Ritter

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Scott Ritter, leader of a U.N. weapons inspection team in Iraq, resigned Wednesday, saying the United Nations' inaction against Iraqi intransigence had left the inspection program an "illusion."

In a sharply worded resignation letter sent to the U.N.'s chief weapons inspector, Richard Butler, Ritter criticized the Security Council for not taking stronger action against Iraq's recent decision to suspend cooperation with U.N. inspectors.

"The abrogation of its most basic of responsibilities has made the Security Council a witting partner to an overall Iraqi strategy of weakening (the inspection program)," Ritter wrote, adding that the council's recent action "clearly indicates that the organization ... is no longer willing and/or capable of the implementation of its own law."

"What is being propagated by the Security Council today ... is such an illusion, one which in all good faith I cannot, and will not, be a party to."

Ritter, an American, also took parting shots at both his own government and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He said the United States had failed to fight for unrestricted access to Iraqi sites by inspectors during the most recent standoff with Iraq, and he said Annan's office has become a "sounding board for Iraqi grievances, real or imagined."

Though Butler accepted the resignation, he said, "I deeply regret his going, and I thanked him deeply for the extraordinary gifts he gave this place."

Ritter, 37, is a former U.S. Marine Corps captain. He had worked as a U.N. weapons inspector for the past six years, leading teams that were searching for evidence of hidden weapons of mass destruction.

He became the focus of controversy in January when the Iraqi government accused Ritter of being an American spy and refused to give him Iraqi escorts, which effectively prevented him from conducting inspections.

With the United States threatening military strikes, Annan negotiated an agreement in February that allowed inspectors to return. Ritter, who has often been the focus of bitter attack by Iraqi officials and state media, made his last inspection visit in March.

Earlier this month, Iraq again said it would not cooperate with the inspections. This time, however, there was no American threat of military retaliation.

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