Scott Ritter then served as a member of the UNSCOM overseeing the disarmament of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, from which he resigned in protest.
38 Facts About Scott Ritter
2.
Scott Ritter later became a critic of the Iraq War and United States foreign policy in the Middle East.
3.
Scott Ritter was born into a military family in 1961 in Gainesville, Florida.
4.
Scott Ritter graduated from Kaiserslautern American High School in Kaiserslautern, Germany in 1979, and later from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with a Bachelor of Arts in the history of the Soviet Union and departmental honors.
5.
In 1980, Scott Ritter served in the US Army as a private.
6.
Scott Ritter served in this capacity for about 12 years.
7.
Scott Ritter filed multiple internal reports challenging Schwarzkopf's claim that the US had destroyed "as many as 16" of Iraq's estimated 20 mobile Scud missile launchers, arguing that they could not be confirmed.
8.
Scott Ritter worked as a weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission from 1991 to 1998, which was charged with finding and destroying all weapons of mass destruction and WMD-related manufacturing capabilities in Iraq.
9.
Scott Ritter was chief inspector in fourteen of the more than thirty inspection missions in which he participated.
10.
Scott Ritter was amongst a group of UNSCOM weapons inspectors that regularly took Lockheed U-2 imagery to Israel for analysis, as UNSCOM was not getting sufficient analysis assistance from the United States and the United Kingdom.
11.
Scott Ritter said that he supported this, and we initiated a cooperation that was very short-lived.
12.
Scott Ritter spoke on the Public Broadcasting Service show, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer:.
13.
Scott Ritter later said, in an interview, that he resigned from his role as a United Nations weapons inspector over inconsistencies between United Nations Security Council Resolution 1154 and how it was implemented.
14.
Scott Ritter's testimony was disputed by Richard Butler, chief UN arms inspector for Iraq, who claimed Scott Ritter made factual errors and harmed UNSCOM's mission.
15.
The previous chief inspector for Iraq, Rolf Ekeus, said that Scott Ritter was "not in a position to know all of the considerations that go into decision making on the commission," and defended Albright's support for UNSCOM.
16.
Scott Ritter became a popular anti-war figure and talk show commentator.
17.
However, in his 1999 book Endgame, Scott Ritter explained that he was the one who had originally pushed for the fateful inspection of the Ba'ath party headquarters over the doubts of his boss Richard Butler and planned to use 37 inspectors.
18.
Scott Ritter rejected the notion of removing Saddam Hussein's regime by force.
19.
Scott Ritter again promoted a conciliatory approach toward Iraq in the 2000 documentary In Shifting Sands: The Truth About UNSCOM and the Disarming of Iraq, which he wrote and directed.
20.
In 2002, Scott Ritter travelled to Iraq to address the Iraqi Parliament as a private citizen.
21.
Scott Ritter told the parliament the US was about to make an "historical mistake" and urged it to allow inspections to resume.
22.
Nathan Guttman in his review for The Forward said Scott Ritter accused the "pro-Israel lobby of dual loyalty and 'outright espionage'".
23.
Scott Ritter said that Israel was pushing the Bush administration into war with Iran.
24.
Scott Ritter accused the pro-Israel lobby of invoking the Holocaust and of making false claims of antisemitism.
25.
Scott Ritter, Coughlin wrote, concedes the "measures the Iranians have taken in pursuit of nuclear glory" which include the "concealing the existence of key nuclear facilities".
26.
Scott Ritter denied any quid pro quo with Al-Khafaji, according to Laurie Mylroie, writing for the Financial Times.
27.
Scott Ritter was the subject of two law enforcement sting operations in 2001.
28.
Scott Ritter was charged in June 2001 with trying to set up a meeting with an undercover police officer posing as a 16-year-old girl.
29.
Scott Ritter was charged with a misdemeanor crime of "attempted endangerment of the welfare of a child".
30.
Scott Ritter was arrested again in November 2009 over communications with a police decoy he met on an Internet chat site.
31.
Scott Ritter said in his own testimony during the trial that he believed the other party was an adult acting out her fantasy.
32.
The chat room had an "age 18 and above" policy, which Scott Ritter stated to the undercover officer.
33.
The next month, Scott Ritter waived his right to a preliminary hearing and was released on $25,000 unsecured bail.
34.
Scott Ritter rejected a plea bargain and was found guilty of all but the criminal attempt count in a courtroom in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, on April 14,2011.
35.
Scott Ritter was sent to Laurel Highlands state prison in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in March 2012 and paroled in September 2014.
36.
Scott Ritter rejected the Western media's coverage of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and has voiced his perspective on multiple podcasts, including Andrew Napolitano's.
37.
Scott Ritter was suspended from Twitter for violating its rule on "harassment and abuse" after this, but his account was reinstated the next day.
38.
Scott Ritter has compared Ukraine's treatment of Russians to Nazi Germany's treatment of Jews.