Scott Ritter, as many but not all of you know, was a marine officer and the chief UN Weapons Inspector in the 90s who played an important role in making Saddam Hussein comply with requirements that he destroy his WMD at that time. Most importantly, he was one of the few who correctly argued that Saddam no longer had WMD in 2003. Below is an article he wrote for today’s Huffington Post that should be read because it casts doubt on the Trump Administration’s rationale for attacking Assad’s military bases.

It should be clear this is not a defense of Assad, but of the specific claim. He notes that one of the reasons Obama did not launch a similar attack in 2013 was that the strong case that Assad used chemical weapons that August turned out not to be so strong and he decided not to act. Trump, as far as anyone knows, made minimal, if any. similar fact-gathering efforts.

Ritter has some baggage, as some of you know, but not in his area of expertise. Minimally, there should be a call for an independent review of the evidence as was done in 2013. The Ritter article is below.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/syria-chemical-attack-al-qaeda-played-donald-trump_us_58ea226fe4b058f0a02fca4d