Early Edition

Ritter: Physically Impossible for Iraqis to Manufacture Ballistic Missiles Since '98

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LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The Pentagon has put a patriot missile battery in Germany on a heightened state of alert for possible deployment to Israel. The action is related to a possible or perceived, threat to Israel from Iraq. Iraq has ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel. Defense officials claim to have no information regarding any specific threat. Now Iraq this morning has denied that there is anything to the report of a perceived or possible threat to Israel.

Joining us on the telephone from New York is Scott Ritter. Mr. Ritter is a former chief United Nations weapons inspector. He spent lots of time in Iraq checking out their capabilities.

Mr. Ritter, what do you make of this report this morning?

SCOTT RITTER, FORMER U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Well, as -- I have to agree totally with the Iraqis. There's absolutely no substance to any accusation that Iraq continues to possess a ballistic missile capability that can reach Israel. This is a fact that's well-known to the United States and to Israel. Prime Minister Barak has recently just said that there is no Iraqi missile threat. And he doesn't know what all the hype is about. This seems to be a purely political move on the part of the United States to continue to demonize Iraq by hyping it's perceived capabilities.

HARRIS: But considering how long it's been since there have been any inspectors on the ground in Iraq, to check out first hand what they have and what they do not have, how can you be so sure about all that?

RITTER: Well, when the inspectors left in December of 1998, they had under their belts over four years' experience in monitoring the totality of Iraq's ballistic missile capabilities. As of December 1998, the Iraqi ballistic missile capability was judged to be almost nonexistent. What they were working on didn't work. It was all under a 150 kilometers. And there is no way in the intervening time, even though weapons inspectors have not been in Iraq, that Iraq could have miraculously reconstituted a ballistic missile production capability, let alone field an operational ballistic missile force. That's just physically impossible.

HARRIS: It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Scott Ritter, we thank you very much for your time this morning, and your insight.

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