FRONTIER JUSTICE: Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Bushwhacking of America

It's no surprise that a book by Ritter, the outspoken former U.N. weapons inspector, would be controversial. Ritter first made headlines in 1998, when he resigned as a weapons inspector because of the inefficacy of the inspections, the failure of which he now blames on all parties involved—Iraq, the U.S. and the U.N. But the bulk of this book is devoted to the events of the past year, most notably his criticism of the U.S. war in Iraq. Before the war broke out in March, Ritter—widely considered to be a hawk for publicly blasting Richard Butler, the leader of the U.N. weapons inspections team—became an antiwar activist, even appearing before the Iraqi Parliament to appeal for peace. And in this book, he explains that in the past year, he's become involved in a group known as SAVE! that advocates solving problems "by adopting a non-threatening posture." But mostly he attacks President Bush's administration for the war: in light of the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he contends, it's clear that the president launched the war on the basis of a lie. But Ritter's tone becomes tiresome: his references to "Ranger Bush and his west Texas lynch mob" may be amusing at first, but not after the umpteenth use. And when Ritter argues forcefully that Bush is worse than Hitler, even reasonable critics of the war may not want Ritter as their spokesman. (July)