Scott Ritter

September 15, 1998 A few weeks ago I talked about an article in the Washington Post stating that the Clinton administration was trying to avoid confronting Saddam Hussein by preventing UN inspections in Iraq. Publicly the Clinton administration was acting tough, but privately Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had apparently been trying to rein in Richard Butler, executive chairman of the U.N. Special Commission responsible for Iraq's disarmament.

Well, the resignation of Scott Ritter provided even more evidence that the Clinton administration has been trying to avoid a confrontation. Ritter resigned as arms inspector for the U.N. Special Commission for the very reasons outlined in the Washington Post article. He detailed in a recent column in the Wall Street Journal how Iraqi obstructionism and U.S. and British resistance made his job nearly impossible. This was followed by an attempt by a number of congressional Democrats to prevent his testimony on Capitol Hill as well as by critical comments by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Scott Ritter said, "Maybe Madeleine is the realistic one here. She says, We're not up to the task." And that may indeed be the point. The U.S. pretends that it wants aggressive inspections of facilities in Iraq. But they seem to be blocking those inspections at every turn. Perhaps the reason the U.S. is unwilling to call Saddam Hussein's bluff is because we know that the U.S. will not take strong action even if we find arms violations.

Scott Ritter's resignation was a positive first step in ending the charade that the U.S. will get tough with Saddam Hussein. Now we will see if the president's foreign policy team goes back to business as usual, or deals with the Iraqi dictator with a tough policy.

I'm Kerby Anderson of Probe Ministries, and that's my opinion.