From Consortium News
December 7, 2024

Scott Ritter joined Medea Benjamin and Code Pink to urgently lobby members on Capitol Hill to do what they could to stop the U.S. from starting a nuclear war.

By Joe Lauria
on Capitol Hill, Washington
Special to Consortium News

Scott Ritter, the former U.S. Marine counterintelligence officer and chief U.N. weapons inspector joined forces with Medea Benjamin and Code Pink to lobby members of the U.S. House of Representatives to urgently act to head off what could be impending nuclear war with Russia. 

Ritter laid out the immediate peril the world faces, which is being dangerously ignored by most of the U.S. government and establishment media. That’s because U.S. intelligence services have foolishly concluded that Russia is bluffing, Ritter argued.

He told Congress members and their staffs Thursday on a day-long venture in the labyrinth of House office buildings on Capitol Hill that based on his conversations with Russian officials the U.S. could take no chances.

Ritter had direct meetings with Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and with staff members of about a dozen other members, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), and Reps. Daniel Webster (R-FL), Roger Williams (R-TX), Clay Higgins (R-LA) and Delia Ramirez (D-IL).

With Benjamin, Ritter urged House members to

• sign a letter to the U.S. president urging he change course;
• co-sponsor a resolution recently introduced that would prevent the firing of U.S. long-range ATACMS into Russia;
• hold hearings of the House Intelligence Committee to challenge the intel that Russia is bluffing; and
• appeal to members of President-Elect Donald Trump‘s transition team to get Trump to make an immediate statement that after he is sworn in he will order a cessation of ATACMS being fired into Russia.

Such a statement now from Trump, Ritter argued on Capitol Hill, would lessen tension with Moscow over the ATACMS and possibly avert catastrophe. 

1hr, 3 min. Camera and Interviewer: Joe Lauria, (0:50 to 4:20 courtesy of Liz Holzman). Producer and Editor: Cathy Vogan. 

https://consortiumnews.com/2024/12/07/watch-ritter-lobbies-at-the-capitol-to-avert-nuclear-war/