Monday, October 16, 2006

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


Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman


"Scott Ritter, Ritter served from 1991 to 1998 as a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq in the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). His new 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 potential 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, 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 it deals -- as it relates to the National Security Strategy of the United States. You see, this isn’t a hypothetical debate among political analysts, foreign policy specialists. Read the 2006 version of the National Security Strategy, where Iran is named sixteen times as the number one threat to the 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 Bush 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 administration 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."

Read The Transcript of the Rest of Today's Interview

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