Former U.N. Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter Blasts Hillary’s Hypocrisy

Scott Ritter, who was a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991-1998, has a column in the Huffington Post Feb. 29, blasting Hillary Clinton for lying about her vote to support George Bush’s and Tony Blair’s war on Iraq in 2003. Citing Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s resignation from the DNC, Ritter supports Gabbard’s attack on Hillary Clinton’s qualifications to be Commander-in-Chief because of Clinton’s support for regime-change in the Middle East.

In his column, Ritter recounts how, in the run-up to the war, he traveled to Washington to meet with Senators to provide them with his expert knowledge that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction, alleged possession of which was being used to justify the invasion. As an expert and a constituent, he sought a meeting with then Senator Clinton but was rebuffed. Clinton now says that she acted on the best available information at the time, yet, as Ritter points out, she refused to consider the actual facts that he was trying to present to her.

Ritter writes, “What puzzles me are the blinders many supporters of Hillary Clinton wear when it comes to holding her to account for her past record. I feel I am justified to hold up Hillary’s journey toward her vote on Iraq as a mirror to judge her subsequent decisions vis-à-vis Libya and Syria. ‘As much as I have wanted to,’ Hillary claims in Hard Choices, ‘I could never change my vote on Iraq. But I could try to help us learn the right lessons from that war … I was determined to do exactly that when facing future hard choices, with more experience, wisdom, skepticism, and humility.’ All I could think of after reading that passage was of then-President George W. Bush, speaking in Nashville, Tennessee in September of 2002, proclaiming “Fool me once, shame on … shame on you. Fool me … You can’t get fooled again!” I, for one, won’t allow myself to be fooled again by Hillary Clinton. She claims she is ready “on day one” to be commander-in-chief, and yet her record clearly indicates otherwise. I’m pleased that people like Tulsi Gabbard seem to agree.

“But the operative question, here on the eve of ‘Super Tuesday,” is why so many others fail to hold her to account for issues that resonate among their respective constituencies with the same resonance that Iraq has with me?”