the because we saw the stock market also getting back because it was the was so what happened by sir, there's more using physically terrorism by using the norman mentors all the information more. okay. so in this case, it's important that we use is cool and very easy to improve the calls, but again they do it. uh so that ac used which case probably due to a i guess there's also big one for losing machine your consort detection because you would need that thing. so would you rather be isn't possible of the hosting thousands of african diplomats for talks most goes embassy in washington as mugs west and attempts to isolate russia and boss of the tony. and to know that i

did that most, who was helping african become a leader in the emerging multiple of well, we believe that african, the mazda 3 could be some place where it's time the soviet union contributed significantly. so the struggle against calling l u r. s. these pay our concrete rent that assistance to the nation in gain and defending their independence and no rush. it continues to the policy will allow for the african states to our joint efforts. they will be one of the leaders of the emergent multi pool. we will count that and they'll come in at least to kind of build that is being enforced by the honors, stay on boss. it also said that russia advocates for a broad representation of african state. so the un security council,

well saying that most go is enhancing the confidence economic i'm human potential, as well as transferring advanced technologies to ask because the main thing in the washington comes ahead of the summit in st. petersburg in july with president putin is expected to host african latest botox, too many things to do, and you can say on the international, the back of the top of the hour, with all the very latest news updates. but 1st, on karaoke with the latest episode of the, with the we spend a lot of time on this show talking about national security whistle blowing in the fall out from that truth. kelly, we've spoken about the c i a, the f, b i the n s a in the military. but what's it like to blow the whistle

internationally? what does it like to take on the government of the united states? its allies in the united nations and the us congress all at the same time will soon find out. i'm john to reaku. welcome to the whistle blowers the . 2 2 2 scott ritter is a name known to many around the world, a former u. s. military officer. scott was the chief un weapons inspector in iraq in the period following the 1st gulf war. he had already had extensive experience in the us military having been an officer working for us central command. general norman schwarzkopf, scotts whistle blowing begins in, in 1991 schwarzkopf reported having destroyed 16 of your rocks, 20 scud missile launchers. those numbers couldn't be confirmed. and scott said so publicly later that year, scott joined the united nations and was assigned to ans. com. where he left the

investigations into saddam hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction, a position he held for almost the entire decade of the 1990s. scott resigned for months, gone in 1998 after iraq refused for the co operation with the united nations and the security council refused to do anything about it. scott gave testimony in a contentious sense committee hearing in which then senator joe biden, criticized him for conducting what he described as confrontation based inspections in iraq. even though that was the policy that success of us administrations, both democratic and republican, had demanded in the end the new york times mat base. busy that scott, quote, was in fact vindicated about iraq's lack of w and these, and the, the aftermath of the rock more could be calamitous and quote, he added that scott was the most determined dissenter, and the one with the most on the ground intelligence of the situation prior to the

war, we're happy to have scott ritter with us. scott, welcome to the show. as well. thank you very much for. i'm glad to have you. let's begin at the beginning. as they say, you join the us military in 1980. after some years, you became an officer in the marine corps, and at the time that the gulf war broke out in 1991, you were a captain working under general norman schwarzkopf. i remember him well from my time at the c i a he was a legendary figure and nobody or practically nobody spoke back to him. but you did, you said privately and later publicly that swartzkoff was simply not telling the truth when he told the american people and the country's leaders that the us military had. detroit had destroyed 16 of the rocks 20 scud launchers. you later told the media that the us hadn't destroyed any of your rocks. god, lodgers, was that your 1st brush with whistle blowing? well i, i didn't whistle blow, i was doing my job to build, you know,

there's john john of intelligence officers and to tell his or her boss what, what they want to hear, to put the facts on the table. and then the boss gives to make the decision a real i was a junior chapter, there's no doubt about it was a junior chapter, but i was given a big responsibility and one of those responsibilities was doing the final battle damage assessment of of, of scott engagements to make a determination whether or not and iraqi scott had been destroyed or not been destroyed. and this was big because at that time i was trying to draw a israel into the war. they were firing missiles that were not being interdicted. and israel saying that the united states can come up with a solution. we're going to enter the word that would have destroyed the coalition that would have made it very difficult. it's almost impossible to feature that machine. so we need it to be projecting um, you know, it'd be the, the perception of success. and so when the us air force came in with video tape, sure to strike that the air force claimed storage guides. everybody was optimistic,

but unfortunately the battle damage assessment officer, a spouse and they look at it. so those are oil tankers, they're not skies. i thought that was it, but the insurance guy went on national tv in brief to this. it was reality the next morning when i have to write the report, i wrote confirmed guns 0, the colonel, that there was between me insurance about 2 man said you got to change the number. i should know. i'm not gonna change that number. so with the general breach of the world, no rush, it doesn't make it fat practice it 0. you're asking me to falsify documents. i'm not going to do it. they went back to back to your fire. george goes fired. you're done it out of here. so i did, but before i left i ended a report on to the senior d. b. i a lead to bench intelligence agent, liaison. we sent it back to general l mcardle. that's the point she's just out for to get to bell. and um. busy go a gun to forego the shortest job is where's got sent?

the analyst is dummy's. not as good as the others. he's wrong. i'm short guns and the d. i a, a to settle or do a computer and hazard the, the imagery is exactly what i said. it was, they were a fuel tankers, and i was given my job back what uh, didn't change that number because once they put that down there, they had to maintain the perception that we were joined scouts, but i maintain throughout the entire war. we didn't show a single don't just mean the air force. i mean the british. so yes, i mean delta force, everybody was out there who can in general with your axes, we didn't, jo, a single scud. that was a very anxious assessment because metals were handed out for people who were doing sketch of turned out i was 100 percent correct. in late 1991, you move to and gum and became one of the chief weapons inspectors. you were the chief weapons inspector on 14 of the 30 inspections of the rocky facilities. you were looking for evidence of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. i remember those days got as if they were

yesterday. the west insisted that iraq had w. m. d to the rockies insisted that they did not, but they still would not let you carry out your inspections and molested. you then did something that angered the united states, although it help the cause of the inspections you saw at the assistance of the british and his really intelligent services. the us criticized you and the rockies were enraged that you did it, but you stopped by your guns. what was it like handling all of these different competing interests? these, these aren't clothing companies or retail companies that you were reporting back to? these were the most important and powerful governments in the world and their intelligence services. what was that like when i started the job with the, with united special commission i, when i was 30 years old. wow. now, i don't know what people think about 30 year olds, but i will tell you that i was young. i had some experience under my belt,

but not enough. and you know, they threw me into a job where i had the weight of the world on my shoulders and the weight of the world isn't, isn't just, you have the responsibility for going in and implementing inspections. united states government brought me, you know, i was brought in degraded and intelligence organization i was brought in by the united nations. united states government didn't want me bear to do that job. and they actively got conspired to have me removed from that position. but the united nation stuck with one of the reasons why is that there's, you know, intelligence drive operations, the person who controls the information controls the scope and scale of the operations to us the united states wanted to was after c, i a lose control of the case of inspections, inspections the nature of it, and have that taken over by the united nations that would be calling its own shot. that was my job for our united nations,

all their own shots. so not only am i going into a wreck to try and find weapons that your interest don't want us to find in clear direct caps, new web s program. um, you know, there's a difference. we 19911998 or 7 years range in special teams that by me and other inspectors. i went in there and disarmed direct and when they didn't do it cooperatively. i don't want to tell you how many times that guns put to my station they've driven to decorate the wall behind me with my bridge. wow. this was disco. every inspection team i lead into a rack had a built in a hostage rescue component because we anticipated that because of the confrontational nature of our word, you're actually gonna take us hostage because we had people of a sensitive background on the james united states and pre deployed in for deployed us dressing teams to come in and rescue as this wasn't, you know, some sort of g d scientific work and this is for a white stuff to that level of intention to people. then you begin to imagine and,

and where you know you, because you can reach often was a bad example in the military type operation. and while i'm doing this more against the iraqis, i'm fighting the war with united states. united states didn't want me to do my job to seek this argument was not the objective we didn't want to direct as our red wanted you to create the perception of a non compliant directed on cooperative iran, which was easy to do when they weren't complying. and they were on cooperative mission accomplished, but because of the tenacity of the inspectors of your st. come all. so now losing federal defect in august of 1995. that's right. when he was the priest, when he was the brief by the united nations, he said you're inspections are having greater success than you know. you have made his panic, then we have gotten rid of weapons because we, we fear your inspection. so we were doing something good, we were accomplishing the mission,

but that desirable is not with united states wants to go more. we succeeded, and i read more gained your united states dream and attractiveness and tired of talking about charging me with espionage sending the the army since penalty are asking my family. you're asking my friend everything. we're supposed to be a war, the united states government and me because they wouldn't cooperate with us. i had a job to do so i convinced my boss is to let me go, for instance, to england, where i was able to get the british government to provide us with a uh, coverage signals, intelligence collection team that we pointed to i wrapped and monitor the communications of the around the government and iraqi security services and see if they're moving weapons of mass destruction as we're doing the inspection. we have a huge where perhaps taking photographs of the us government wouldn't give us quality interpreters because they didn't want us to read too much of the images. so i got permission to go to israel, where i should have dealt with these realities in their folder interpretation. use

the youtube though they don't find targeting. and then they use that in access to their database use. busy the database numbers, any information about or general ed, whether it's a master, structured, some people say, gosh, that the inspectors don't do. it empowered us because it allowed us to go in and cut down the last remaining vestiges of these weapons of mass destruction program. and they gave us the credibility to span before the international beauty and say, we have exhausted every possible venue. there is for information and there is nothing left to mentally. therefore, our finding a webpage, we can make plans that are rack is, are made me the number one, the enemy to the united states of america. and that's why they were disrupted my inspection shows. i was a war a to, for, to get this united states and 3rd front because more success i had with the british more success i had with these, or at least the more in the united states conspired internally. now the relationship with the finally succeeded in british my ability both to your

relationship with defense. so now i'm trustworthy. i was a spider. it should share information which of these really saying and claim as to which great relationships that were pushing results are related because these items change didn't want weapons inspection teams to succeed. scott, and you were really legendary in the respect that you went nose to nose with some of the most infamous leaders. instead i'm saying it's regime you didn't seem to figure them. and indeed, you never mentioned that you feared for your safety in iraq. you were also quick to criticize the clinton administration, including secretary of state, madeleine albright going up against the rockies and having them cancel inspections is one thing. but being criticized publicly by the president of the united states and the secretary of state. and later on to the chairman of the senate, foreign relations committee is an entirely different thing, especially when some of your own leaders refused to back you to what do you attribute that resolve that you had?

whistle blowers, earl, or often criticize for their stubbornness. but what gave you that strength to stand up? how's the regular officer? yeah, that's what we do. you have permission to there's no, there's no secret here. i went through officer chat is cool. busy it's a, it's a streaming process. you show that either you have to ensure you don't. i went through 6 months of basic training in quantico, either show that you had, or you don't, i went to the fleet marine forces a lieutenant where it's either st. there's one of you in front of you. busy the metal, the lead marines in combat, or they ask you to the exit. no, i proved my getting building. i worked in the former soviet union, implementing intermediate nuclear forces, treated employees and treaty. certainly all for one knows who knows the general shortest job. that's what you do. you see, i was afraid. i would share today. i knew what the risks where i knew what we were getting ready to do. but when you lead people,

you can't show fear. i was assembling teams of 506070, sometimes a 100 international. busy to reach around the world, many of them have very spend next in ours because they linked enough. but, you know, in, in solar invited environment, these are people who were experts in chemical weapons, biological weapons, nuclear weapons, long range, ballistic missiles, but they work at present confrontational people. and i was now going to lead them into iraq, where we knew there will be minimum of guns point those guns at our streaming, that is threatening to kill us. but i understand before them and say, don't be afraid to look at me. look at me. if i'm standing there and i'm not shrinking, you don't straighten your aggies for like shars with blood. if you, if you fear being over around that fear and they'll, they'll come out. you there to be no fear. and it was an act as i was scared to death, but the leader doesn't show fear in front of the people they're leading to while i was a pretty good actor. but anybody who wants to sit here and think that i had

a nurse to steal when i assume my veins always went in inside because this was real . this was the mislaid indeed. once a to your dead. that's right, that's right. i'm going to ask you to stay with us scott, we're speaking with united nations whistleblower scott ritter. there's a lot more of this conversation, so please stay with us through this short commercial break. we'll be right back the. 2 2 the why isn't there any public debate on the account that the new crane? why have be leads, embrace to war and shun negotiations? where's the anti war movement? and more importantly, how is all of this helping you crane? and it's faithful, the high acceptance, and i'm here to plan with you whatever you do. do not watch my new show. seriously

. why watch something that's so different. several opinions that he won't get anywhere else. welcome to planes or do they have the state department c i a weapons, bankers, multi $1000000000.00 corporations. choose your fax for you. go ahead. i changed and whatever you do, don't my show state main street because i'm probably going to make you uncomfortable. my show is called stretching time, but again, you probably don't wanna watch it because it might just change the way the welcome back to the whistle blowers. i'm john to reaku. we're speaking with former united nations weapons inspector and whistle blower. scott ritter. scott, thanks again for being with us. thanks. rarely you became a noted commentator after you left the united nations. you were a regular on fox news for a period. you can be seen regularly on r t and heard on the sputnik radio network. you're

a successful author. what else are you doing these days? what kind of a transition did you make into media and commentary? i mean um, i think my primary um, the venue of employment is with a, a, a, an energy um, a publication group. energy intelligence, where i, uh, i provide the geo political analysis relating to energy security and its products that are read by the, the, the major ceos of every oil company in the world. and anybody who's involved with your business. so i'm doing that. i also again, i write for a variety of outlets over the past couple years. i've written for the american conservative, which is sort of of likely the entity i've written for true dig, which is sort of on the left. and i've written for people in the middle, there's no i the ology here again, i'm an intelligence officer or former and. ringback officer and my job is to try and promote some political within that my job is to put the fact based analysis on

the table in front of a certain audience and enable them to empower themselves with knowledge and information to formulate their own opinions. if i'm trying to tell you what to think, i've sale because i'm in power and you to learn to think on your own and i'm succeeding . so that's what i've been trying to do. scott, a question that i frequently ask guests on the show is what advice they would give to people considering blowing the whistle on waste, fraud, abuse, or illegality. your whistle blowing was a little different. your whistle blowing was on what came down to phony international policies on the parts of the most powerful countries on the planet. the personal cost to you has been high. like it is with many whistle blowers. with that in mind, what advice would you give and what would you have done differently in your own case? that's why the toughest questions is out there, john. um, i paid a horrible price. now if its just me paying the price. i live with that. uh,

but families paid the price. my wife paid the price and make sure price, my friends paid the price. my parents paid the prize anybody was in my in or, or paid a price. and i'm just gonna be straight up honest with you and your audience. knowing what i know today in the price that has been paid, the cost of that has been bored by so many people who didn't deserved adaptive barriers. this cost would i have done the same thing and i can't give you an honest answer. i mean, i believe what i did was the right thing, but the price paid the cost incurred was horrific. and i, i honestly can't tell you that i would have done that. and so therefore, on the wrong person, for people to come to and say, should i blow the whistle? i mean, if you want to have a tech support, uh, you know, session and morality, i would say, yes, of course you have to tell the truth. do you have to speak to the car? i want to talk to you as a human being, i would say, don't do it. mm hm. because you know, your price is beyond imagination. you can't comprehend the price you're going to

pay, and the price your family's going to pay the price your friends are going to pay. and here's the other thing about it. the government doesn't care, so people don't care. that's the biggest, less. and i drove away from there's truth, a lot of people to say today to say thank you very much for doing what you do. i still got to stop the war in iraq. we didn't stop by continuing to speak out today to try and improve relations with russia, but we're not improving relations with russia. it's about till battle. it's uh, you know, it's like a freak. busy that's a really good god. it has to push the rock up and only to have the process of the struggle over surface. so yes, that's it. mm hm. you're, you're never going to get into the job. you're never going to get into the job. so doing the right thing does not produce. now come worthy of the 2nd, but here's the thing. here's the killer. every morning i wake up and i look in the mirror, i'm damn proud of the man staring back. and when i looked my wife in the eyes,

i could see the pride in her eyes were a little my daughter's in the eyes. i see the price and you can't afford to care for the price on the yeah, your sample, you're absolutely right, scott. i say exactly the same thing, i say exactly the same thing. the price is high higher than anybody can imagine before they actually blow the whistle. but with that said, i can sleep at night. my children receive back to me. and i like to think that i've left a legacy for future generations, my grandchildren or great grandchildren, who i likely will never know at least still know that that one push came to shove, i did the right thing. so you're right. it was very high, but boy, is it worth it? i want to as you, oh yeah, please go ahead and go right ahead. just one thing. yeah. and i apologize for that . all. what we're doing is we think what we're doing is going to expose the truth and, and, and, and that's going to be the outcome of we're,

we're wrong. we can expose the truth, but there is go. hopefully what we're doing is setting the standard off from the government because of standards. that's right. for the american people, that's right and begin to demand in their government and we get to the point where we don't need which of words. that's the key where we don't need, we're still good because the government, a sufficiently transparent to know and the people have confidence in the decisions being made that are being told the truth. so there doesn't have to be was, was the fact that there needs to be whistle blowers, those everybody right off the bat is there's a problem on the. exactly right, scott, i have to ask you about the conflict in ukraine and your position on it. you were an early supporter of russia, but in a very reasoned way. i've seen interviews where you work to contextualize, the conflict in the, in the scope of modern history. but that hasn't stopped the ukrainian government, for example, from adding you to a list of what they call russian propagandist. your twitter account was briefly suspended. what is the fallout been for you?

has it been harder for you to work because of your position on ukraine? it's almost impossible for me to work um every, every main stream. uh media i wanna say mainstream everywhere. i used to write sure of some, some good um, american based journals. i don't get to write them anymore because of the steps i taken by my primary employer. uh, wont let me write on russian issues anymore. cuz they, they feel that of my name attached to anything that's a positive assessment on russia's russian propaganda. it's the dumbest thing in the world. mm hm. but uh, and when i tried to speak out the vin user or a jack, dave, i've tried to have books. i need to of been using the, they get called a bike pro training elements that threaten violence. you know, business wants to host or something just to bring down their business. so this had a real quickly detrimental impact on my ability to make an earning. and as you

know, john, the so we do things because we believe in it. we do it for honor, but none of them put food on the table. right. busy push the page, the mortgage, the put your roof, or the head or clothes on the back of your children. during the day when they're providers for a family, that means we have to have gainful employment in here, i am trying to do the right thing for my country. anybody thinks of doing this because i'm in love with russian. i'm doing this for russia. you don't know me, it's just like i didn't speak out about i rag because i love saddam shame and i loved i rack. i knew that i was an issue, but i rag and people i have great respect for i don't end up, but i get it because i love america because i believe that before we send american servicemen resolve to find done work, we have to make sure because we're asking them to give their lives towards worthy of the sacrifice or racket wasn't. now we have a situation, you train with the same question to have to be as i'm asking the questions, they don't like the answers. but instead of trying to deal with this response, we tend to shut me up. and that's uh, that's okay. you can show me up and remember, remember we talked about the cost john, my family basic gosh, that's ro when,

when my job, my daughters want to go to graduate school and i can't provide the money to, to write it up. so they have to take loans as it cost. busy when my wife hasn't been on a vacation in 20 years, that's a cost that people can say, well that's a little frivolous, really was. or do you turn your way? you can go on big right corner. you're 20 years out frivolous. that's all right. well, i would like to thank our guests, scott ritter and thank you to our viewers for joining us. i'd like to leave you with the words of polish american poet and writer chest. loved me lush, who said quotes in a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence. one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot. speak up, speak the truth. the world will be a better place for it. i'm john kerry. i can thank you for watching the whistle blowers until next time. 2

the who, what else seemed wrong? just don't you have to say about the color and engagement trails. when so many find themselves boils, the parts we choose to look so common ground the the,

the president posing phase russia is becoming an economic powerhouse despite hostile friendship. with weston sanctions, backfiring and any home in the country settings post and also this out a lot more nasal equipment for branded destroyed and the west western side of the place that we report exclusively for one of the deadliest 7 bathrooms. and in recent history off him off formerly known as fox news, which is now under the full control of rushes vault group, often moving to 100 days of or less. this might say.