Scott Ritter joined the UN Special Commission shortly after its creation in 1991 and became chief inspector on the team whose job is to penetrate Iraqi concealment efforts.
His abrupt resignation followed the Security Council's failure to deliver on threats of "severest consequences for Iraq" should the Baghdad government block inspections for forbidden arms. The council has described Iraq's August 3rd decision to halt new inspections as "unacceptable", but with American assent it has made clear in recent days that it contemplates no new efforts at enforcement.
The resignation was the strongest sign among several in recent days that the disarmament panel, imposed on Iraq as a ceasefire condition after the 1991 Gulf War, is close to collapse as an effective force for discovering and destroying illegal Iraqi weapons. The withdrawal of US military threats to enforce access for inspectors has deprived the commission of its principal counterweight against seven years of periodic Iraqi defiance and a long political campaign by Iraq's sympathisers in the Security Council.
"The issue of immediate, unrestricted access is, in my opinion, the cornerstone of any viable inspection regime, and as such is an issue worth fighting for," Mr Ritter wrote in a resignation letter delivered on Wednesday afternoon to Richard Butler, the Australian diplomat who heads the UN Special Commission, or UNSCOM. "Unfortunately, others do not share this opinion, including the Security Council and the United States."
Refusal to enforce the council's many binding demands for Iraqi compliance, he wrote, "constitutes a surrender to the Iraqi leadership" and "makes a mockery of the mission the staff of the Special Commission have been charged with implementing".
The departure of Mr Ritter (37), a former Marine, deprives the commission of its crucial liaison to American and foreign intelligence services, on which the commission has long relied for investigative leads, and of an investigator widely described as UNSCOM's most effective planner of military-style missions to seize forbidden weapons and documents before the Baghdad government could move them.
"I have enormous respect for Ritter," said Charles Duelfer, the panel's deputy chief. "I've worked very closely with him for years now and we will miss his contributions to the work of UNSCOM enormously. Without Ritter's drive, initiative and creativity much of what the commission accomplished may not have been accomplished."
Mr Ritter was criticised by UN officials for his zeal in pursuing evidence relating to the Iraqi weapons programmes. This week, three senior associates of the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, expressed qualms about their boss, Mr Butler, who has sometimes clashed with Mr Annan, and made it clear in interviews that Mr Annan would not grieve to see Mr Butler go.
"The secretary general wants something that works, so if Mr Butler's style becomes an issue with the Iraqis maybe he should resign because the issue should be the principles, not his personality," said one senior UN official.
In an interview on Wednesday morning, before Mr Ritter's resignation, Mr Butler said he would leave his post if UNSCOM and its mission lost the support of the Security Council.
Over the years, Iraq has mounted bitter public attacks on a succession of individual inspectors as they obtained evidence of the Baghdad government's dissembling about its programmes to build ballistic missiles and nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The first such target was David Kay, the former chief nuclear inspector, and there were similar propaganda campaigns against team leaders Richard Spertzel, Diane Seaman, Hamish Killip, Rod Godfrey and Nikita Smidovitch.
Mr Ritter came in for perhaps the most sustained Iraqi attack. Associates said Mr Ritter's reasons for discontent included an FBI investigation into his exchange of sensitive information about Iraq with foreign governments. They said his information-trading was specifically authorised by Mr Butler and his predecessor, Rolf Ekeus. CBS television has claimed he is being investigated by the FBI for allegedly passing classified documents on Iraq to Israel, a claim that Mr Ritter has denied. He declined in an interview to discuss the investigation, emphasising policy differences with Washington in his decision to resign.
"I fought in the war," he said. "Americans died in the war. I was told by my government in April 1991, in a UN Security Council resolution the United States sponsored, that Iraq was going to disarm. I've devoted seven years, at tremendous personal sacrifice. I've poured my heart and soul into disarming Iraq and this means I was wasting my time. It means we lost the Gulf War. That's why I care. I care deeply about this. The whole world should be shamed by this."
Agencies add:
The UN yesterday rejected accusations by Mr Ritter that Mr Annan had taken the side of Iraq against the disarmament monitors.
UN spokesman, Fred Eckhard, denounced a "gross mischaracterisation" by Mr Ritter, of a proposal by Mr Annan for a comprehensive review of eightyear old Iraqi sanctions.
Mr Ritter accused Iraq yesterday of hiding arms capabilities in other countries and said he had quit the job to get world powers to take a tougher line with Baghdad. "Unequivocally, Iraq has stored, developed and hidden weapons capabilities in foreign countries," he said in an interview. He declined to identify the countries or the weapons concerned.