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`Admit your lies`, former UN inspector Ritter tells US, UK
Geneva, June 06: The United States and Britain should admit they lied when claiming the ousted Baghdad regime had weapons of mass destruction, Scott Ritter, a former UN senior weapons inspector in Iraq, said in an interview published here today.
Geneva, June 06: The United States and Britain should admit they lied when claiming the ousted Baghdad regime had weapons of mass destruction, Scott Ritter, a former UN senior weapons inspector in Iraq, said in an interview published here today.
Ritter, speaking to a Swiss daily, called on US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to "have the courage to be held responsible" for telling lies to the public into backing the conflict.
An outspoken critic of Bush's handling of the conflict, the ex-marine said the two leaders should "explain frankly and honestly why they went to war."
They should "admit their lies", he said.
"If this is a noble crusade to liberate the world from a crazy dictator, admit it," he said.
But, Ritter added, Saddam Hussein could not have destroyed a possible arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) "without leaving traces... (US secretary of defence) Donald Rumsfeld has furnished no proof of their supposed destruction, just as he has never furnished the slightest proof of their existence".
Meanwhile, a German member of the UN team investigating Iraq's alleged programme of weapons of mass destruction, Peter Franck, has accused US authorities of presenting false evidence against the regime, the German weekly news magazine 'Der Spiegel' reports in its tomorrow's edition.
He told the weekly that US Secretary of State Colin Powell did not present truthful evidence to the UN Security Council in a famous February 5 speech.
It was "all a big bluff," Franck said.
Bureau Report
An outspoken critic of Bush's handling of the conflict, the ex-marine said the two leaders should "explain frankly and honestly why they went to war."
They should "admit their lies", he said.
"If this is a noble crusade to liberate the world from a crazy dictator, admit it," he said.
But, Ritter added, Saddam Hussein could not have destroyed a possible arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) "without leaving traces... (US secretary of defence) Donald Rumsfeld has furnished no proof of their supposed destruction, just as he has never furnished the slightest proof of their existence".
Meanwhile, a German member of the UN team investigating Iraq's alleged programme of weapons of mass destruction, Peter Franck, has accused US authorities of presenting false evidence against the regime, the German weekly news magazine 'Der Spiegel' reports in its tomorrow's edition.
He told the weekly that US Secretary of State Colin Powell did not present truthful evidence to the UN Security Council in a famous February 5 speech.
It was "all a big bluff," Franck said.
Bureau Report