http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Former_UN_weapons_inspector_says_attack_0505.htmlUS denies again on Monday
Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who was among the original experts to question Bush Administration claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, now says he believes an attack on Iran is a "virtual guarantee."
"We take a look at the military buildup, we take a look at the rhetoric, we take a look at the diplomatic posturing, and I would say that it’s a virtual guarantee that there will be a limited aerial strike against Iran in the not-so-near future—or not-so-distant future, that focuses on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command," Ritter said last week in a little-noted interview with Amy Goodman's Democracy Now. "And if this situation spins further out of control, you would see these aerial strikes expanding to include Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and some significant command and control targets."
The Pentagon denied the claim again Monday.
"I actually am very hopeful that we don't get into a position where we have to get into a conflict," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Israel's Channel Ten television when asked if he might recommend that U.S. forces strike Iranian nuclear facilities preemptively.
"It would be a very significant challenge for the United States right now to get into a third conflict in that part of the world," Mullen added, referring to the Bush administration's long-running military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ritter, who led the UN mission to inspect Iraqi weapons from 1991 to 1998, also questions Administration claims that Syria was developing a nuclear weapon in concert with North Korea. RAW STORY has written in detail regarding concerns from intelligence officers, who say that satellite photographs of the alleged site offer no formal proof, and officials are internally skeptical of such claims.
"We have to be concerned about the evidence," Ritter said. "We have interior photographs and exterior shots and nothing that links the two. And so, on the surface, I would say that if you’re bringing this evidence to a court of law—it’s a strange dimension, the rule of law, when we speak of American foreign policy lately—you would have trouble having anybody say yes, this is definitive evidence that links the allegations to this specific site in question."
"And this notion that the reactor was on the verge of becoming operational, again, is absurd," he adds. "You know, there would have to be literally thousands of pounds of pure graphite that would have to be introduced to this facility, and there’s no evidence in the destruction. You know, there were a number of reporters who went to the site after it was blown up. If it had been bombed and there was graphite introduced, you would have a signature all over the area of destroyed graphite blocks. There would be graphite lying around, etc. This was not the case."
US intelligence officials told RAW STORY they “found no radiation signatures after the bombing, so there was no uranium or plutonium present.”
“We don't have any independent intelligence that it was a nuclear facility -- only the assertions by the Israelis and some ambiguous satellite photography from them that shows a building, which the Syrians admitted was a military facility.”
The site of the alleged reactor was bombed in 2007. The UN is currently probing US claims.
"I don’t know what was going on at this site," Ritter said. "If the images are accurate, it appears that Syria was producing a very, very small research reactor. But it is not a reactor usable in a nuclear weapons program. Syria was not violating the law."
The interview was highlighted by a diarist on Daily Kos.
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