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Scott Ritter Says US Attack on Iran Planned for June
By Mark Jensen
(Exerpted)
Saturday, 19 February
2005
United for Peace of Pierce County (WA)
Scott Ritter, appearing with journalist Dahr Jamail on Feb. 19 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 US 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 US 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 US 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 US 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.