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Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Let’s Break the Cult’s Life-Glass

Terrorist MKO showed its fear and despair by publishing a report on the final statement of “Recognizing Sectarian Terrorism Seminar”, signed by 140 former members and commanders of the group.

In a hurried reaction, remnants of Rajavi’s cult desperately brought their lawyers to the scene, swearing that they had not conducted anything illegal in Camp Ashraf. By threatening the Iraqi government to pursue the case by international attorneys, Mojahedin try to disrupt legal processes of the government.

The main message of “Recognizing Sectarian Terrorism Seminar”, expressed briefly in its final statement, is that “The mafia-like inhuman organizational structure- established by a number of MKO ringleaders- is the only obstacle in the way of those members who want to choose freely and leave the group, and that facilities provided by Saddam Hussein prepares a suitable environment for the survival of such an illegal structure”.

Considering this message, hurried position-taking by remnants of Rajavi can be analyzed.

Former members and commanders who have signed this statement are well aware that Iraq is the only place in the world in which Rajavi can continue to keep control on members and follow his political-organizational interests. On the other hand, group’s ringleaders confess to this fact that their expulsion from Iraq- not to Iran, but to any other place in the world- equals total destruction of the MKO structure. So, their existence is now tied to Iraq and is like “life-glass” of Rajavi’s terrorist band.

In its hurried reaction, MKO’s propaganda system revealed reasoning and cases reserved for the time after the confirmation of Iraqi constitution and the establishment of Iraq’s permanent government. “Regarding international regulations, as Iraqi president’s spokesperson said on October 5 in Radio Farda, MKO’s presence in Iraq has nothing to do with the responsibilities of current Iraqi government but it is related to the 4th Geneva Convention, executed under the supervision of International Committee of Red Cross.”

Then, by threatening Iraqi government and officials, they tried to strengthen their words: “Therefore, all Iraqi democratic, patriotic people are well aware that anyone who wants to violate or ignore recognized asylum rights of Mojahedin in the framework of 4th Geneva Convention would be considered a traitor and an ally of Mullah’s outlaw regime, and attorneys will press charges against him”.

According to 4th Geneva Convention, the agreement signed with each and every member inside Camp AShraf after disarmament process was an agreement between coalition forces and real individuals. So, legal status of 4th Geneva Convention has been granted to independent people, not to “Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization of Iran”.

Considering the articles of 4th Geneva Convention and its privileges for those who enjoy this status it can be said that all activities of terrorist MKO (listed in global terrorist list) are illegal and can be prosecuted internationally.

According to the same reasons for disarming this group, its satellite TV programs, controlling individuals in Camp Ashraf and their movements and also planning to restrict these people are illegal and Iraqi government, as MKO’s hosting country and where the Convention is being applied, can pursue the case.

Although 4th Geneva Convention provides a number of advantages for those who enjoy it, it’s really preventive for a terrorist group; however, the MKO makes so much noise about it.

Recent MKO position, taken due to its weakness and despair, reveals the reasons behind all MKO efforts during past two years in order to get assurance for staying in Iraq and encouraging forces to reject all other humane offers. It also exposes the real fears of MKO’s leadership. Mojahedin know well that forces in Camp Ashraf won’t cooperate willingly in other places of the world and that all steps against illegal activities of this group will lead to the freedom of these forces; that’s why they focus their major activities on creating petitions under the name of Iraqi people, lawyers and ad hoc NGOs as well as their satisfaction for MKO’s staying in Iraq!

Now, we can understand why they opposed the Iraqi draft constitution. All former members and those who have experienced the depth of crimes in Rajavi’s cult should stress this legal right that “MKO’s organizational restrictions and boundaries in Iraq should be lifted from members, and this should be done in Iraq, by Iraq’s legitimate government in the framework of the 4th Geneva Convention as well as fighting terrorism and investigation of Saddam’s crimes. Meanwhile, the security of all members should be guaranteed.”

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Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Human Rights Watch: ‘We weren’t duped.’

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 (UPI) — Human Rights Watch reasserted claims of abuses by an Iranian dissident group Wednesday even after a report compiled by a European Parliament delegation denounced its initial report as "devoid of any truth."

Earlier this year, the global watchdog group published a report alleging serial abuses at Camp Ashraf, the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq headquarters, six miles north of Baghdad. The report described the MeK as an extremist sect, whose leaders had exerted a manipulative psychological influence on their followers, as in the case of the 1980s mass divorces enforced to ensure total loyalty to their cause. Members who wish to leave the organization suffered from beating and prolonged solitary confinement, resulting in a number of fatalities, the report said.

The MeK denies the allegations, claiming an Iranian conspiracy to discredit the group.

A report by the parliamentary delegation, based on a visit to Camp Ashraf in September, backed the MeK’s claims. In its report, the delegation said that the watchdog group had gone "far beyond the mandate of a human rights organization." The delegation heard counter-testimonies from MeK members, supporting this view and vilifying Human Rights Watch.

"We found the allegations contained in HRW report unfounded and devoid of any truth. We also came to the conclusion that the HRW report was procedurally flawed and substantively inaccurate."

The HRW has been criticized by the delegation for not visiting Camp Ashraf and for basing their report on testimony gathered in 12 telephone interviews.

But HRW’s Joe Stork Wednesday fiercely defended his conclusions, throwing his own accusations back at the EU delegation.

"They’re fine ones to talk about methodology," he told United Press International. "The counter-testimonies are all from people high up in the MeK. Most of the criticisms in the delegation’s report are from MeK sources."

Asked why HRW did not visit Camp Ashraf, despite invitations from the MeK, Stork explained that his organization’s allegations dated back before the occupation of Iraq led by the American coalition. "We were invited during the Hussein era. No human rights organization could credibly take up that offer."

HRW had sought permission to visit the camp since the fall of Saddam, he said. But "U.S. forces did not respond positively to later requests. In hindsight, I regret not including that in the report." Coalition forces in Iraq were unable to confirm that these requests had been made, according to Stork.

The MeK was designated a terrorist organization by the Clinton administration in 1997. But the group has since won favor in the United States by providing information on the Iranian nuclear program. In 2004, MeK members were given ‘protected status’ by coalition forces in Iraq.

The group’s seemingly contradictory status, at once a source of valuable intelligence and an acknowledged terrorist organization, is fuelling a fierce propaganda war between the MeK and the Iranian regime, in which HRW, the European Parliament and the United States Government have become players.

Stork is a target of an elaborate deception by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, claims Raymond Tanter, a Georgetown University academic and founding member of the Iran Policy Committee, which advises the United States government, citing a June White Paper issued by the IPC that describes HRW as "victims of a world class intelligence operation."

According to the IPC paper, many of the witnesses interviewed by HRW were in fact Iranian agents. These included Hossein Sobhani, "whom HRW cites as a "credible" victim but who, in fact, runs an intelligence ring in Europe that works under the direct supervision of MOIS deputy chief Mohammad-Reza Iravani."

"Human Rights Watch has been duped," said Tanter.

Terrorists or indispensable friends? Uncertainty over the true personality of the MeK has prompted debate over the U.S. administration’s relationship with the group. In an October report by Foreign Policy magazine, freelance writer Erik Saas suggested that MeK intelligence might not be quite as indispensable as their advocates claim:

"The group has a record of exaggerating intelligence or sometimes simply making things up. U.S. officials have learned to take MeK claims with very large grains of salt," wrote Saas.

Nevertheless, there is, according to Saas, increasing co-operation between the MeK and the United States. (Although they remain on the U.S. State Department’s terrorist list.) Saas even claims MeK fighters have been deployed in Pakistan and Afghanistan, although this has not been confirmed.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, President of Strategic Policy Consulting and former MeK leader, says he sees no reason why the terrorist designation should not soon be lifted. MeK was placed on the terrorist list in 1997 as a conciliatory gesture aimed at Iran’s president at the time, Mohammed Khatami Jafarzadeh told UPI. "The designation came weeks after Khatami was elected," he said. But with the election this summer of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a shift in policy was likely. "With the new regime, the situation will change."

Tanter gives credence to the suggestion that the terrorist list has more to do with political expediency than human rights. "The designation is a diplomatic football tossed around to gain various diplomatic benefits," he said.

Asked if, in the light of the HRW allegations, co-operation with the MeK could damage the image of the United States, Tanter said: "American credibility is damaged if it doesn’t take sides with the Iranian resistance in general. The U.S. has to stand with the dissidents. That doesn’t mean picking a group."

"Regime change is the implicit policy of the Bush administration," he said. "Diplomacy has failed and the number of nuclear installations makes military action unfeasible." If Tanter is right, alliance with dissident groups, however unsavory, is one of increasingly few options.

By LEIGH BALDWIN

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO Spying for Americans

The German weekly “Focus” quoted a former CIA employee and said that the US is spying on Iran by using Mojahedin-e Khalq members.

Beside the pictures of MKO tanks (which were received from Saddam Hussein), Focus quoted Ray McGovern saying: “There’s no doubt in Washington that this group (MKO) can be a good leverage against Iran.”

This former CIA employee, referring to the possible use of MKO by the US against Iran, said: “these forces are now being deployed to Iran for intelligence activities.”

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Exiled Iranian Resistance Could Help Pressure Tehran?

The terrorist status of the exiled Iranian resistance might be used to pressure Iran’s regime over the next few months as the US, the UN and the EU step up efforts to get the country to comply with specific rules on its nuclear program. The proposition is simple: the Mujahiddeen stays on the terrorist list for at least another two years and in return for this goodwill, Iran is more forthcoming in its nuclear pledges.

There wouldn’t be all that much substance to such a deal, but comments from diplomats reveal that it’s been pondered rather matter of factly time and again as a feasible bargaining ploy. The exiled Iranian resistance groups’ terrorist label can either be used as little more than a bargaining chip or -less likely- they might find that they might be fitted into a US cooked up plan for inciting popular uprisings inside Iran. Both ends of the spectrum have implications that might be unforeseen.

At the center of the action would be the dissident National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). It is also known as the Mujahiddeen el Khalq (MeK) or the National Liberation Army (NLA). Some 3,000 of its members have been granted protection in July 2004 by the US in their camp in Ashraf, northwest of Baghdad. The organization’s main appeal to Western backers, of whom the Europeans are even more enthusiastic than the Americans, is the result of intensive campaigning over the last 15 years. In a sense, it has found the perfect organizational formula to win over Western hearts and minds – it puts women’s rights at the heart of its philosophy. Women make out 30 percent of the group yet they are covering 70% of all leadership functions.

The MeK has successfully attracted world media attention and it appears that it charmes work. US congress member for Florida, Illeana Ros Lehtinen, who frequently campaigns for the recognition of Iranian resistance groups certainly will have bought into the female message. However, it appears that the group got some wires crossed when it made news headlines that indicated practices in stark contrast with such lofty idealism. The freedom fighters have a dysmal appreciation of human rights according to a report last May by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The report exacerbated the controversy surrounding the terrorist status of the group, and highlighted some rather gruesome incidents inflicted on people trying to leave the group. One of the instances involved a former bodyguard of Rajavi. Le Parisien describes what happened to him. "When he decided to leave MKO, they injected narcotics into his body and Tahmasebi was under heavy mental torture". The former bodyguard’s fate was relatively mild compared to the punishments the leadership cooked up for other members and which frequently ended in the death of the people punished.

Even though in some eyes the MeK has made significant strides in becoming an acceptable organization, vowing to lay off terrorist actions, insiders say that the last decade its leaders have adopted a cult like aura that not everyone has found to be admirable and which likely contributed to its difficulty in recruiting new members. In the early 1990s, the husband and wife team leading the group, Masoud Rajavi and Maryam Uzdanlu, asked all its members to undertake their own "ideological revolution" by divorcing their spouses. One of the victims of this kind of brainwashing operation is the Iran affairs analyst Ali Reeza Jafarzade who frequently appears on Fox TV. An Iranian exile, Jafarzade is an ex MeK member, as well as the head of a think tank that is not part of the group. It was Jafarzade who was the NCRI’s official spokesman breaking the news to the world of Iran’s  nuclear facilities in Natanz and Arak two years ago.

Iran Interlink, an organization that claims to reveal the MeK’s true face to the world, runs a website that claims that Jafarzade married his wife, Robabeh Sadeghi of Babol, in 1986 on Massoud Rajavi’s orders. Four years later, the couple divorced after Rajavi told all the group’s members to do so for ideological reasons. Iran Interlink published a bio of Jafarzade, that cast a shadow of doubt over his links with Fox News. "Fox News now introduces Jafarzadeh as either their employee or as the head of a consultancy company. But as recently as 2002 the same man was interviewed by Fox News as the MKO’s representative in the US Congress", according to the website. "There are serious allegations that Jafarzadeh has been involved in illegal deals in the USA, including deals involving chemicals which can be used to produce WMDs. There are also allegations that the MKO, with him as its representative, have been involved in serious money laundering and drug trafficking in the USA. These allegations, as well as his and Fox News’ dodgy connections in Washington, are currently under investigation," Iran interlink contends. Jafarzadeh apparently was such a committed member that he repeatedly volunteered for suicide operations, Interlink claims, adding that in one of the organization’s publications he is quoted as saying that he is ready to burn himself in front of the UN’s New York office whenever it is needed.

Even though it is unlikely that the MeK is not at all involved in helping out the covert agents running around inside Iran, it is equally unlikely that they are being heavily relied upon as an organization, observers believe. Ron Jacobs at counterpunch.com believes that it is not necessarily logical to expect that the US would immediately enlist the services of the NCRI’s members to conduct a foreign invasion of the country, even though this group has been actively publicizing the locations of Iran’s nuclear sites. "Should change come to Iran with minimal US interference, it seems likely that those groups and people with the fewest connections to DC will be those held in greatest favor by the Iranian people", Jacobs believes. But it is difficult to get a clear picture on this issue.

The only recent official sign that the Bush administration is working on the situation was the release by the US State Department to members of Congress of a classified report entitled ‘non compliance report’, covering the nuclear situation in Iran and a few other countries. Parts of the report were publicized, but it was also announced that there is a "secret" as well as a "top secret" version of the report in circulation – a clear sign that Washington wants the world to know that the wheels are turning.

For all that it matters, the main investigations that are ongoing into the role of individuals and groups like the NCRI are also mostly classified. It is virtually impossible to gain access to even the review dates of the three State Department lists that brand the MeK as a terrorist organization and which happens every two years.

This is bad news for the MeK, which has focused on losing the terrorist stigma for the last Decade. In recent years, the MeK appealed three times to the United States Court of Appeals to review the 1999 and 2001 decisions of the state Department to designate it as a foreign terrorist organization. But from a rational point of view it would be hardly possible to grant the MeK its wish. The Bush administration has named the organization a major reason for its invasion in Iraq, believe it or not. In a white paper released in September 2002, the US administration restated a claim President Bush had made before in a speech to the UN General Assembly, saying that one of the main reasons it had invaded Iraq had been its "sheltering of terrorist groups including the Mujahideen-e-Khalq Organization, which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians." Michele Steinberg, a writer for the Executive Intelligence Review says that "the only major concrete charge that the Bush administration made about a terrorist organization was against, rather than in favor of the MeK.

One of the allegations to haunt the organization most persistently is that it was actively involved in suppressing an uprising of the Kurds in Northern Iraq in 1991. One of its official spokespeople has a lot of experience countering this threat and says that even the PKA dismisses these allegations. That’s one example of putting out a fire that showcases the organization’s potential use yet again as an outfit that conveys reliability. If the US administration is at all orchestrating the publicity, it’s casting the group as precisely this – a  source of information.

Aside from the revelations on the two nuclear power plants that the Iranian leadership had not told the IAEA about, Jafarzade has recently started to take to repeating stories. News broken to the world by the Financial Times a few months ago was regurgitated once again, as well as the allegations that there are some 4,000 centrifuges spinning at full speed inside Iranian nuclear facilities. What the point is of such allegations is dubious. Outside observers believe that Washington might be readying the public opinion for a military strike against Iran’s nuclear sites. Analysts say that the majority of the policymakers in favor of attacking Iran favor this option over inciting an uprising. "Even so, the fate of democracy in Iran will hardly be determined solely in Washington. A year after NATO bombed Serbia to halt Milosevic’s brutal crackdown against the Kosovo Albanians, Serbian students led a peaceful struggle to overthrow Milosevic. The forces that lead to regime change are often unpredictable — and not easily suppressed", writes Laura Rozen, who is voicing just what some analysts at lobby groups are banking on. It remains to be seen whether such a scenario will be volunteered as easily. People at NCRI say they have a very difficult time educating the population on just how much money the Iranian regime is spending on the nuclear program. If the population finds it has any bones to pick with their government, it will likely be more inspired by economic incentives that are more readily digestible.

Rozen believes that a strike wouldn’t be without considerable risks either. "However, an unfortunate link might be made between the even more unfortunate bombing by US troops of Sarajevo .. in 1998 … US leaders might be dreaming of a similar scenario, when, a month after the bombing, a peaceful demonstration of a bunch of students led to the revolt that ousted the then president Slobodan Milosovic. However, it’s unlikely that policymakers will be so naieve as to think history repeats itself at their whim even without making an attempt whatsoever."

The main challenge the Iranian resistance abroad poses aside from the controversy surrounding the status of the MeK in the US and France are widely convering views within the organizations. For all the MeK hype’s worth, one wonders whether alternative support of Iranian dissidents exists besides the choice of this flagship group.  But this is offset by equally few scrupules over trading the MeK’s terrorist status for better nuclear pledges from the Iranian regime. From the ground up however, there is a growing movement among Brussels politicians that wants to end the restrictions on the MeK as an organization. The French closed the organization down two years ago . They kicked out the organization before too, when in 1986 it forced the movement to relocate to Baghdad and effectively hire itself out as Saddam Hussein’s private army. Surprisingly, the French are said to be most effective in garnering results from nuclear negotiations.

It’s most likely the MeK is only used to incite terror inside Iran in a non official capacity. Or even without direct approval from the very people that are responsible at the top in the US Bush administration. This won’t be a unique development. The officials like Bush and Rice were not informed of the decision by the US army to give the Mujahiddeen fighters their arms back upon invading Iraq and very shortly after the group were bombed by the Iraqi army. Yet as soon as she got wind of what the Vice President Dick Cheney and a few like minded friends were condoning, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice cancelled this agreement and declared the Asraf grounds a protected zone later on. It is US policy not to allow dealings between US officials and members of organizations that officially are listed as terrorist. The US, round about the same time as France, closed the MeK offices in the summer of 2003.

Even from the more recent State Department documents it appears that there is scepticism within the State Department. The Decades old claim that the group is essentially Marxist and that it does not envisage Iran as an Islamic state has obviously not been updated for years save on its stay in Iraq. "The MeK philosophy mixes Marxism and Islam. […] Its primary support came from the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein starting in the late 1980s. The MeK conducted anti-Western attacks prior to the Islamic Revolution. Since then, it has conducted terrorist attacks against the interests of the clerical regime in Iran and abroad. The MeK advocates the overthrow of the Iranian regime and its replacement with the group’s own leadership."

Massoud Rajavi confirms that a Marxist coup d’etat took place within the group when he was in prison following the street rallies in the MeK’s heydays, but that he managed to regain control even from his prison cell. In a bid to make the organization acceptable overseas, he has repeatedly repudiated all Marxist leanings. Aside from its dodgy philosophical makeup, information about how the group functions internally reads much like the accounts of the Davidian Waco cult that was butchered by the FBI in Texas in 1993. Radio messages are broadcast every day to induce members to the gospel according to its leaders and psychological pressure is the standard way of conveying orders. The MeK’s long history starts in 1965, when three former students of Tehran University -Mohammad Hanifnezhad, Saeed Mohsen and Asghar Badizadegan set up the movement to help topple the regime of the much hated Shah. They made Marxism and Islam the foundation of their ideology, a trend that most groups of the time participated in. The MeK found soon after the revolution that the new Ayatollah-run regime would simply not trust it or allow it any role in public life and took to arms. On June 20 1981, the movement started to organize mass rallies and soon thousands of its members inside Iran were arrested and executed in the streets because they had participated in regime hostile activities. With the anti-shah revolution still fresh in the Iranian people’s minds, the new regime’s leaders had legitimate worries that a similar fate could rather easily befall them.

The Mujahiddeen nowadays is not seen by experts as a major military outfit, but it has known its moments and could be up for a similar refashioning. Maryam Rajavi has been arrested while hiding in France and is currently awaiting trial on terrorism related charges. Husband Massoud hasn’t been seen in two years. Meanwhile, Iran Interlink reports that Maryam has been replaced by someone who served in Saddam Hussein’s private army, and who in turn is succeeding a deputy leader that has mysteriously disappeared from the scene. All is very sensitive in Tehran. The European Parliament invited Maryam to outline an alternative view for state organization in Iran and outraged the Iranian regime. It shows yet again that the organization’s international standing is somewhat of a potent bargaining chip with Tehran.

The impression one gets from the official organization is however that the MeK’s aspirations to topple the Iranian regime and replace it with its own officers are still going strong. But the ambitions are rather hopeless without some staunch backing. "The presence of a female-dominated army prepared to fight the mullahs and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards is a powerful symbol to all women in the region. Its effectiveness is not in its military might. The fact that the army exists at all is a huge threat to all male-dominated fundamentalist regimes. It shows what women can do", says Anne Land, a Danish Human Rights lawyer who visited Camp Ashraf. Yet last Summer’s human rights watch report has set the scene once again for a review of the group’s ‘sins of the past’. It looks increasingly difficult to fit the organization in any official US plan for regime change. For all its campaigning however to lose the terrorist label and to muster international support for the dream team of husband and wife aided by an army of innocent virgins, the MeK simply has too much blood on its hands for it to be feasibly considered suitable material by even the most unconscionable neocon in Washington.

Within Iran, the MeK won’t be greeted with open arms either. "The MKO are highly disliked and disregarded by Iranians worldwide. During the Iran-Iraq war, Saddam Hussein financed and utilized the MKO to institute several attacks against Iranians," a writer at the IranTruth blog writes. These reports are confirmed time and again. It appears that it’s likely going to be rather difficult to gain trust as an organization that once has taken up arms against its own people -in the 1988 Iran Iraq war- rather than against only the regime in Tehran. The group is also widely perceived by the Iranian population to have been actively involved in suppressing the Kurds in 1991, together with Saddam’s army. "The MKO do not gain immunity for their previous actions simply by refraining from targeting European and American targets for 30 years", according to the IranTruth blog.

Angelique van Engelen is a former Middle East correspondent and currently runs a writing agency http://www.contentclix.com. She also participates in a writing ring http://clixyplays.blogspot.com/

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK’s Gratitude for NYTimes and IHT Articles

One of the major news stories today on the Iranian satellite television channel Simaye Azadi was the favorable news coverage the MEK (Rajavi Cult) received on September 24, 2005 in the New York Times and in the International Herald Tribune. Craig S. Smith’s article appeared as “Exiled Iranians Try to Foment Revolution From France” in the New York Times and as “An implacable opponent to the mullahs of Iran” in the International Herald Tribune.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/24/international/europe/24rajavi.html

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/23/news/profile.php

Both newspapers reported the statements of Maryam Rajavi during an interview at MEK headquarters in Auvers-Sur-Oise, France. While the reporter raised questions about or mentioned frequent criticisms of the MEK (cult organization, mandatory divorce, members burning themselves to death, the unusual marriage of Massoud Rajavi and of Maryam Rajavi), the newspapers published Maryam Rajavi’s responses without identifying factual errors. For example:

“She denies that the movement ever accepted financial support from Iraq or fought against Iraqi Shiites and Kurds on Mr. Hussein’s behalf, as some people claim.”

Smith included a description of Maryam Rajavi that readers of the New York Times who believed that Fidel Castro was the “George Washington of Cuba” will find endearing: “She speaks volumes on a Castro-like scale”- The New York Times’ support for Castro’s 1959 takeover of Cuba was so strong that the National Review responded by placing a picture of Fidel Castro on its cover with the words: “I got my job through the New York Times”.

http://www.etherzone.com/2002/bren013002.shtml

On September 12, 2002, President George W. Bush spoke to the United Nations General Assembly. His Office of the Press Secretary distributed a background paper supporting his remarks: "A Decade of Deception and Defiance". The section “Saddam Hussein’s Support for International Terrorism” included the MEK and did not include al-Qaeda:

“Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.”

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912.html

President George W. Bush employed two major pretexts to dupe Americans into supporting the Iraq War: (1) extend the war on terror to Iraq, a major sponsor of terrorist organizations such as the MEK (2) find and destroy weapons of mass destruction before Saddam Hussein uses the weapons or sells the weapons to terrorists.

The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune have published claims contrary to American government reports. On October 13, 2004, Newsweek published “Shades of Gray” by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6242223/site/newsweek

The Newsweek article contains details counter to New York Times and International Herald Tribune articles:

1. Chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer’s report includes evidence that Saddam Hussein allocated approximately $16 million of oil to the MEK over a 4-year period prior to the Iraq War. Saddam Hussein made the allocations using the United Nations-managed Oil-for-Food program. Saddam Hussein signed approvals to add any group to the Oil Allocation Recipient List.

2. The MEK’s response was that Iranian intelligence agents must have been involved with placing the MEK on the list!

3. MEK war crimes in Iraq:

But a U.S. official told NEWSWEEK that more recent reporting from Camp Ashraf indicates that about 40 MEK members have been identified as possible candidates for prosecution. Most likely, the official said, the prosecutions would take place in Iraq, where MEK members might be charged with crimes against humanity or war crimes associated with assistance they provided Saddam’s regime including acting as a paramilitary force to suppress uprisings by the Shia. Another handful, perhaps four to six, might be brought to the United States for prosecution for terrorist-related acts or other crimes, the official said.”

Quiz: Who is publishing the truth about the MEK: Maryam Rajavi, New York Times and the International Herald Tribune, President George W. Bush, or Newsweek?

Please email your answers and references to: traitorsusa@yahoogroups.com

References

“A Decade of Deception and Defiance”, Office of the Press Secretary, The White House, September 12, 2002.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912.html

Brennan, Phil, “The New York Times: The “Newspaper of Record”- Some Record, Ether Zone, January 30, 2002.

http://www.etherzone.com/2002/bren013002.shtml

Isikoff, Michael, and Mark Hosenball, “Shades of Gray”, Newsweek, October 13, 2004.

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Bargaining with the Devil

It would seem that there is a great deal at stake for the 150 MEK supporters in Congress. Whether it is these congressional members who are providing Jafarzadeh, the MEK spokesman, with aerial photos of Iran’s nuclear facilities, or vice versa, the Bush administration is having a field day with it at the UN General Assembly.

Of course, the doctored satellite images that took America to war three years ago, proved costly. Body bags and a depleted treasury have prompted the Pentagon to revisit its preemptive nuclear doctrine. The justification would be saving lives – obliterating cities to save a thousand American lives and half a billion dollars seems reasonable. Rumsfeld is right on the ball. School children will grow up learning that Iran had to be nuked so that the Iranians would stop sponsoring terrorists that were going to harm Americans with their nukes 10 years down the line. Oil was reaching $100 a barrel. We wanted to keep Alaska clean for you all.

Sadly, the mainstream media is following suit. Regrettably, there is no free press in this society – it is simply a mouthpiece of corporations and the government. Else, why would the speaker of a terrorist cult the MEK be given a platform? And why would the facts about Iran’s nuclear program be distorted to such an extent?

Even the once reputable The Economist writes "two decades of nuclear deception” (September 10-16th, 2005). The uninformed author of this article, or the ill-intentioned writer, should be reminded that Iran was openly soliciting bids to buy reactors from different countries after Germany, under pressure from the U.S., withheld its reactors which had been duly paid for. In fact, in 1996, Iran filed a lawsuit against Germany’s Kraftwerk Union at the International Commerce Commission.

More importantly, as a signatory to the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the construction of a facility, even a nuclear facility, does not have to be reported to the IAEA (Natanz is a case in point). The only stipulation is that 180 days PRIOR to introducing any nuclear material, the NPT member has to declare the existence of the facility. The construction of the Natanz facility is not a violation of the NPT as the Bush administration would have us believe, echoed by the media. The NPT does allow a member to legally build any nuclear facility, including one for uranium enrichment, so long as it is declared, and safeguarded by the IAEA, and is intended for peaceful purposes.

As for the revelations of Natanz, though Jafarzadeh would like to take credit, if treason can be given credit to; it was revealed by Seymour Hersh, the renowned journalist who exposed the My Lai massacre and the human right abuses at Abu Gharib prison (and Afghanistan), that it was indeed Israel that provided the MEK with the intelligence reports, many unfounded, regarding Iran’s nuclear sights.

The 150 congressional members have betrayed the trust of the American people by bargaining with the devil, the MEK, a terrorist cult who betrayed their own people”

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Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

EU and Human Rights Watch Report

Four months after HRW’s report on MKO (and its violation of human rights) was published, those accused of violating human rights held a 250-member carnival, spent astronomical amounts of money, and repeated the same words they had expressed 4 months ago.

Human rights violators easily accuse others of being “mercenary”, call themselves “protectors of human rights” and say that others accusations are coming from enemy’s intelligence services.

Unlike other cases, this time there are witnesses (with enough evidences such as Abu Ghraib prison and registered by Red Cross as prisoners), ready to give testimony anywhere anytime. As an opponent of HRW’s report said, one should look at the faces of victims when giving testimony in order to find whether their testimony is true or not.

Taking advantage of deceived people and a large group of human rights experts- all unaware of being trapped- can only help the victims of MKO human rights violations to prove their claims.

The people who say testimonies against human rights violators (MKO) are not true have took the burden to go to Iraq in order to get the testimonies of those entangled in that country, but they didn’t accept to have an interview with any of the victims in Europe.

Can anybody ask these impartial “judges” why? This could help you hear the complaints of both sides and have a better decision-making.

Anyway, Roshana Association is ready to hold a seminar, with MKO officials and human rights experts, to discuss the accuracy of these claims.

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Raymond Tanter

Tanter’s Golden Dreams

A newly established group has asked the US government to lift the name of MKO from terror list.

Few members of “Iran Policy Committee” (IPC) are comprised of former officials of US government and retired CIA agents.

In order to understand its importance and influence, one should consider how far they are from the latest analysis of US government about the terrorist group they support. A terrorist group on US terror list, offices of which were shut down by the government of George Bush.

Part of Pentagon officials believe that MKO members should be used in espionage activities against Iranian regime and this constitutes the pillars of Raymond Tanter’s idea to support this terrorist group.

But Tanter is not aware of the unified approach of US officials toward this group. He doesn’t how Iranians hate this group and that’s why he call it a “resistance group”.

AP published recently a very funny and simple analysis on MKO by Raymond Tanter.

He said that his committee found strong opposition to MKO in different website and that , according to this, it can be concluded that Iranian government is worried about MKO and that this group has a high level of support!

Tanter and his partners in IPC (support of whom for MKO is very suspicious and, like many other examples, can be acquire by MKO in exchange for paying money) have based their analysis on the presence of a number of websites. This approach proves that they’re not familiar with Iran affairs. It also shows how they’ve copied MKO’s stances, since it’s only the MKO that claims “slogans in Friday prayers in Iran prove its position”!

Instead of citing websites, Tanter could have talked about popular actions and demonstrations in support of MKO; something that has never happened during past two decades and that’s why they have used the contents of a number of websites for their judgment.

Tanter refers to infeasibility of military attack against Iran and asks for the removal of MKO (as an alternative) from terror list; this also proves how far they are from official policies of the US government.

While one can barely relate the option of military strike against Iran to the removal of MKO from terror list (posing such claim is essentially senseless), what’s more lamentable is that Tanter and those who think like him (if there’s any thinking at all!) even don’t know that the unacceptable idea of using Mojahedin-e khalq was posed in the framework of military option. Even in that case, this terrorist group with shameful records of cooperating with Saddam Hussein and involvement in terrorist operations has little chance to accompany US soldiers.

The new US approach in foreign diplomacy, introduced recently by Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes, is to cleanse US policies from contradictions and double standards. Regarding this new approach, will the US government officially support a group it categorized as terrorist?

Furthermore, Raymond Tanter and his partners have denied those records of the MKO that can’t be denied even by the spokespersons of the group itself!

How can they deny the issue of assassination of US citizens in Iran when its case is available in US State Department and CIA since before revolution in Iran?

The least IPC can do to get to its goals is to break the consensus in the White House and State Department against this group, clear terrorist records of this group and also ignore this fact that the cult of Rajavi has no popular support in Iran. It doesn’t seem they’re able to do so. 

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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Report to Senate Foreign Relations Committee

THE QUEST FOR IRAN’S DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT.

Testimony for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

One side of the opposition spectrum is represented by the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO or MEK) which the U.S. State Department designated a "foreign terrorist organization" in 1997. Still identified as a terrorist organization, the MKO also is known as the National Liberation Army of Iran (the militant wing of the MKO), the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, National Council of Resistance, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, and Muslim Iranian Student’s Society (a front organization used to garner financial support). The EU designated the MKO’s military wing as a terrorist organization in May 2002.

The MKO was created in the 1960s and its ideology combines Islam and Marxism. It was involved with anti-U.S. terrorism in the 1970s, and it initially supported the 1978-79 revolution. In June 1981, it staged an unsuccessful uprising against the Islamic regime; many members were imprisoned while others fled the country. The MKO transitioned from being a "mass movement" in 1981 to having "all the main attributes of a cult" by mid-1987, Professor Ervand Abrahamian writes in his 1989 book, Radical Islam: The Iranian Mojahedin. The MKO refers to its head, Masud Rajavi, in religious terms, calling him the rahbar (leader) and imam-i hal (present imam).

From its Iraqi exile the MKO attacked the Iranian regime’s leadership: a 1981 bombing killed President Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, in 1992 it attacked 13 Iranian embassies, and it is behind other mortar attacks and assassination attempts in Iran. Former President Saddam Hussein granted the MKO refuge in Iraq, and it helped Saddam Hussein suppress the 1991 uprisings of Shia in southern Iraq and Kurds in the north, so it is not very popular in Iraq. The MKO fought Iranian forces in the Iran-Iraq War, and this has discredited the organization among the Iranian public.

In May 2003, after Operation Iraqi Freedom, the MKO agreed to turn over its weapons to U.S. forces, and over time most of them have been restricted to one location, Camp Ashraf. In July 2004, MKO members in Iraq were granted "protected status" under the Geneva Conventions. The Iranian government has repeatedly offered an amnesty to rank-and-file members if they return to Iran, but the amnesty does not extend to the organization’s leadership. A reluctance to return is understandable: many MKO members who were imprisoned in the early 1980s were tortured into recanting, and for a few months in 1988-1989 thousands of MKO and leftist prisoners were executed. Iranian state media sporadically reports on groups of former MKO members who have returned, but it is not clear how they are treated.

Some U.S. commentators have recommended removing the MKO from the terrorist list and using it as an armed resistance movement against Iran. There also are suggestions that MKO personnel should be cultivated as intelligence assets that might re-energize the reform movement in Iran. It is unlikely that MKO members would be trusted, since some reformists fought MKO personnel in the war, others created the security institutions that hunted them down, and most are part of the current political system. Furthermore, information provided by the MKO, which does not have the same objectives as the U.S., is likely to be self-serving and unreliable. Using MKO personnel as a partisan force is appealing, but association with them will discredit the U.S. in Iranians’ eyes.

In conclusion, there are steps the U.S. can take to hasten Iran’s becoming a democracy. The belief that there is a pre-existing democratic movement or even an effective opposition group, however, is inaccurate. And although most Iranians undoubtedly favor independence and self-determination, assisting individuals rather than organizations without proper planning will be neither efficient nor effective.

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Who is the MEK?(Part two)

Who is the MEK? Why are they protected in Iraq? (Part two)

The War on Terror. The Iraqi occupation. The neoconservative idealist notion of liberating the Middle East. Regime change in Iran. All of the points reach a nexus with the Mujahideen-e Khalq [MEK], an anti-Iranian regime Foreign Terrorist Organization in Iraq with US backing. In this second installment of the series, I cover the Congressional and neoconservative support for the MEK and the MEK’s role as misinformed of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Congressional support

"I know about support on Capitol Hill for this group, and I think it’s atrocious," said Dan Brumberg of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "I think it’s due to total ignorance and political manipulation."

In late 2001, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) tells the Village Voice, "I don’t give a shit if they are undemocratic. OK, so the [MEK] is a terrorist organization based in Iraq, which is a terrorist state. They are fighting Iran, which is another terrorist state. I say let’s help them fight each other as much as they want. Once they all are destroyed, I can celebrate twice over."

"This group loves the United States. They’re assisting us in the war on terrorism; they’re pro-US," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). "This group has not been fighting against the US. It’s simply not true."…"In no meeting or briefing I have ever attended has anyone called this group an anti-US, terrorist organization," she continued, adding that the group has provided useful intelligence to the US government on Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

"In November [of 2002], Ros-Lehtinen released a letter of support for the MEK that she said had the backing of 150 colleagues, whom she repeatedly refused to identify. Among the 150 signers are reportedly 30 committee and sub-committee members and 35 committee and subcommittee ranking members. "Because of the [Iranian President Mohammed] Khatami’s well-funded campaign on propaganda, lies and misinformation, I have decided not to release the names of these signers."

A month earlier, as Ros-Lehtinen’s letter circulated throughout the House, Reps. Henry Hyde (R-IL) and Tom Lantos (D-CA), also wrote to their colleagues, giving them a "full" and "accurate" picture of the MEK.

"We are strong opponents of the current government of Iran but do not believe that it is necessary to use terrorism or make common cause … [with] Saddam Hussein to change Iran’s government."…"Particularly in view of the fact that the MEK is based in Iraq, has taken part in operations against the Kurds and Shia, has been responsible for killing Americans in Iran, and has supported the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran, we wanted you to have the full background on this organization as most recently reported by the Department of State, so that you may best decide whether to lend your name to the letter" of support. It further advised, "Some colleagues have signed similar letters in the past and then been embarrassed when confronted with accurate information about the MEK."

Ros-Lehtinen dismissed the US intelligence reports of the group’s involvement in Hussein-led campaigns against Kurds and Shia as "hogwash" and "part of the Khatami propaganda machine." Before the Iraq invasion, Yleem Poblette, staff director for the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia and aid to Rep. Ros-Lehtinen, stated, "In the months leading up to the war, we made it very clear that these folks are pro-democracy, anti-fundamentalism, anti-terrorism…They are our friends, not our enemies."

On January 15, 2003, the New York Times ran a full-page ad on page A8 advocating for MEK support. The ad printed six photographs of current Congressional supporters, including Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Tancredo (R-CO), Filner (D-CA), Towns (D-NY), Jackson-Lee (D-TX) and Diaz-Balart (R-FL). Insight on the News reported the MEK had given to former Senator Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) more than $136,000 in hard money and several thousand to Towns and Ros-Lehtinen. Source.

Bob Ney (R-OH), who was once a supporter of MEK, summarized MEK support as anti-Iranian zeal. "I think a lot of people just hear [MEK] folks coming in saying, `We’re for democracy.’ These members [who support the MEK] are American members of Congress. I don’t question their patriotism or their loyalty to the United States. But on this issue, they just aren’t looking at the facts." Ney on MEK’s lobbying access, "We better watch those characters coming into the building. They’re a terrorist group. I do not believe that we need to allow them access to our physical Capitol grounds."

In late April, 2003, Bob Ney wrote a letter to the editor of the The Hill, MEK of same lot as al Al Qaeda and Hamas, in response to a recent full-page ad and letter to the editor from the group:

"In fact, because of the MEK’s long association with and support with Saddam Hussein’s regime, the former Iraqi information minister may very well have been the one who taught the MEK his craft of making false statements in the face of incontrovertible facts." Ney later alleged the reason behind Ros-Lehtinen’s refusal to publish her list of 150 Congressional supporters: "it does not exist." "At one point, it may have; in fact, when MEK representatives first visited my office several years ago, preaching democracy in Iran, I was glad to join them in what appeared to be their effort. However, I quickly discovered that the MEK are not the proponents of democracy they claim to be but are in fact documented terrorists with a history of killing American citizens and supporting Saddam Hussein. Today, no more than a handful of members supports the MEK, and even that number is dwindling."

While the frequency of public comments in favor of the MEK has declined, it is safe to assume that the same ideology which fostered Congressional support for the MEK (a fierce desire to spread democracy to Iran by any means necessary), largely remains among some Congressional hawks.

Just months after Ney’s letter, following the June arrests in France of leader Maryam Rajavi and others as well as the seizure of $1.5 million in MEK funds, members of Congress wrote a letter to President Chirac urging the immediate release of Rajavi and the others. Among the signatures were Reps. William Lacy Clay (D-MI), Dennis Moore (D-KS), Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), and Edolphus Towns (D-NY).

Tom Tancredo (R-CO), always good for a genius soundbyte, stated his support for the MEK because they are an "asset to US intelligence" and "the most reliable source of information for the region." Tancredo’s press secretary, Carlos Espinosa, commented, "Are these guys saints? No…If there’s a problem, it’s that the MEK is on the [FTO] list." Espinosa added that the intelligence the MEK has supplied to America has been `100 percent true.’ "Call them what you want, but they’re not liars." Elsewhere, Tancredo has defended his support of the MEK by comparing Ted Kennedy’s support of the IRA.

In January 2004, the MEK would take part in a fundraiser in `solidarity’ with the `Iranian resistance.’ The American Red Cross, which hosted the event, later refused to accept the funds raised by the event because of its political nature. The US had temporarily lifted a ban on US donations to Iranian organizations in order to increase humanitarian aid. This allowed for the Iranian-American Solidarity Society of Kansas City and the Society of Iranian-American Medical Professionals, both led by MEK member Saeid Sajadi, and the Association of Iranian Women, led by MEK member Behjat Dehghan to sponsor the event. According to the IRS, 17 of the 23 sponsors were MEK front organizations. The event was addressed by neoconservative thinker and Bush advisor Richard Perle, British Labour MP and MEK supporter Win Griffiths and MEK leader and "president-elect" Maryam Rajavi (via satellite link). This appears to be in direct breach of Executive Order 13224 on terrorist financing. Perle later commented that he was under the impression the event was in support of an earthquake in Bam and that the proceeds would go to the Red Cross and was not aware of any ties the fundraiser had to the MEK. Perle also commented that "it did not have the aura of an event with terrorist sponsorship." (The basis of that observation is remains rather puzzling.) FBI agents were also in attendance at the event, reportedly as part of an ongoing investigation. Days later, the Treasury Department froze the assets of the event’s prime organizer.

In 2005, Ed Towns (D-NY) responded to a Human Rights Watch report which cited numerous human rights violations, including torture, beatings and solitary confinement by the MEK on its enemies and internal members who have sought to leave the group.

"It is an outrage to see the Iranian regime is using the American NGP, Human Rights Watch, to politically attack and tarnish the reputation of its main opponent the [MEK]."…"Human Rights Watch should view the MEK as its partner in defense of human rights in Iran not perpetrators. I firmly believe HRW’s report on the MEK published on May 18th will only advance Tehran’s agenda to derail the fight for democracy and human rights in Iran," calling on the group "to retract the report and provide a more factual account of rights violations in Iran."

On April 6, 2005, Tancredo and Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA), co-chaired an Iran Human Rights and Democracy Caucus meeting, with the Iran Policy Committee in attendance as panelists. During the meeting, the caucus and the IPC members agreed on the need to remove the MEK from the FTO list. Among the IPC are neoconservatives Raymond Tanter, Paul E. Vallely (Fox News pundit and advocate for regime change in Iran, North Korea and Syria), and Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney (also a Fox News pundit and advocate for regime change in Iran, North Korea and Syria).

A week following the caucus, the National Convention for a Democratic, Secular Republic in Iran was held, also in Washington. Maryam Rajavi again speaks via satellite. Filner was also in attendance commenting that, "Unless we deal with Iran, there will never be a solution in Iraq." The neoconservatives are even more passionate in their

Neoconservative support

Iranian.com reports:

"Although [MEK] agents have claimed that the inclusion [of MEK as a terrorist organization] was part of Clinton’s appeal to the reformist government in Iran, the argument is no longer cogent in light of the fact that during Bush’s 5 years in office he has yet to remove the [MEK] as a terrorist group despite significant political pressure by various neo-conservatives (this includes Daniel Pipes who currently has a chair with the US Institute of Peace) and Republican representatives."

"Not only were the [MEK] re-designated as a terrorist group under the executive order by Bush on Nov. 2, 2001, but the President used the MEK as an example of Saddam’s support for terrorism during the drive up to the Iraqi war when stating: `Iraqi shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahideen-e Khalq, which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several US military personnel and US civilians.’"

The Asia Times reports:

"The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported `AIPAC is spurring Congress to pass a sanctions bill against Iran.’ AIPAC is also pressuring the US to support the Iranian MEK (a.k.a. the NCRI) for use against Iran’s mullahs."

Michael Ledeen on the MEK:

"The MEK, an organization I do not admire, but whose information is generally credible on such matters, claimed that more than 50,000 workers participated , from Pakdast and Varamin near Tehran, to Golestan province in the north and Khorassan province in the east [against the Iranian regime]."

(The MEK is notorious for inflating the numbers of protestors and the severity of its military forces in order to create an impression of formidable opposition.)

Douglas Feith, undersecretary for policy at the Department of Defense has argued that since the MEK hasn’t attacked any Americans since the 1970s, it needn’t stay in the FTO list.

The Asia Times’ A Spector of the Iran Contra Affair is Hauting Washington:

"it appears certain elements in the Pentagon leadership, specifically Douglas Feith, are trying to sabotage sensitive talks between Tehran and the State Department to promote cooperation over Al Qaeda and other pressing issues affecting Afghanistan and Iraq. The Pentagon clique thinks Ledeen’s old friend Ghorbanifar can help, according to Newsday, which reported August 8 that two of Feith’s senior aides – without notice to the other agencies – have held several meetings with the Iranian, whom the CIA has long considered "an intelligence fabricator and nuisance."

Daniel Pipes wrote a column on his blog pleading the MEK’s case:

"Is the MEK a terrorist group? No. It used terrorism decades ago, when its members attacked Americans. For the last 15 years, however, the MEK has been organized as an army, and its only violent activities have been directed against the Iranian regime."

…

"Can the MEK be useful? Yes. Western spy agencies are short on "human intelligence" – meaning spies on the ground in Iran, as distinct from eyes in the sky. Coalition military commanders should seek out the MEK for information on the Iranian mullahs’ agents in Iraq. The MEK can also supply key information on development in Iran – where, despite a tendency towards exaggeration, it has had some major scoops. Its information in mid-2002 about Iran’s nuclear program, for example, was better than what the IEAE knew, thereby leading a shocked US government to kick off an investigation that confirmed just how far advanced the Iranians are toward building a nuclear bomb."

…

"Finally, because Iran’s mullahs irrationally fear the MEK (as shown by their 1988 massacre in the jails of Iran of 10,000 long-imprisoned MEK members and supporters), maintaining the MEK as an organized group in separate camps in Iraq offers an excellent way to intimidate and gain leverage in Tehran."

British historian Ali Ansari comments on the MEK, "They are trying desperately to set themselves up as Iran’s equivalent of the Iraqi National Congress. The Iranians will be aware that the Americans are trying to keep them as a potential INC."

"They [want] to make us mercenaries," a MEK official told Newsweek, referring to the US.

Raymond Tanter, writing in response to reports in the Washington Post that Iran was some ten years from nuclear weapons capability, disagreed:

"The intelligence community has not had a good track record regarding Iran. Most of the major nuclear sites that are now known to the outside world and are inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency, including the uranium enrichment site in Natanz and the heavy water facility in Arak, were revealed by Iran’s main opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)." Tanter compares the IEAE’s findings to a "disinformation program" from the Iranian regime. "If American analysts are using ‘creative analysis’ to make up for lack of current, actionable intelligence from assets on the ground, it would argue for using information from Iranian dissidents to provide ‘lead intelligence,’ information that can be used to verify intelligence obtained from other sources and methods," according to Tanter.

On September 15, 2005, Tanter is set to hold another Iran Policy Committee seminar (he is the co-chair) in support of the MEK. In mid-October, the MEK is up for State Department review of its terrorist status. If the State Department removes the MEK from the list of foreign terrorist organizations, the MEK stands to receive large sums of aid to help them carry out any number of murderous deeds inside Iran in order to overthrow the regime.

Media influence and intelligence supply

Intelligence supply as credibility building

"In August 2002, the group revealed the existence of the Arak heavy water facility and a massive underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, both of which Tehran later declared to the IAEA, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog."

The press conference in question was held in downtown Washington, DC. The NCRI also alleged that the Iranian government was using a front company, the Mesbah Energy Company, to hide unwanted disclosures associated with the project. Iran maintained that its rationale for opening the facilities were strictly for energy purposes, "In the next 20 years, Iran has to produce 6,000 megawatts of electricity by nuclear plants and the launch of these two centers are aimed at producing necessary fuel for these plants," Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said.

Under IAEA regulations, Iran was not required to notify the watchdog until it had begun "source or special nuclear materials" at Arak or Natanz.

"However, the satellite images of the site put on [the] internet by an American specialized firm a day after confirmed that the information was provided to the group by some Pentagon sources keen to get the [MEK] out of the terrorist list, giving it the image of a group that has reliable sources inside Iran."

(Because if you can help the Americans with intelligence, you’re should no longer be deemed a terrorist.)

Later, a CIA source would comment, "’We had all these information and have reported them to the Administration,’…frustrated at the leak of sensitive intelligence documents to the terrorist group."

"Evidence of these effects can already be seen by [MEK]’s effectiveness in persuading the mass news agencies to publish stories advocating that newly elected President Ahmadinejad was pictured directly involved in the 1979 hostage [taking]."

Counterpunch notes:

"Every few weeks these Chalabi-like, men-in-black characters-and also Fox News commentators-come up with some `top secret satellite photos’ showing non-existent nuclear weapons sites in Iran (how a US-designated terrorist organization gets top secret satellite photos is, of course, beyond anyone’s imagination.)"

CSM reports:

"Some [MEK] tips have led to recent revelations about key aspects of Iran’s clandestine nuclear program, though many others have proven unreliable. Long a diplomatic hot potato, which Tehran has offered to solve by exchanging [MEK] militants for Al Qaeda players now in Tehran, the [MEK] continues to complicate US-Iran-Iraq relations."

(But, as you’ll see later, the neoconservatives refused to give up their grunts.)

In September of 2004, just days before an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting, the National Council of Resistance of Iran held a meeting in London, the NCRI claimed that it had unearthed more information about Tehran nuclear weapons program. They claimed that Iran secretly had a nuclear weapons facility in Bandar Abbas and that it is the "second largest facility for converting uranium to yellow cake. This site has not been disclosed before and it is in its final stage of being fully installed."

Cameron Brown, assistant director of Israel’s Global Research in International Affairs, said she believed the information but warned, "Remember the lousy information that the United States had on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction also came from dissidents."

However, on January 24, 2005, the AP ran a story clearing Iran and dismissing the NCRI’s allegations. "Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s former envoy to the Vienna-based IAEA, said Iran had informed the agency in 2003 about the Bandar Abbas facility."

"August 18, 2005 – In a press conference in London, Hossein Abedini of the National Council of Resistance of Iran told reporters that Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had secretly produced the centrifuges on the orders of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini."

A day later, Reuters ran a story with the NCRI as their source, presumably from the same press conference, claiming that Iranian officials had recently expressed their pleasure with the progress being made at Iran’s heavy water program in Arak. The NCRI claimed that the site could produce plutonium.

On August 20, a former senior member of the MEK told the Iran Press Service:

"All the information that [MEK] provides the western media is pure lies and fabricated to discredit the Iranian regime and help the United States and Israel to put more pressure on Iran."

The article also reports that the MEK simply tells the media "what the CIA feeds them." Later, Mas’oud Khodabandeh, a former senior MEK officer, would confess,

Further:

"Except the information on Natanz and Arak the group disclosed, documents that were given to them by the Americans, all other material the [MEK] gave to the media are open secret, most of them from the Iranian press, like the name of companies and firms that works for the Defense Ministry and are known to the IAEA."

Khodabandeh deserted from the [MEK] and now runs a website, Iran-Interlink.org, which exposes the true face of the MEK, and leads the Association for the Support of Victims of MEK.

The MEK campaign to spread misinformation doesn’t stop at holding press conferences and writing press releases. The MEK has adjusted to the web and hosts Iran Focus, and Iran Terror are MEK-affiliated news sites. In addition, the NCRI has a website, featuring the latest publications of their misinformation and, even, an RSS feed. The blog, Iranian Truth, has more background on MEK’s media affiliates.

In the third and last installment, I’ll focus exclusively on the deal that never was. For several months, the US (backed by the State Department) was vigorously attempting an exchange of captive MEK members in Iraq for five top Al Qaeda members, including Saad bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden, and Saif al Adl, intelligence chief. The neoconservatives would ultimately prevail, the deal was dropped, and they kept their pawn.

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