The F.B.I. agents did more than seize my personal electronics when they searched my home on Aug. 7, the author writes. They stole the truth.
Lockheed U-2C Dragon Lady at the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace Museum in Ashland, Nebraska. (Kelly Michals, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)
By Scott Ritter
Special to Consortium News
The execution of a search warrant on my residence by the F.B.I. on Aug. 7 was not my first run-in with America’s premier law enforcement agency.
In the 1990s, when I was working as chief weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) — set up by the U.N. Security Council to disarm Iraq as part of the ceasefire that ended the 1991 Gulf War — the F.B.I.’s National Security Division undertook an investigation premised on the working theory that I was committing espionage on behalf of the State of Israel.
The keystone fact that held their case together was that I had, on multiple occasions, travelled to Israel for the purpose of turning over rolls of U-2 film for joint imagery interpretation work conducted by Israel photo interpreters and those of UNSCOM (including myself.)
The U.S. refused to give UNSCOM its own photo-interpretation capability, and would not allow UNSCOM into their photo-interpretation center to evaluate the U-2 imagery.
Israel had a significant amount of intelligence they wanted to share. Much of it couldn’t be shared without revealing sources and methods. The joint exploitation of imagery allowed the Israelis to release intelligence by claiming it was revealed through the evaluation of imagery, or that the imagery opened the door to share additional information.
It was one of the most fruitful intelligence collaborations I was involved in, and the C.I.A. hated it because it took the control of out of their hands of what, and where, UNSCOM inspected.
The U-2 film was the byproduct of what was known as “Olive Branch,” a program set up between the United States and UNSCOM in which a U-2 high-altitude surveillance aircraft, flown by a U.S. military pilot who had been designated as a U.N. “expert on mission.”
The U-2’s classic black color scheme was an integral part of the integral heat and protective shield of the aircraft, and as such the airframe could not be painted in the traditional all-white color of United Nations aircraft on official missions. However, the aircraft was marked with a white “U.N.” on its tail.
The U-2 aircraft would only fly over Iraq with the permission of UNSCOM and would only image those areas inside Iraq designated by UNSCOM as being of interest.
Under the terms of the official protocol agreed to by the U.S. and UNSCOM, the U.S. would provide UNSCOM with high quality prints, but not negatives, of the targets designated for collection by UNSCOM. These prints would be stored by UNSCOM using its own security arrangements.
UNSCOM inspection team, in Iraq as part of a U.N. ceasefire agreement requiring the elimination of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, return from a destroyed warehouse at Muhammadiyat Storage site, Oct. 22, 1991. (UN Photo/H. Arvidsson)
In 1995 I participated in a meeting between UNSCOM and the C.I.A. where it was agreed that the C.I.A. would provide me with rolls of developed U-2 film which I would then transport to Israel for the express purpose of conducting joint imagery analysis with Israeli photo interpreters.
During the initial mission, the Israelis wanted to make prints of the targets of interest that had been revealed by our joint work. To do this, however, the Israelis had to convert the roll of film into a negative.
The protocol governing my work in Israel allowed me, as the expert on mission, to institute imagery handling procedures above and beyond those listed in the original protocol in consultation with the supporting government (i.e., Israel). As such, the Israelis and I agreed that they would make a negative copy of the film roll and use this to make prints of sites of interest to UNSCOM.
The C.I.A. claimed Israel could use the U-2 imagery for planning purposes regarding air attacks on Iraq. But by the time the imagery got to Israel, it was already more than a month old. Plus, as Israel showed me, they had their own high resolution satellites which provided real-time coverage of sensitive targets in Iraq. Being able to print out a U-2 image meant Israel didn’t have to share top-secret satellite imagery.
Upon my departure from Israel, I was to bring with me the original roll of film, the negative copy and copies of any prints that had been made by the Israelis. I authorized the Israelis to keep a copy of the prints for their own records, in case there was a need to further consult on the images.
Upon my return to the United States, I travelled to Washington, D.C., where I arranged a meeting with the State Department’s Special Commission Support Office (SCSO). There I tried to return not only the original roll of film, but also the negative copy.
I was told by the SCSO that they could receive the original roll of film, but that they were not permitted to take into custody the negative copy. I returned to UNSCOM with the negative copies.
Storage Problem
One of the problems I faced at the time was that my relationship with Israel was limited to only a few people inside UNSCOM. UNSCOM maintained a safe where we stored the high-quality U-2 prints provided by UNSCOM.
However, the number of people who had access to this safe, including UNSCOM personnel from several different countries (including Russia) was significant, making my ability to store the negative copy roll in that safe impossible, since its presence would potentially compromise the Israeli cooperation. The same held true concerning the U-2 prints produced by Israel.
The solution was simple — I took the negative roll and Israeli prints home, where I stored them in a filing cabinet located in my basement.
I was originally brought to UNSCOM for the purpose of helping set up a U.N. intelligence unit capable of receiving and assessing intelligence information provided by supporting nations in support of our inspection work. Many nations provided such intelligence.
The problem was UNSCOM needed to retain copies of this intelligence so that it could be properly assessed over the long term. The documents provided would either contain no classification markings or, if they did, would be appended with “release to UNSCOM.”
For the most part, these documents would be stored in the common UNSCOM safe. However, as the Iraqi efforts to conceal proscribed materials and activities intensified, and as the extent to which Iraq and its supporters among sympathetic nations (France comes to mind) infiltrated UNSCOM, intelligence information pertaining to missions that were planned as “no notice” surprise inspections had to be compartmentalized.
I had tried to get the U.S. government to set up a safe house outside the U.N. Headquarters building where these materials could be stored and accessed by designated UNSCOM personnel, but the C.I.A. balked at the expense.
As such, to prevent the contents of the sensitive planning documents pertaining to these no-notice inspections, I would take these documents home with me and store them in the file cabinet in my basement.
FBI Investigation
Aerial view of FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., 2011. (Adam Fagen, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
In 1997 the F.B.I. was informed that I was taking U-2 imagery to Israel. This imagery was marked “Secret Release UNSCOM,” but from the F.B.I.’s perspective, all they focused on was “Secret.”
They began an investigation.
At the time that the investigation began, I had implemented a covert communications intercept program inside Iraq which I oversaw in close coordination with the C.I.A. (which provided the equipment), the British GCHQ (which provided the personnel), and the Israeli Unit 8200, which provided the code-breaking and transcription.
Many of the reports generated by the Israelis were marked either “Secret” or “Top Secret.”
The nature of this operation was such that it was known to only a very small select number of UNSCOM personnel, which meant — you guessed it — documents produced in support this project and derived from this project were stored in the file cabinet in my basement.
The nature of this work required me to be in close contact with both the British MI-6 representative in New York, and designated Israeli personnel working out of the Israeli Mission to the United Nations.
There were many days when I would literally shuttle between the Israeli and U.K. Missions, coordinating on urgent operational matters, and often stopping off at the U.S. Mission to coordinate with the C.I.A. liaison there.
In June 1998, during a particularly hectic time, I was making my way from the U.K. Mission to the U.S. Mission when I was met by the C.I.A. liaison in the streets of New York City.
“I don’t want to meet you inside the Mission,” the C.I.A. liaison said. “The F.B.I. has a hard on for you and are getting ready to bring you in for questioning. They may grab you off the street tonight on your way home.”
This was, of course, disconcerting.
“For what?” I asked.
“Spying for Israel. The F.B.I. thinks you’re handing over classified information to the Israelis.”
“Like what?”
“The U-2 film.”
“But you give it to me so I can take it to Israel. This makes no sense.”
The liaison agreed. “It is what it is. Where are you heading now?”
“The Israeli Mission.”
The C.I.A. liaison scanned the building surrounding our meeting place. “Great. Now the F.B.I. has me on film talking to you. Good luck!”
Later, in August, when I was preparing to resign from UNSCOM in protest over U.S. interference, the C.I.A. liaison officer invited me up to his working space, where he showed me a classified letter from the C.I.A.’s general counsel addressed to the F.B.I.
The gist of the letter was that since UNSCOM was an international organization staffed primarily by foreign nationals, the U.S. was prohibited from providing classified information to it. As such, by law, all documents and materials which were turned over by the U.S. government to UNSCOM became automatically declassified at the time they were received by UNSCOM.
“That solves that,” the C.I.A. liaison said. “If the F.B.I. gives you any trouble, just reference this letter.”
“Can I have a copy?” I asked.
“It’s classified Secret,” he said. “I can’t give it to you for retention.”
Go figure.
The F.B.I. didn’t sweep me off the street, but thanks to CBS News, I became aware that the F.B.I. continued to investigate me for espionage even after I resigned from UNSCOM. The investigation was being run by David N. Kelley, the chief of the Organized Crime and Terrorism Division of the Southern District of New York. Mary Jo White, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District, was overseeing the overall investigation.
The investigation continued for more than two years. Finally, after I agreed to be interviewed under what is known as “Queen for the Day” agreement, three F.B.I. agents conducted the interview, after which the Southern District informed me the matter had been dropped.
The Receipts
But I still retained the archive. When, in the summer of 1998, it became clear that the U.S. was undermining the work of UNSCOM, I began copying critical files, which would be used to document this interference.
Most of these documents dealt with inspections and the planning that went into them, including the briefings that I had prepared for the UNSCOM executive chairman’s signature that outlined the goals and objectives of each mission.
I used these documents as sources for the various articles and books I wrote documenting the behavior of the U.S. government regarding Iraq and UNSCOM inspections. In the vernacular of today, these documents would be referred to as “receipts.”
I had the “receipts” which documented the lies of the U.S. when it came to their narrative that Iraq retained proscribed weapons of mass destruction.
I provided copies of many of these documents to Barton Gellman, The Washington Post reporter who wrote a detailed series of articles spelling out my claim that the U.S. was using UNSCOM to spy on Iraq. Initially the U.S. government took the position that I was lying.
When Gellman informed them that he had the receipts, the U.S. government changed its tune, simply saying that I “lacked the context” to fully understand U.S. policy behind the actions I had documented.
Which was rich, since I had been with the U.S. government, side-by-side, implementing these policies, almost all of which were conceived by me and adopted after I briefed senior U.S. leadership of the need to implement them.
I had the receipts.
Article Distributed to Congress
Senator Biden addressing the press inside the Green Zone in Baghdad after meeting with Iraq’s Interim Prime Minister lyad Allawi, on right, and fellow U.S. senators, from left, Lindsey Graham and Tom Daschle, June 19, 2004. (Office of U.S. Secretary of Defense, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
I used these documents to write an article that was published in the June 2000 issue of Arms Control Today which was subsequently distributed to all members of Congress. As I previously wrote in an article published in TruthDig, then-Senator Joe Biden dispatched a senior member of the minority staff of the Foreign Relations Committee to meet with me.
“This meeting,” I wrote, “was a singular disappointment. The staffer began by calling me a traitor for speaking out about Iraq and took umbrage when I backed up my claims with documents. ‘You are not supposed to have these materials,’ he said. ‘They are classified, and you are a traitor for publicizing the information they contain.’
“After reminding the staffer that he was walking a very dangerous line in calling a former officer of Marines a traitor, I pointed out that the information I cited was from my time as an inspector and was not classified in any way.
No U.S. intelligence sources or methods were compromised by my efforts. While U.S. policymakers may have been embarrassed by my revelations, this was only because truth did not comport with the policies they were pursuing.
I reminded the staffer of Biden’s stated desire to call on my ‘knowledge and expertise in the future,’ [note: this desire was expressed in a personal letter written by Biden to me in September 1998, following his much-publicized clash with me during my testimony before the U.S. Senate] noting that this meeting was supposed to be conducted in keeping with that intent in mind.
“Senator Biden will not be meeting with you,” the staffer declared. “You’re too controversial.”
I slid the Arms Control Today article across the table. “How are facts controversial?” I asked. “Point to one thing in this article that you believe to be false or misleading.”
The staffer agreed that the article was fact-based, even if he disagreed with its conclusion. “But this isn’t about facts. This is about politics, and Senator Biden will not go against the policies of the Clinton administration, even if those policies are failing.”
I couldn’t think of a more damning indictment of a public official.
Between my resignation from UNSCOM in 1998, and up through the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, I wrote dozens of articles and opinion essays which were published in prestigious newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and around the world.
All of these touched upon the issue of whether Saddam Hussein’s Iraq continued to possess weapons of mass destruction.
In every article and essay I wrote, I debunked the lies being peddled by the Bush administration claiming Iraq was a threat worthy of war because of its continued pursuit and possession of proscribed weapons.
Every article was unassailable in terms of its factual predicate.
Because I had the receipts.
Scott Ritter on C-Span, August 2002. (C-Span screenshot)
One of the documents in my possession was the UNSCOM report on the debriefing of Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law in August 1995, following his defection from Iraq. In it, Hussein Kamal stated that under his orders all weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed by Iraq in the summer of 1991.
In August 2002, then-Vice President Dick Cheney told an audience of U.S. veterans that Saddam Hussein’s son-in-law had told the U.S. that Iraq had hidden its weapons of mass destruction from the U.N.
“But we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons,” Cheney said. “Among other sources, we’ve gotten this from the firsthand testimony from defectors — including Saddam’s own son-in-law, who was subsequently murdered at Saddam’s direction. Many of us are convinced that Saddam Hussein will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.”
I took the UNSCOM debriefing document to CNN, where they agreed to do a sit-down interview discussing its contents to contradict the false statement made by the vice president. But CNN was, at that time, a veritable tool of the U.S. government.
After the interview was in the can, CNN informed the Bush White House that it would be running the story. The Bush administration convinced CNN to kill the story in the interests of national security.
But I had the receipts.
Jan. 28, 2003: President George W. Bush delivering the State of the Union Address with Cheney on left, House Speaker Dennis Hastert on right. (Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
In early March 2003, on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, I made one last effort to get this information before the public. I reached out to John Barry, a reporter with Newsweek, and briefed him on the document’s existence. After he examined it and was assured of its authenticity, Barry wrote a piece which was published on March 3, 2003 — too late to stop the war.
But at least I had publicly put the lie to Dick Cheney’s claims.
Because I had the receipts.
I wrote a book that was published in 2005, Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the U.N. and Overthrow Saddam Hussein. This book detailed the history of my work in UNSCOM disarming Iraq. The book is unassailable from a factual perspective, because in writing it I was able to draw upon by archive of documents.
My receipts.
I am in the process of finishing up a book provisionally titled The Scud Hunters, which details my experiences during the Gulf War and as an inspector in eliminating Iraq’s Scud missile force.
The book, if and when published, will be unassailable factually.
Because I have the receipts.
The F.B.I., in searching my home for personal electronics, visited my basement, where they encountered my file cabinet and its contents.
My archive.
The archive than enabled me to expose without fear of contradiction the lies told by the U.S. government and its agencies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The senior F.B.I. agent approached me with the bad news. “We found a bunch of classified documents in your basement,” he said.
“They aren’t classified,” I replied. I explained to him the history of the documents and referred him to the C.I.A. general council’s letter about classified documents and UNSCOM.
The agent left, only to return. “The assistant U.S. attorney says that we cannot leave these documents in your possession until this matter is investigated further.”
“They aren’t classified,” I said. “You have no right to take them.”
“Well, we are going to take them. If what you say checks out, we will return them back to you.”
The F.B.I. left with some two dozen boxes containing the totality of my UNSCOM archive.
My receipts.
The Only Independent Record
Justice Hugo Black in 1937. (Harris & Ewing, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
The only record of the truth about UNSCOM’s work in Iraq disarming Iraq that isn’t controlled by the U.S. government, which continues to promulgate lies about the reasons it invaded Iraq.
Simply put, the F.B.I. seized the literal truth.
In the receipt provided to me, the F.B.I. simply wrote down “documents.”
There is no way the F.B.I. will be able to wrap its head around these documents. I spotted one of the senior F.B.I. agents walking around with several Vu-Graph slides I had made in support of a briefing I had prepared for a meeting in the White House Situation Room with the Deputies Committee where I would detail an inspection concept of operations targeting sensitive sites in downtown Baghdad.
The White House had asked me to prepare a Power Point presentation, but that was beyond what I could do at UNSCOM. Instead, I took a bunch of maps, photos and diagrams to the local Kinko’s, where I slapped together a number of Vu-Graph’s.
“The Kinko’s brief!,” I said as she walked past.
The look in her eyes underscored that she had no clue what I was talking about.
And therein lies the rub.
While I am confident I will not get into any trouble about the archive (how can I? It is unclassified), I do not have any confidence that the F.B.I. will return the documents.
The U.S. government simply cannot allow an archive such as this to exist “in the wild.”
They will find some excuse.
This archive isn’t just my personal collection of documents.
This is an archive of truth.
Indisputable fact.
A source of knowledge and information unique in the world which has served a very useful purpose — to expose the lies of the government.
I am a journalist — my record clearly reflects this reality.
And as such, I am part of what the Founding Fathers called “a free press.”
In his concurring opinion of the landmark 1971 Supreme Court decision, The New York Times v. The United States, Justice Hugo Black noted the following:
“The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”
As wielded by me, my UNSCOM archive literally fulfilled its duty of helping me “bare the secrets of the government and inform the people” to prevent the government from “deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”
By seizing this archive, the F.B.I. literally engaged in an act of censorship.
In seizing my archive, the F.B.I. invoked the notion of “national security.” But, as Justice Black noted,
“The word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security.”
There can be no doubt that my UNSCOM archive did more than any other source of documented information to apprise the American people about the lies of their government when it came to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
And now it is gone.
Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
They stole the truth with the Warren Commission Report. Magic bullets indeed!
All official sources, government and media, regularly accept the ‘truth’ of that report, including the superb marksmanship with an old WW2 Italian rifle and the magical path of the magic bullet that let the report account for all the physical wounds given only the three shots that even an expert marksman might have fired in the fixed amount of time from that rifle.
They buried the truth a long time ago. I grew up with the Pentagon Papers on the front pages of what used to be a free-er press. I knew before puberty that the government lies and since most of what I hear today about either the three assassinations of the ’60’s is the same lies, I know nothing has changed. And I notice that today’s corporate media goes along with the lies and helps to cover them up, so if anything we’ve gone much further down that slippery slope since democracy died in Daley Plaza. And of course, those are only a couple of boulders in the avalanche of lies that has become America.
BTW, to any activists out there. A few words … “Backups” and “Offsite backups”. Flash drives don’t cost much at all. Cloud storage is less secure and more likely to be hacked by people with PhDs and super-computers, but it could also serve as one option in a backup plan. And yes, as a grey-haired computer geek, I know a person typically learns this the hard way and only after they’ve lost something.
Scott has written a document that perfectly illustrates the gross problems, especially wrongdoing, (“very obvious and unacceptable blatant | gross exaggeration) of the U.S. classification system by those powers needed to interpret and manage the system.
He recounts the abuses allowed by the government to manipulate the system to the detriment of those who must engage in using said system.
The abuses listed here by Scott illustrate the extent to which mishandling of sensitive information buy elected officials, who by their placement in the executive are allowed to lie to the public by ignoring the good information and replacing it with garbage that serves to misinform with lie the American Public.
This mechanism, in my humble opinion must stop now. See the note by Justice Black, second paragraph from the end.
Scott’s abilities show in a bright light a very significant problem I personally have with the U.S. intelligence / security community in our government. One that projects total control the those agencies involved.
Thanks you Scott.
Don’t vote for liars.
Seriously. When you vote for someone whose word you can not trust, when you vote for someone who says whatever the latest poll has told them to say, exactly what are you voting for? Not a policy. Not anything they said, because, after all, you know they are a liar.
And hold the elected officials responsible for the unelected officials. When you let them pass the buck to someone else with excuses and plausible deniability, then you are letting them get away with this. Do not let an elected official blame anything on a subordinate, because never forget they are the ones in charge and the ones you got to cast a vote about whether or not they are in charge. The elected officials are responsible for everything that happens. Everything.
If you don’t like your government, stop voting for it. There are usually other candidates on the ballot. Or running as Write-Ins. Vote for one of them. If you don’t like them either, then why aren’t you running? But America’s problem is that it has long been voting for liars and letting the elected officials make excuses for their crimes. America has perfected Two-Liar Democracy.
Scott Ritter: “A Farewell to Truth.” August 16, 2024
……. “Hello,” Aldous Huxley, “You shall know the truth and it will make you mad.” Arghhh!!! No one is exempt. No one is safe.
The “R’s,” got this! Records. Receipts. Retention. Resistance. Rule of Law. Ritter’s “portfolio’s” tangible, hard-copy, in black & white, back-up, evidence, “PROOF,” GONE! “Yes. Proof is the bottom line for everyone.”
Everybody, knows,“documents” are the essential ingredient in investigations. Obviously, the management & retention of records, “receipts,” @ the Federal level, is f/f.u.b.a.r.; &, it will take an Act of Congress to “fix” the profoundly abnormal process of the Management & Retention of Records, i.e., “Secrets,” to be or NOT to be, told?!
Basically, the “fix” is in!!! IMO, Congress is f/f.u.b.a.r., managing the continuity of dereliction of duty & fundrai$ing. Consequently, unannounced “RAIDS” will continue.
Imo, the Wray of light, driving the Sensor Ship, I, LeoSun, tagged “Doom & Gloom,” imo, ordered, “Enough! Tracing. Tracking. Trolling. Ends, Now, August 7, 2024, Go, Fish!!!”
Arghhh! “The file cabinet,” its contents, The Motherlode. *“The Proof,” i.e., the “Secrets” kept in insecure locations. GONE!
A bigger fish, trolls the skies, “U2,” NOT Bono’s band. The USG’s M.I.C.’s Air Force’s U-2C, “lives” LARGE. Its Eyes on Everyone. (Photo, above). “Built in complete secrecy in the 1950s. It’s 63 feet long w/a 105 foot wing span, AND, also powerful, allowing it to support the bulky, electricity-hungry cameras, radios and vacuum tubes of the day.”
“The U-2’s nickname is the “Dragon Lady,” after a CIA program. It is the world’s best-known spy plane, gliderlike w/a stealthy black color. The 65-year-old craft is set to become a vital [NODE] in an ambitious network named the Air Force’s “Advanced Battle Management System,” which will connect weapons & sensors in space, at sea, underwater, in the air and on land.”
To parody, Aldous Huxley, “The more you know. The more you see,” i.e, hxxps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/famed-u-2-spy-plane-takes-on-a-new-surveillance-mission/
TY, Scott Ritter, CN. “Keep It Lit!” Ciao
Anyone who says “it is what it is” is saying “fuck you”.
“The leaders are aware of the fact that they themselves have only one aim, and that is power. To them ‘power is not a means; it is an end. And power means the capacity to inflict unlimited pain and suffering to another human being’ Power, then, for them creates reality, it creates truth.”
-Erich Fromm
Afterword to 1984 p.321
Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t imagine not having had this copied and backed up, in hard copies and digital, in a safety deposit box, online, and under the floor boards. The copies might not be as iron-clad evidence as the real deal, but it would have allowed us to see the minutia and details.
Sorry to be a scold, but it matters, not losing that!
Agreed. Difficult to believe Scott has not concealed his documents in a forest, cave, underground, apple orchard or barn, given his vast experience “in the game”.
Now they are going after Dimitri K. Simes. The spirit of Joseph McCarthy is alive and well.
Scott, I enjoy your writings since the time I came across your articles being published by RT. It’s sad that you admit the truth by yourself that you “do not have any confidence that the F.B.I. will return the documents’, to you. The question is: why did you keep such documents in your basement even if not classified?
hXXps://www.c-span.org/video/?c4842887/user-clip-1998-biden-chastises-weapons-inspector-ritter
The end of the session is what caught by surprise. T.Y. for your service to this country.
What more is necessary to show we in the U.S. live in a uniparty nation where mere facts don’t matter? Where loyalty to a person with power, no matter if Biden or Trump, is way more important than loyalty to country. Or to principles. Silly niceties like ‘the common good’ are meaningless.
That there are still a few brave souls willing to tell the truth, who stand for the best of our traditions, is astounding. As a former Marine officer and anti-cabal patriot, Scott Ritter deserves the Gen. Smedley D. Butler award.
I’ve wondered if the only reason we dissenters haven’t all been rounded up or at least fully censored (the Bill of Rights doesn’t matter, either) is that the FBI and the CIA hate each other.
Thank You Scott
Thank you Scott, for your courage and honesty. Both are in short supply nowadays.
I understand Scott’s reasoning for retaining the documents, however I understand him to say that he kept hold of them in order to keep them away from questionable people at the UN that might have access. So, he had real concerns about foreign powers getting ahold of this information and felt it needed to be protected. Putting them into a filing cabinet in his basement isn’t exactly an approved procedure for protecting sensitive documents. It’s unfortunate that Scott could not have worked with the CIA, or the appropriate government entity, to find a way to secure them that was mutually acceptable. This, of course, very well could have been impossible given the cover-your-ass way that the government likes to operate. I strongly believe Scott’s “throw it all into the open” way of operating that this article demonstrates, is the best way to proceed. I think that a long version of the story like this is useful for those that will read carefully but I think Scott needs to have his sound-bite ready for those uninformed attacks by people who simply want to discredit him. I think that, “The documents were unclassified,” is great. An answer to why he had documents that he thought needed protection should be thought through very carefully and offer closure to the discussion, not lead to more questions, like, why didn’t you destroy them? As an American citizen I am very happy that Scott used these as “receipts” to get the truth to us. I wish him the best in defending himself and will do what I can to help him.
Respectfully “Mike”,
and I do mean ‘Respectfully’, there is a very important distinction the term “sensitive” and one of the many iterations of the term ‘secret’ our government deploys to characterize information. As Scott clearly and succinctly explained the historical records and exhibits he legally retained and stored posed no risk to anything other than an actual factual preservation of that record, and that part of it that he either administered or directly participated in. As he also clearly declared all of the materials in his possession was completely “declassified” before he accepted possession.
In my understanding, there is nothing untoward, reckless or unprofessional about Mr. Ritter’s possession, care or use of these materials.
As Usual,
Thom Williams aka EA
Respectfully please allow me to express another angle. As the saying goes “never explain your friends don’t need it, your enemies won’t believe it” the documents are not necessary, scott should have scan them burn them and hold them in a pin drive as a souvenir. We don’t need documents, we knew early on they were lying, not just Scott articles but multiple other sources like Valerie Plame and her husband Joseph Wilson that confirmed W and Cheney were lying about “ the mushroom Cloud”
Documento will not change anybody, .Condolesa Rice still repeats today the Iraq lie. As the Dems, Joe Biden and Hillary, and of course the sinister Blinken and his rabid dogs Victoria Nolan’s and Jake Sullivan,as they lied about Siria, Lybia and Ukraine, as everything the sinister Blinken touches becomes war. There is plenty of evidence, plenty of “receipts” but nothing will change these warmongers like Scott’s findings did not stopped W, Cheney, Wolfovitz, Bolton . The useless incompetent bureaucrats. Living at the expenses of tax payers will go after Scott and will use their incompetente bureaucrats With guns (FBI) to go after Scott. Evidence is irrelevant probably they will charge him with any stupid law like removing office supply from a government office as they did with Asange or the J16 that none was charge with insurrection but by some obscure laws as they do with anybody that exposes their lies. There is a law somewhere that we all might be breaking at times.
It would make perfect sense – for the likes of you – to have an offsite backup for all your info – incase this very thing occurred – losing years of work and precious information is galling to say the least.
Perhaps one way to get the documents back would be for the UN to claim them from the FBI/Justice Dept. After all, since the documents are unclassified, and are part of the work of the UN, it has a legitimate claim for them, if not outright ownership.
Legally, since the documents are clearly outside the specificity of items in the warrant (remember, that specificity is required by the 4th Amendment), Scott’s lawyers should demand them back.
Corporate statism’s war on historical patrimony and, by extension, the empowerment of civilians with informed context on the past (whether distant or recent) proceeds in earnest. Just as many of WikiLeaks’s hitherto unpublished materials may now never see the light of day due to the conditions of Julian Assange’s plea deal (while the organization itself must also be facing an uncertain future due to the amount of resources they expended on Assange’s legal defense and public outreach), so too have we lost valuable archival collections of primary source materials from Scott Ritter’s UNSCOM career that have helped put the lie to so many erroneous jingoistic narratives. I am happy that Cryptome’s website has at least become publicly available once again as of August 2024, after its return to operation appeared delayed, having been on a proclaimed hiatus until Assange was released.
An excellent comment Casey, especially your astute references to “corporate statism” and “jingoistic narratives”???
Your mentioning of the revival of Cryptome’s site was also ? a welcome surprise?.
As Usual,
Thom Williams aka EA
It’s been over 20 years since the US government and mainstream media lied to the American public and the world about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, and I have yet to hear a single word of apology or any admission of error.
So much for the truth
Scott, as an attorney, I am strongly urging you to obtain legal counsel, ASAP. You have cogent arguments to support your position – both on the FARA issue and the so-called classified documents issue – but that won’t cut it with the FBI and this administration, which is clearly out to get you (as the government has tried to do before, with some degree of success, unfortunately). Judge Napolitano should be able to secure qualified pro bono counsel for you, with all his connections. Please, Scott. I would have advised you not to speak to the FBI; that is standard advice that attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild give to activists, journalists and others who are targeted by the U.S. government. I know that you’re confident that you will prevail, but that doesn’t matter. I know that you believe you have nothing to hide, and I’m sure that’s true. But as you surely must know, just because you don’t have anything to hide doesn’t mean they won’t go after you and make your life hell. You’ve already been down this road, so please, heed my suggestion and obtain counsel, if you haven’t already.
Scott has been setup before by the Deep State for exposing their lies and he is being setup again.
Those who have konfidence in the korrect konduct of the korrupt kangaroo kourts of the krony kapitalist kleptocracy are krazy.
How very klever Eric. Kapitalist, kriminals, all.
Amen.
My late wife, an attorney who retired with the highest rating and credentials would have certainly agreed. This is definitely the best of advice. Scott, do not, under any circumstances, go pro se, especially into the presence of the dungeon masters. Thank you, Anne, for your wise counsel.
Also as an attorney, I couldn’t agree more. Just look at what they did to Julian Assange!!
Scott Ritter, not merely believing he has nothing to hide, but proving it beyond any reasonable doubt, in this article; what the FBI has done, by illegitimately invaiding his residence and impugning his very character; by obtaining legal counsel means that ‘their’ going after him in this unlawful manner will be made any less of a hell than they have already inflicted on him, his family, and freedom of thought and speech, which is what is supposed to be journalisms unfettered prerogative, in bringing truth to the public???
Your truth told at the upcoming Democratic National Convention
might give Harris a fighting chance, if she lets go of her smiling face
of fascist support for US/Israeli/West genocide against Gaza
“‘Senator Biden will not go against the policies of the Clinton administration, even if those policies are failing.'” Substitute Harris, for Biden, and Biden for Clinton, and we’re there! At the very least until after the election.
Once again Good Sir Scott Ritter:
I feel compelled in replying to your declaration of “A Farewell to Truth” to revisit the profound words of Justice Hugo Black you thoughtfully note once again in this closing; especially in the context of the corrupt invasion of your home and theft of your personal property and records under the fallacious pretense of threats to our “national security”.
“By seizing this archive, the F.B.I. literally engaged in an act of censorship.
In seizing my archive, the F.B.I. invoked the notion of “national security.” But, as Justice Black noted,
“The word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security.””
Surely some form of massive public ‘Class Action’ could be organized to legally compel the return of your Constitutional rights and property.
As Usual,
EA
What a tangled web they weave when they practice to deceive. Thank you Scott for laying the truth out for all to see.
Our “exceptional nation” has a government controlled by a uniparty that will never say, “OK, heh heh, well…you got me. Guess we’ll have to admit you were right!” It will ALWAYS try to suppress the truth if it puts our government in a bad light, as they desperately try to control the narrative. The myth of the U.S. as a righteous country and the unique exemplar of truth and justice is so very important to control American citizens and keep their passive assent to actions of which they have no knowledge and of which they might deem foolish, stupid or just plain evil if they were aware of them. The Iraq invasion based upon sheer lies is a case in point. I can flay this sick system verbally with the “rights” I have under the First Amendment until I’m blue in the face, and my goverment will indulge me, because I have no real power or influence. But those who “have the goods” on our government can expect nothing but persecution, character assassination and constant harassment, because anything that destroys the narrative must be put down, obliterated. Thus, the terrible treatment of Julian Assange and other whistleblowers. Mr. Ritter must be defended by us all, as should all true patriots. If he needs a legal fund, I will be first in line to support him. We live in a cynical matrix designed by those in power to help them stay in power. The political electoral circus is just performative art. We need another Church Committee, but I fear even those days are gone.
You are real American!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope you have an inventory so.e where of what they took. There’s going to be a SCotUS case regarding authorities retaining anything seized if not used for a prosecution.
I’ve said it but fore & I’ll say it again now – Scott Ritter is a TRUE American hero!
Hind sight is a wonderful thing, but I would have thought Mr Ritter could have seen this coming, a case of: not if, but when. If the archive was unclassified then maybe an off site backup would have made sense. However this is not Mr Ritters fault, it is a symptom of the corrupt times we live in.
Thank you, Scott Ritter and CN, for exposing this confiscation of the facts of USG lies to citizens to rationalize Iraq War II. That the FBI colludes in this totalitarian subversion of the Constitution and Laws does not surprise me, due to my direct experience with their corruption in service to political parties and the bribes that control them.
In my recent case in the DC district against the FBI, HSA and DOJ for collusion in racketeering, in their refusal for three years at all levels to investigate theft of $120 million in conservation funds by Florida Repub politicians, who also regularly buy and sell political offices for “donations,” I found that they had investigated for six years a Dem politician for alleged mishandling of one-thousandth of that amount.
Their sole “defense” after being given six months to investigate their agencies, was to make the claim that they have DISCRETION to engage in racketeering crime, and IMMUNITY if so convicted. The DC district judge Boasberg, removed from the FISA court for granting roughly a thousand warrants to the FBI despite zero evidence, an abject subversion of the Constitution, corruptly accepted those anti-American claims of discretion and immunity of government agencies for racketeering crime, and the DC appeals court approved. These are all clear and deliberate subversions of the U.S. Constitution, tantamount to treason at the highest levels of the executive and judicial branches. Of course the legislative branch was already controlled by bribes when Mark Twain noted in a dinner speech that “I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have some legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world.”
The loss of democracy in the US is due to:
1. The concentration of military power (since the 18th century when a musket bullet was a ballot);
2. The concentration of economic power since the Civil War, and failure to protect government therefrom;
3. The concentration of information power since the aggregation of news media and internet censorship.
The People of the United States must be educated and informed of this corruption of their government, and must learn the ways to reverse this and provide protective amendments to the Constitution, so that reform may begin.
Scott, his life and his work have been gifts of immeasurable and incomparable value to America and to the world. We all know what happened to Julian Assange. We cannot let it happen to Scott and his message or his family, but that can only be assured if all of us are prepared to support him in whatever way we are able and wherever we may be.
Exactly. I immediately thought of Julian Assange.
I doubt that any lawyer in the land could make a stronger case in defense of Scott Ritter’s patriotism than he himself has done.
He needs to be immediately decorated with a Medal of Honor, for his loyalty and unquestionable integrity.
Yet the only such medal, truly with any substance, however, for services rendered, would be one from a global body of nations such as the United Nations, on behalf of all of humanity.
That is as likely to happen as the return of his archives illegitimately seized by the FBI.
Don’t you think you should have kept a copy of the important things in a safe place?
Makes sense, but Scott’s a private citizen-journalist, not The NY Times. Resources for such physical storage may not be trivial.
Electronic storage of copies made by some intern may have been prudent if possible.
Scott Ritter has done America many favors, with this documentation of truth among his most important. It is critical that the public realizes a game is going on in “security world” that is totally out of control. We do not live in a democracy or the kind of surveillance, strong-arming and harassment by government officials would not occur. This new “normal” is un-American, and makes us regular citizens ALL PALESTINIANS, expendable in this new world order.
I’m not sure that there has ever been a time when the thoughtful and informed wouldn’t have the sublingual response to such a narrative: ‘of course!’ We all owe Ritter a debt of gratitude for his tenacity, but only the naive will be surprised.
A farewell to truth indeed:
“But this isn’t about facts. This is about politics, and Senator Biden will not go against the policies of the Clinton administration, even if those policies are failing.”
The more bizarre, the more flagrant, the more arrogant–all of it growing until it WILL collapse.
Another problem with the post-truth age is it also means it’s the post-proof age. If the truth doesn’t matter then neither does proof. This becomes evident with the latest false flags, whereby they don’t bother releasing footage anymore. They say it happened so “it happened”. It seemed inevitable years ago they would progress to this point. Footage of early false flags were of such poor quality and acting skills and editing that they were easy to pull apart. But they had to produce some footage for a while. To just say they happened without some attempt at proof would stretch gullibility too far; but I always thought they’d stop producing footage eventually and just say it happened.
We’re in the post-truth, post-proof age. A claim or accusation is all that’s needed now. There ain’t no need to prove nuthin’.
The Salem witch trials come to mind–convict on hearsay. The late Carl Sagan, a scientist of the highest repute, famously said, “Governments lie. Maybe every other time, maybe more often.” OMG, the king(s) have no clothes, yet claim to be regally clothed. How very laughable, except they have the power to imprison, torture, and murder.
Throughout history like the Salem Witch Trials dreadful things did happen but I thought we’d progressed beyond those levels of injustice. For one thing I never thought we’d see the reintroduction of torture, or if we did it would be “the other side” doing it. But no, it was done by our side under George Bush, the idiot one. (I know it happens elsewhere but we stopped doing it a long time ago.) So if they can rebrand torture by calling it enhanced interrogation, I guess rebranding justice and bringing back show trials or no trials at all should be easy-peasy. I also wonder, if we fall under fascism as seems likely, might we see public executions again?
Ironically, this is only the beginning of the ending of the way “things always have been done.”
Many people thought that the Eastern Bloc governments would never fall – and communism dismantled.
Yet, by the hand of God, through others, it did.
Through gentle heroes such as Mr. Scott Ritter and those
Of similar ilk, the code of silence is finally being broken – not because we hate them, but, because the pain of silence has become much greater than the rewards for secrecy
and the hearts it ruins.
God has a sense of humour. The bit where Mr. Scott Ritter was interrogated and accused of spying for Israel, when they had told him to give classified information to Israel.
Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen, comic actor) in a Naked Gun moment:
hxxps://youtu.be/u1jCVatxmr4?si=MBKjV9wPBakYj1Vc
hxxps://youtu.be/dmcvOg1vvuw?si=SQLLVMv9QEZ2fwwy
hxxps://youtu.be/0XbHmfrMAxs?si=P_dVlCvmD2kNIw1D
When Americans and the world used to laugh, not kill each other.
The FBI just raided Dimitri Simes’ place.
hxxps://www.rappnews.com/news/crime/fbi-raids-rappahannock-county-property-owned-by-russian-american-policy-analyst-dimitri-simes/article_6e1a2c48-5b34-11ef-9e3a-aff26918eef9.html
Any American who trusts their government is a fool.
Great stuff! There are many reasons I like your story but the main one was that the government is even worse today than it was a quarter century ago. We are slipping into darkness but I think that darkness could be fertile for something new. These new authoritarian regimes in the West will gradually sputter out but we are years away from that.
JFC, what a story. Every time you think the system can’t get more Kafka-esque, it does.