its of policy regime change. unfortunately,

that was never the case um, united states will never allow iraq to be found to be disarmed. but even if they did, united states would never have lifted the sanctions in the proof of that is after the u. s. invaded occupied iraq in 2003. it took the united states some time to lift the sanctions to find a wreck to be disarmed because of the political ramifications of being seen as lying about the existence of weapons, mass destruction. in order to justify an invasion to this day, everybody knows that the united states lied about iraq. lied about weapons, mass destruction, to justify a war. everybody, everybody in the world ever been, i'd states, it's not even a debate. look from from 1991 to 1998. i was at the center of the world's effort to get rid of iraqi weapons, mass destruction i. i was heavily involved in the intelligence activities of the united nations. and i was a senior liaison with the intelligence services of many of the of the supporting nation. so everything the world knew about iraqi weapons of mass destruction. i

knew this was current as of 1998. in addition to that, because i played a central role in the inspections, i had greater insight into what i racked true capabilities were i. and the reason i bring that up is i resigned in $1098.00 colon pal course made his presentation in february of, of, of, of, of 2003 up in prior to that the united states was making a case that iraq was non compliant. but as i pointed out to people, the united states had 0 intelligence capability, and i rec, when i was a weapons inspector, we were it, we were the world's eyes into iraq. and so when weapons inspection teams left iraq in 1998, the world was blind. which means that when colin powell gave his presentation to the united nations security council in february of 2003, it wasn't just misleading. it was deliberately misleading. he knew what he was saying was false, because there was no new intelligence information that allowed him to advance these

conclusions. his conclusions had to be drawn upon the same data set that i knew back in 1998, a data set that hadn't been changed. therefore, he was just making things up and i think history as a judge, him harshly for that thing. one of the great ish, the shocks that i have about the war in iraq. isn't that the u. s. government lied to bring us into war? yes, government always lies about everything. i, every politician lies, guys were part of your and if their lips are moving there, tell a lie. so such shocking that the actually light was shocking is how the american people bought that lie. it shows a level of ignorance about a number of things, the role that citizens play in making the american democracy viable. if you remove the citizen from the equation, then we don't have that, that, that issue of accountability is the thing that makes american democracy work. is

that periodically we get to elect people in the higher office who represent us in office, in our name. and if they don't do what we want, ostensibly we get to remove them from power by voting in new people. it says participation that makes american democracy viable because otherwise, if we don't hold people to account, what you get is a veritable dictatorship. um, elected officials who aren't subjected to any oversight, any accountability, and therefore they get to do what they want. and so corruption seeks in ly 6, the seep and, and the government starts implementing policies that deviate from the principles that america supposed to adhere to. and that's what happened in iraq, you know, we're not supposed to be invading nations in violation of international law. we're not supposed to be seeking to assassinate world leaders. we're not supposed to lie to the united nations security council, but we did. and we lied to the american people. and what i seen in the 20 year

sense is the, um, the willingness of the american people to be lied to. on the one hand you have americans who will say, um it doesn't matter about william d, w m d. saddam hussein was a brutal dictator and we had to remove him from power. ah, you have other americans who will say that um, they don't believe the conclusions that they, they believe the intelligence to his tongue. the truth. i mean, they're still substantial number americans today, if you asked them that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction, they'll say yes. even though all the data, even congress, the c i, everybody admits now. no. but the american people, having been duped by the government in mainstream media, into believing this case, is unwilling to walk away from that belief, may be in part because it would expose their own feelings as citizens. the reality is u. s. government officials don't a, unless you lie to congress or you lie to an f b i, agent,

lying to the american people is in the crime. if it was, every politician would be in jail, a comp out lied, but the accountability for colon pals. actions were in the court of public opinion . this is a man who could have been president united states. this is a man who should have been a, one of the senior leaders of the united states of america instead, in the aftermath of his debacle in front of the security council um compel became severely diminished. his reputation was shattered and he never recovered that reputation. you're trying to hold the director, the c i accountable for telling lies about iraq is virtually impossible because we know he was directed to lie about iraq by the president. i'd states, ah, the, the, the bottom line is that the bush administration had determined that their conclusion was that iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction to threaten the united states. and that they needed the intelligence to back this up. we have

a number of people up, for instance, some of general clapper, who used to be head of the geo. spatial intelligence agency, admits that they basically interpreted photographs in a way that backed up the assertions that iraq was holding on to weapons mass structure. when in fact the photographs, no, she showed no such thing. george tenet, the director, the cia i allowed the president i'd states to insert a line into the state of the union address in 2003. that indicated iraq was procuring uranium from africa even though that wasn't true. and that line should have never been put in there in tenant afterwards. admitted that line should have been put in there. but this is what was happening over and over again. i mean, you know, the cia was putting foreign intelligence from a source of a german source about biological weapons labs that are

a curve ball that the colon pal used to create slides showing, you know, mobile biological weapons letters all lie. everything they said was a lie and tenant had to know it. because having worked in the intelligence community, i know how carefully a information is vetted before it gets before the president. i'd states you don't bring rumors, you don't bring innuendoes. you don't bring a half baked theories, you bring hard intelligence, except in the case of iraq, because the president didn't want hard intelligence. he wanted rumors, he wanted innuendo. he wanted half baked theories. he wanted it packaged as it to show that there is indeed a legitimate case for war. so, one can't expect the pressing i'd states to hold his intelligence officials accountable for lying to him. when he wanted them to lie to him that the

promise to present the promise, the united states congress. why didn't congress hold these people accountable? in the answer is simply that we know be joe biden, being the premier example. the congress was in favor of this war as much as the president that of the united states was and favors were. the congress was willing to be misled and lied to as much as the president was in that. um, that's why congress will never hold the intelligence community accountable for doing that. which congress wanted to do make up a case just to find war against the rock using weapons of mass destruction as excuse you know, the, the irony was in the years leading up to a desert storm. the united states had a good reputation, a good relationship with iraq. there's a famous photograph of donald rumsfeld, who was dispatched iraq as an emissary of president ronald reagan shaking hands with saddam hussein. and we openly cooperated with iraq during the iran iraq war,

trying to help iraq defeat iran inflict as much harm on iran as possible. um, even in the iran, iraq war ended in in 1089 in yet. leslie just a little over year later. we're, we're getting ready to go to war with iraq. what changed? i would change was israel. i see iraq emerged from the iran. iraq were feeling empowered, emboldened that they were regional power. that, that, that had to be reckoned with. and um, one of the things they did to try bolster to reputation with the, with the air world was to be seen as standing up to israel or israel much needed to attack the osaka nuclear reactor, just outside of baghdad. an effort to stop iraq from a developing nuclear weapons capability. and um, the iraqis had um, you know, restarted their, their allegedly peaceful nuclear program. but um, turns out that they're, they're actually pursuing nuclear weapons program in the iraqi said,

of israel seeks to bomb us again. than we will attack israel using our missile force with chemical and biological weapons. and this was too much for israel. so israel began to pressure the united states to, to turn on iraq. now in the aftermath of the invasion, um, how do, how does president george or walker bush explained to the american people that the friend of the united states is now the enemy, the united states. and the way he did that was to liken saddam hussein adolf hitler . he gave a speech in october of 1990 and cincinnati ohio. re said that saddam hussein is the middle east equivalent of adolf hitler. and for the crime of invading occupying kuwait, there must be nuremberg like retribution, alluding to the number of treaty. meaning that we weren't just going to defeat saddam, but we're going to remove saddam and hold them accountable to international law. and once you compare somebody's adolph hitler, you can't walk back from them. it's none. i mean, one of the i guess difficulties i

have with my role in this whole iraq more thing is that because of my experience, which was unique 7 years. and there's hardly anybody in the special commission. it served for 7 years on the ground in iraq. a lot of people served in the beginning, a lot of people served in the middle, a lot of people served in, but i was at the beginning and the end and everything in between. and um, so i had unique insight. um, i had, you know, the ability to, to assess the situation based upon the totality of data. i'm in one would think if you're in that empowered. um, i mean, man, i could go to the white house and convinced of the clean ministration to do controversial inspections. i was the guy they sent to france to get the french on board. i was the, i was the closer i went to,

i went to great britain and got the british to sign up. i got the germans, the dutch. i got to jordanian c israelis. i got closed the deal, i was great, it delivering a pitch and, and getting people to sign up and back us up. and then i come in and i lead an inspection team where i had have similar powers of persuasion. how do you convince a team of a, of, of, of 80 foreigners, many of whom don't like america to begin with, that they have to operate as a team and follow me into harm's way where iraqi soldiers are going to point guns at them where they're going to be threatened, and these are guys who have fin next than arms. they don't spend their life, you know, ready to confront. and they had to trust me. trust that i wouldn't put them in danger that i would lead them through this. they had to believe in me and it worked . so i came out of experience, i think with a heightened sense of accomplishment and ability. and yet i failed. i wasn't able to translate my experience in the insights and knowledge that that were

derived from that experience into an argument that can be bought by the american people. no matter how many times i said, there is no evidence to sustain the bush. administration's claims about weapons, mass destruction, my argument in resonate. it wasn't convincing. i felt that something i have to live with my entire life. maybe there was nothing i could have done. maybe was a mission impossible, but i always think back. what could i have done differently? i'm not going to fall that same trap to day, you know, i, i, i'm very articulate. i speak out, are often in loudly about what i deem to be a failure of american policy regarding russia and ukraine. but i'm, i'm very realistic about what i can accomplish. i don't have any or artificial, you know, aspirations of grandeur that i, i alone can somehow change this. i can flip the script, i can do things differently. i accept the limitations of my rule,

which is too ill speak out in the face of injustice to try and put information out there. but i long ago lost any pretence that i can convince people to do something. it's up to the people to do something and if they fail to do so, it's not my fault. so that's a little jaundiced. that's a little cynical. but it's real because i, i can't afford to commit myself to any cause the way i did try to prevent a war in iraq. i put everything into that clause and it failed in that it was a crushing blow. ah oh ah, is you'll media a reflection of reality?

ah, in a world transformed what will make you feel safe? isolation, whole community? are you going the right way or are you being that somewhere? direct? what is true? what is faith? in the world corrupted, you need to descend a join us in the depths or remain in the shallows. ah none of what is be spoken by the united states all by you when he's really fighting a war essentially to prove in the better it on the surgeon. so rushing forward once

again in, in this region, and saw that that is one of the limit i've water is it is, it's possible. i mean with, ah

ah, ah, china slammed the u. s. for shooting down its weather balloon, which floated over u. s. territory by its numerous warnings that the airship does not pose any threat to american security. also ahead with less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax. a little bit about this amount. this is just about the amount of a teaspoon. we have 1st and description of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails live that have play in the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent iraqis, 20 years since the u. s. pushed the invasion of iraq at the un.