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Summary: Even George Bush Agrees with Scott Ritter Now
Review: Months prior to the Iraq war, I researched press accounts worldwide, read published UN documents and web-posted reports and evaluations of weapons experts, and read this book by Scott Ritter and published interviews of him, and was convinced that either Iraq had no WMD or had no functioning WMD. My question is: if I could come to this conclusion without the aid of classified intelligence, how can we even conceive of the President of the United States coming to his false and calamitous conclusion with all of the classified and unclassified intelligence at his disposal? Even the President now agrees that Iraq had no WMD based on the Kay report. When one considers all the vilification that Scott Ritter has undergone, how his patriotism and professionalism have been questioned, and how he has even been threatened with Court hearings, simply because he spoke the obvious truth long before it was politically chic to speak it, it is clear that the US government owes Mr. Ritter an immense apology. It is also obvious that if the United States government wants to conduct a fair and impartial investigation of this intelligence calamity, it should appoint Scott Ritter to head the investigation.
Rating: 
Summary: A joke
Review: This book is just horrible. Ritter is a one-time Saddam hater turned Saddam aplogist. William Pitt is a VERY YOUNG writer of far-left books and -- his age shows. Full of immature rants that, I am most certain, came from the pen of Pitt. This book belongs in the "juvenile" section. Save your money.
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Summary: How about a few facts?
Review: Ritter alleges expertise in the field of WMDs. In that light, his statements in this book are baffling.
Hussein used mustard agent and others against Kurds and Iranians in the 1980s. As of 1998, Hussein did have WMDs, and everyone, including Ritter, says so. Since then, there are two possibilities--either Hussein destroyed them or he did not.
Proving a negative is always tough, which is why governments keep track of research and documents--to "prove" they were destroyed.
Ritter and Pitt, however, take the approach of "Who cares? After 5 years his chemicals would be decayed and worthless."
An interesting theory. Yet the US still has undecayed stockpiles of VX at Newport Chemical Depot, Indiana, manufactured before 1968. It has stockpiles of mustard gas from WWI at Fort Rucker, still surrounded by a safe zone after 80 years. No one knows how to dispose of them safely.
In light of that, the statement that, "chemical weapons would decay within five years," is hard to grasp. Ritter allegedly is an expert in this field, so he certainly should know this. When queried about this, Pitt declined comment.
With the current discoveries of large numbers of aircraft and tanks being dug up in the Iraqi desert, buried against Saddam's imagined future return to glory, the case for the existence of WMDs is still very much open.
I do hope Pitt and Ritter are correct. WMDs not in Hussein's hands are even worse than ones under his control, and Bush has taken a big bite of something that might bite back. In that light, "War On Iraq" helps neither side of the debate, by Pollyanna-izing a serious issue.
Does Hussein still have WMDs? No, he's in custody. Does Iraq still have WMDs unaccounted for? Yes. Do they actually exist? No one knows.
Further investigation is called for, by all parties.
The book isn't well written, is clearly unfactual in the above and other areas, and, as has been noted by others, lacks a reference or bibliography. It might have been more honest to market it as fiction. There's certainly no answers here.
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Summary: So It Turns Out Scott Ritter Was Right After All
Review: It's interesting to note that despite the hapless cries and wailings of misinformed pro-war conservatives who haven't read the book, Scott Ritter's assesment of WMDs in Iraq has proven to be entirely correct. To a 'T.' Turns out, Scott Ritter was absolutely right about the state of Iraq's weapons stockpiles and programs (or lack thereof). More to the point, all those faux-experts--the David Kays, Richard Butlers, Richard Perles, and Paul Wolfawitzes of the world--were ALL DEAD WRONG, and have egg and blood on their faces. I have a feeling when people look back upon this sad chapter in our nation's history, and rediscover this book, they will wonder how Americans could have been so deluded and misguided when the facts had been published before the war began. Over 400 Americans have lost their lives so far, and thousands more have lost limbs--all in a vain, mistaken misadventure that has turned out disasterously. All Americans who knew this book existed but did not read it share in the blame for our soldiers' deaths. The blood of our men is on your hands. With any luck, this revelation will sound the death knell for conservatism in America, and its destructive stench upon our culture.
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Summary: Silly ravings and disinformation
Review: More psychotic raving from discredited weapons inspector Ritter and the conspiracy theorist Pitt. We know Ritter has no credibility, to see just how kooky Pitt is, visit the sewer known as Democratic Underground.
Rating: 
Summary: Arabian Quicksand
Review: When I bought this booklet I was skeptical, to say the least, about the sanity of the author. Now I'm not so sure. Still, Ritter doesn't do himself justice by exaggerating, like saying the nuclear option is a real possibility for the US. What this does is simply make all his other predictions suspect. On balance, the Iraq adventure is not turning out so well, and Ritter looks more and more prescient by the day. For instance, he predicts "hundreds or thousands" (NOT "hundreds OF thousands") of American casualties (p. 12), and here he's closer to the mark. Even at the rate of one death and three wounded a day the US military will take a long time to approach the casualty rate of Vietnam, which in 8 years cost 58,168 American lives. Yet as a percentage of the total US population at the time - 205 million - this came to 0.028%. By contrast, World War II cost 407,316 American lives, out of a population of 134 million, or 0.304%. That's a ten times difference. World War II also cost per capita $16,000 in 1990 dollars, compared with Vietnam's $1,700 - again close to ten times as much. The cost in men and dollars for the Civil War is many times higher than either World War II or Vietnam. What's going on here? The majority of Americans would say that the Civil War was worth fighting for because it got rid of slavery and kept the union together. They would also say World War II was worth fighting for. But their attitude to Vietnam is much more ambivalent even though Vietnam really cost the country far fewer lives and dollars. Th reasons are complex. I won't dwell on them, but this does not bode well for the occupation in Iraq even though it is even cheaper than Vietnam. The reasons why the Iraq adventure is getting more unpopular, I think, are the lower tolerance for casualties nowadys and the lack of a clear rationale for being there. With no WMD or no clear ties to al Qaeda, why bother staying? Giving Iraqis freedom was never sold as the main reason for going to war in the first place, however noble this may be. Besides, exposing American soldiers in Arabia means terrorists don't have to take their suicide missions to American home soil anymore. On the whole, this is a dreadful miscalculation which Ritter has predicted. The US military may also want to learn a thing or two by re-watching "Lawrence of Arabia" - it was precisely the same kind of guerrillar tactics which enabled the Arabs to drive the Turks out of Arabia. Blowing up a train track or blowing up a pipeline - it's how you fight a guerrilla war.
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Summary: Ritter's was right about the WMDs, get over it
Review: I find it amusing that all the negative reviews of this interview fail to acknowledge that Ritter has so far proven totally accurate concerning Iraq's alleged WMD's, and pretty much the only analyst who was even remotely accurate. Critics accuse him of being "out of the loop", spouting "conspiracy theories" based on "unsupported facts." Well read the book and focus on the specific WMD issues he addresses (some of the doomsday war scenarios were way off of course). Its a plausable and so far completely accurate assessment of Iraq's alleged weapons. To paraphrase: Iraq had WMD stockpiles and production facilities, the production infrastructure was wiped out by inspections, most stockpiles were destroyed similarly, and a small fraction of the weapons remainded unnaccounted for after 1998. And the kicker: the unaccounted for stockpiles would have deteriorated to the point of worthlessness. Anthrax for example (remember Mr. Powell's vile at the UN?) has a shelf life of 3-5 years. All of it was made before 1991. Its worthless, assuming it existed in the first place. So no anthrax was shipped off to Syria kids, you can sleep well tonite. And if you dont believe Ritter, other former UNSCOM officials have weighed in with similar analysis of Iraq's alleged WMDs (check out the writings of Rolf Ekeus and Hans von Sponeck).
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Summary: Needs more history
Review: This book's analysis of WMD stands up well. It was pretty clear in early 2003 that Hussein had no such weapons and little residual capability to develop any, and since then it has become clearer still by the day. One can only look forward to the deliberations of the Iraq Survey Group. I note the recent effort in the press to lower our expectations.
The more fanatical reviewers below may care to inquire into the allegations made a few months before the attack that Scott Ritter had committed child abuse, in a Burger King in upstate New York I believe. Both this, and the testimonies since the attack of Hans Blix and David Kelly, add credibility to this book.
The one weakness is the lack of historical analysis. We - the West - have been intervening in the lands of the old Ottoman Empire more or less constantly since it broke up in 1917/18. The British and the French for nearly 40 years, then the Americans once they pulled the plug on the Anglo-French Suez venture in 1956. Coups, puppet regimes, arms, invasions, military bases, secret agreements. In Egypt, Oman, UAE countries, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and others. You name it, we've done it all. We even plonked an entire new country in their midst, composed of displaced Europeans. For good reason, of course, but I don't recall us asking the Middle Easterners what they thought about it.
The attack on Iraq makes much more sense as part of this long story of meddling, where each intervention is justified by screw-ups in a previous one. Hussein a bad guy? Yes, but he was our bad guy for 12 years.
I woud like to have seen all this thoroughly scrutinised. Yes, WMD was a load of half-true (at best) PR, and this book shows that. But what is really going on here? Anyone who can answer that convincingly wil make a mint.
Rating: 
Summary: A tirade.
Review: Short on facts--heavy on rhetoric and blatant hatred for Republicans. You'll find plenty of anti Bush rants here but no substance on the issues. 95% emotion--5% facts (often from weak sources) Those seeking an accurate account of the Iraq conflict--I recommend you check out a book titled "The Greatest Threat" by Richard Butler. Far more informative than this drivel. 2 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Will the real Ritter please stand up.
Review: I'm having a little trouble believeing the assessment of a man who has been out of the loop for almost 5 years...when during his time as a weapons inspector, he had much different view. In his own words from The New Republic, Dec. 21, 1998:"As a member of UNSCOM since 1991, and its chief inspector responsible for investigating Iraq's concealment mechanism from July 1995 until my resignation on August 26, 1998, I know that this is hardly the first time Saddam has pulled such tricks. In fact, they are at the heart of his strategy for preserving his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and, eventually, getting rid of U.N. economic sanctions (which he has largely succeeded in eluding anyway). Through skillful manipulation of the situation on the ground in Iraq, international public opinion, and rifts among the members of the Security Council, Saddam actually aims to cap his comeback by getting UNSCOM to issue a clean bill of health. It is an audacious plan, but it may succeed, thanks in no small part to the mistakes of U.S. policymakers themselves. If it succeeds, the consequences could be dire. The Baghdad regime-- strengthened by having retained the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction and psychologically fortified by having outlasted the world's sole remaining superpower--will rapidly restore its internal and regional constituencies and reemerge as a force to be reckoned with. Since his defeat in the Gulf war, Saddam has built up eight years' worth of resentment and frustration that can only be released through renewed efforts at territorial expansion through armed aggression and blackmail, both economic and military. Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed. UNSCOM lacks a full declaration from Iraq concerning its prohibited capabilities, making any absolute pronouncement about the extent of Iraq's retained proscribed arsenal inherently tentative. But, based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. This agent is stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production. Meanwhile, Iraq has kept its entire nuclear weapons infrastructure intact through dual-use companies that allow the nuclear-design teams to conduct vital research and practical work on related technologies and materials. Iraq still has components (high explosive lenses, initiators, and neutron generators) for up to four nuclear devices minus the fissile core (highly enriched uranium or plutonium), as well as the means to produce these. Iraq has retained an operational long-range ballistic missile force that includes approximately four mobile launchers and a dozen missiles. And, under the guise of a permitted short-range missile program, Iraq has developed the technology and production means necessary for the rapid reconstitution of long-range ballistic missile production. Iraq supports its retained prohibited capabilities with an extensive covert procurement network operated by Iraqi intelligence. While images of starving Iraqi children are beamed around the world by American television, Iraqi front companies have spent millions of dollars on forbidden material related to all weapons categories--in direct violation of existing sanctions and often under the cover of the humanitarian "oil for food" program. Finally, Iraqi security forces have kept critical documentation, including the vital "cookbooks" that contain the step-by-step process to make chemical agent, outline the procedures for producing weapons-grade biological agent, detail the final design of the Iraqi nuclear weapon, and provide the mechanical integration procedures for long-range ballistic missiles."
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