[109521] in Cypherpunks
Pentagon Revives Move to Halt Book on Iraqi Arms
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mahou Shoujo Pixy Misa)
Sat Mar 27 18:29:23 1999
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 01:15:22 +0200 (EET)
From: Mahou Shoujo Pixy Misa <waste@zor.hut.fi>
To: iufo@world.std.com
cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
Reply-To: Mahou Shoujo Pixy Misa <waste@zor.hut.fi>
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/ritter-book.html
The New York Times, 21 February 1999
Pentagon Revives Move to Halt Book on Iraqi Arms
By Philip Shenon
WASHINGTON -- Reversing itself for a second time, the Pentagon has
demanded that Scott Ritter, a former U.N. weapons inspector, provide
it with an advance copy of a book in which he is expected to accuse
the Clinton administration of hindering the search for evidence of
Iraqi chemical and biological weapons.
In a letter to Ritter's lawyer on Thursday, the Defense Department
said Ritter was required to turn over the book for a security review
before it could be published. A security review would almost certainly
delay publication of the book, which is scheduled to be printed and
distributed to booksellers next month.
Ritter's lawyer, Matthew Lifflander, described the letter as an effort
to intimidate his client into silence.
Ritter, he said, would refuse to agree to the Pentagon's demand for a
security review, raising at least the possibility that the Defense
Department would go to court to try to block publication. "I
understand that the book is basically at the printers," Lifflander
said in an interview.
"So you could easily conclude that this is a last-minute effort to
delay publication. I don't think they have a legal leg to stand on. I
find this a very destructive approach."
The Pentagon's latest letter reflected another sharp and potentially
embarrassing turnaround in its strategy for dealing with Ritter's
book, which is expected to include accusations that senior
administration officials repeatedly hindered the work of U.N. arms
inspectors.
The book is being published by Simon & Schuster. A spokeswoman said
the publisher had no immediate comment on the government's dispute
with Ritter and how it might affect publication of the book.
Ritter, a former Marine intelligence officer, resigned from the United
Nations last summer and accused the administration of a vacillating
policy on Iraq that had led to repeated U.S. meddling in the
arms-inspection program, undermining the search for Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction. He said the United States interfered with the arms
inspections in an effort to avoid direct confrontations with Iraq.
The entire arms-inspection program was ended late last year when
President Saddam Hussein of Iraq shut it down, a decision that
resulted last December in the largest U.S. airstrikes against Iraq
since the Persian Gulf war in 1991.
The Defense Department, which paid Ritter's salary while the retired
Marine worked for the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq, initially
demanded a prepublication security review of the book in a letter to
Ritter last month. But on Jan. 17, the day that news reports first
appeared about the demand, the Pentagon reversed itself, insisting
that the letter had been sent in error and that there had been no
attempt to intimidate Ritter.
Last week the department reversed itself again. In its letter to
Ritter's lawyer on Thursday, the general counsel of the Defense Threat
Reduction Agency, the agency of the Pentagon that paid Ritter's salary
under contract, said that it expected Ritter to "comply with his
responsibilities" and turn over the book for a prepublication review.
"You are reminded that Ritter's contract requires that he may not
release any information pertaining to any part of the contract or any
program related to the contract without prepublication review," the
letter said.
Although their constitutionality is questioned by lawyers, Pentagon
contracts routinely require contractors to submit to a prepublication
security review of books and other materials that touch on their work
for the government.
In an apparent reference to its earlier reversals on the issue, the
letter said that "no prior statements or actions by DTRA should be
construed in any way as waiving under the contract or in permitting
Ritter to ignore his responsibilities."
In a letter of response on Friday, Lifflander said that the Pentagon
"attempts once again to impose an unenforceable censorship agreement
on a former employee."
He continued, "For the agency to now reverse the position it stated
publicly and once again seek a right to censor Scott Ritter's work is
patently unreasonable."
He said the book did not disclose any classified information about the
arms-inspection program in Iraq. "Mr. Ritter," he said, "continues to
believe that nothing in the manuscript could possibly be contested on
a national-security basis by government censors, although some of what
he has to say may be distasteful to some significant policy-makers."
Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company
