Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein [Hardcover]

Scott Ritter (Author), Seymour Hersh (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2005

Scott Ritter is the straight-talking former marine officer who the CIA wants to silence. After the 1991 Gulf War, Ritter helped lead the UN weapons inspections of Iraq and found himself at the center of a dangerous game between the Iraqi and US regimes.

As Ritter reveals in this explosive book, Washington was only interested in disarmament as a tool for its own agenda. Operating in a fog of espionage and counter-espionage, Ritter and his team were determined to find out the truth about Iraq’s WMD. The CIA were equally determined to stop them. The truth, as we now know, was that Iraq was playing a deadly game of double-bluff, and actually had no WMD. But to have revealed this would have derailed America’s drive for regime change.

Iraq Confidential charts the disillusionment of a staunch patriot who came to realize that his own government sought to undermine effective arms control in the Middle East. Ritter shows us a world of deceit and betrayal in which nothing is as it seems. A host of characters from Mossad, MI6 and the CIA pepper this powerful narrative, which contains revelations that will permanently affect the ongoing debates about Iraq.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Ritter tells us how the US and all its agencies made sure that the UN inspection team was undermined or diverted whenever it came close to declaring Iraq disarmed, which it often did.' Tim Llewellyn, Sunday Tribune 'Ritter has attempted to piece together the wider context in which he was operating' Con Coughlin, Sunday Telegraph 'From 1991 onwards, Saddam was a principal target for the Americans. No one was better placed than Scott Ritter to note their determination to oust Saddam.' - Tribune DAILY MAIL 'Scott Ritter was a Marine officer of immense integrity. In his remarkable book he relates how the CIA and the State Department used the inspectors to undermine Saddam.' MIDDLE EAST 'Ritter shows us a world of deceit and betrayal, in which nothing is as it seem.' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Scott Ritter was the UN's top weapons inspector in Iraq between 1991 and 1998. Before working for the UN he served as a captain in the US marines and as a ballistic missile adviser to General Schwarzkopf in the first Gulf War. He opposed the build-up for war in 2003, claiming that Iraq had been effectively disarmed. Events have vindicated him in this respect.


Seymour Hersh is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist currently writing for the New Yorker. In his long and distinguished career he has been the first to expose many of the major scandals in US foreign policy, from the May Lai massacre in Vietnam to Abu Ghraib.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books; First Edition first Printing edition (September 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560258527
• ISBN-13: 978-1560258520
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #657,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inside Testimony from A Hero for Our Times, October 22, 2005

By 

cvairag (Allan Hancock College) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Hardcover)

Scott Ritter is a stand-up guy - of the highest order. Not only has he seen the entire tragedy of Iraq from the inception of Gulf War I through the brutal decade of sanctions, to the unfortunate denouement of U.S. policy in the current war, from unique vantage points first as military attache to Schwartzkopf in Gulf War I, later as U.N. Weapons Inspector in Iraq. Mr. Ritter's book provides direct, 'ground-zero' witness to the material facts surrounding the build-up to the war as no other can - his is the one testimony which is unbiased by the ideological slant, special interests, or simply hampered by armchair distance that almost all other accounts are. Thus, the book is required reading for those who want the most accurate and detailed inside account of the most important single issue of the war: the justification for our invasion.

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ritter inspires confidence, October 30, 2005

By 

Larry G. Mcclung (Irving, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Hardcover)

At a time of conflicting arguments concerning the disaster in Iraq, Scott Ritter is among the most credible voices around. A Marine intelligence officer during the 1991 Gulf War, who calls himself a conservative Republican, Ritter voted for George Bush in 2000, in large part because of the Clinton administration's attempts to infiltrate his UN Weapons Inspection team with CIA agents in an attempt to find a way to assassinate Saddam Hussein. When the candidate Bush who renounced the goal of "regime change" morphed into the president Bush who lied and deceived the country into a war of aggression, Ritter became an outspoken critic. His analysis of the Bush regime's motives and the chaos of its war policies is incisive and very persuasive. Every citizen should read this book as well as Ritter's earlier books.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the real smoking gun (no mushroom cloud), December 10, 2005

By 

ct reader "logos.hfd" (ct) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Hardcover)

Throughout the 1990s we were told Iraq wasn't complying with UN resolutions -- they arrogantly flaunted the inspections regime (UNSCOM) formed to prove compliance. This book, by a US Marine officer and weapons inspector with wide experience in Iraq, destroys many of those claims.

Ritter's account indicts three American Administrations and the CIA. They did everything possible to ensure UN resolutions wouldn't work (while claiming the opposite). `Regime change' (unsanctioned by UN resolutions and international law) was the only acceptable outcome.

Iraqis charged UNSCOM fronted CIA covert operations dedicated to compromise their sovereignty. Turns out they were probably right. The CIA (without notice) used UNSCOM for covert ops. The only problem - the CIA had no real expertise (they were unable to accomplish anything -- least of all regime change with unreliable paid expatriate Iraqis in the mid 90s).

Ritter's most disturbing charge is the politicization of intelligence. CIA information was routinely produced to justify positions supporting previously determined administration goals. Little wonder the CIA was blind on 9/11, the Downing Street Memo, or the absence of Iraqi WMD post invasion.

The trashing of the UN was the perfect touch. We needed to preserve the agenda of a few political `scientists' and conceal their mistakes (incompetence). Why not blame it on the UN?

This work is well worth reading. You decide.