Lawmakers have pressed a top State Department official on whether the Obama administration believes that a group of Iranian dissidents in an Iraqi camp has given up their weapons.

Daniel Fried, special adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Camp Ashraf, where the dissidents are based, said the Defense Department had determined the camp “was largely disarmed” when it was under U.S. control.

The U.S. turned over control of the camp to the Iraqi government in 2009. 

Mr. Fried testified Wednesday before members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

He declined to provide a more detailed response, citing that the issue is part of an ongoing court case. A federal court has ordered the State Department to respond to the dissidents’ request to be removed from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations.

About 2,000 of Camp Ashraf’s more than 3,000 residents, who belong to the dissident group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), have been transferred to Camp Liberty near Baghdad’s international airport under a deal brokered by the United Nations.

They surrendered their weapons in 2003 as part of a cease-fire agreement with U.S. forces.

A Justice Department attorney told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last week that the U.S. government has no way of knowing that MEK is no longer a terror group since its members have never allowed a thorough inspection of the 15-square-mile Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad.

“No pistols, no rifles, no bazookas, no BB gun, no slingshot has been found in Camp Ashraf,” said Rep. Ted Poe, Texas Republican. “Where are the weapons that they say exist?”

U.S. and Iraqi officials have searched Camp Ashraf for weapons and have found only bayonets inside the female camp members’ lockers, which they were allowed to keep, said retired Army Brig. Gen. David Phillips, a former senior commanding officer at Camp Ashraf.

“We had a very focused effort to search everywhere. … During my time there, I believed there were no weapons,” Gen. Phillips told The Washington Times.

He said he couldn’t say with certainty that there are still no weapons at Camp Ashraf, but he added that it would have been very difficult for the group to get any since they were being guarded by Iraqi military and security officers.

Camp Ashraf residents have demanded that their camp be searched for weapons before any more of them move to Camp Liberty.

“I hope this does not reflect a considered opinion,” Mr. Fried told the lawmakers.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, California Republican and subcommittee chairman, said the demand is reasonable since the Iraqis or the Iranians could plant weapons in Camp Ashraf after they leave.

Mrs. Clinton will decide on taking MEK off the terrorist list within 60 days from the date that all its members have vacated Camp Ashraf, Mr. Fried said.

The MEK, also known as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, was responsible for terror attacks in Iran in the 1970s that killed several U.S. military personnel and civilians, according to the State Department.

Britain and the European Union took MEK off their terror lists in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/17/lawmakers-probe-state-department-over-iranian-diss/print/

Time:  2:30 PM

Location: Room 2200 of the Rayburn House Office Building

Witnesses:  The Honorable Daniel Fried
Special Advisor on Ashraf
U.S. Department of State

State Department officials have announced that Hillary Clinton is moving toward taking the Mujahedin e-Khalq, or MEK, off the list of foreign terrorist organizations. The secretary of state has already delayed her decision to review the MEK’s status for almost two years, even though congressional rules maintain the process should take 180 days. But now, according to reports, Clinton may make her final decision on the MEK’s status within 60 days after the group’s last member is relocated in Iraq, from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty. The question is whether that’s going to give MEK members time enough to find refuge, or rather an opportunity for the Islamic Republic of Iran to round them up.

Some reports have suggested that delisting the MEK will anger the Iranian regime, which perceives the MEK as a fratricidal enemy, and throw another wrench into negotiations over Tehran’s nascent nuclear weapons program. And yet the Obama administration is in this jam precisely because of U.S. policymakers’ long record of self-deception when it comes to dealing with the IRI.

The Clinton administration listed the MEK in 1997 as a concession to the newly elected president Mohammad Khatami, even though the organization had not committed an act of anti-American terror since the mid-70s. Not surprisingly, the Clinton administration got nothing for its efforts. Nonetheless, Condoleezza Rice continued the charade when she refused to delist the MEK in fear of getting the Iranians angry enough to take it out on the American servicemen they were already targeting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In trying to make Iran happy by listing the MEK, all Washington policymakers did was tangle up the U.S. court system, and further confuse American Middle East policy. Moreover, it puts the United States in the position of once again going back on its word—this time to a population to which it granted protected person status during the occupation of Iraq.

Clinton has repeatedly said that a “key factor” in her decision on the MEK’s designation will be whether or not it cooperates in its relocation to Camp Liberty. But as court paper filed on behalf of the MEK note, this has nothing to do with the relevant statutes. Groups are not listed as FTOs on account of their willingness to move from one refugee camp to another.  FTOs are designated when they represent a threat to the national security of the United States, or are still in the committing terrorist operations or have the capacity to do so. The MEK, which disarmed at Camp Ashraf in 2003, fits neither of those descriptions. But if the Obama administration has evidence that the MEK is still in the terrorism business then it should make that known.

Without lifting the FTO designation, the United States cannot accept MEK members as refugees, nor encourage its allies in the region and Europe to do so. The result is that the MEK is stuck in Iraq and, with Washington having lifted its protection in 2009, at the mercy of Iran and the Iraqis now doing Tehran’s bidding, like Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

As the American officer in charge of disarming the MEK, (Ret.) Brig. Gen. David Phillips, told me earlier this month, the point of moving the MEK from Ashraf to Liberty was to separate the members from their sources of communication. “Cellphones, anything they use to communicate with, the Iraqi security forces are taking away from them. It’s cutting them off from the world.”

Phillips and others fear that the Iranians are waiting for all of the MEK leadership to be moved to Liberty before they start “disappearing” people. “If I know Maliki,” said Phillips, referring to Iraq’s prime minister, “he’ll put them on buses and hand them over to the [Iranian] Qods Force.”

Unless the Obama administration is still hoping for concessions from the Iranians, it is unclear why Clinton is taking so long to make the decision.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/mek-muddle_645067.html

High time for intervention of UN Secretary General and the US Secretary of State to guarantee the rights of Ashraf and Liberty residents

The saga of Iraqi government’s mistreating Iranian dissidents in Iraq continues unabated. What is more puzzling and perplexing is the silence of the UN and the US as the main parties that brokered an agreement with the Government of Iraq and the dissidents who belong to the main Iranian opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).

The last episode took place on Friday evening as the fifth convoy of the dissidents left Camp Ashraf, their home for the past 25 years, to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near Baghdad airport.

What happened was that the utility vehicles that were accompanying the convoy and were headed to Liberty for the dire needs of the residents who lack proper water supply, fuel or service vehicles, were returned to Ashraf from half way to Liberty before the eyes of UN observers.

This was nothing short of a filthy trick by the Government of Iraq and was against the draft agreement with Martin Kobler, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Iraq, and also it is in violation of all agreements and the provisions of the MOU, and earlier agreements with the Government of Iraq.

The transfer of the fifth group started began on Friday evening May 4, subsequent to two weeks of intense negotiations and communications between the U.N. and the representatives of the Ashraf residents and following the insistence of the US Department of States special advisor on Ashraf and the UN Secretary General Special Representative. Eventually they agreed that three vehicles including 3 water tankers, 2 sewage tankers and 1 fuel tanker will accompany the fifth convoy.

Yet when the convoy left Ashraf at the presence of UN monitor, the residents realized that there was no utility vehicle in the column. Subsequently, it was known that upon the orders of Iraqi authorities, all the utility vehicles that each had an Ashraf resident onboard had been returned to Ashraf.

The new round of covetous behavior by the Government of Iraq took place after a week long process of inspecting the belongings of Ashraf residents that began on April 27. Throughout the seven days, the defenseless residents faced deliberate delays, obstructions and humiliating behavior by the Iraqi forces.

Iraqis once again even prevented the paralyzed residents and those who special treatment, were prevented from transferring their vehicles and special trailers. This was despite the fact that in several letters and emails, the UN had committed to do its utmost to meet the humanitarian needs of the patients, but apparently the Iranian Regime has prevented Nouri-al-Maliki and his security advisor from carrying out their commitments to the U.N. during their recent trip to Tehran.

Presently, three are nearly 2000 people in camp Liberty. This is while this camp lacks the minimum requirements for proper living of the residents and their most basic humanitarian needs have not been met and guaranteed.

In reality, Camp Liberty remains as a prison and is surrounded by armored vehicles.

While the residents have shown utmost flexibility and have given up on a lot of their rights and while Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Iran resistance has shown utmost cooperation to achieve a peaceful solution on this humanitarian crisis, The Iraqi Government at behest of its masters in Tehran keeps trampling on the rights of the Iranian dissidents.

It is high time for the direct and immediate intervention of the UN Secretary General and the US Secretary of State to reprimand Iraqi Government on its behavior and to guarantee that the rights of the residents are observed and their properties are not plundered by the Iraqi Government. The UN and the US should adhere to their promises and commitments to the residents; and the whole world is watching.

Sam Azizi is a human rights activist who has been writing news stories and commentaries on topics of international relations and national security as a freelance journalist. He is based in Washington, DC.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1205/S00102/us-and-un-must-guarantee-rights-of-ashraf-liberty-residents.htm

Camp Ashraf is a temporary home for members of the main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).

During a May 8 hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia, the attorney for the U.S. Department of State aroused outrage among former U.S. military commanders – stationed at Camp Ashraf from 2004 until 2009 – when he alleged that weapons and ammunition might be hidden in Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

In a joint statement, Brig. Gen. David Phillips (ret.), former chief of the Military Policy School at Fort Leonard Wood and former commander of all police operations in Iraq, which included the protection of Camp Ashraf until 2006; and Col. Wesley Martin (ret.), senior antiterrorism/force protection officer for all coalition forces in Iraq and the first colonel in charge of Camp Ashraf in 2006, who attended the oral hearing; as well as Lt. Col. Leo McCloskey (ret.), commander of Joint Interagency Task Force at Camp Ashraf until January 2009, described the remarks by the State Department attorney Robert Loeb as “absurd” and a “denigration of the admirable work of thousands of American service-people who protected Camp Ashraf and verified its inhabitants were unarmed.”

The Court ruled two years ago that the U.S. Government’s designation of the MEK as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) was in violation of the Constitution. It is now considering a writ of mandamus filed by the lawyers of the PMOI/MEK, requesting it to order the Secretary of State to abide by the Court’s July 2010 judgment and remove the group from the FTO list. Phillips, Martin and McCloskey are among the 21 former senior U.S. Government national security, counter-terrorism, military and law enforcement officials who filed an amicus brief with the Court in favor of delisting the MEK.

During a withering 40 minute grilling by a three judge panel, Loeb remarked that the U.S. military had “never been able to inspect it [Camp Ashraf].”  He also stated that the residents of Camp Ashraf did not permit the U.S. military to inspect the camp. “The MEK did not permit it at that time, and the military was unable at the time” to inspect Camp Ashraf, and “the MEK did not permit an inspection. . . . They did not permit a sort of door-to-door inspection of looking for [caches] of weapons or to actually disarm them door-to-door.” He also claimed that the U.S. military had been unable to verify that the MEK had disarmed.

The commanders categorically rejected the claims by the State Department lawyer. “Having served at Ashraf during several tours of duty in Iraq, we repeatedly inspected the entire camp without any hindrance and found no sign of weapons or ammunition, nor any plans or intentions to acquire weapons or use violence,” the officers emphasized. “These inspections were undertaken impromptu and without prior notice. At all times and during every inspection, the leaders and residents of Ashraf cooperated fully with the U.S. commanders and forces,” they added. Ironically, the Department of State has never disputed any of these facts, which were already part of the record.

The military officers reiterated, “Even after the protection of Ashraf was handed over to the Iraqi Government in early 2009, Iraqi forces used bomb-sniffing dogs to conduct a three-day, and an inch by inch, search of the entire camp in April 2009 and gave a written certificate that there were no weapons at the Camp.”

In 2003, Camp Ashraf residents voluntarily handed over all their weapons to the United States after receiving and trusting the solemn and written commitment of the United States to protect them. Subsequent to the complete disarming of Camp Ashraf, the United States Central Command, CENTCOM, issued a statement on May 17, 2003, praising the cooperation of the residents of Ashraf and PMOI members in the disarmament process and describing it as a major contribution to achieving peace for the people of Iraq.

The retired U.S. military commanders consider the State Department’s unfounded allegations “as a desperate ploy to justify the Department’s disregard of the law and its non-compliance with the July 2010 judgment of the DC Circuit, which ordered a prompt evaluation of the terrorist designation.” The officers described the designation as “illegitimate, unlawful, unethical and unwarranted.”

The decision by the U.S. Government to list the PMOI/MEK originated in 1997 as an attempt to appease the regime in Iran and has been the primary factor in the suppression and the violation of the rights of the residents of Camp Ashraf by the Nuri Al-Maliki government in Iraq. The designation also gave license to Iraqi troops to massacre dozens of defenseless residents of Ashraf and wound hundreds more in two brazen attacks on the Camp in 2009 and 2011. 

SOURCE US Committee for Camp Ashraf Residents

A federal appeals court in Washington appears poised to rule against the U.S. State Department in a dispute over the continued designation of a fringe Iranian resistance group as a foreign terrorist organization.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has a number of options available to it, including ordering the government to remove the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran from the foreign terrorist list or setting a deadline for the government to act on the petition from the group. The court could take a middle ground, requiring the government to provide reports on the status of the ongoing assessment.

The Justice Department’s Robert Loeb, arguing for the State Department, asked a three-judge panel May 8 to outright deny the delisting petition, arguing that the government continues to collect valuable information for its review of the PMOI’s designation. The government, Loeb said, has not determined whether PMOI no longer has the intent and capacity to engage in terrorist activity even though the group claims it has renounced violence.

Judge David Tatel and Senior Judge Stephen Williams of the D.C. Circuit seemed inclined to rule for the PMOI, represented by a team from the law firms Bancroft and Mayer Brown. Tatel noted in court that a decision forcing the State Department to act could end up in a denial of the Iranian group’s petition for removal from the foreign terrorist organization list. A lawyer for PMOI, Viet Dinh of Bancroft, said a denial is better than no action at all because it allows a follow-up challenge.

Top administration officials — including Harold Koh, the State Department legal adviser, and Beth Brinkmann, a senior Civil Division appellate lawyer at Main Justice — attended the hour-long hearing. More than 80 observers, including many advocates for the PMOI, crammed into a courtroom in the E. Barett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in downtown Washington.

At issue in the dispute is whether the State Department has ignored a D.C. Circuit’s order in 2010 directing the government to reassess the designation. The appeals court then sided with PMOI, saying the State Department did not accord certain due process rights to the group. The D.C. Circuit did not, however, give the government a deadline to make a decision one way or the other.

Lawyers for the PMOI earlier this year filed court papers in the D.C. Circuit asking the court to delist the group as a foreign terrorist organization or to give the State Department one month to make a decision on the petition. Advocates for the PMOI then, as they did today, expressed frustration at the slow pace of the State Department review.

Inclusion on the foreign terrorist organization list caries severe consequences. Supporters in the United States, for instance, cannot directly fund the group. And banks are authorized to freeze assets of foreign terrorist groups.

In court today, Dinh told the D.C. Circuit panel that the State Department has shown its indifference to the earlier appellate court order in the case. Dinh urged the court to hold the government accountable.

Henderson defended the State Department during one exchange with Dinh, saying that “it’s not as if they’re just sitting on their hands.”

The PMOI review, Loeb maintained, is ongoing in good faith and should not be cut short. Government officials, he said, are regularly receiving information regarding the movement of PMOI members and supporters from a camp in Iraq that he described as a “paramilitary base.” (PMOI lawyers dispute that characterization.)

The continued cooperation in the relocation effort, Loeb said, will “speak volumes” as to whether PMOI no longer has the intent and capacity to commit terrorist acts. Loeb said the government has not had a chance to inspect the base for arms.

Tatel asked twice why the State Department doesn’t just deny the PMOI petition. At least a denial, the judge said, would allow the appellate process to move forward. “As long as the secretary isn’t acting, that process can’t go forward,” the judge said.

Asked how much more time the State Department needs, Loeb declined to speculate. The government, he said, would aim to make a decision on the PMOI petition within 60 days of the final relocation of people from the camp in Iraq. But the move of residents from the camp is months from being final, Williams noted.

Tatel disputed Loeb’s assessment of the State Department review as a “minor delay,” saying that the appeals court ordered the agency to review the foreign terrorist organization designation nearly two years ago.

Loeb said in court “this is not a rolling process that will go on forever.” The State Department, he said, has a “duty to the public to get it right.”

The appeals court did not immediately rule this morning.

Contact Mike Scarcella at mscarcella@alm.com.

http://www.law.com/jsp/law/article.jsp?id=1202552796631

Sponsors of the Resolution include 22 Committee and Sub-Committee Chairs, 23 Committee and Sub-Committee Ranking Members

Excerpts:

Whereas the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) seeks freedom, democracy, and human rights for the people of Iran; 

Whereas tens of thousands of MEK members have been executed by the Iranian regime; 

Whereas in 2004, MEK members in Camp Ashraf obtained ‘protected persons’ status under the Fourth Geneva Convention based on the United States investigators’ conclusions that none was a combatant or had committed a crime under any United States laws; 

Whereas senior United States military officers have acknowledged on multiple occasions that MEK’s intelligence has played a positive and effective role in saving the lives of American soldiers by exposing the threats and dangers of Iran’s terrorist interventions in Iraq; 

Whereas in 2008, the United Kingdom removed the MEK from the list of proscribed organizations and lifted all the consequent restrictions; 

Whereas in 2009, the Council of Ministers of the European Union voted unanimously to remove the MEK from the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations; 

Whereas in July 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the Department of State’s designation of the MEK as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1189) was faulty because it violated the due process rights of the group; 

Whereas the FTO designation of the MEK has been used by Iranian surrogates in Iraq as well as the Nuri al-Maliki Government in Iraq to attack the MEK members in Camp Ashraf or impose inhumane restrictions on them, which has led to loss of life; 

Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives –

(1) urges the Secretary of State to remove the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) from the Department of State’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations; and 

(2) urges the Secretary of State to lift all restrictions imposed on the MEK, its members, and its affiliates, which has emanated from its designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

(Click on the this link or the image below for the PDF version)

Washington Times - 100 Members of Congress Urge Secretary Clinton to Delist Iran’s Main Opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK)

The Treasury Department has issued subpoenas to the speakers’ agencies of 11 prominent former U.S. officials, including a governor of Pennsylvania, a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and director of Homeland Security, who have given speeches on behalf of the Mujahedin e-Khalq, or MEK. Treasury’s action is meant to find out whether Ed Rendell, Hugh Shelton, Tom Ridge, and others have taken money from an outfit designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).

However, the nub of the case is whether the MEK merits the designation. The former officials contend that the group of Iranian exiles based in Iraq hasn’t used violence in over a decade and doesn’t fit the State Department’s definition of a foreign terrorist organization. The last time the MEK waged an operation against Americans was in the mid-1970s, and in recent years it willingly handed its weapons over to U.S. troops at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. Neither, say its advocates, does the MEK qualify as a threat to U.S. national security, especially given that the organization provided the Bush administration with intelligence regarding Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz.

The MEK has taken its case to court. On May 8, it will ask the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, to order the secretary of state to act within 30 days on the removal of the FTO designation. State has already delayed its decision for almost two years.

To some, it appears that it was precisely this public campaign that annoyed the Obama administration, which on this reading responded by unleashing the Treasury Department on former U.S. officials. The timing is suggestive: Even though many of the former officials speaking out for the MEK have been at it for more than a year, it was days after what was said to be an especially contentious meeting between lawyers for the MEK and the State Department that the Treasury started issuing subpoenas.

The advocates for the MEK haven’t mysteriously gone soft on terrorism. Rather, the MEK and Washington story is one of bureaucratic stasis, the petty exercise of power, and the repeated failures of U.S. policymakers in their dealings over three decades with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The MEK, which is part of a coalition called the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and identified in U.S. court documents as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, was an anti-shah student movement founded in the mid-’60s. Its ideology was a mixture of revolutionary internationalist anti-imperialism, Marxism, Islam, and a uniquely Persian blend of mysticism and metaphysics privileging sacrifice and suffering. In the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution, the MEK sided with the Khomeinists for a time. But within two years, the MEK and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps were at war with each other.

Whether Iran’s current ruling order fears the MEK because this onetime ally poses a threat to the regime is a matter of dispute. The reality is that their enmity is shaped by the nature of the conflict they waged against each other—not a civil war but a fratricidal struggle, with hundreds killed on both sides. Some MEK cadres fled to Iraq and others to France, where the government in Paris set the precedent for what would soon become a habit of Western policymakers—cracking down on the MEK at the behest of Tehran, in exchange for expected concessions from the Islamic Republic.

In 1986, Hezbollah was holding hostage nine French nationals in Lebanon, and in an effort to get Iran to secure their release, France expelled MEK leader Massoud Rajavi. Iran’s Lebanese proxies freed only two hostages, but that didn’t stop France from going back to the well. In 2003, according to the former editor of the Journal du -Dimanche, French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin sought concessions for the French energy giant Total S.A. and flexibility on the nuclear issue and in exchange agreed to round up hundreds of MEK members in France, on charges later summarily dismissed by a French counterterrorism court.

Since the mid-’80s, Tehran had been lobbying Western governments to designate the MEK a terrorist organization, and in 1997 its work paid off in Washington. Mohammad Khatami had just been elected president of Iran, and as a sop to a man deemed moderate by the standards of the Islamic Republic, the Clinton administration agreed to list the MEK as an FTO.

The road map charted by Sandy Berger and Madeleine Albright never led to the dialogue of civilizations that Khatami promised, and Washington was stuck with an albatross around its neck. The MEK had not participated in a terrorist attack on Americans since the mid-’70s, and even then it seems that the group responsible for at least some of the violence was a Marxist element within the MEK. Regardless, as Reuel Marc Gerecht, an Iran specialist at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, tells me, “they were never as bad in their anti-American activity as the PLO.” Palestine Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat had given direct orders to kill the U.S. ambassador to Sudan, Cleo Noel, and yet during the Clinton years the late PLO leader was a welcome guest at the White House. “If the PLO can be rehabilitated,” says Gerecht, “so can the MEK.”

The confusion that the Clinton administration had sown by politicizing an FTO designation would be compounded after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The MEK had long been hosted by Saddam Hussein, and stands accused of fighting alongside him in the eight-year-long Iraq-Iran war. U.S. forces moved the remaining MEK members from various sites around Iraq to Camp Ashraf. “It was in the middle of nowhere and a great place to disarm them,” says Brig. Gen. David Phillips, the retired commandant of the U.S. Army Military Police, whose job was to disarm the MEK.

Phillips says that in the wake of 9/11 he was thrilled to have the opportunity to stick it to a band of terrorists. But that’s not what he found. “We investigated all 3,400 members with the FBI,” Phillips says. “I thought the FBI would come with a list, saying these are the 200 people we want, and I continued to pressure my intelligence officers, but they kept coming back to me, saying, ‘Sir, we can’t find much.’ The FBI found no credible allegations against them and said we’re out of here.”

Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon promised that in exchange for disarming, the MEK would receive protected person status, but now, says Phillips, “we’re walking away from that promise.” The reason, as usual, is trepidation about antagonizing the Iranian regime, and the self-inflicted anxiety that seems to strike U.S. policymakers whenever it comes to dealing with the Islamic Republic.

Tehran wanted Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki to close Ashraf and expel the MEK, and the Iraqi prime minister sought relief from the Americans. Some U.S. officials argued that it was wrong to go back on a promise to a population under its protection and urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to delist the MEK. If the MEK were free of the FTO designation, the United States could have accepted some of its members as refugees and encouraged allies in the region and Europe to do the same. Rice balked, fearing the Iranians would take their anger out on U.S. troops, sending even more IEDs across the border to kill Americans.

The problem was passed on to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has bizarrely explained that a “key factor” in her decision on the MEK’s designation will be the organization’s “cooperation in the successful and peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf” and relocation to Camp Liberty, an Iraqi facility where conditions, say MEK advocates like Phillips, are horrific. 

The point of moving the group from Ashraf to Liberty is to separate them from their communication sources. “We do the same thing in the U.S. Army,” Phillips explains. “Cellphones, anything they use to communicate with, the Iraqi security forces are taking away from them. It’s cutting them off from the world.”

Worse, says Phillips, the Iranians are likely waiting for all of the MEK leadership to be moved from Ashraf to Liberty before they start “disappearing” people. It was only a few days after the United States withdrew its protection at the end of July 2009 that Iraqi security forces killed 11 at Ashraf and wounded more than 500. In April 2011 the Iraqis attacked Ashraf again, killing 36 and wounding 345. 

Phillips believes that at Liberty, cut off from the rest of the world, it can only get worse for the MEK. “If I know Maliki, he’ll put them on buses and hand them over to the [Iranian] Qods Force.”

American credibility and prestige are on the line, says Phillips, not only in how we treat people under our protection but also in how we deal with Iran. “We’re afraid of sending the Iranians a strong message and getting them mad. But that’s exactly the message we want to send them.”

Lee Smith is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/terrorists-or-fall-guys_642189.html

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, May 7 (UPI) — While the governments of Iraq and Iran grow closer and closer politically, several thousand Iranian dissidents in Iraq grow more fearful of their futures. And with good cause.

Because the United States continues to stall in removing the terrorist designation from these dissidents — the People’s Mujahedin of Iran — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki uses this label as justification for oppressing the 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty.

He even has the effrontery to discuss their situation with the mullahs in Tehran. How dare him!

Adding to the problem is the role of the United Nations. According to Makili’s security adviser, “Mr. Martin Kobler, special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for Iraq, has talked in details with Iraqi and Iranian parties through the Iranian Embassy or other channels communicating with Iran in order to provide the requirements for implementation of the understanding which has been agreed on between him and Iraq to close Camp Ashraf and put an end to the presence of this organization on Iraqi territory. Talks included the mechanisms and Iran’s role in what has to be done to solve this matter.”

Why is Kobler talking to Iran in the first place and what role does Iran have in what should be a matter between Iraq, the United Nations, the European Union and the United States?

Maliki has been doing Tehran’s bidding and it took last-minute action by the United Nations and United States to have them agree to move from Ashraf, north of Baghdad, to Camp Liberty, near the Baghdad airport.

But the move, intended to be for a short stay while the dissidents are being processed by the U.N. refugee agency prior to transfer to third countries, has been anything but smooth.

At Liberty, they suffer intolerable conditions, lack of freedom and constant monitoring. Even before arriving, each group of 400 has been harassed, deprived of their belongings and treated harshly.

And not a single one has left Liberty, though more arrive regularly to greater overcrowding and a prison-like setting.

What a misnomer is the name “Liberty.”

The stumbling block is the entire equation is the terrorist listing of the PMOI. It gives Maliki a pretence to be fighting “terrorism” when he is really just doing Tehran’s dirty work.

It’s ironic that the listing was first issued in a failed attempt to appease the mullahs. Yet, it continues almost 10 years after the PMOI turned over its weapons to U.S. forces and accepted American protection under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

That was fine as long as U.S. troops remained in Iraq but when they left Maliki had a free hand to do the mullahs’ bidding.

Ironically, in recent weeks, the United States has begun to establish friendly relations with the oppressive government of Myanmar because that country’s military leaders made significant moves toward democracy.

Yet, even though every single PMOI member was screened by U.S. forces in 2003 and not a terrorist was found — and even though the U.S. commanders who were responsible for Camp Ashraf have attested to the residents’ lack of any terroristic beliefs — the U.S. State Department still has not acted on court decisions urging it to remove the PMOI from the terror list.

The European Union and United Kingdom took such action years ago.

I still have trouble understanding the delay. Dozens of American leaders — military, political, diplomatic, human rights activists — representing the whole spectrum of the country’s bipartisan framework, support the PMOI’s efforts to be delisted, sometimes at great personal risk. They have been attacked by an anonymous few who for reasons I cannot fathom; still see a benefit to maintaining them on the list.

Of course, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can avoid that by acting now to delist the PMOI. It’s an action I urge her to take now. It is the right strategic decision and the one that could save lives of innocent Iranian dissidents.

(Kent Olsson served in the Swedish Parliament from 1991-2010. During his tenure, he was a member of Committee on Foreign Affairs. He was Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Trafficking in Human Being of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. He is also a was former vice president of Nordic Council.)

http://www.upiasia.com/Top-News/2012/05/07/83631336386600/

 By LEO MCCLOSKEY, DAVID PHILLIPS, WESLEY MARTIN