From another BBS:

http://electroniciraq.net/news/1881.shtml


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%.

You know, one of the jokes I make about the current President Bush is that he makes his old man look squeaky-clean.

It is also a bit of irony I don't enjoy enjoying ... er ... yeah. Anyway, it is also ironic that the current President Bush has vindicated Scott Ritter. For all the glaring political questions surrounding Mr. Ritter's criticisms of the prewar bluster, well, he turned out to have a grain of credibility. Minus one to Bush on that count.

In the present, however, I think Mr. Ritter may be overstepping himself. His initial credibility came from being a technical figure; the current wave he's trying to ride comes from being a political figure. Seymour Hersh or no, even I find the possibility of attacking Iran a stretch. Even a good ol' fashioned Clintonian round of airstrikes is out of the question; barring a miracle in Iraq, Bush just doesn't have the human beings to spare, and has staked too much against the draft to appeal to another layer of preemptive necessity.

As to tampering with elections, that's an obvious one. It's far too early for such claims. Right now is the time for chasing down leads and piecing together what fraud has occurred and to what degree. Ain't no stinkin' fruit companies this time around.

One must be cautious when considering the rhetoric of an arena where credibility is dependent on a lack of any colossal embarrassment in recent memory. (If you have to look it up on the internet, it's not worth remembering; presidential candidates, of course, are excepted, but only sort of.) To translate political currency, the idea is that merely maintaining a profit margin is unacceptable; each new round must be bigger than the last, and each new round must be more accurate than the last.

Ritter is out on a limb. Seymour Hersh has the excuse of saying his articles might possibly force the administration to change its plans at some phase of the operation. Scott Ritter, well, what, does he have a book coming out or is he just treading water?

Swim, Scott, swim.