SCOTT RITTER
Ritter, who was a chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, is available for a very limited number of interviews. He said today: “It is clear that the U.S. government doesn’t want a peaceful resolution to this. It is bent on war. The move for a new Security Council resolution is a deliberate provocation to scuttle inspectors. The Iraqis acceded to the international community’s demands on the weapons inspectors. They should be held accountable; they will be held accountable. The inspectors should do their job, Iraq should comply and the UN should ensure that the inspectors are not misused as they have been in the past. Why is the U.S. government rushing for another resolution now? Because it is not interested in compliance and disarmament — it wants war.” Ritter is the author of “Endgame: Solving the Iraqi Problem Once and For All.”
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PHYLLIS BENNIS
Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, is author of the forthcoming book “Before & After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis.”
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JOHN QUIGLEY
Quigley is professor of international law at Ohio State University.

JAMES PAUL
Executive director of Global Policy Forum and author of several recent papers on Iraq, Paul said today: “The U.S. wants a new UN Security Council resolution to pave the way for an invasion of Iraq and to ensure that the UN inspection process does not move forward. Secretary-General Kofi Annan negotiated Iraq’s agreement on inspectors based on existing Council resolutions. A new resolution may upset that agreement, which is what Washington apparently wants. But the UN is moving ahead rapidly with inspections. UNMOVIC head Hans Blix is saying that his core team could be in Iraq by Oct. 15 and they can provide a preliminary report in 60 days. That would not be the definitive report, but a preliminary assessment of the situation. That could lead to a relatively speedy judgment on Iraq’s weapons — Washington’s nightmare. Unfortunately, the U.S. will probably be able to get a Council resolution, in spite of broad opposition. If you read the chapter in James Baker’s autobiography on the 1990 Gulf crisis you will see the precedent. He talks about how, as Secretary of State, he cut deals, bribed, cajoled and threatened countries into going along with what the U.S. government wanted. It had nothing to do with international law or enforcing Security Council resolutions. We see the same horse-trading going on now. There’s a fair amount of evidence that the U.S. government is divvying up Iraq’s oil between the powers on the Security Council, particularly France, Russia and China, to get them to acquiesce to a U.S. war. Of course, the lion’s share will still go to U.S. and British firms. These deals, which are similar to other deals among the major powers going back to World War I, divide the spoils of war based on raw political power. In the past, such deals remained secret for many years, but now those in power seem to have no shame, and references are emerging in the press even before the final deals are struck.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy: Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167