By Philip Shenon
February 23, 1999
Washington -- The CIA began placing American spies among U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq only a year after the end of the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and worked closely with the United Nations to organize the inspections, a former arms inspector says. The former inspector, Scott Ritter, said in a new book that he and a senior CIA official operating under an assumed name had planned some of the largest and most complex inspections undertaken by the United Nations and that the United Nations inspection teams had included "CIA paramilitary covert operatives."
He said a coup attempt against President Saddam Hussein of Iraq in June 1996 coincided with the presence of a U.N. inspection team that included nine CIA officials. Ritter, who does not provide documentation for all of his conclusions and who has been criticized repeatedly by the Clinton administration, speculated in his book that the intelligence agency might have orchestrated the timing.
While Ritter praised the agency's employees as "the kind of people you want around you in a difficult situation," the book, "Endgame," supports the Iraqi allegation that the United Nations inspections teams were riddled with American spies almost from the start. Saddam has accused Ritter of being one of the chief spies, but Ritter has denied that.
U.S. officials have acknowledged that the CIA gave assistance to the United Nations inspections program and provided specialists to work on the inspections teams. But Ritter makes clear that the agency's involvement was far more extensive -- and began earlier -- than previously reported.
The book, scheduled for publication in Aprilby Simon & Schuster, is harshly critical of the Clinton administration and especially of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She is depicted as having fought strenuously last year to have Ritter removed from leading an arms inspection team because he was considered too aggressive in dealing with the Iraqis. Albright has dismissed Ritter's criticism in the past, insisting that he "doesn't have a clue" about American policy toward Iraq. The CIA and the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq, or Unscom, which is responsible for the inspection teams, said they had no immediate comment on the book. Galley proofs of the book were obtained on condition that the source not be identified.
The Defense Department, which demanded only last week that Ritter turn over a copy of the book for a security review before publication, would not comment Monday on whether it was considering legal action to block distribution.
In the book, Ritter provides a detailed description of his work for the United Nations, which began in 1991 and ended last summer when he resigned in part in protest over what he described as the Clinton administration's meddling in the work of the inspectors. In repeated interviews since his resignation, Ritter has alleged that the administration hindered the arms inspections out of fear of direct confrontations with Iraq.
Ritter says in the book that the CIA became actively involved in inspections in 1992, the year after the United Nations began weapons inspections in the search for evidence of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. In the book, he says that he and a senior CIA official -- identified in the book by a pseudonym, Moe Dobbs -- worked closely together "to plan the operational and intelligence support for the largest and most complex inspections ever undertaken by Unscom." Ritter said that beginning in the spring of 1992, "Dobbs and his men provided seasoned personnel who could operate vehicles, organize logistics, run communications -- simply put, the kind of people you want around you in a difficult situation."
The agency played its largest role, he said, in an inspection in June 1996, when nine "CIA paramilitary covert operators" were placed on a team seeking to inspect compounds maintained by the elite Iraqi Republican Guards. The compounds were believed to be hiding evidence of Iraq's programs to build chemical and biological weapons. The Iraqis tried to block the inspection, resulting in a standoff that lasted several days and brought swift condemnation of Iraq by the United Nations.
That same month, Iraqi dissidents made a coup attempt against Saddam. The coup failed, and Ritter said he later became suspicious of the timing of the coup attempt and of the presence of an Unscom inspection team that included several of the agency's employees. "There was no proof of Dobbs' involvement, but there was a strong set of coincidences," he said. "The inspection was directed almost exclusively at Special Republican Guard sites; the coup plotters were from some of the same units we were trying to inspect."
While working for the United Nations, Ritter, a former Marine intelligence officer, was paid by the Defense Department; he was considered to be on loan to Unscom. "We have reminded Ritter of his responsibilities, and we just leave it at that," said David Rigby, a spokesman for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Pentagon agency that had Ritter under contract. The Pentagon has argued that under his contract, Ritter is required to submit the book for a security review if it contains any information, classified or unclassified, about his work for the United Nations.
Ritter and his lawyer have said that the Pentagon's demand is an effort to intimidate him into silence and that the contract cannot be enforced since it expired last year.
