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U.S. bombs Mujahedin; backers hide

Congressional supporters of an Iraq-based terrorist organization kept a low profile this week after confirmation that U.S.-led coalition forces attacked their bases during the final days of the war.

The group, known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), is made up of Iranian dissidents based in Baghdad. Despite a history of violence against Americans and its common cause with former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the group developed a significant following in Congress for its opposition to Tehran’s regime.

In 1997, the State Department identified the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization. Last Tuesday, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged in a briefing at the Pentagon that the U.S. bombed MEK forces.

“We are still pursuing elements of the MEK inside Iraq,” Myers said, adding: “It’s possible some of them may surrender very soon to coalition forces.” We’re still interested in that particular group.”

House supporters of the MEK, led by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), staunchly defended the group when The Hill reported April 2 that U.S. officials were targeting their bases in Iraq.

“They’e a combatant,” a State Department spokesman said at the time. “Targeting data is being provided to the Pentagon. We believe they are undertaking some of the actions in the south [of Iraq] where enemy combatants have disguised themselves as civilians.”

Ros-Lehtinen insisted at the time that the State Department spokesman was wrong and that her sources in the U.S. government assured her the MEK was not considered a combatant.

“This group loves the United States; they’re assisting us in the war on terrorism; they’re pro-U.S.” she told The Hill. “This group has not been fighting against the U.S. It simply isn’t true. “ I have attended many classified briefings on the Hill, and never once has this group been brought up.”

Over the years, officials in the counterterrorism office at the State Department have regularly tried to meet with lawmakers who support the MEK in an effort to dissuade them.

Aides to Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House International Relations subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, did not return several calls for comment after Following confirmation from Gen. Myers confirmed that the MEK was regarded and treated as an enemy during the war.

Earlier this month, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) expressed shock upon hearing that the State Department considered the MEK combatants. “If these reports are accurate, that’s the end of it for me,” he told The Hill three weeks ago.

But citing “information of a different nature entirely from people who are closer to the scene than the State Department,” Tancredo later called The Hill to reassert his backing of the MEK. He declined to identify his sources at the time, except to say that they were with “our government”

Like Ros-Lehtinen’s office, Tancredo’s aides did not return calls this week seeking comment.

Other lawmakers who have long backed the MEK also declined comment. They are Reps. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), Bob Filner (D-Calif.), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas).

Although the MEK’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance, has garnered signatures of support from a number of U.S. lawmakers, it’s unclear whether those members were adequately informed about the group when they signed on.

Ros-Lehtinen claims 150 colleagues signed a letter she circulated last year in support of the MEK. Although the letter was released in November, Ros-Lehtinen has repeatedly declined to name those Congress members who backed her.

“A list has not been published because most members who initially signed on have withdrawn their support and the list has dwindled down to no more than a handful of Congressional supporters,”charged Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), a vocal critic of the MEK.

Several lawmakers said they asked to have their names removed when they learned more about the group. In addition, Reps. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) and Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), the chairman and ranking member of the House International Relations committee, respectively, wrote a counterletter to their colleagues providing “ful” and “accurate” information on the MEK.

The group’s supporters on Capitol Hill may decrease after Myers’ comments. On Thursday, other senior administration officials echoed Myers’ comments to reporters. “The [MEK] forces were fully integrated with Saddam Hussein’s command and control [and] therefore constituted legitimate military targets that posed a threat to coalition forces,” said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher in Washington.

“We know there’s a presence of the [MEK] inside of Iraq, and indeed we have been targeting them for some time,” said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks from Central Command in Doha, Qatar. “There’s work that’s ongoing right now to secure some sort of agreement that would be a cease-fire and capitulation,” he said.

On Monday, The Associated Press reported a military spokesman saying that a cease-fire had been negotiated with MEK forces in Iraq.

By Sam Dealy

July 3, 2005 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Richard Perle Supports Terrorism

He spoke at a terrorist fundraiser

He is the author of a book that criticizes the U.S. government for being too soft on terrorism. He was an advocate of invading Iraq and most of the other Arab countries in the Middle East – long before 9/11. He wants us to give up a lot of our civil liberties, including submitting to a national ID card, and he’s taken to the hustings promoting an approach to the "war on terrorism" that’s more royalist than the king.

His name is Richard Perle, and he’s one of the leading and certainly one of the most visible neoconservatives in Washington, D.C., whose combative style and clear contempt for his opponents has earned him the sobriquet "Prince of Darkness."

He is also a supporter of terrorism.

Why else would he have agreed to speak at a January 24 fundraiser, billed as "A Night of Solidarity," supposedly to raise money for Iranian earthquake victims an event sponsored by groups that have links to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization?

MEK is a formerly Marxist group with odd, cultic overtones. Led by Maryam Rajavi, the self-proclaimed "President Elect" of Iran, and her husband, Massoud, head of the group’s military wing, they originally supported Khomeini when he overthrew the Shah, and carried out terroristic attacks on Americans, only to turn against the regime.

MEK took up residence in Iraq, where they were given sanctuary and armed by Saddam Hussein. They fought against their own country on the Iraqi side during the long Iran-Iraq war. During the U.S. invasion of Iraq, MEK carried out military operations in defense of the Ba’athist regime, and its main base came under attack by U.S. forces. MEK agreed to capitulate, but there was some question about to what extent they disarmed. Even today their main force remains intact.

Their fate has become a political football, pitting the U.S. State Department against the neoconservatives in Washington who now have Iran fixed in their sights. The neocons are pushing the idea that we can use the MEK to overthrow the Iranian regime: this is the same group that tried to ingratiate itself with the Bush administration by sharing "intelligence" that supposedly pointed to Iran’s intention of developing a nuclear weapons program.

U.S. law enforcement conducted a series of raids that rounded up prominent MEK cadre, closed down their offices, and froze their assets, but, operating under the protection of Washington’s War Party, these terrorists are freely going about their business, and even gaining open support from prominent U.S. government officials, like Perle. What’s interesting is that their support cuts across ideological and party lines.

It isn’t just the neocons who have been giving them their support, inside government and out: the Feminist Majority Foundation is also on board, on account of the MEK’s fervid feminism. Around half of the MEK’s fighters are women, and Ms. Rajavi is marketing herself, with some success, as a feminist icon.

In Congess, where more than a hundred legislators signed a letter of support for MEK, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) is their Boadicea, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) their Joan of Arc. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) is another of their major champions, a group that includes Reps. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.), Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Bob Filner (D-Calif.)

Writing in The Hill, Washington’s political newspaper of record, Sam Dealey gives us details on the various MEK front groups. What’s interesting is that the other groups listed, including the Justice Matters Institute and something called "Near East Policy Research," provide an object lesson in the weirdly relentless efforts of a terrorist group to implant itself in American politics.

The Justice Matters Institute, headquartered in downtown San Francisco, serves its clients a mixed salad of California-style touchy-feely ethno-politics, drenched in a feminist-flavored sauce:

"Justice Matters Institute defines a socially just society as one in which every group has a voice, every culture is respected, and every individual has equal access to resources and means of communication. Working for social justice entails working to overcome current injustices while building solutions that make a better world. "

Right on, comrade!

But one group listed as a sponsor of the fundraiser that Dealey doesn’t delve into is the mysterious "Near East Policy Research," which, along with the JMI, sent along a "solidarity message" to the fundraiser.

There is no such group going by that exact name, but there are two possibilities: one is the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israel, pro-war, pro-MEK thinktank that has defended the Rajavi cult. On their website, MINEP posts a piece by Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson, in which the authors deny that MEK is a terrorist organization â€“ that’s now all in the past, they write:

"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 regime agents in Iraq."

Does it matter that MEK is a Marxist cult with a violent history, and longstanding links to the regime of Saddam Hussein and that the group helped put down the 1991 Shi’ite rebellion, in which many thousands were killed or forced to flee? Does it matter to Pipes and Clawson that support for the MEK nutballs only discredits the U.S.?

Of course not. All that matters is the neoconservative goal of overthrowing the regime in Tehran.

The other possibility is the Center for Near East Policy Research (CNEPR), the American branch of which, according to its official IRS papers, is headquartered in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Headed up by one Arnold M. Soloway, CNEPR is "a membership organization" that "helps Israel Resource News Agency maintain its operation," although now it appears the organization has since moved from Roxbury to Wellesley. The Israel Resource News Agency headquarters is listed as "Beit Agron International Press Center Jerusalem, Israel," with David Bedein as the "Bureau Chief."

CNEPR’s views are indistinguishable from WINEP’s: Israel can do no wrong, the Palestinians can do no right, and America must side with the former in every instance.

What is Israel’s interest in all this? Iran’s development of nuclear power has the Israelis threatening to bomb Iran’s alleged nuclear facilities, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is on record as saying that Tehran is now the main danger to the Jewish state. That Israel’s supporters in the U.S. are not averse to supporting a terrorist group which, nonetheless, serves Israeli interests is hardly surprising: what’s astonishing, however, is that they would do it so openly.

In France, members of MEK were rounded up after a plot to attack Iranian embassies across Europe was exposed: fanatical MEK-ites set themselves on fire in protest. Clearly, these are a bunch of dangerous radicals, who might resort to violence at any moment. When the MEK connection to the January 24 event came out, the Red Cross and La Leche International, which had agreed to lend their names, withdrew. Even Rep. Tancredo, formerly a staunch defender of the group, backpedaled, withdrawing his support for the fundraiser.

But not Richard Perle.

Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) is demanding an investigation into how an organization officially deemed a terrorist group could operate so openly in Washington. Let the process start with an inquiry into the Perle connection.

For Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board, to make a public appearance in the middle of his book tour! in front of a group that killed at least 6 U.S. citizens, and wouldn’t hesitate to kill more in pursuit of their goals, is an outrage. If someone with an Arab name and connections to Muslim organizations had dared do such a thing, he would have been shipped to Guantanamo so fast his head would’ve spun off its axis. People are being jailed and deported for much less, these days: but I guess there’s one standard for the Richard Perles of this world, and another for the rest of us.

by Justin Raimondo

July 3, 2005 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

NOOSE TIGHTENS ON TERRORISTS

Tehran frequently complains that Western states accuse it of terrorism, but at the same time they allegedly shelter the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO or MEK) and even encourage its activities, which include mortar attacks and bombings in Iranian cities and assassinations of Iranian officials. Recent moves by the U.S., U.K., and Germany against the MKO may be a signal to Tehran of sensitivity to its complaints. In the U.S. case, the actual arrest of MKO fund-raisers may be a call for reciprocity in the investigation of the 1996 bombing in Saudi Arabia.

Seven people were arrested at Los Angeles’ international airport on 27 February on charges of raising over $1 million for the MKO. In a tactic common to MKO operatives, they posed as charity workers and solicited funds for orphans while displaying photos of alleged Iranian atrocities. Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent James DeSarno explained at a 28 February press conference that "[t]his cell of the MEK raised funds on behalf of a charity front known as the Committee for Human Rights or the CHR in Iran. The CHR purported to use the money for humanitarian aid. This investigation has revealed that the money was really used to support terrorist actions"

DeSarno explained that the funds were transferred to bank accounts in Turkey. From there, in at least one case, the money was transferred to a used auto parts store in Dubai. Eventually, DeSarno said, "It is believed that the money was used to buy arms such as mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, or RPGs."

The operation was initiated by the German Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), which informed the FBI that MKO members in Los Angeles were involved in money laundering.

In the U.K., meanwhile, the MKO was identified in a list of 21 terrorist groups under a new anti-terrorism law that aims to curtail their funding and support in Great Britain. The list, lumps the MKO with Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda, Lebanese Hizballah, HAMAS, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Abu Nidal, and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, as well as Algerian, Basque, Egyptian, Kashmiri, Sikh, and Sri Lankan groups.

he MKO, which operates under a variety of cover names (National Liberation Army of Iran, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, Organization of the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran, National Council of Resistance, Muslim Iranian Student’s Society), is designated as a terrorist organization in the State Department’s annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report. In May 2000 the U.S. Supreme Court refused to change the MKO’s terrorist designation. MKO operatives disrupted an April 2000 conference in Berlin, and two of them attempted to disrupt the November 2000 conference of the Middle East Studies Association in Orlando. Many Iranians view the MKO, under all its guises, with revulsion because it fought on the side of Iraq during the 1980-1988 war. During the 1970s, the group assassinated American officials and it conducted terrorist activities against the shah’s regime.

Bill Samii

July 2, 2005 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

A Cult is Trying to Hijack Our Iran Policy

These fanatics seek to replace Tehran’s religious tyranny with their own.

About 15,000 people, most of them Iranian Americans or exiles, recently flocked to Washington to denounce the fundamentalist Islamic government of Iran. The crowd shouted slogans against Iran’s reviled clerical regime and hoisted placards encouraging President Bush to take whatever action necessary – including preemptive military strikes – to ensure that Iran did not develop nuclear weapons.

By all appearances, the march seemed like a protest by concerned Iranians who supported regime change in Iran. In reality, it was a meticulously orchestrated political rally in support of a violent, pseudo-Marxist Iranian religious cult – the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, also known as the Mujahedin Khalq (MEK) – an organization that has been on U.S. and European Union terrorist watch lists for years.

Ever since the invasion of Iraq, the MEK (and its Paris-based political front, the National Council of Resistance in Iran) has tried to establish itself as the Iranian equivalent of Ahmad Chalabi’s "government in exile," the Iraqi National Congress – and not without success. Like the INC before the war, the MEK has advocates in the highest levels of government. And like the INC, the MEK has been inundating the U.S. intelligence community with uncorroborated and, according to some intelligence officials, highly suspect information meant to encourage the White House to carry out the same policy of regime change in Iran that it did in Iraq. But the United States will probably discover that the MEK – just like the INC – can’t be trusted.

The MEK, formed in the 1960s as one of several anti-imperialist organizations struggling to overthrow the oppressive and corrupt regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, gained widespread fame by killing dozens of the shah’s political cronies, as well as several U.S. soldiers and civilian contractors who were working in Iran at the time. But after the shah’s expulsion in 1979, the MEK found itself left behind in the ensuing power struggle over who would control the new Iran. Neither the secular democrats who formed the provisional government nor the religious factions who followed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini wanted anything to do with the MEK’s Marxist agenda

Reza Aslan is the author of the forthcoming book, "No God but God: The

Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam," to be published by Random House

Los Angeles Times – December 14, 2004

July 1, 2005 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

U.S. Congress, Timothy McVeigh and Mojahedin-e Khalq

Opinion: U.S. Congress, Timothy McVeigh and Mojahedin-e Khalq

As the date of Timothy McVeigh’s execution approaches, and in light of the Secretary of State’s recent testimony on counterterrorism before the Senate, I am drawn to note the lack of unity in Congress in recognizing and dealing with this dilemma. Timothy McVeigh is being executed because of his role in the murderous and deadly attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Paradoxically, and through a twisted sense of rights and logic, the Mojahedin-e Khalq/National Council of Resistance (MEK/NCR) and their supporters claim similar cause to detonate bombs and execute mortar attacks and other violence against Iranian government and civil structures frequently resulting in death and injury to civilians and bystanders. Although the MEK/NCR has long been rightly identified and designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, and in spite of the fact that the FBI has made numerous arrests and broken up immigration fraud and bogus charity front rings operating in support and on behalf of the MEK/NCR, nevertheless this has not prevented a handful of members of Congress from endorsing the MEK/NCR and circulating letters of support amongst their colleagues.

One might reasonably be astonished that members of the U.S. Congress could even think to support a terrorist organization, particularly one with American blood on its hands, but it is a sad fact that such letters have been sponsored over the years by Robert Torricelli, Gary Ackerman and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, amongst others. A longer list of congressmembers have appeared at MEK/NCR press conferences and their photographs and kind words have graced the pages of the MEK newspaper, Mojahed, alongside their machine gun logo, no less. But it does not stop there. Gary Ackerman and Ros-Lehtinen have publicly claimed over 200 House members’ signatures on their letters, thus abusing the good name of our representatives and the sanctity of the U.S. Congress to provide aid and comfort to violent terrorists. While this has pleased the MEK/NCR and confounded our efforts to gain international cooperation on terrorism and to convince certain countries such as Iran of our sincerity, Ackerman and Ros-Lehtinen steadfastly refuse to divulge the names of the alleged cosigners. When prodded with the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act, for example, Jonathan Berger of Ackerman’s office cynically replied to the author that the FOIA "does not apply to Congress".

We have a serious problem in this country when a few members of Congress can claim in the name of a majority of their colleagues endorsement of a violent foreign terrorist organization and then deny basic information on such claims to the very citizens that they have been elected to represent.

It is particularly disturbing because the MEK/NCR have become an important point of contention between Iran and the U.S. The State Department has regularly expressed its concerns about terrorism and its desire to discuss this subject with the Iranian government but such actions by members of the U.S. Congress have hampered efforts to address terrorism as a global problem of concern to all. How can we expect the Iranian government to take us seriously when our own representatives encourage terrorist violence on their soil?

In May of 1998, for example, Ros-Lehtinen and Ackerman claimed to have 220 House members’ signatures on a letter supportive of the MEK. Days later, emboldened by this support, the group detonated a series of bombs in Tehran killing civilians. These and similar acts have brought condemnation from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

And while MEK/NCR members are being portrayed as some kind of "freedom fighters" by their friends in Congress, developments in the U.S. indicate that they will do and say anything to further their cause in contravention of U.S. laws. In 1992, MEK members stormed the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York and took hostages at knife point. In 1999, the FBI arrested dozens in an immigration fraud ring linked to the smuggling of MEK members into the U.S. Just this year the FBI made arrests in the case of a false charity allegedly collecting donations for refugees and then funneling the money to the organization to purchase weapons. Alarmingly, the "charity" had been granted non-profit status in the State of California and had been given license to solicit door-to-door in some communities.

McVeigh’s judgement comes because we Americans find murder and violence an abhorrent and intolerable form of political expression. Terrorism is fundamentally at odds with democracy and human rights. There are no good terrorists. Ackerman and Ros-Lehtinen owe the American people an explanation for their activities. At the very least, our elected officials have a responsibility to discuss these matters publicly and not through "secret" letters for the benefit of terrorists.

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About the author: I am a research engineer (B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering) and also a personal activist that believes that open civic dialog and trust in one’s representatives are fundamental to the enjoyment of the full fruits of democracy. My interest in the MEK was sparked by a recognition that important basic information about Iran and Iranians was being conveyed by an extremist few and that widespread mainstream Iranian-American participation in U.S. politics was sorely lacking. I also believe that this distorted perspective has hindered U.S. efforts at formulating effective policy in resolving the differences between our nations. Bradley J. Hernlem, Ph.D

June 29, 2005 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

Laughing for The War

Minority warmongers laugh at Majority peace-seekers!

Terrorist brutes laugh at the victims of terrorism!

Ungrateful traitors laugh at decomposition of their country!

Mercenary hypocrites laugh at masses (of people)!

“ but at the day of judgment, terrorist brutal warmongers will cry.

When Khorramshahr was freed from the occupation of Baath army, Iranian masses celebrated and bowed to the Iranian resistance to scandalized warmonger enemy. But at that time, mercenaries who had camped in the home of Iran’s enemy were upset from this victory. From that day up to 6 years later, when they separated the city of Mehran and presented it to their master, they have always been beating the drum of war, celebrated and laughed.

Ceasefire was a flaming charcoal into their throats; so they sought another war with defining the strategy of “spark and war”, wishing (like a vulture) to take advantage of the outcome of the events. Suddenly, the bloodthirsty master was hunted by another hunter and hungry vultures, which hoped to stay, mourned for their godfather.

Now, the strategy of “spark and war”, is being followed by those very vultures in a larger scale and whenever a dragon threatens Iran of making a war against it, these vultures congratulates the bats laughingly!

Prostitutes, who relied on military victories of a devil like Saddam, are now waiting for a military attack against Iran in order to take advantage of the events. Clearly, they want to show themselves as modern, peace-seekers and human rights protectors in the nonsense they say, that’s why they appear with mummy face in European Parliament and add that”no war, no compliance, only let the resistance (cult) liberate Iran” and then they write this very bluff in Herald to pretend that they’re against the war!! But they agree with terrorism under the name of ”liberating movement”! and they think that if a wolf pretends to be a dove, others will easily accept!

When Iranian cities were hit vainly by Iraqi missiles, Massoud Rajavi asked Saddam Hussein to stop bombings!! And then claimed that his requests were signs of his friendship with Iranian people! And then he ordered his forces to fulfill the uncompleted missions of Saddam Hussein by mortaring.

We remember that he called peace”the execution rope of regime” and said that the fall of regime following the peace is certain. He did this to get the figure of peace-seeking! And when the ceasefire was put to practice, they started second war with the strategy of “spark and war” and this is how they were registered in the memory of Iranians, and in the history of mercenaries, as dirty opportunists.

Now that they deny the war and promote the liberation of Iran by Mojahedin, they have initiated exactly the same previous tactics. The tactics which have taken the form of this strategy that “basically, the war has become a kind of sadism for Mojahedin which makes them happy, and they are fed from the bloodshed; and they are waiting for a big war against Iran”. But they are ignoring 3 points. First, warmongers are aware of MKO’s inefficiency and believe that these cursed ones have no base in Iran; second, they are well aware that if Mojahedin could do anything they would have done something when supported by Saddam. Third and above all, God scrambles all the equations of warmongers and turns these equations against themselves and restrains dragons, vultures and dictators from convenience and relief, and also scandalizes them in both worlds;The time and history will confirm this claim.

Shahin Torabi

June 29, 2005 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Charity Event May Have Terrorist Link

Pentagon Adviser Who Spoke at Function Thought Money Was for Quake Victims

Pentagon adviser Richard N. Perle, a strong advocate of war against Iraq, spoke last weekend at a charity event that U.S. officials say may have had ties to an alleged terrorist group seeking to topple the Iranian government and backed by SaddamHussein.

The event, attended by more than 3,000 people Saturday at the Washington Convention Center, generated enough concerns within the administration that officials debated whether they had the legal authority to block the event, U.S. officials said yesterday. FBI agents attended it and, as part of a continuing investigation, the Treasury Department on Monday froze the assets of the event’s prime organizer, the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia.

Perle, in an interview, said he was unaware of any involvement by the terrorist group, known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), and believed he was assisting the victims of the Bam earthquake when he delivered the paid speech.

"All of the proceeds will go to the Red Cross," Perle said. Informed that the Red Cross had announced before the event it would refuse any monies because of the event’s "political nature," Perle said: "I was unaware of that." Perle declined to say how much he received.

The Web site for the $35-a-person event, billed as "a night of solidarity with Iran," flashed between references to support for "the Iran earthquake victims" and "a referendum for regime change in Iran." One administration official said that the FBI determined that at least three of the sponsoring organizations were associated with the MEK, while a senior Treasury official said "there were general indications the MEK may have an interest in the event," but it could not yet prove it.

The day before the function, Treasury sent a letter to the Convention Center warning that the "MEK may have an interest in this event or may attempt to use the event to raise funds." But the Treasury official said officials moved cautiously because in general they did not want to chill possible charitable acts. "This is what makes terrorist financing so complex," he said. "You often have a blending of purposes and interests."

No one answered the phone at the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia, and messages seeking comment were not returned.

The MEK, though listed on the State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations since 1997, in the past year has been the subject of an administration tug of war over its status. The group maintained for the past decade thousands of fighters armed with tanks, armored vehicles and artillery in three camps northeast of Baghdad along the Iraq-Iran border. U.S. analysts concluded its primary support came from Hussein’s government.Nevertheless, some Pentagon officials considered the MEK as a possible vanguard against the Iranian government, which they viewed as a threat in the region. But in May President Bush ordered the group surrounded and disarmed. Even then, reports persisted of an easy-going relationship between the military and the MEK forces, leading the White House to clarify late last year that the MEK is "part of the global war on terrorism" and its members "are being screened for possible involvement

in war crimes, terrorism and other criminal activities."

Jacki Flowers, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross, said the relief agency had been contacted by the sponsors about receiving funds raised at the event several weeks before it took place. But the Red Cross decided to reject the proceeds once it became aware that the event was "political in nature," specifically the promotion of regime change. She said accepting the funds would "compromise our fundamental principles of neutrality and impartiality."

Perle, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, said he was contacted by the Premiere Speakers Bureau in mid-January about giving the keynote speech. He asked for more information about the sponsoring organizations and received a letter saying aid would be coordinated though the Red Cross and describing the event as "solidarity with earthquake victims in Iran and an evening for Iranian Resistance."

The Iranian Resistance is often an alias for the MEK. In August, the State Department shut down the U.S. offices of the political arm of the MEK, known as National Council of Resistance of Iran.

He said the hall was full of families and children and "it did not have an aura of an event with terrorist sponsorship."

Raymond Tanter, a University of Michigan professor who introduced Perle, has long maintained that the MEK does not belong on the list of foreign terrorist organizations. He said MEK was never mentioned in speeches, "but I did hear references to Camp Ashraf," which is where U.S. troops are holding MEK fighters.

Staff writer Robin Wright contributed to this report.

By Glenn Kessler – Washington Post Staff Writer

June 29, 2005 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iran War Drums Beat Harder

Despite the Bush administration’s insistence that, at least for now, it remains committed to using diplomatic means to halt Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program, war drums against the Islamic Republic appear to be beating more loudly here.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice assured Europeans on her trip this past week that Washington does indeed support the efforts of France, Britain, and Germany (EU-3) to reach a diplomatic settlement on the issue. However, she also made it clear that Washington has no interest in joining them at the negotiating table or extending much in the way of carrots.

And her consistent refusal to reiterate former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage’s flat assertion in December that Washington does not seek "regime change" in Tehran has added to the impression that the administration is set firmly on a path toward confrontation.

Whether the administration is pursuing a "good cop/bad cop" strategy in which Washington’s role is to brandish the sticks and the EU-3 the carrots remains unclear, but the voices in favor of an "engagement" policy are being drowned out by crescendo of calls to adopt "regime change" as U.S. policy.

The latest such urging was released here Thursday by the Iran Policy Committee (IPC), a group headed by a former National Security Council staffer Ray Tanter, several retired senior military officers, and a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

The 30-page document, "U.S. Policy Options for Iran" by former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Clare Lopez, appears to reflect the views of the administration’s most radical hawks among the Pentagon’s civilian leadership and in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

It was Cheney who launched the latest bout of saber-rattling when he told a radio interviewer last month that Tehran was "right at the top of the list" of the world’s trouble spots and that Israel may strike at suspected Iranian nuclear sites even before the U.S.

The study echoes many of the same themes mainly support for the Iranian exiled and internal opposition against the government as another policy paper released by the mainly neoconservative Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) in December, but it is also much harsher.

Both papers favored military strikes against suspected nuclear and other weapons facilities if that was the only way to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and endorsed "regime change" as U.S. policy.

But the CPD paper, which had the influential backing of former Secretary of State George Shultz, called for a "peaceful" strategy that involved elements of both engagement and nonviolent subversion similar to that pursued by Washington in Poland and elsewhere in Central Europe, particularly during the 1980s.

The latest report does grant a role for "carrots" in achieving a delay in Iran’s nuclear ambitions and even in regime change, although the IPC’s members expressed greater skepticism that the EU-3 talks will be effective or even desirable.

"Negotiations will not work," said Maj. Gen. (ret.) Paul Vallely, chairman of the military committee of the neoconservative Center for Security Policy, who described the Iranian regime as a "house of cards."

Instead, the IPC’s main emphasis is on more aggressive actions to bring about the desired goals, including military strikes and active efforts to destabilize the government, in major part through the support and deployment of what it calls "indisputably the largest and most organized Iranian opposition group," the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK) an idea that many Iran specialists here believe is likely to prove exceptionally counterproductive.

"[A]s an additional step [in a strategy of destabilization]," the paper states, "the United States might encourage the new Iraqi government to extend formal recognition to the MEK, based in Ashraf [Iraq], as a legitimate political organization. Such a recognition would send yet another signal from neighboring Iraq that the noose is tightening around Iran’s unelected rulers."

The MEK fought on Iraq’s side during the Iran-Iraq war and has been listed as a "terrorist group" by the State Department since 1997 as a result of its assassination of U.S. officials during the Shah’s reign and of Iranian officials after the Revolution.

However, it has long been supported by the Pentagon civilians and Cheney’s office, and their backers in Congress and the press as a possible asset against Iran despite its official "terrorist" status.

Indeed, there have been persistent reports, most recently from a former CIA officer, Philip Giraldi, in the current edition of the American Conservative magazine, that U.S. Special Forces have been directing members of the group in carrying out reconnaissance and intelligence collection in Iran from bases in Afghanistan and Balochistan, Pakistan, since last summer as part of an effort to identify possible targets for military strikes.

After bombing MEK bases in the opening days of the Iraq invasion in March 2003, the U.S. military worked out a cease-fire agreement that resulted in the group’s surrender of its heavy weapons and the concentration of about 4,000 of their members, some of whom have since repatriated voluntarily to Iran, at their base at Ashraf.

The State Department, which was then engaged in quiet talks with Iran about dispersing the group in exchange for Tehran’s handing over prominent al-Qaeda members in its custody, clashed repeatedly with the Pentagon over the MEK’s treatment.

After State was forced by the White House to break off its dialogue with Tehran following al Qaeda attacks in Saudi Arabia, allegedly ordered from somewhere on Iranian territory, the administration determined that MEK members in Iraq should be given Geneva Convention protections.

The IPC now wants the State Department to take the MEK off the terrorist list, a position backed by several dozen members of Congress who have been actively courted by the group and believe that a confrontation with Iran is inevitable.

"Removing the terrorist designation from the MEK could serve as the most tangible signal to the Iranian regime, as well as to the Iranian people, that a new option is now on the table," according to the report.

"Removal might also have the effect of supporting President Bush’s assertion [in his State of the Union address] that America stands with the people of Iran in their struggle to liberate themselves."

But most Iran specialists, both inside and outside the government, who agree that the regime is deeply unpopular, also insist that Washington’s endorsement of the MEK will actually bolster the regime in Tehran.

When they invaded Iran from Iraq in the last year of the Iran-Iraq war, according to Sick, who teaches at Columbia University, they had expected to march straight to Tehran gathering support all along the way.

"But they never got beyond a little border town before running into stiff resistance. It was a very ugly incident. They had a chance to show what they can do, and the bottom line was nothing very much. I’ve seen nothing since then to change my estimate," he said.

by Jim Lobe

June 28, 2005 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Ashcroft’s Baghdad Connection

Why the attorney general and others in Washington have backed a terror group with ties to Iraq

When the White House released its Sept. 12 "white paper" detailing Saddam Hussein’s "support for international terrorism," it caused more than a little discomfort in some quarters of Washington.

The 27-page document–entitled "A Decade of Deception and Defiance"–made no mention of any Iraqi ties to Osama bin Laden. But it did highlight Saddam’s backing of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), an obscure Iranian dissident group that has gathered surprising support among members of Congress in past years. One of those supporters, the documents show, is a top commander in President Bush’s war on terrorism: Attorney General John Ashcroft, who became involved with the MKO while a Republican senator from Missouri.

The case of Ashcroft and the MKO shows just how murky fighting terrorism can sometimes get. State Department officials first designated the MKO a "foreign terrorist organization" in 1997, accusing the Baghdad-based group of a long series of bombings, guerilla cross-border raids and targeted assassinations of Iranian leaders. Officials say the MKO–which originally fought to overthrow the Shah of Iran–was linked to the murder of several U.S. military officers and civilians in Iran in the 1970s. "They have an extremely bloody history," says one U.S. counterterrorism official.

But the MKO, which commands an army of 30,000 from bases inside Iraq, has tried to soften its image in recent years–in part with strong backing from politically active Iranian-Americans in the United States. The MKO operates in Washington out of a small office in the National Press Building under the name the National Council of Resistance of Iran. According to the State Department, the National Council of Resistance is a "front" for the MKO; in 1999, the National Council itself was placed on the State Department terrorist list. But National Council officials adamantly deny their group has earned the terror label and have aggressively portrayed itself to Washington lawmakers as a "democratic" alternative to Iranian regime."You’re talking about a really popular movement," says Alireza Jafarzadeh, the National Council’s chief Washington spokesman, who insists that the MKO "targets only military targets."

Only two years ago, these arguments won sympathy from Ashcroft–and more than 200 other members of Congress. When the National Council of Resistance staged a September 2000 rally outside the United Nations to protest a speech by Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, Missouri’s two Republican senators–Ashcroft and Chris Bond–issued a joint statement of solidarity that was read aloud to a cheering crowd. A delegation of about 500 Iranians from Missouri attended the event–and a picture of a smiling Ashcroft was later included in a color briefing book used by MKO officials to promote their cause on Capitol Hill. Ashcroft was hardly alone. Among those who actually appeared at the rally and spoke on the group’s behalf was one of its leading congressional supporters: Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Torricelli.

That same year, Senator Ashcroft wrote a letter to Attorney General Janet Reno protesting the detention of an Iranian woman, Mahnaz Samadi, who was a leading spokeswoman for the National Council of Resistance. The case quickly became a cause celebre for the MKO and its supporters in the United States.

U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service agents had arrested Samadi at the Canadian border, charging her with failing to disclose her past "terrorist" ties as an MKO "military commander"–including spending seven months in a MKO military-training camp inside Iraq–when she sought political asylum in the United States several years earlier, according to court documents obtained by NEWSWEEK.

Senator Ashcroft saw the case differently. In his May 10, 2000, letter to Reno, the Missouri lawmaker expressed "concern" about the detention, calling Samadi a "highly regarded human-rights activist" and a "powerful voice for democracy." (As part of a later settlement with the INS, Samadi admitted her membership in MKO but denied that she personally participated in any "terrorist activity." While her grant of political asylum was revoked, the INS dropped its deportation proceedings and she was permitted to remain in the United States.)

Alireza Jafarzadeh, the National Council’s top Washington lobbyist, said he had "several" meetings with Ashcroft aides about the matter and that he "certainly" viewed the Missouri senator as a supporter of his group. But backers of the MKO acknowledge the real lobbying was done by Iranian-Americans in Missouri who wrote letters and made repeated phone calls on Samadi’s behalf. How much Ashcroft got personally involved isn’t clear. A Justice Department spokeswoman told NEWSWEEK that Ashcroft’s letter to Reno was the result of a "straightforward, constituent-type inquiry," adding that the current attorney general would never "knowingly" back any terrorist group. When he signed the joint statement with Bond that was read at the National Council rally at the United Nations, Ashcroft did not "intend to endorse any organization," the spokeswoman, Barbara Comstock, said. "He was supporting democracy and freedom in Iran," she said. Comstock said Ashcroft currently has "no problem" prosecuting all U.S.-based terror groups, including the MKO.

Ashcroft isn’t the only one now distancing himself from the MKO. The Senate’s most aggressive promotor of the MKO for years has been Bob Torricelli, who in recent years has circulated numerous letters among his colleagues–including one as recently as last year–describing the MKO as a "legitimate" alternative to the regime in Iran and urging that the group be taken off the State Department terrorist list. Torricelli told NEWSWEEK he saw his support for the group as a way of putting pressure on the Iranian regime. "They [the MKO] were the only game in town," he said. But Torricelli also said last week said he would no longer push the group’s cause after getting hammered over the issue by his GOP opponent, Doug Forrester, who accused Torricelli of receiving more than $100,000 in campaign contributions from Iranian-Americans who supported the group. (Torricelli aides say the amount is exaggerated and that others, including some leading Republicans, have also received contributions from some of the same Iranian-Americans.) As a result of the September 11 attacks and new concerns about any allegations of terrorism, Bond also has put his backing for the group "in abeyance," an aide said.

Much of the new skittishness among MKO’s congressional backers also stems from the decision by the Bush White House to emphasize the connections between MKO and Saddam. It isn’t the first time this was done. Former Clinton administration official Martin Indyk, who served as assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern affairs in 1997, told NEWSWEEK that one of the reasons the group was put on the terrorism list in the first place was part of a "two-pronged" strategy that included ratcheting up pressure on Saddam. Like the Bush White House, the Clinton administration was eager to highlight Iraqi ties to terrorism and had collected extensive evidence of Saddam providing logistical support to the MKO in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War. (The MKO’s headquarters are located on a heavily guarded street in central Baghdad.) But the United States could find no other hard evidence linking Saddam to terror groups, Indyk said. "That was about all we had on [Saddam] when it came to terrorism," Indyk told NEWSWEEK.

National-security adviser Condoleezza Rice said in an interview Wednesday on PBS’s "The NewsHour" that the United States had new evidence from "high-ranking detainees" that Iraq has provided "some training to Al Qaeda in chemical-weapons development." But a top U.S. law-enforcement official recently cast some doubt about the strength of the evidence connecting Saddam and Al Qaeda, telling NEWSWEEK there is far more substantial evidence that Iran was harboring top Al Qaeda leaders.)

The other "prong" in the Clinton strategy that led to the inclusion of the MKO on the terrorist list was White House interest in opening up a dialogue with the Iranian government. At the time, President Khatami had recently been elected and was seen as a moderate. Top administration officials saw cracking down on the MKO–which the Iranians had made clear they saw as a menace–as one way to do so. Still, Indyk said the basic decision to label the MKO as terrorists could be justified anyway. "Yes, they’re bad guys," he told NEWSWEEK. "But no–they’re not targeting us."

Indyk’s comments lend partial support to one of the main contentions of MKO and its congressional supporters: that geopolitical strategy–a tilt toward Iran–was an important factor in the State Department decision to accuse MKO of terrorism. "They wanted to appease the Iranian regime," said Jafarzadeh, the National Council of Resistance lobbyist.

Still, the Justice Department appears only to be stepping up investigations into MKO members. Early last year, the FBI broke up a ring of Iranians who were raising money at the Los Angeles airport under the guise of helping suffering children when, according to a court complaint, they were routing the funds to the MKO. (A federal judge recently tossed the case out of court, but the Justice Department is appealing.) Then, last December, FBI agents showed up at the home of Jafarzadeh. Armed with a search warrant, the agents hauled away boxes of documents, including files on the group’s dealings with members of Congress. One in particular must have gotten the agents’ attention. It was labeled ASHCROFT.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

By Michael Isikoff

June 28, 2005 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

A shortsighted alliance with terrorists

The announcement of the cease-fire negotiated between the United States and the Iraqi-based Peoples Mujahideen guerillas is a shocking development that is counter to the US strategy in both the Iraq and the war on terror. Moreover, it demonstrates the myopic and contradictory vision that continues to guide US policy in the region. The Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MKO), also known as the National Council of Resistance and the Peoples Movement of Iran, is an internationally recognized terrorist group that has been on the State Departments Foreign Terrorist Organization list since 1992. Not only the MKO has been responsible for terrorist activities resulting in the death of Americans, but its members also participated in the 1979 US Embassy seizure and subsequent two-year hostage crisis. It opposed the release of the hostages in 1981. More damning is its 18-year alliance with Saddam Hussein, who provided it with sanctuary and financial support in its efforts to oust the theocratic Islamic government in neighboring Iran. The MKO was a loyal supporter of its Iraqi benefactor, fighting to contain Iranian advances during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and to repress the Kurdish and Shiite uprisings after the 1991 Gulf War. The Pentagon assumes that an alliance with the MKO will facilitate US efforts to secure and stabilize Iraq in the near term. But the shortsightedness of such a policy is twofold: First, it delegitimizes America’s stabilizing role in Iraq because the Iraqi people will link a US-MKO alliance to the MKOs complicity in Saddam Husseins terror campaigns. Iraqis regard the MKO as Saddam Husseins mercenaries. Second, allowing the group to retain its weapons and use them to fight other armed groups in Iraq, as per the agreement, will cause further domestic instability in Iraq by creating a situation susceptible to civil war. Introducing warlordism to Iraq does not benefit the US. Perhaps the Bush administration thought such a cease-fire with the MKO, whose base in northeastern Iraq the Americans attacked early in the war, would bolster US interests in the reconstruction of Iraq and the region. An alliance with the MKO could be used as leverage against the Iranian Shiite clerics who are allegedly trying to exert their influence over Iraqs Shiites, who are 60 percent of the population. But this will only inflame the already tense relationship between Iran and the United States, including hindering any engagement with Tehran on its disputed weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration refuses to side with different factions within the Iranian government. Rather, it argues that US support should be given to the people of Iran. Cutting a deal with the MKO will send the wrong signal to the Iranian people and undermine the administrations efforts to capitalize on their pro-American sentiments.

The Iranian street can quickly turn against America unless this apparent contradiction in the war on terror is corrected. Most notably, the agreement with the MKO contradicts US policy implemented after Sept. 11, 2001. How is it possible to fight a war on terror when the United States has made an accommodation with a terrorist organization considered in Washington as dangerous as Al-Qaeda? By working with the MKO, the Pentagon has legitimized its terror tactics and increased the likelihood that such associations can be made with other terrorist organizations.

Ultimately, engaging the MKO has discredited the Bush Doctrine and the administrations future initiatives to curtail terrorism.

Sanam Vakil

June 28, 2005 0 comments

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