Scott Ritter, former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, former U.S. Marine Corps officer and Gulf War veteran, spoke Saturday night in the Osterhout Theater at Binghamton University to an audience of about 200, a sizable drop from Ritter’s November 2002 appearance which drew nearly 1,200 listeners.

In his speech entitled “Iraq: How We Got There, and Where We’re Going,” Ritter denounced the war with Iraq, saying that it is against both the American Constitution and international law. He added that the lack of attendance at his speech was indicative of a greater problem of apathy toward the war.

“We’re a nation at war whether you agree with it or not,” Ritter said. “And if you take a look at the size of the audience tonight, it shows the amount of people putting their heads in the sand, ignoring the direction we as a nation are heading.”

Ritter said that George W. Bush misrepresented to the public the number of unaccounted for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as a means of justifying the war.

“The President said he knew; he had a certainty of knowledge,” Ritter said. “All I ask as an American citizen before we go to war is that the President tells us the facts and gives us that certainty about war, but he hasn’t done that.”

Ritter said that the President is “blowing smoke” at the American public, and there are no legitimate facts behind the invasion in Iraq.

According to Ritter, by 1993 the CIA knew that all ballistic missiles had been accounted for in Iraq, and by 1994 Iraq’s nuclear weapons program had been eliminated. Similarly, by 1995, Iraq’s chemical weapons program had been eliminated.

“There is clearly no threat in Iraq worthy of American intervention,” Ritter said. “Our policy has never been about weapons of mass destruction; this was simply a sales pitch that the average American could understand to justify this war. The USA went to a war on an issue that does not exist, and I can’t think of a more solid case for impeachment.”

Ritter said the reason the United States is at war with Iraq is because Saddam Hussein’s continued existence has become a domestic political problem for the presidency; it is not a national security problem. This war is part of a larger strategy of “regional transformation,” a plan for global domination.

According to Ritter, the U.S. Constitution gives the president the right to have U.S. troops invade another country only when the nation is attacked or the national security is under threat, and Ritter said this is not the case regarding the United States’ invasion of Iraq.

Ritter said the solution in ending the war in Iraq lies with the American people.

“There is a general apathy among the American people, and they must get motivated,” he said. “A lot of people say it’s treasonous or seditious to speak out against the war, but the only sedition is silence. Take a stance in defense of that which you believe in and engage in citizenship.”

Ritter predicts another war with Iran will spark in spring 2007, and he said that if we do go to war with Iran and use nuclear weapons, this war won’t end until an American city is destroyed.

Although Ritter’s audience mostly consisted of adults from the community, some BU students were scattered among the crowd to hear Ritter’s message.

“It was interesting about how he spoke of the blind patriotism of Americans who wave flags at street corners or have ‘Support the troops’ bumper stickers when they lack any knowledge of what is actually going on in our country,” said Natasha Chisty, a sophomore English rhetoric and global culture major. “Ritter only represented one side of the argument, but the examples that he gave were really convincing and rational.”