2003/01/23
Ex-UN Inspector Questions News Timing
ALBANY, N.Y.
Former
UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, a harsh critic of the Bush
administration's push toward war with Iraq, suggested that recent news
reports of his arrest in an Internet sex sting last year were part of an
attempt to silence him.
He said the publicity forced him to cancel a
trip to
Baghdad, where he said he would have offered an alternative to military
action.
"The timing does stink. I was supposed to be on an airplane
yesterday to Baghdad," he said.
"Let's not forget, we're on the verge of
a
major conflict in which thousands of American lives may be lost, and I
was a
leading voice of opposition to this."
"It's a shame that somebody would
bring up this old matter, this dismissed matter, and seek to silence me
at
this time," he said.
Ritter acknowledged his June 2001 arrest in
appearances
on CNN and Court TV on Wednesday night but said he was prohibited from
discussing details because the charges were dismissed and the records
sealed.
Broadcast reports at the time and recent newspaper reports have
indicated he was caught in an Internet sex sting, something Ritter did
not
admit.
At the time of the arrest, NBC station WNYT-TV of Albany reported
that William Scott Ritter Jr. -- Ritter's full name -- was charged with
trying to lure a 16-year-old girl to a restaurant.
The girl turned out
to be
an undercover police officer.
WNYT broadcast Ritter's mug shot provided
by
the police but did not make the connection to his role as the chief UN
weapons inspector in Iraq during most of the 1990s.
He was charged with
attempted endangerment of a child, a misdemeanor that carries up to 90
days
in jail, according to The Times Union of Albany.
The case was adjourned
in
contemplation of dismissal, meaning if he stayed out of trouble for six
months, the charges would disappear and the file be sealed.
"When you
dismiss the case and you seal the files, ... it maintains the
presumption of
innocence," Ritter, 41, said in a Court TV interview Wednesday.
"So I'm
sticking to my ethical and legal obligations not to discuss this case. I
wish other people had done that."
When the story initially surfaced
Saturday
in The Daily Gazette of Schenectady, Ritter told a reporter, "Sorry, you
must have the wrong person." Calls to Ritter's home from The AP went
unanswered this week. AP