THE WASHINGTON TIMES More than 60 members of Congress and a human rights commission named for the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the House are urging President Obama to use his Monday meeting with the prime minister of Iraq to demand he protect Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf. The letters sent to the White House on Friday are the latest developments in a growing U.S. campaign to prevent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from closing the former military base north of Baghdad by the end of this month. More than 3,400 Iranian exiles fear the Iraqi government will evict them from Camp Ashraf and deport many of them to Iran, where they face execution as opponents of the brutal … [Read more...]

STARS and STRIPES BAGHDAD — Lawmakers and former military officials called on the U.S. government to protect an Iranian exile group in Iraq facing resettlement by the end of the year, citing conflict with Iraqi security forces earlier this year that killed dozens of people. The hearing came in the wake of an intensive lobbying effort by former high-level U.S. government officials to have the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terror groups. The 3,400 MEK members at the camp were friendly to U.S. forces who oversaw their settlement at Camp Ashraf until the U.S. relinquished control in 2009, former camp commander and retired Army Col. … [Read more...]

THE WASHINGTON TIMES Wants terror label lifted as camp closing nears The Iraqi government is using the State Department’s terrorist designation of a group of Iranian dissidents as an excuse to crack down on the unarmed exiles in their camp north of Baghdad, a top Republican lawmaker said Tuesday. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee's subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said taking the group off the terrorism list would deprive the Iraqi government of this cover and expose it as a puppet of the theocratic regime in neighboring Iran. “The Iraqi government is kissing the bloody boots of the mullahs in Tehran,” Mr. Rohrabacher … [Read more...]

THE WASHINGTON TIMES Two Republican senators are pressing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to guarantee the safety of thousands of Iranian dissidents in Iraq, where the government is planning to evict them from a former military camp by the end of the year and possibly deport them to Iran, where they would be killed as terrorists.  Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina asked Mrs. Clinton in a recent letter how the United States can keep its promise to protect the 3,400 unarmed residents of Camp Ashraf after all U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq by Dec. 31.  “These individuals seek protection from the oppressive government in Iran and fear, with … [Read more...]

In a hearing in the U.S. Senate on Nov 15, 2011, attended by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, the leadership and members of the Committee on Armed Services expressed serious concern for the fate of the residents of Camp Ashraf once the Dec 31 deadline and the withdrawal of the U.S. forces comes about.  In a bipartisan mood, Senators Karl Levin, the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee (D-MI), John McCain (the ranking Republican from Arizona), Senator Bill Lindsey Graham (R- SC ), and Joseph Liberman (Independent-CO) all urged guarantees for the protection of Ashraf residents.   … [Read more...]

 THE EPOCH TIMES High-profile former officials tell Secretary Clinton to take the MEK off the terrorist list WASHINGTON—When President Obama announced on Oct. 21 that all American combat troops would be out of Iraq by year’s end, no one in Iraq could be more impacted than the people residing in a little known refugee site called Camp Ashraf located 41 miles north of Bagdad, and 66 miles from the Iranian western border. With the U.S. pullout, these refugees are especially worried for their safety. “Whatever dwindling influence the U.S. Government still retains in Iraq, it will evaporate completely once American forces exit [Iraq],” said Ambassador Mitchell Reiss in … [Read more...]

PRNewswire WASHINGTON, Nov. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- At a briefing in the US Senate, entitled "US Troop Drawdown in Iraq: 50 Days to Impending Humanitarian Catastrophe at Camp Ashraf," Professor Ruth Wedgwood, Director of the International Law and Organizations Program of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University; Professor Raymond Tanter, former Senior Staff on the National Security Council and President of Iran Policy Committee; Bruce McColm, former Executive Director of the Freedom House; and Colonel Wesley Martin, USA (Ret.), former senior anti-terrorism/force-protection officer for Coalition forces in Iraq and Commandant of Camp Ashraf, … [Read more...]

REUTERS WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta rejected accusations at a heated Senate hearing on Tuesday that U.S. politics helped drive the decision to completely withdraw from Iraq this year without leaving any troops behind as trainers. The October 21 drawdown announcement by President Barack Obama followed failed negotiations with Baghdad to secure an immunity deal that the Pentagon made a precondition for keeping any U.S. military trainers in the country. Panetta put the blame squarely on Iraqi politics, with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki unable to push an immunity deal through parliament. But prominent Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee … [Read more...]

STOP FUNDAMENTALISM Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on both sides of the isle unanimously approved an amendment to a bill that called to protect the 3400 residents of the Iranian dissident Camp Ashraf which is located northeast of Baghdad today, reported AP. The Bill is designed to impose yet harder sanctions on Iran. "If history is any guide, it will see another massacre," said Judge Ted Poe, R-Texas, refereeing to two tragic previous incidents at the camp in which almost 50 residents died when Iraqi military units opened fire on the unarmed population of the camp. Baghdad says it intends to close the camp by the end of 2011 despite international calls that the date … [Read more...]