Ritter keeps attacking Bush, nixes Iraq trip after he’s reported as a juvenile sex offender

While controversial UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter was calling President Bush a liar and defending Saddam Hussein, press reports say he was secretly conspiring to commit sex crimes against minors and undergoing “court-ordered sex-offender counseling.”

Local newspapers and TV near Ritter’s home in suburban Albany, New York, reported the details of his 2001 investigation and arrest for soliciting children over the Internet, and the fact that a judge ordered the case kept secret. He was arrested for “attempted child endangerment” after falling for a police sting.

Ritter apparently lied to journalists who asked him about the matter. “Sorry, you must have the wrong person,” he told the Schenectady newspaper that broke the story. However, his attorney confirmed the arrest but would not discuss the charges.

Even after the story broke over the weekend, Ritter continued to lash out at the Bush administration as he prepared to fly to Baghdad.

By Tuesday afternoon, an Albany TV station reported that Ritter was “on his way to Iraq.” Today, Ritter said he canceled his trip to Baghdad, where he was to advise the Saddam Hussein regime on how to prevent the US from attacking.

Ritter quit working as a UN inspector in 1998 out of frustration that the international organization was covering up Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction programs. Later, he suddenly and inexplicably reversed himself, leading some to wonder whether he might have been blackmailed or paid.

The Albany Times Union quoted a Syracuse University media professor as saying, “Ritter’s days as a leading voice of the opposition to war could be over if his arrest receives national media attention.”