Log in Free trial  Inspections: The Record. (Articles)  Article
excerpt  Scott Ritter spent seven years, 1991-98, as a UN
weapons inspector in Iraq. With the war debate centering on
Iraq's capabilities to produce and use weapons of mass
destruction, and at a time when the United States is questioning
the value of renewed UN inspections, Ritter offers concrete
knowledge and useful perspectives. He was interviewed in August
by William Rivers Pitt. Excerpts follow.--The Editors  Pitt: I'd
like to talk for a moment about Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
Ritter: When I left Iraq in 1998, when the UN inspection program
ended, the infrastructure and facilities had been 100 percent
eliminated. There's no debate about that. All of their
instruments and facilities had been destroyed. The weapons
design facility had been destroyed. The production equipment had
been hunted down and destroyed. And we had in place means to
monitor--both from vehicles and from the air--the gamma rays
that accompany attempts to enrich uraniu