Scott Ritter Says US Attack On Iran Set For June
By Mark Jensen
United for Peace of Pierce County (WA)

2-21-5

On Friday evening in Olympia, former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott
Ritter appeared with journalist Dahr Jamail. -- Ritter made two
shocking claims: George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb
Iran in June 2005, and the U.S. manipulated the results of the Jan.
30 elections in Iraq....

Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail yesterday in
Washington State, dropped two shocking bombshells in a talk delivered
to a packed house in Olympia's Capitol Theater. The ex-Marine turned
UNSCOM weapons inspector said that George W. Bush has "signed off" on
plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the
results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.

Olympians like to call the Capitol Theater "historic," but it's
doubtful whether the eighty-year-old edifice has ever been the scene
of more portentous revelations.

The principal theme of Scott Ritter's talk was Americans' duty to
protect the U.S. Constitution by taking action to bring an end to the
illegal war in Iraq. But in passing, the former UNSCOM weapons
inspector stunned his listeners with two pronouncements. Ritter said
plans for a June attack on Iran have been submitted to President
George W. Bush, and that the president has approved them. He also
asserted that knowledgeable sources say U.S. officials "cooked" the
results of the Jan. 30 elections in Iraq.

On Iran, Ritter said that President George W. Bush has received and
signed off on orders for an aerial attack on Iran planned for June
2005. Its purported goal is the destruction of Iran's alleged program
to develop nuclear weapons, but Ritter said neoconservatives in the
administration also expected that the attack would set in motion a
chain of events leading to regime change in the oil-rich nation of 70
million -- a possibility Ritter regards with the greatest skepticism.
The former Marine also said that the Jan. 30 elections, which George
W. Bush has called "a turning point in the history of Iraq, a
milestone in the advance of freedom," were not so free after all.
Ritter said that U.S. authorities in Iraq had manipulated the results
in order to reduce the percentage of the vote received by the United
Iraqi Alliance from 56% to 48%.

Asked by UFPPC's Ted Nation about this shocker, Ritter said an
official involved in the manipulation was the source, and that this
would soon be reported by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist in a
major metropolitan magazine -- an obvious allusion to New Yorker
reporter Seymour M. Hersh.

On Jan. 17, the New Yorker posted an article by Hersh entitled The
Coming Wars (New Yorker, January 24-31, 2005). In it, the well-known
investigative journalist claimed that for the Bush
administration, "The next strategic target [is] Iran." Hersh also
reported that "The Administration has been conducting secret
reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer."
According to Hersh, "Defense Department civilians, under the
leadership of Douglas Feith, have been working with Israeli planners
and consultants to develop and refine potential nuclear, chemical-
weapons, and missile targets inside Iran. . . . Strategists at the
headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, in Tampa, Florida, have
been asked to revise the military's war plan, providing for a maximum
ground and air invasion of Iran. . . . The hawks in the
Administration believe that it will soon become clear that the
Europeans' negotiated approach [to Iran] cannot succeed, and that at
that time the Administration will act."

Scott Ritter said that although the peace movement failed to stop the
war in Iraq, it had a chance to stop the expansion of the war to
other nations like Iran and Syria. He held up the specter of a day
when the Iraq war might be remembered as a relatively minor event
that preceded an even greater conflagration.

Scott Ritter's talk was the culmination of a long evening devoted to
discussion of Iraq and U.S. foreign policy. Before Ritter spoke, Dahr
Jamail narrated a slide show on Iraq focusing on Fallujah. He showed
more than a hundred vivid photographs taken in Iraq, mostly by
himself. Many of them showed the horrific slaughter of civilians.
Dahr Jamail argued that U.S. mainstream media sources are complicit
in the war and help sustain support for it by deliberately
downplaying the truth about the devastation and death it is causing.
Jamail was, until recently, one of the few unembedded journalists in
Iraq and one of the only independent ones. His reports have gained a
substantial following and are available online at dahrjamailiraq.com