Though Iran contends its nuclear program is for
generating electricity, the U.S. and some of its
allies allege it is trying to develop atomic
weapons.

Hmmmmm, and there are those that say we're already at war with Iran.

Scott Ritter on "Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for
Regime Change"

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=3D06/10/16/144204


Former UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter: "The path that the United States
is currently embarked on regarding Iran is a path that will inevitably le=

to war. Such a course of action will make even the historical mistake we
made in Iraq pale by comparison." [includes rush transcript]

Twenty-five ministers from the European Union are expected to meet tomorr=

to ask the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran. They say
sanctions are necessary because of Iran's refusal to halt uranium
enrichment. Though Iran contends its nuclear program is for generating
electricity, the U.S. and some of its allies allege it is trying to devel=

atomic weapons.
On Saturday, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, sa=

that Western threats to impose sanctions were part of a "psychological wa=

and that the Islamic Republic was more determined than ever to pursue
peaceful nuclear technology.
A new book by former weapons inspector - Scott Ritter - claims that the B=

Administration is determined to wage war against Iran. In "Target Iran: T=

Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change," Ritter examines t=

administration's regime-change policy and the potential of Iran to threat=

US national security interests.
Scott Ritter, Ritter served from 1991 to 1998 as a United Nations weapons
inspector in Iraq in the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). His =

book is, "Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime
Change." His previous book is "Iraq Confidential."


AMY GOODMAN: A new book by former weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, claims
the Bush administration is determined to wage war against Iran. In Target
Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime Change, Scott
Ritter examines the administration's regime change policy and the potenti=

of Iran to threaten U.S. national security interests. He writes, "The path
the United States has currently embarked on regarding Iran is a path that
will inevitably lead to war. Such a course of action will make even the
historical mistake we made in Iraq pale by comparison," he writes. Scott
Ritter joins us in the studio now. Welcome to Democracy Now!

SCOTT RITTER: Well, thanks.

AMY GOODMAN: What do you think is the key to understand about Iran right
now, about the U.S., well, about your title targeting -- Target Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: Well, the most important thing is to understand the reality
that Iran is squarely in the crosshairs as a target of the Bush
administration, in particular, as a target of the Bush administration as =

deals -- as it relates to the National Security Strategy of the United
States. You see, this isn't a hypothetical debate among political analyst=

foreign policy specialists. Read the 2006 version of the National Security
Strategy, where Iran is named sixteen times as the number one threat to t=

national security of the United States of America, because in the same
document, it embraces the notion of pre-emptive wars of aggression as a
legitimate means of dealing with such threats. It also recertifies the Bu=

administration doctrine of regional transformation globally, but in this
case particularly in the Middle East. So, we're not talking about
hypotheticals here, regardless of all the discussion the Bush administrat=

would like you to believe there is about diplomacy. There is no diplomacy,
as was the case with Iraq. Diplomacy is but a smokescreen to disguise the
ultimate objective of regime change.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the difference in approach the U.S. takes=

North Korea, which has, according to their own reports, set off a nuclear
bomb, and Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: Well, the only thing that the Bush administration's approach
towards North Korea and the Bush administration's approach towards Iran h=

in common is that the endgame is regime change. Other than that, what you
see -- I guess the other thing they have in common is the total incoheren=

of their approach. Look, North Korea and Iran, you can't compare; it's
apples and oranges.
North Korea is a declared nuclear power. They even declared their intent =

have nuclear weapons. They haven't hidden this from anybody. They withdrew
from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in total conformity with the rule of la=

They put the world on notice. They said, we will not participate. They ga=

them the appropriate timeline. They invited the inspectors out. And then,
surprise, surprise, despite the fact that the Bush administration said,
"Well, they're just bluffing," well, they're not bluffing. They just popp=

one off. And guess what. If we continue to push North Korea irresponsibly=

because again, what are we talking about here?
What do we want to achieve in North Korea? Do we really care about the No=

Korean people, want human rights to -- no, regime change. This is all abo=

regime change. This is about the United States being able to dictate the
terms of coexistence with everybody else in the world. Do people understa=

that our policy towards China is regime change? Do they understand what t=

ramifications of that is? That's what's going on with North Korea. And we
shouldn't be surprised that they did exactly what they said they were goi=

to do.
Now, we take Iran. Iran is a nation that says, "We don't have a nuclear
weapons program. We have no intention." In fact, when North Korea exploded
their device, the Iranians condemned it. They said nuclear weapons cannot=

part of a global equation. And yet, we continue to try and lump them
together as if North Korea and Iran are part and parcel of the same polic=

Well, maybe they are part and parcel of the same incoherent approach that
the Bush administration has taken to dealing with nuclear proliferation.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter, you just returned from Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: I came -- I was in Iran in early September, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And what did you do there?

SCOTT RITTER: I went there as a journalist for Nation magazine. I was the=

to research an article that hopefully will come out some time in November.
You know, it was funny, the Iranian government, like many governments, sa=

one thing, does another. I had a whole agenda that had been agreed upon in
advance, that I was going to go and interview X, interview Y, visit sites,
see etc. And I got there to find out that the Iranian government, regardl=

of what we had coordinated here in the United States, had no clue (a) tha=

was coming and (b) that I had an agenda. So, I show up in Iran, and I'm on
my own.
What an eye-opening experience to be on your own in a nation that has been
called an Islamic fascist state. I have been to dictatorships in the Midd=

East. I have been to nations that have a high security profile. Iran is n=

one of these nations. I'm a former intelligence officer who has stated so=

pretty strong positions on Iran, and yet I had full freedom of movement in
Iran with no interference whatsoever. And as a result, although I didn't
have the approved agenda, I had my own agenda, which allowed me to interv=

senior government officials, senior military officials, senior intelligen=

officials, and to visit sites that were deemed sensitive. The conclusion =

that the American media has gotten it wrong on Iran. It's a very modern,
westernized, pro-Western, and surprisingly pro-American country that does
not constitute a threat to the United States whatsoever.

AMY GOODMAN: You're a former weapons inspector in Iraq.

SCOTT RITTER: Correct.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about similarities or differences you see betwe=

the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq and what's happening now with Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: The biggest similarity that we need to point out is that in
both cases no evidence was put forward to sustain the allegations that are
being made. Iraq was accused of having weapons of mass destruction progra=

reconstituting chemical, biological, nuclear, long-range ballistic missile
programs. There was an inspection process in place that had access, full
access to the facilities in question, and no data was derived from these
inspections that backed up the Bush administration's allegations. And yet,
Iraq was told, it's not up to the inspectors to find the weapons. It's up=

Iraq to prove they don't exist. Iraq had to prove a negative. And they
couldn't. We now know that in 1991, Saddam Hussein had destroyed the
totality of his weapons programs. There weren't any left to find, discove=

There was no threat.
We now have Iran. It's alleged to have a nuclear weapons program. And yet
the International Atomic Energy Agency, the inspectors who have had full
access to the sites in Iran, have come out and said, "Well, we can't say
that there isn't a secret program that we don't know about. What we can s=

as a direct result of our investigations, there is no data whatsoever to
sustain the Bush administration's claims that there is a nuclear weapons
program." And yet, the Bush administration once again is putting the onus=

Iran, saying, "It's not up to the inspectors to find the nuclear weapons
program. It's up to the Iranians to prove that one doesn't exist." Why do=

go down this path? Because you can't prove a negative. There's nothing Ir=

can do that will satisfy the Bush administration, because the policy at t=

end of the day is not about nonproliferation, it's not about disarmament.=

about regime change. And all the Bush administration wants to do is to
create the conditions that support their ultimate objective of military
intervention.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter, one of the things you talk about in your book =

that no attention has been paid to the Supreme Leader's pronouncement in =

form of a fatwa, that Iran rejects outright the acquisition of nuclear
weapons.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, when we say "Supreme Leader," first of all, most
Americans are going to scratch their head and say, "Who?" because, you se=

we have a poster boy for demonization out there. His name is Ahmadinejad.=

the idiot that comes out and says really stupid vile things, such as, "It=

the goal of Iran to wipe Israel off the face of the world," and he makes
ridiculous statements about the United States and etc. And, of course, ma=

he -- it's a field day for the American media, for the Western media,
because you get all the little sound bites out there, Ahmadinejad,
Ahmadinejad, president of Iran. But what people don't understand is, while
he can vocalize, his finger is not on any button of power. If you read the
Iranian constitution, you'll see that the president of Iran is almost a
figurehead.
The true power in Iran rests with the Supreme Leader. The Supreme Leader =

the Ayatollah Khamenei. He is supported by an organization called the
Guardian Council. Then there's another group called the Expediency Counci=

These are the people that control the military, the police, the nuclear
program, all the instruments of power. And not only has the Supreme Leader
issued a fatwa that says that nuclear weapons are not compatible with
Islamic law, with the Shia belief system that he is responsible, in 2003 =

actually reached out to the Bush administration via the Swiss embassy and
said, "Look, we would like to normalize relations with the United States.=

like to initiate a process that leads to a peace treaty between Israel and
Iran." Get this, Israel and Iran. He's not saying, "We want to wipe Israel
off the face of the earth." He is saying, "We want peace with Israel." And
they were willing to put their nuclear program on the table.
Why didn't the Bush administration embrace this? Because that leads to a
process of normalization, where the United States recognizes the legitima=

of the theocracy and is willing to peacefully coexist with the theocracy.
That's not the Bush administration's position. They want the theocracy go=

They will do nothing that legitimizes that, nothing that sustains peace.
They rejected peace. So, it's not Ahmadinejad that represents the threat =

international peace and security when it comes to American-Iranian
relations. It's the Bush administration, because the Bush administration
refuses to put peace on the table. Bush talks about diplomacy. There will
not be diplomacy, true diplomacy, until he puts Condoleezza Rice on an
airplane, sends her to Tehran to talk to the Supreme Leader.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Scott Ritter. He has written a new book. It=

called: Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for Regime
Change. And the picture on the cover has an image of a U.S. gun, of a gun
with an American flag. Talk about the image you have here and the backdrop
of it.

SCOTT RITTER: You know, I wish I could take credit for that image. But
unfortunately, that is the work of -- not unfortunately, fortunately that=

the work of a really good graphic designer with Nation Books who came up
with, I think, a cover that is not only attractive but symbolic. But I th=

the point is here that Iran is the target. You know, we talk about America
and the symbols of America. And yet, we have an American flag transformed
into a symbol that the world recognizes when you say the United States: a
weapon. And it's very sad to think of the United States, the nation that's
supposed to espouse human rights, individual civil liberties, that when y=

talk about the United States around the world today, they think about us
only in terms of violence, violence brought on by guns, because that's wh=

we've become, a nation of violence.

AMY GOODMAN: The scenario you envision around the U.S. and Iran?

SCOTT RITTER: War. The bottom line is that the Bush administration has two
more years left to govern here in the United States. They have a policy of
regional transformation in the Middle East: regime change. We see that
policy in play today in Iraq with all of its horrible manifestations. You=

think that they would have learned something, but they haven't. They
continue to articulate that Iran needs to be transformed into a viable
democracy, although, according to your news broadcast today and then other
news coming out, it looks like we're going to give up on democracy in Ira=

Look, Bush has already said that he doesn't want to leave Iran to the next
president, that this is a problem he needs to solve now. And the other
factor that we haven't woven in here that we need to is the role played by
Israel in pressuring the United States for a very aggressive stance again=

Iran. Israel has drawn a red line that says, not only will they not toler=

a nuclear weapons program in Iran, they will not tolerate anything dealing
with nuclear energy, especially enrichment, that could be used in a nucle=

program. So, even if Iran is telling the truth -- Iran says, "We have no
nuclear weapons program. We just want peaceful nuclear energy" -- Israel
says, "So long as Iran has any enrichment capability, this constitutes a
threat to Israel," and they are pressuring the United States to take
forceful action.

AMY GOODMAN: In what way?

SCOTT RITTER: Oh, it's diplomatic pressure. We see -- starting in 2002, y=

saw the Israeli prime minister and the defense minister come running to t=

United States in the lead-up to the war with Iraq, saying, "Hey, let's not
worry too much about Iraq. That's not really a big problem. I know we've =

a lot of rhetoric going on about weapons of mass destruction, but the big
problem's Iran." And the Bush administration said, "We don't want to talk
about Iran right now. We're dealing with Iraq." In the immediate aftermath
of the war, Israel came and said, "Alright, thank you for getting rid of
Saddam. We now want you to focus on Iran." And the United States continued
to put Iran on the back burner. And it wasn't until the Israeli government
leaked some intelligence to an Iranian opposition group, the
Mojahedin-e-Khalq, who came out and said, "Hey, look, there's this site in
Natanz. They're doing enrichment there." And suddenly the United States w=

forced to say, "Oh, we've got to put Iran back on the front burner." And =

been Israel that's been dictating the pace of media operations, let's say,
on Iran.

AMY GOODMAN: Something the media says is that Iran doesn't need nuclear
power -- it has plenty of oil -- that nuclear power is just its way of
getting nuclear weapons.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, there can be no doubt that Iran has plenty of oil, but
that oil is the only thing Iran has going for it, in terms of a viable
world-class economy. In 1976, the Shah of Iran came to the United States,
sent his representatives to intercede and say, "Look, we've done an
analysis, and we've got a finite amount of oil. And right now we need to
export it. And if we don't export it, we don't make money, etc. We don't
have enough oil to sustain this. We need to come up with an indigenous
energy policy that frees up our oil for exportation. We want to use nucle=

energy." And the U.S. government went, "Good idea, Shah. We're all for it=

That was Gerald Ford.
The chief of staff of the White House at the time was ***** Cheney. The
Secretary of Defense was Donald Rumsfeld. So, this argument that both Che=

and Rumsfeld put out today that Iran is a nation awash in a sea of oil,
there is no need for a nuclear energy program, they both supported Iran's
goals of achieving nuclear energy in 1976. Not only nuclear energy, but t=

also supported the Shah when he said, "We cannot allow a nuclear energy
program's fuel to be held hostage by the vagaries of sanctions and war. We
need an indigenous fuel-manufacturing capability inclusive of the full
uranium enrichment process." And guess what the U.S. government said in
1976. "No problem, Shah. Good deal." Of course, in 1979, the Islamists co=

in and suddenly we change our opinion. The bottom line is, Iran has every
right legally to a nuclear energy program, and economically, we've already
deemed it a responsible way to go.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter, both the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative
journalist Seymour Hersh and retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner have
said covert actions have already begun in Iran, U.S. military. Do you thi=

that is true?

SCOTT RITTER: I respect the reporting of Seymour Hersh. I respect the
analysis of Sam Gardiner. And I respect the integrity of people who have
talked to me who are in a position to know. Look, we're already overflying
Iran with unmanned aerial vehicles, pilotless drones. On the ground, the =

is recruiting Mojahedin-e-Khalq, recruiting Kurds, recruiting Azeris, who
are operating inside Iran on behalf of the United States of America. And
there is reason to believe that we've actually put uniformed members of t=

United States Armed Forces and American citizens operating as CIA
paramilitaries inside Iranian territory to gather intelligence.
Now, when you violate the borders and the airspace of a sovereign nation
with paramilitary and military forces, that's an act of war. That's an act
of war. So, when Americans say, "Ah, there's not going to be a war in Ira=

there's already a war in Iran. We're at war with Iran. We're just not in =

declared conventional stage of the war. The Bush administration has a pol=

of regime change. They're going to use the military, and the military is
being used.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have a minute, but the role of the media in all this.
In the lead-up to the invasion, they slammed you, they smeared you, as you
were a UN weapons inspector who was opposed to the invasion.

SCOTT RITTER: Well, you know, they can come at me again all they want. I
could care less. It's like water off a duck's back. The problem's not me.
The issue is not me. The issue is truth and facts. I think it's clear tod=

that we weren't given the truth and the facts about the reality of Iraq in
the lead-up to the war, and it's clear the media is not doing the same wi=

Iran. We are being preprogrammed to accept, at face value, true anything
negative about Iran. That's one of the reasons why I wrote the book, to p=

it into a proper perspective.

AMY GOODMAN: Scott Ritter. His book is Target Iran: The Truth About the
White House's Plans for Regime Change. He is a former UN weapons inspecto=

And tonight, you will be at the Ethical Culture Society in New York City,
along with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh.

Hmmmmm, and there are those that say we're already at war with Iran.

Scott Ritter on "Target Iran: The Truth About the White House's Plans for
Regime Change"

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/16/144204