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U.S.
heading to war in
Iran, says former inspector
BY:
MARILYN H. KARFELD Senior
Staff Reporter
08/02/08 "Cleveland
Jewish News" --- - The
former chief United Nations weapons inspector and a retired
Middle East diplomat recently warned that America was heading
straight toward imminent war with Iran.
And while both talked about wrong-headed U.S. policy in Iraq and
Iran, they also criticized Israel for its role.
Scott Ritter, UN weapons inspector in Iraq
from 1991 to 1998, and Edward Peck, onetime chief of mission in
Baghdad and former ambassador to Mauritania, spoke recently at a
forum sponsored by Cleveland Peace Action Now and Trinity
Cathedral. Before the event, this reporter and a journalist from
The Plain Dealer talked to Ritter and Peck.
The White House is using outright fabrications and exaggerations
to persuade the American public that Iran has an active nuclear
weapons program, Ritter and Peck claimed. The ultimate goal,
they said, is overthrow of Iran’s Islamic theocracy.
Just as he did with Iraq, President Bush is falsely positioning
Iran as a threat to U.S. national security and a leading sponsor
of terrorism, contended Ritter, a 12-year Marine veteran who
spent four years in Israel as lead liaison between the UN and
the Jewish state on the issues of Iraq and nuclear weapons.
By demonizing Iran and President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, Bush is repeating the failed policy used against
Saddam Hussein in Iraq, said Ritter, 46, who resigned under
pressure from his UN post in 1998. Ritter claimed he was
punished for criticizing the White House’s handling of Saddam
Hussein. Allegations that he spied for Israel were ultimately
dropped following an FBI investigation.
There is an 80% chance of war with Iran, probably in March or
April, insisted the impassioned Ritter, who was last in Iran in
September 2005. A second window of opportunity for an air
assault opens in October or November, he added.
Ritter has been making this prediction of war with Iran for at
least three years. Internet research turned up a similar
forecast he made in April 2005, insisting an aerial attack on
Iran was likely that June.
Israel, according to his 2006 book, is largely responsible for
the coming military action. The Jewish Daily Forward reported
that in Ritter’s Target Iran: The Truth About the White House’s
Plan for Regime Change, the antiwar activist writes: “Let there
be no doubt. If there is an American war with Iran, it is a war
that was made in Israel and nowhere else.”
The Bush Administration, with the help of the Israeli government
and the pro-Israel “Lobby,” has exploited the American public’s
fear of a nuclear-armed Iran, Ritter writes in his book,
according to the Forward.
The current U.S. military buildup will
peak this spring, and Ritter told the CJN that America would
begin a 30-day limited, but massive, air strike against Iran.
Neither Congress nor the corporate-controlled media will check
the president’s power, Ritter maintained.
Iran will retaliate with missiles launched at Israel, Ritter
predicted. The Islamist state will also shut down oil production
by blocking the route out of the Persian Gulf through the
Straits of Hormuz. And Iran will unleash Shia Muslims in
southern Iraq to target American forces there, Ritter asserted.
“Now we have a major conflict. We’re caught in a spiral of
events out of our control. After 30 days, the military will be
putting Marines in Hormuz, soldiers in Iran. Israel, especially,
stands to lose.”
In 2002, Ritter similarly talked about the likelihood of America
launching a war against Iraq, despite the fact that UN
inspectors repeatedly said Saddam Hussein no longer had weapons
of mass destruction.
At the Cleveland Peace Action event, Peck
and Ritter talked about the quagmire in Iraq and the lessons we
failed to learn there and apply to Iran. Much of what
Ahmadenijad is accused of saying he has never said, Ritter
insisted. Furthermore, Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei wields the only power to wage war and build nuclear
weapons, not Ahmadenijad.
Sanctions against Iran are “a holding pattern, while revving up
for war,” claimed Peck. “They are a guarantee of armed
conflict.” He advocated diplomatic negotiation instead.
When Congress appropriates $77 million to finance dissident
groups to overthrow the Iranian regime, “that’s an act of war,”
Peck continued. People in the Middle East “are afraid of us.
They do not see us as bringers of truth, justice and harmony.”
Forcing democracy on Middle Eastern countries is not possible,
Peck warned. “Democracy is experiential. Iraqis know nothing
about it. It’s something you grow up with.” The West pushes
democracy and then hypocritically punishes the Palestinians for
choosing Hamas in democratic elections, added Peck, who observed
the balloting in the West Bank.
He criticized Israel for occupying the
West Bank and for “doing terrible things” there. “One person’s
terrorist is another’s freedom fighter,” he said, alluding to
suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians.
Most of those audience members who took the microphone to ask
questions bashed Israel for its occupation and brutalization of
the Palestinian people. Several blamed Israel for all conflict
in the Middle East.
Pursuing its inhumane policy toward the Palestinian people will
not bring Israel peace, Peck said. “Israel’s security will be
derived from good relations with its neighbors. The future of
Israel is at stake.”
mkarfeld@cjn.org
Copyright 2006 Cleveland
Jewish News
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