Whistle-Blow Inspector: It's 'Wag The Dog'

By CHRISTOPHER FRANCESCANI

Former chief U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter says U.S. officials prodded inspection teams to return to Iraq last month to provoke a crisis to justify bombing.

"What [chief U.N. weapons inspector] Richard Butler did last week with the inspections was a set-up," Ritter told The Post yesterday. "This was designed to generate a conflict that would justify a bombing."

Ritter said U.S. government sources told him three weeks ago when the inspections resumed that "the two considerations on the horizon were Ramadan [the monthlong Muslim holiday beginning this weekend] and impeachment.

"You have no choice but to interpret this as 'Wag the Dog.' You have no choice," he said.

"If you start assessing what's happened since November 19 [when inspectors resumed their work in Iraq], you have to wonder if the U.S. isn't perverting a good cause."

Ritter's comments - and his reference to the movie about a president who created a phony war to divert attention from his domestic problems - came hours before U.S. military forces struck in the Persian Gulf, destroying suspected biological and chemical weapons sites in Iraq.

In mid-November, U.S. and British forces were on the verge of massive bombing attacks on Iraq. The attacks were called off at the last minute after Saddam Hussein reversed Baghdad's Oct. 31 refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors.

After Saddam capitulated, inspectors were rushed back in to resume their duties.

"UNSCOM [the U.N. Special Commission] knew there were no weapons at the sites they were sending their inspectors to. We've been doing this for seven years. We know that when the inspectors leave, Iraq shuffles up the deck, moves the weapons."

"Why then did the U.S. urge these inspectors to carry out immediate inspections?"

Ritter assailed Butler's report, released late Tuesday night, that said Iraq was not complying with the inspections. That report was in contrast with one released by the International Atomic Energy Agency which said Iraq was complying.

Ritter insists Butler's report - while necessary -

was politically motivated.

"If you dig around, you'll find out why Richard Butler yesterday ran to the phone four times. He was talking to his [U.S.] National Security adviser. They were telling him to sharpen the language in his report to justify the bombing."

Ritter quit the inspections team in August, saying the Clinton administration and the United Nations had stymied the efforts of inspectors to uncover Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

He said that before he quit, inspectors had acquired detailed information about where weapons were hidden - but the Iraqis have since had time to move them and probers will have to begin the process all over again.

Yesterday, Ritter charged that the only way to achieve the objective of disarming Iraq is to demand - under threat of a crippling, large-scale military attack - that they not only turn over their weapons, but detail for inspectors exactly how and where they diverted the weaponry to avoid detection.

A limited air attack on Iraq will achieve very little, Ritter said, though he said it would be in

keeping with the Clinton administration's latest policy of containment with Iraq.

"No inspector should go back until Iraq admits it has lied and details how they hid their weapons.

"Instead, we send inspectors back in to continue the failed process of inspections. There are still weapons in Iraq. There's no doubt about that.

"But we've been doing this since 1991 and its not working."