from today's guardian. gotta wonder ... all these internet sex stings. what the hell is up with that? are they getting better at grabbing people? or are they just releasing information about those they grab, when its convenient for them? i dont know. underage sex is a bad thing in my eyes. wrong as wrong can be. but to come out with something now about something that happened a long time ago - and yes, more than a year, can be a 'long time'. well, it reeks of poopy. duznt it?

Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector and an outspoken critic of war in Iraq, yesterday claimed he was the victim of a smear campaign after it emerged that he had been arrested in an internet sex sting in June 2001.

Details of the arrest emerged in a local New York state newspaper last week. Reports said Mr Ritter, 44, had been charged with attempted child endangerment after arranging, in an online chatroom, to meet what he thought was a 16-year-old girlat a Burger King restaurant. The girl turned out to be an undercover policewoman. The case was later dismissed.

Mr Ritter cancelled a trip to Baghdad on Tuesday and has instead been appearing on talk shows to defend his reputation. In an interview with CNN on Wednesday he refused to discuss details of the arrest and attempted to shift the fo cus on to who leaked the story. "The case was dismissed. The file was sealed ... Why did this come up now?" he said.