"We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." President George W. Bush September 20, 2001 Address to Joint Session of Congress "… MEK hold fundraising events, where like-minded individuals are invited to contribute funds ultimately meant for terrorist activities." Assistant Secretary Juan C. Zarate, Terrorist Financing, Department of the Treasury February 1, 2005 Harper’s Bazaar/International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition Summit ——————————————————————————– Who are the Mojahedin and what are they up to? Following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the President of the United States issued Executive Order 13224. This order ostensibly blocked the assets of terrorist organizations and individuals associated with terrorism. The Mojahedin-e Khalq Organziation (aka MKO, MEK, National Council of Resistance of Iran, NCRI, People’s Mojahedin of Iran, PMOI, et al.) is one such listed terrorist organization. Several years before, however, Congress passed the 1996 Antiterrorism Act which directed the State Department to draw up a list of foreign terrorist organizations. Such a list was produced by then Secretary Albright in 1997 and has been updated each two years or as required (1999 info). Additional information on the terrorist list is found in The "FTO" List and Congress. It is a common assertion of the MKO that they were listed during the Clinton administration as a "gesture" to Iran. As evidence of this, an article in the 09 October 1997 issue of the L.A. Times is cited which paraphrases an un-named Clinton administration official as stating that the listing was intended as a goodwill gesture. Whether or not there were persons in the Clinton Administration who held this view, it was made clear to me in my conversations with the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the State Department that no such political considerations were made in drawing up the list. The fact is that the MKO were included in the very first list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations under the 1996 Antiterrorism Act and this determination was consistent with prior assessments by the State Department that the MKO was an organization involved in terrorism and this view was expressed even during the first Bush Administration. Indeed, in its decision on docket No. 01-1465 the United States Court of Appeals found: …. Petitioner argues that there is not adequate record support for the Secretary’s determination that it is a foreign terrorist organization under the statute. However, on this element, even the unclassified record taken alone is quite adequate to support the Secretary’s determination. Indeed, as to this element-that is, that the organization engages in terrorist activities-the People’s Mojahedin has effectively admitted not only the adequacy of the unclassified record, but the truth of the allegation. Perhaps surprisingly, however, the MKO has some supporters in Congress and this is evidently the result of a long lobbying effort. The effect of this lobbying effort is primarily seen in the repeated claims that some large number of members of Congress have signed on to some statement endorsing the MKO. The statements never have been published in the Congressional Record and the identities of the alleged co-signers are closely guarded by the handful of sponsors that are apparently well paid for their efforts (as you will see). The investment of the MKO has not always been well-placed, however. Two of their champions and targets of much money were Congressman (and then Senator) Robert Torricelli and Congressman James Traficant, both of whom were driven from office over corruption and influence peddling charges. Traficant was convicted and sent to prison. Gary Ackerman has also been the recipient of substantial contributions but these seem to have dried up since he told the Village Voice, in response to questions about his support of the MKO, "I don’t give a shit if they are undemocratic"… "OK, so the [MKO] is a terrorist organization". For some introductory information on the MKO and their friends in Congress, it is suggested that you read the following articles: "A Very, Very Bad Bunch" Don’t Confuse This Group with Freedom Fighters Iran "terrorist" group finds support on Hill Rep. Ros-Lehtinen defends Iranian group labeled terrorist front for Saddam Hussein U.S. bombs Mujahedin; backers hide Terrorists plan D.C. fundraiser Richard Perle Supports Terrorism. He spoke at a terrorist fundraiser In The Money: Congressman James Traficant And His Campaign Contributors Opponents Hit Torricelli On National Security ——————————————————————————– Data on political contributions In an effort to discover some of the MKO lobbying activity in the U.S. I have compiled some data from public sources and posted it here. The Federal Election Commission keeps records of donations made to political candidates and to political committees. There are a number of sites that provide search tools and resources to research this information on line. Two suggested sources are: FEC Campaign Finance Reports and Data Campaign Contribution Search at Newsmeat An Excel File of Political Contributions can be viewed (if you have Excel) by clicking on the highlighted link. This file contains data arranged in tabs according to year in which the contributions were made. Readers are cautioned that the list is almost certainly incomplete and inclusion of a contribution does not necessarily imply a link to the MKO. The file includes data that was collected according to one or more of the following criteria: 1) the contribution was made to a candidate who has promoted the MKO/NCRI or attended their conferences or other events. 2) the contribution appeared to be part of a concerted contribution to a candidate or committee, i.e. one of several contributions made on the same day or same time period, often of the same magnitude and to the same target. 3) the contribution was made by someone known to be associated with the MKO. Where there is an asterisk placed after the name of a contributor in the Excel file, this indicates a known association with the MKO/NCRI and specific information of such affiliations can be reviewed in the list of reference data. ——————————————————————————– OK, so what does this mean? Well, let’s look at one example and see how the facts tie together. On one day this year (May 11, 2004) the Ros-Lehtinen for Congress committee (Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is a Representive from the 18th Congressional District in Florida) reported contributions totalling $8,500 from 9 residents of California: Mr. Ali Kashani 1367 Camino Robles Way San Jose, California 95120 Shahid-Chamran University $500 Mr.[sic] Shahnaz Kiani 1077 Gray Fox Circle Pleasanton, California 94566 Valley Care Med. $1,000 Mr. Behnam Mirabdal * 1920 Francisco Street 301 Berkeley, California 94709 Copy Express $500 Mr. Ahmad Moeinimanesh * 3327 Parkgate Court Richmond, California 94806 Fujitsu $2,000 Ms Marzieh Nikouei 1012 Cornhill Way Folson, California 95630 Capitol Bowl $500 Mr. Farideh Sedighi * 721 San Luis Road Berkeley, California 94707 Cisco Systems $2,000 Mr. Ensieh Yazdanpanah * 4831 Meadowbrook Drive El Sobrante, California 94803 Albany School District $500 Ms Moigan Fahima * 1935 Marin Avenue Berkeley, California 94707 Self-Employed $1,000 Mr. Parvis Ghaffaripour 13765 Heritage Creek Court Saratoga, California 95070 Maxim Integrated $500 OK, well enough. It is possible that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen came to California to raise money for her campaign. It is possible that all these people just happened to want to donate to her campaign in a different state, all on the same day. There may be other explanations. It just seems odd. So let’s look at things more closely. According to the FEC records, Mr. Mirabdal is affiliated with Copy Express. There is a Copy Express at 1164 Solano Avenue in Albany, CA. This business not only sells copying services and greeting cards but also rents post boxes. In this store was found a stack of business cards printed: Copy Express Mojgan Fahima 1164 Solano Ave. Albany, CA 94706 T:510-524-0235 / F:510-524-2590 So now we have established a business relationship between two of the contributors in the list. What else? Well, with the help of some additional information we realize that two of the post boxes rented at that store are being used as registration addresses for web sites used by the MKO: WWW.IRANNTV.COM Registrant: Linear Communications Nasrin Saifi 1164 Solano Ave. #120 Albanay, CA 94706 US Phone: 510-528-0605 Fax..: 510-528-0605 Email: nasrins@earthlink.net www.iran-solidarity.org Registrant: Azimi, Hamid 1164 Solano Ave, No. 117 Albany, CA 94706 US Administrative Contact: Azimi, Hamid hamid@azimi.net 1164 Solano Ave, No. 117 Albany, CA 94706 US 510-528-0605 fax: 510-751-5332 WWW.IRANNTV.COM is the web site of MKO television, Sima-yeh Azadi, and the registrant of that site, Nasrin Saifi, is found to have been a contributor in coordinated donations in past years to pro-MKO candidates Robert Torricelli and Gary Ackerman. WWW.IRAN-SOLIDARITY.ORG is the web site that was used by the MKO to announce their fundraiser in Washington DC earlier this year (see introductory articles). Hamid Azimi was registrant for other MKO web sites including www.iran-e-azad.org and used his contact information in one of the registrations of the site www.mojahedin.org. Now we have established a business relationship between four persons, two in the above list, two with clear MKO links and one a prior contributor. But there is more. The names of two more persons in the above contributor list, Farideh Sedighi and Ensieh Yazdanpanah, appeared on a MKO letter to Jacques Chirac in response to the arrest of the MKO leader, Maryam Rajavi, in France. And one must truly wonder what a person listing their affiliation as "Shahid-Chamran University" (Ali Kashani) is doing making political contributions in the U.S. Recent Events On October 14 2004 a web site was registered with the domain CFDIRAN.COM. A check of the registration shows an address which matches that reported on the receipt for Mr. Ensieh Yazdanpanah’s donation to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen as noted above: Registrant: cfdiran.com 4831 meadowbrook Richmond CA 94803 US The purpose of this web site seems to have been to announce the protest event which took place in Washington DC on 19 November 2004. The Washington Post reports that the event was organized by "the Council for Freedom and Democracy in Iran and the Global Coalition Against Fundamentalism". This "group", the Council for Freedom and Democracy in Iran, had hitherto been unknown and seems to have been created solely for the purpose of obfuscation and to give the appearance of broad support for the MKO. Its creation just prior to an important MKO event is similar to the sudden appearance of the site WWW.IRAN-SOLIDARITY.ORG weeks before the MKO fundraiser in January of this year. Looking into the other reported organizer, Global Coalition Against Fundamentalism, shows that it has a web site, too: WWW.GCAF-USA.ORG Registrant: Shirin Nariman 1409 Beulah Rd Vienna, VA 22182 Phone:+1.7038562565 FAX:+1.7038562565 shirin-nariman@yahoo.com The registrant, Shirin Nariman, is reported to have been an organizer also of the fundraiser. But she denies any link to the MKO , said that there were no MKO members at the event but admitted that there might have been "supporters" there. Interestingly, in other circumstances, defending the MKO, she proudly proclaimed that she had been an MKO supporter for over 24 years. Some of those who witnessed the 19 November event had interesting comments not reported in the media and it was observed that the protest was unusually orchestrated and appeared to have participants flown in from overseas. This may well be, the Washington Times reported 30 November 2004 that a delegation of Iraqis came to Washington for the event and to press for the removal of the MKO from the terrorist list. But we should not forget that in making its case for going to war in Iraq the White House put the MKO at the head of its list of terrorist groups receiving support from Saddam Hussein in violation of UNSCR 687, viz.: 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. [NOTE (20 Jan 2005): According to a Homeland Security report obtained by Cryptome the Secret Service reported an Iranian from Germany suspiciously videotaping near the White House on 18 November 2004. The man claimed to be in Washington DC for the demonstration. Also, it was reported that on 19 November 2004, 25 Mujahedin e-Khalq linked persons were denied entry at the Alexandria Bay Port of Entry from Canada. The 25 were planning to attend the rally.] The group isn’t quite so benign in its operations in the U.S. since the 1970s, though. While the focus of the organization is no longer generally against American targets since their falling out with Khomeini, the fanaticism of the MKO remains and this from time to time comes through in extreme acts such as the self-immolations in Europe in 2003 (example reference articles 1 and 2 ). The last major act of violence committed by the MKO in the U.S. known to this author was the seizure and hostage taking at the Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York in April 1992 (reported in the New York Times, 06 April 1992). This was part of a concerted terrorist operation on a global scale. In its report on the threat of terrorism to Canada, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service writes: On 5 April, 1992, the Iranian Air Force conducted a bombing raid on an MEK base in Iraq. Hours later, forty MEK supporters wielding sticks, crowbars and mallets attacked the Iranian embassy in Ottawa, wounding several people. Near-simultaneous attacks were carried out on Iranian Embassies in thirteen other countries around the world More Coincidences The web site of the Council for Freedom and Democracy in Iran, which one reporter stated was "Virginia based", lists a mailing address at: Council for Freedom and Democracy in Iran (CFDI) 5765-F Burk Center Pkwy #360 Burk, VA 22015 which is evidently a typo, as there is, rather, a Burke, VA and a 5765-F Burke Center Pkwy. The address is that of a mailbox facility and not a business office. Several names in the FEC database immediately come to attention in reviewing those from the 22015 Zip code. One is Shirin Nariman, the organizer of the January 2004 fundraiser. Another is that of Hossein Panah. In 1996 Hossein Panah made a contribution to Ed Towns, listing his address as "6338 Draco St., Burke, VA 22015". Interestingly, Shirin Nariman also used this address once in an on-line posting. And last but not least, it appears that Bob Filner, who spoke at the 19 November event, was the recipient of an infusion of donations just weeks before, from an interesting group of Californians all residing outside his district: 10/25/2004 Alavi, Parvinalsadat 12468 Whispering Tree Ln Poway, CA 92064 American Int. University/Accountant $400 FILNER, BOB (D) 10/25/2004 Kohani, Kambiz D.D.S. 7920 Grado Al Tupelo Carlsbad, CA 92009 Costa Verde Dentistry & Ortho $300 FILNER, BOB (D) 10/25/2004 Mokhtari, Parvaneh 15 Malibu Laguna Niguel, CA 92677 Home Couture Design Group/Interior $600 FILNER, BOB (D) 10/25/2004 Parsay, Farhad * P.O. Box 92603 Long Beach, CA 90809 Solar Turbines/Engineer $300 FILNER, BOB (D) 10/25/2004 Taheri, Massood 13488 Turlock Court San Diego, CA 92129 Banyan Associates/Business Owner $1,000 FILNER, BOB (D) 10/25/2004 Tasooji, Matthew 851 Cocos Drive San Marcos, CA 92078 Nokia Inc./Senior System Engineer $500 FILNER, BOB (D) Several of these names (Farhad Parsay, Massood Taheri and Matthew Tasooji) repeat throughout the FEC records. Farhad Parsay’s name was on the 2003 MKO letter to Jacques Chirac. Bob Filner received another infusion of cash (at least $4,750 according to FEC records) from additional persons outside his district a month prior to his appearance at a 14 April 2005 rally of the MEK in Washington DC. The first in the following list of contributors, Somayeh Yazdanpanah, used an address identical to that of the CFDIRAN.COM registrant: 3/4/2005 Somayeh Yazdanpanah * 4831 Meadowbrook Drive El Sobrante, California 94803-2051 Albany Unified School Distri $1,000 FILNER, BOB (D) 3/4/2005 Yousef J. Shenasi 3328 E Clay Avenue Fresno, California 93702-1017 Department of Transportation $1,000 FILNER, BOB (D) 3/4/2005 Shahin Toutounchi 1077 Gray Fox Circle Pleasanton, California 94566-6969 Xilinx $1,000 FILNER, BOB (D) 3/4/2005 Nader Moavenian 3949 Acapulco Drive Campbell, California 95008-3821 E2 Open $750 FILNER, BOB (D) 3/4/2005 Fatohllah Dastmalchi 1098 Bevinger Drive El Dorado Hills, California 95762-7669 Department of Transportation $1,000 FILNER, BOB (D) Please note that the address of Shahin Toutounchi is the same used by Shahnaz Kiani in her May 2004 contribution to Ros-Lehtinen documented above. Likewise, James Talent was the recipient of $8,500 before his billing as a celeb at the MEK convention: 12/1/04 SADEGHPOUR, MAJID 500 Kendall Street CAMBRIDGE, MA 02142 GENZYME $1,000 TALENT, JAMES MATTHES (R) Senate – MO 12/5/04 SAJADI, SAEID * P.O. Box 3668 KANSAS CITY, KS 66103 PHYSICIAN $2,000 TALENT, JAMES MATTHES (R) Senate – MO 12/5/04 TALEBIZADEH, ZOHREH 2401 Gilham Road KANSAS CITY, MO 64108 CHILDRENS MERCY $1,000 TALENT, JAMES MATTHES (R) Senate – MO 12/5/04 SHAHRIARY, AZAM 1535 Hummingbird Hill ELLISVILLE, MO 63011 BIOTECH BIOLOGICAL $1,000 TALENT, JAMES MATTHES (R) Senate – MO 12/5/04 ARDAVANI, RAHIM 700 NW 5th St BLUE SPRINGS, MO 64014 RAIL AUTOMATION $1,000 TALENT, JAMES MATTHES (R) Senate – MO 12/5/04 ATTARAN, ALIREZA 1535 Hummingbird Hill Lane ELLISVILLE, MO 63011 UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI $500 TALENT, JAMES MATTHES (R) Senate – MO 12/5/04 KHATAMI, SHAHAB 705 Falls Landing Ct ALPHARETTA, GA 30022 STRUCTURAL DESIGN INC$500 TALENT, JAMES MATTHES (R) Senate – MO 12/5/04 NEJAT, KASRA * 903 Cleta Drive MANCHESTER, MO 63021 ST JOHNS MERCY $1,000 TALENT, JAMES MATTHES (R) Senate – MO 12/5/04 NEJAT, KASRA * 903 Cleta Drive MANCHESTER, MO 63021 ST JOHNS MERCY $500 TALENT, JAMES MATTHES (R) Senate – MO According to the Washington Post, "about 300" staged the MEK convention at DAR Constitution Hall on 14 April 2005, while one of the MEK’s news outlets, Iran Focus, inflated the attendance to "thousands". Although coming on the heels of a rally last November, the press release announcing this event described it as a "first-ever convention". Not to lose out on a winning slogan, the MEK held another "first-ever convention" in Brussels less than 2 weeks later according to the MEK’s Iran Focus. ——————————————————————————– The Foreign Agents The U.S. Department of Justice list four persons under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as registered foreign agents of the National Council of Resistance of Iran: Filabi, Mahin Jafarzadeh, Alireza Mostowfi, Hedayatollah Samsami, Soona Of this group, Mahin Filabi and Hedayatollah (aka "Hedayat") Mostowfi have recorded political contributions with the FEC. Recently, Mr. Mostowfi is shown to have made donations to the FED Political Action Committee on 8/20/2004 and on the same day (7/20/2004) with Mr. Mehdi Ghaemi, donations were made to the Republican Party of Virginia. He lists his address and affiliation as: 2721 South Adams St. #203 Arlington, Virginia 22206 CSRI/Executive Director The CSRI is the "Committee in Support of Referendum in Iran" ( www.referendum-iran.org ) whose board lists Hedayat Mostowfi as Executive Director. All the other names on the list will be recognizable from the FEC files cited above (Mr. Sharifi’s name appears under a number of permutations, most often as "Nassersharifi"): Board of Directors: Masoud Dolati, PE CSRI President and Director of Media Relations dolati@referendum-iran.org Mansour Panah, MD CSRI Vice President panah@referendum-iran.org Ali Parsa, Ph.D CSRI Secretary and Director of Research and Policy Analysis parsa@referendum-iran.org Homayoun Sharifi CSRI Treasurer and Director of Public Relations sharifi@referendum-iran.org Hedayat Mostowfi Executive Director mostowfi@referendum-iran.org The domain registry for the website of this group shows that it was created 26-Nov-2003. At about this same time several other persons who have served as officials or spokespersons of the MKO/NCRI set up web sites and/or corporations with an assortment of names. For example, the "National Coalition of Pro-Democracy Advocates" (http://ncpda.com/) was domain registered 06-oct-2003 by Haydar Akbari. Nasser Rashidi is identified as the group’s Executive Director. Nasser Rashidi has registered an additional web site on Aug 18 2003, http://www.prusa.us/, for a corporation offering lobbying services and giving an address in Virginia. However, no such corporation appears in searching the Virginia State Corporation Commission records: PR-USA Inc. 850 N. Randolph St. Suite 103-A150 Arlington, VA 22203 Tel: 202 487-6989 Fax: 202 318-8331 The web site domain registry, however, lists a different address and it is exactly the same address as used by Hedayat Mostowfi in the FEC records of his donations this year: 2721 S. Adams St Apt 203 Arlington, VA 22206 1.2024876989 nasser_rashidi2003@yahoo.com And then there is the case of Ali Safavi, who was known to have been outside the country in the middle of last year. He is cited as the NCRI London spokesman in a CNN interview aired June 17, 2003. Prior to that he had served in various other locations including Paris, Dubai and Baghdad according to news reports in which he is quoted. Although U.S. law bars entry of non-citizen members of terrorist organizations, barring the possibility of a failure by Homeland Security, Mr. Safavi must have entered the U.S. some time toward the end of 2003 with a U.S. passport. We know this because the Virginia State Corporation Commission records that he established on 11/05/03 a corporation: Near East Policy Research Inc. (NEPR Inc.) 4625 SOUTHLAND AVE APT 302 ALEXANDRIA, VA 22312 [Note: one report states that Ali Safavi has political assylum in the United States. He also travelled to London again in Dec. 2004 to speak on behalf of the Mojahedin.] Similarly, Alireza Jafarzadeh, who we will remember from the list of NCRI foreign agents above, set up a corporation with web site (http://www.spconsulting.us/) giving an address: Strategic Policy Consulting, Inc. 1101 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. Suite 600 Washington, D.C. 20004 Tel: 202-756-2288 Fax: 202-318-8382 The Virginia state records list the corporation as being effective 10/07/2003 and with the following address information: 2101 CRYSTAL OLAZA ARCADE #164 ARLINGTON, VA 22202 4600 This is probably a typo, however, as there IS a 2101 CRYSTAL PLAZA ARCADE in Arlington, VA. Actually, it is the address of a mailbox rental firm; Plaza Mailboxes ( phone: 703-415-0400 ). Searching the address "2101 Crystal Plaza Arcade, Arlington, VA" turns up dozens of different organizations. Similarly for "1101 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. Suite 600". Presumably that also is a mailbox rental facility. Mr. Mohamad Alafchi is a prominent contributor in the FEC records. On 6/28/2004 it is recorded that he made a $1000 contribution to the Committee to Re-elect Ed Towns. Mr. Alafchi is cited on the ncpda.com web site as the President of American Iranian Association- New York. This organization, along with others which you will recognize, cosponsored a Conference at UN Plaza, December 17, 2003. The list of sponsors included: sponsors: Honorable Congressman Ed Towns (D-New York) Association of Iranian-American in New York (AIA-NY) The National Coalition of Pro-Democracy Advocates (NCPDA) The Public Relations USA, Inc. (PRUSA) Near East Policy Research, Inc, (NEPR) If one did not know better, it might appear that this had been a broadly organized event! Soona Samsami, who has long served as a spokeswoman of the Mojahedin’s NCRI and was appointed in 1998 as their U.S. Representative, is now identified as "President" of the Women’s Freedom Forum (http://www.womenfreedomforum.org/) and makes appearances as their "Spokeswoman". Another spokeswoman of the Women’s Freedom Forum, Zolal Habibi, participated in the 19 November 2004 rally (link is to CFDI site that includes Washington Times coverage) in Washington DC. The National Coalition of Pro-Democracy Advocates, Women’s Freedom Forum and Women’s Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran all share common U.S. hosts and Australian Registrars for their web sites: National Coalition of Pro-Democracy Advocates Domain Name: NCPDA.COM Creation Date: 06-oct-2003 IP Address: 66.218.79.170 (Yahoo!) IP Location: US(UNITED STATES)-CALIFORNIA-SUNNYVALE Current Registrar: MELBOURNE IT, LTD. D/B/A INTERNET NAMES WORLDWIDE Women’s Freedom Forum Domain Name: WOMENFREEDOMFORUM.ORG Created On:23-Mar-2004 IP Address: 66.218.79.157 (Yahoo!) IP Location: US(UNITED STATES)-CALIFORNIA-SUNNYVALE Sponsoring Registrar: Melbourne IT, Ltd. dba Internet Names Worldwide Women’s Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran (Radio Voice of Women) Domain Name:WFAFI.ORG Created On:26-May-2004 IP Address: 66.218.79.164 (Yahoo!) IP Location: US(UNITED STATES)-CALIFORNIA-SUNNYVALE Sponsoring Registrar:Melbourne IT, Ltd. dba Internet Names Worldwide There are certainly more manifestations that I have failed to list.
The Third View on Mujahedin Khalq
[MEK – ready-made, single-use commodity for Iran’s enemies]
"I wouldn’t get within a hundred miles of the MEK," [Ledeen] says. "They have no following, no legitimacy."
I. The Israeli Connection
A few blocks off Pennsylvania Avenue, the FBI’s eight-story Washington field office exudes all the charm of a maximum-security prison. Its curved roof is made of thick stainless steel, the bottom three floors are wrapped in granite and limestone, hydraulic bollards protect the ramp to the four-floor garage, and bulletproof security booths guard the entrance to the narrow lobby. On the fourth floor, like a tomb within a tomb, lies the most secret room in the $100 million concrete fortress—out-of-bounds even for special agents without an escort. Here, in the Language Services Section, hundreds of linguists in padded earphones sit elbow-to-elbow in long rows, tapping computer keyboards as they eavesdrop on the phone lines of foreign embassies and other high-priority targets in the nation’s capital.
At the far end of that room, on the morning of February 12th, 2003, a small group of eavesdroppers were listening intently for evidence of a treacherous crime. At the very moment that American forces were massing for an invasion of Iraq, there were indications that a rogue group of senior Pentagon officials were already conspiring to push the United States into another war—this time with Iran.
A few miles away, FBI agents watched as Larry Franklin, an Iran expert and career employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, drove up to the Ritz-Carlton hotel across the Potomac from Washington. A trim man of fifty-six, with a tangle of blond hair speckled gray, Franklin had left his modest home in Kearneysville, West Virginia, shortly before dawn that morning to make the eighty-mile commute to his job at the Pentagon. Since 2002, he had been working in the Office of Special Plans, a crowded warren of blue cubicles on the building’s fifth floor. A secretive unit responsible for long-term planning and propaganda for the invasion of Iraq, the office’s staffers referred to themselves as "the cabal." They reported to Douglas Feith, the third-most-powerful official in the Defense Department, helping to concoct the fraudulent intelligence reports that were driving America to war in Iraq.
Just two weeks before, in his State of the Union address, President Bush had begun laying the groundwork for the invasion, falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein had the means to produce tens of thousands of biological and chemical weapons, including anthrax, botulinum toxin, sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. But an attack on Iraq would require something that alarmed Franklin and other neoconservatives almost as much as weapons of mass destruction: detente with Iran. As political columnist David Broder reported in The Washington Post, moderates in the Bush administration were "covertly negotiating for Iran to stay quiet and offer help to refugees when we go into Iraq."
Franklin—a devout neoconservative who had been brought into Feith’s office because of his political beliefs—was hoping to undermine those talks. As FBI agents looked on, Franklin entered the restaurant at the Ritz and joined two other Americans who were also looking for ways to push the U.S. into a war with Iran. One was Steven Rosen, one of the most influential lobbyists in Washington. Sixty years old and nearly bald, with dark eyebrows and a seemingly permanent frown, Rosen was director of foreign-policy issues at Israel’s powerful lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Seated next to Rosen was AIPAC’s Iran expert, Keith Weissman. He and Rosen had been working together closely for a decade to pressure U.S. officials and members of Congress to turn up the heat on Tehran.
Over breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton, Franklin told the two lobbyists about a draft of a top-secret National Security Presidential Directive that dealt with U.S. policy on Iran. Crafted by Michael Rubin, the desk officer for Iraq and Iran in Feith’s office, the document called, in essence, for regime change in Iran. In the Pentagon’s view, according to one senior official there at the time, Iran was nothing but "a house of cards ready to be pushed over the precipice." So far, though, the White House had rejected the Pentagon’s plan, favoring the State Department’s more moderate position of diplomacy. Now, unwilling to play by the rules any longer, Franklin was taking the extraordinary—and illegal—step of passing on highly classified information to lobbyists for a foreign state. Unable to win the internal battle over Iran being waged within the administration, a member of Feith’s secret unit in the Pentagon was effectively resorting to treason, recruiting AIPAC to use its enormous influence to pressure the president into adopting the draft directive and wage war against Iran.
It was a role that AIPAC was eager to play. Rosen, recognizing that Franklin could serve as a useful spy, immediately began plotting ways to plant him in the White House—specifically in the National Security Council, the epicenter of intelligence and national-security policy. By working there, Rosen told Franklin a few days later, he would be "by the elbow of the president."
Knowing that such a maneuver was well within AIPAC’s capabilities, Franklin asked Rosen to "put in a good word" for him. Rosen agreed. "I’ll do what I can," he said, adding that the breakfast meeting had been a real "eye-opener."
Working together, the two men hoped to sell the United States on yet another bloody war. A few miles away, digital recorders at the FBI’s Language Services Section captured every word.
II. The Guru and the Exile
In recent weeks, the attacks by Hezbollah on Israel have given neoconservatives in the Bush administration the pretext they were seeking to launch what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls "World War III." Denouncing the bombings as "Iran’s proxy war," William Kristol of The Weekly Standard is urging the Pentagon to counter "this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities." According to Joseph Cirincione, an arms expert and the author of Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats, "The neoconservatives are now hoping to use the Israeli-Lebanon conflict as the trigger to launch a U.S. war against Syria, Iran or both."
But the Bush administration’s hostility toward Iran is not simply an outgrowth of the current crisis. War with Iran has been in the works for the past five years, shaped in almost complete secrecy by a small group of senior Pentagon officials attached to the Office of Special Plans. The man who created the OSP was Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy. A former Middle East specialist on the National Security Council in the Reagan administration, Feith had long urged Israel to secure its borders in the Middle East by attacking Iraq and Iran. After Bush’s election, Feith went to work to make that vision a reality, putting together a team of neoconservative hawks determined to drive the U.S. to attack Tehran. Before Bush had been in office a year, Feith’s team had arranged a covert meeting in Rome with a group of Iranians to discuss their clandestine help.
The meeting was arranged by Michael Ledeen, a member of the cabal brought aboard by Feith because of his connections in Iran. Described by The Jerusalem Post as "Washington’s neoconservative guru," Ledeen grew up in California during the 1940s. His father designed the air-conditioning system for Walt Disney Studios, and Ledeen spent much of his early life surrounded by a world of fantasy. "All through my childhood we were an adjunct of the Disney universe," he once recalled. "According to family legend, my mother was the model for Snow White, and we have a picture of her that does indeed look just like the movie character."
In 1977, after earning a Ph.D. in history and philosophy and teaching in Rome for two years, Ledeen became the first executive director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a pro-Israel pressure group that served as a flagship of the neoconservative movement. A few years later, after Reagan was elected, Ledeen had become prominent enough to earn a spot as a consultant to the National Security Council alongside Feith. There he played a central role in the worst scandal of Reagan’s presidency: the covert deal to provide arms to Iran in exchange for American hostages being held in Lebanon. Ledeen served as the administration’s intermediary with Israel in the illegal-arms deal. In 1985, he met with Manucher Ghorbanifar, a one-time Iranian carpet salesman who was widely believed to be an Israeli agent. The CIA considered Ghorbanifar a dangerous con man and had issued a "burn notice" recommending that no U.S. agency have any dealings with him. Unfazed, Ledeen called Ghorbanifar "one of the most honest, educated, honorable men I have ever known." The two men brokered the arms exchange—a transaction that would result in the indictment of fourteen senior officials in the Reagan administration.
"It was awful—you know, bad things happened," Ledeen says now. "When Iran-Contra was over, I said, ?Boy, I’m never going to touch Iran again.’ "
But in 2001, soon after he arrived at the Pentagon, Ledeen once again met with Ghorbanifar. This time, instead of selling missiles to the Iranian regime, the two men were exploring how best to topple it.
"The meeting in Rome came about because my friend Manucher Ghorbanifar called me up," Ledeen says. Stout and balding, with a scruffy white beard, Ledeen is sitting in the living room of his white-brick home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, smoking a Dominican cigar. His Airedale terrier, Thurber, roams the room protectively. In his first extensive interview about the covert Pentagon operation, Ledeen makes no secret of his desire to topple the government in Tehran. "I want to bring down the regime," he says. "I want the regime gone. It’s a country that is fanatically devoted to our destruction."
When Ghorbanifar called Ledeen in the fall of 2001, he claimed, as he often does, to have explosive intelligence that was vital to U.S. interests. "There are Iranians who have firsthand information about Iranian plans to kill Americans in Afghanistan," he told Ledeen. "Does anyone want to hear about it?"
Ledeen took the information to Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser at the White House. "I know you’re going to throw me out of the office," Ledeen told him, "and if I were you I would throw me out of the office too. But I promised that I would give you this option. Ghorbanifar has called me. He said these people are willing to come. Do you want anybody to go and talk to them?"
Hadley was interested. So was Zalmay Khalilzad, then the point man on Near East issues for the National Security Council and now the U.S. ambassador to Baghdad. "I think we have to do this, we have to hear this," Hadley said. Ledeen had the green light: As he puts it, "Every element of the American government knew this was going to happen in advance."
III. The Meeting in Rome
Weeks later, in December, a plane carrying Ledeen traveled to Rome with two other members of Feith’s secret Pentagon unit: Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode, a protégé of Ledeen who has been called the "theoretician of the neocon movement." A specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish and Farsi, Rhode had experience with shady exiles like Ghorbanifar: He was close to Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi dissident whose discredited intelligence helped drive the Bush administration to invade Baghdad. According to UPI, Rhode himself was later observed by CIA operatives passing "mind-boggling" intelligence to Israel, including sensitive information about U.S. military deployments in Iraq.
Completing the rogues’ gallery that assembled in Rome that day was the man who helped Ledeen arrange the meeting: Nicolò Pollari, the director of Italy’s military intelligence. Only two months earlier, Pollari had informed the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had obtained uranium from West Africa—a key piece of false intelligence that Bush used to justify the invasion of Iraq.
To hide the shadowy rendezvous in Rome, Pollari provided a well-protected safe house near the noisy espresso bars and busy trattorias that surround the Piazza di Spagna in central Rome. "It was in a private apartment," Ledeen recalls. "It was fucking freezing—it was unheated." The Pentagon operatives and the men from Iran sat at a dining-room table strewn with demitasse cups of blackish coffee, ashtrays littered with crushed cigarette butts and detailed maps of Iran, Iraq and Syria. "They gave us information about the location and plans of Iranian terrorists who were going to kill Americans," Ledeen says.
Ledeen insists the intelligence was on the mark. "It was true," he says. "The information was accurate." Not according to his boss. "There wasn’t anything there that was of substance or of value that needed to be pursued further," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld later conceded. "It went nowhere."
The men then turned their attention to their larger goal: regime change in Iran. Ghorbanifar suggested funding the overthrow of the Iranian government using hundreds of millions of dollars in cash supposedly hidden by Saddam Hussein. He even hinted that Saddam was hiding in Iran.
Ledeen, Franklin and Rhode were taking a page from Feith’s playbook on Iraq: They needed a front group of exiles and dissidents to call for the overthrow of Iran. According to sources familiar with the meeting, the Americans discussed joining forces with the Mujahedin-e Khalq, an anti-Iranian guerrilla army operating out of Iraq.
There was only one small problem: The MEK had been certified by the State Department as a terrorist organization. In fact, the White House was in the midst of negotiations with Tehran, which was offering to extradite five members of Al Qaeda thought to be of high intelligence value in return for Washington’s promise to drop all support for the MEK.
Ledeen denies any dealings with the group. "I wouldn’t get within a hundred miles of the MEK," he says. "They have no following, no legitimacy." But neoconservatives were eager to undermine any deal that involved cooperating with Iran. To the neocons, the value of the MEK as a weapon against Tehran greatly outweighed any benefit that might be derived from interrogating the Al Qaeda operatives—even though they might provide intelligence on future terrorist attacks, as well as clues to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.
Ledeen and his Pentagon cabal were not the only American officials to whom Ghorbanifar tried to funnel false intelligence on Iran. Last year, Rep. Curt Weldon, a Republican from Pennsylvania, claimed he had intelligence—from an "impeccable clandestine source" he code-named "Ali"—that the Iranian government was plotting to launch attacks against the United States. But when the CIA investigated the allegations, it turned out that Ali was Fereidoun Mahdavi, an Iranian exile who was serving as a frontman for Ghorbanifar and trying to shake down the CIA for $150,000. "He is a fabricator," said Bill Murray, the former CIA station chief in Paris. Weldon was furious: The agency had dismissed Ali, he insisted, "because they want to avoid, at all costs, drawing the United States into a war with Iran."
After the Rome rendezvous, Ledeen and Ghorbanifar continued to meet several times a year, often for a day or two at a time. Rhode also met with Ghorbanifar in Paris, and the Iranian phoned or faxed his Pentagon contacts almost every day. At one point Ledeen notified the Pentagon that Ghorbanifar knew of highly enriched uranium being moved from Iraq to Iran. At another point, in 2003, he claimed that Tehran was only a few months away from exploding a nuclear bomb—even though international experts estimate that Iran is years away from developing nuclear weapons. But the accuracy of the reports wasn’t important—what mattered was their value in drumming up support for war. It was Iraq all over again.
IV. On the Trail of Mr. X
Such covert efforts by Feith’s team in the Pentagon started to have the desired effect. In November 2003, Rumsfeld approved a plan known as CONPLAN 8022-02, which for the first time established a pre-emptive-strike capability against Iran. That was followed in 2004 by a top-secret "Interim Global Strike Alert Order" that put the military on a state of readiness to launch an airborne and missile attack against Iran, should Bush issue the command. "We’re now at the point where we are essentially on alert," said Lt. Gen. Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force. "We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes in half a day or less."
But as the Pentagon moved the country closer to war with Iran, the FBI was expanding its investigation of AIPAC and its role in the plot. David Szady, then the bureau’s top spy-catcher, had become convinced that at least one American citizen working inside the U.S. government was spying for Israel. "It’s no longer just our traditional adversaries who want to steal our secrets, but sometimes even our allies," Szady declared. "The threat is incredibly serious." To locate the spy sometimes referred to as Mr. X, agents working for Szady began focusing on a small group of neoconservatives in the Pentagon—including Feith, Ledeen and Rhode.
The FBI also had its sights on Larry Franklin, who continued to hold clandestine meetings with Rosen at AIPAC. Apparently nervous that the FBI might be on to them, the two men started taking precautions. On March 10th, 2003, barely a week before the invasion of Iraq, Rosen met Franklin in Washington’s cavernous Union Station. The pair met at one restaurant, then they hustled to another, and finally they ended up in a third—this one totally empty. As an added precaution, Franklin also began sending faxes to Rosen’s home instead of to his AIPAC offices.
A few days later, Rosen and Weissman passed on to Israeli-embassy officials details about the draft of the top-secret presidential directive on Iran, saying they had received the document from a "friend of ours in the Pentagon." They also relayed to the Israelis details about internal Bush-administration discussions on Iran. Then, two days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Rosen leaked the information to the press with the comment "I’m not supposed to know this." The Washington Post eventually published the story under the headline "Pressure Builds for President to Declare Strategy on Iran," crediting the classified information to "well-placed sources." The story mentioned Ledeen, who helped found the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, a pressure group dedicated to the overthrow of the Iranian government, but gave no indication that the leak had come from someone with a definite agenda for planting the information.
That June, Weissman called Franklin and left a message that he and Rosen wanted to meet with him again and talk about "our favorite country." The meeting took place in the Tivoli Restaurant, a dimly lit establishment two floors above the metro station in Arlington that was frequently used by intelligence types for quiet rendezvous. Over lunch in the mirrored dining room, the three men discussed the Post article, and Rosen acknowledged "the constraints" Franklin was under to meet with them. But the Pentagon official placed himself fully at AIPAC’s disposal. "You set the agenda," Franklin told Rosen.
In addition to meeting Rosen and Weissman, Franklin was also getting together regularly with Naor Gilon, an Israeli embassy official who, according to a senior U.S. counterintelligence official, "showed every sign of being an intelligence agent." Franklin and Gilon would normally meet amid the weight machines and punching bags at the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club, where Franklin passed along secret information regarding Iran’s activities in Iraq, its missile-testing program and even, apparently, New York Times reporter Judith Miller. At one point, Gilon suggested that Franklin meet with Uzi Arad, Mossad’s former director of intelligence and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s foreign-policy adviser. A week later, Franklin had lunch in the Pentagon cafeteria with the former top Israeli spy.
V. Iran’s Double Agent
Larry Franklin, it turns out, wasn’t the only person involved in the Pentagon’s covert operation who was exchanging state secrets with other governments. As the FBI monitored Franklin and his clandestine dealings with AIPAC, it was also investigating another explosive case of espionage linked to Feith’s office and Iran. This one focused on Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, the militant anti-Saddam opposition group that had worked for more than a decade to pressure the U.S. into invading Iraq.
For years, the National Security Agency had possessed the codes used by Iran to encrypt its diplomatic messages, enabling the U.S. government to eavesdrop on virtually every communication between Tehran and its embassies. After the U.S. invaded Baghdad, the NSA used the codes to listen in on details of Iran’s covert operations inside Iraq. But in 2004, the agency intercepted a series of urgent messages from the Iranian embassy in Baghdad. Intelligence officials at the embassy had discovered the massive security breach—tipped off by someone familiar with the U.S. code-breaking operation.
The blow to intelligence-gathering could not have come at a worse time. The Bush administration suspected that the Shiite government in Iran was aiding Shiite insurgents in Iraq, who were killing U.S. soldiers. The administration was also worried that Tehran was secretly developing nuclear weapons. Now, crucial intelligence that might have shed light on those operations had been cut off, potentially endangering American lives.
On May 20th, shortly after the discovery of the leak, Iraqi police backed by American soldiers raided Chalabi’s home and offices in Baghdad. The FBI suspected that Chalabi, a Shiite who had a luxurious villa in Tehran and was close to senior Iranian officials, was actually working as a spy for the Shiite government of Iran. Getting the U.S. to invade Iraq was apparently part of a plan to install a pro-Iranian Shiite government in Baghdad, with Chalabi in charge. The bureau also suspected that Chalabi’s intelligence chief had furnished Iran with highly classified information on U.S. troop movements, top-secret communications, plans of the provisional government and other closely guarded material on U.S. operations in Iraq. On the night of the raid, The CBS Evening News carried an exclusive report by correspondent Lesley Stahl that the U.S. government had "rock-solid" evidence that Chalabi had been passing extremely sensitive intelligence to Iran—evidence so sensitive that it could "get Americans killed."
The revelation shocked Franklin and other members of Feith’s office. If true, the allegations meant that they had just launched a war to put into power an agent of their mortal enemy, Iran. Their man—the dissident leader who sat behind the first lady in the president’s box during the State of the Union address in which Bush prepared the country for war—appeared to have been working for Iran all along.
Franklin needed to control the damage, and fast. He was one of the very few in the government who knew that it was the NSA code-breaking information that Chalabi was suspected of passing to Iran, and that there was absolute proof that Chalabi had met with a covert Iranian agent involved in operations against the U.S. To protect those in the Pentagon working for regime change in Tehran, Franklin needed to get out a simple message: We didn’t know about Chalabi’s secret dealings with Iran.
Franklin decided to leak the information to a friendly contact in the media: Adam Ciralsky, a CBS producer who had been fired from the CIA, allegedly for his close ties to Israel. On May 21st, the day after CBS broadcast its exclusive report on Chalabi, Franklin phoned Ciralsky and fed him the information. As the two men talked, eavesdroppers at the FBI’s Washington field office recorded the conversation.
That night, Stahl followed up her original report with "new details"—the information leaked earlier that day by Franklin. She began, however, by making clear that she would not divulge the most explosive detail of all: the fact that Chalabi had wrecked the NSA’s ability to eavesdrop on Iran. "Senior intelligence officials were stressing today that the information Ahmed Chalabi is alleged to have passed on to Iran is so seriously sensitive that the result of full disclosure would be highly damaging to U.S. security," Stahl said. "Because of that, we are not reporting the details of what exactly Chalabi is said to have compromised, at the request of U.S. officials at the highest levels. The information involves secrets that were held by only a handful of very senior intelligence officials." Thanks to the pressure from the administration, the public was prevented from learning the most damaging aspect of Chalabi’s treachery.
Then Stahl moved on to Franklin’s central message. "Meanwhile," she said, "we have been told that grave concerns about the true nature of Chalabi’s relationship with Iran started after the U.S. obtained, quote, ?undeniable intelligence’ that Chalabi met with a senior Iranian intelligence officer, a, quote, ?nefarious figure from the dark side of the regime, an individual with a direct hand in covert operations against the United States.’ Chalabi never reported this meeting to anyone in the U.S. government, including his friends and sponsors." In short, the Pentagon—and Feith’s office in particular—was blameless.
VI. The Cabal’s Triumph
Soon after the broadcast, David Szady’s team at the FBI decided to wrap up its investigation before Franklin leaked any more information. Agents quietly confronted Franklin with the taped phone call and pressured him to cooperate in a sting operation directed at AIPAC and members of Feith’s team in the Pentagon. Franklin, facing a long prison sentence, agreed. On August 4th, 2005, Rosen and Weissman were indicted, and on January 20th, 2006, Franklin, who had earlier pleaded guilty, was sentenced to twelve years and seven months in prison. In an attempt to reduce his sentence, he agreed to testify against the former AIPAC officials. The case is set to go to trial this fall.
So far, however, Franklin is the only member of Feith’s team to face charges. The continuing lack of indictments demonstrates how frighteningly easy it is for a small group of government officials to join forces with agents of foreign powers—whether it is AIPAC or the MEK or the INC—to sell the country on a disastrous war.
The most glaring unindicted co-conspirator is Ahmed Chalabi. Even top-ranking Republicans suspect him of double dealing: "I wouldn’t be surprised if he told Iranians facts, issues, whatever, that we did not want them to know," said Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., who chairs the House subcommittee on national security. Yet the FBI has been unable to so much as question Chalabi as part of its ongoing espionage case. Last November, when Chalabi returned to the United States for a series of speeches and media events, the FBI tried to interview him. But because he was under State Department protection during his visit, sources in the Justice Department say, the bureau’s request was flatly denied.
"Chalabi’s running around saying, ?I have nothing to hide,’ " says one senior FBI official. "Yet he’s using our State Department to keep us from him at the same time. And we’ve got to keep our mouth shut."
In the end, the work of Franklin and the other members of Feith’s secret office had the desired effect. Working behind the scenes, the members of the Office of Special Plans succeeded in setting the United States on the path to all-out war with Iran. Indeed, since Bush was re-elected to a second term, he has made no secret of his desire to see Tehran fall. In a victory speech of sorts on Inauguration Day in January 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney warned bluntly that Iran was "right at the top" of the administration’s list of "trouble spots"—and that Israel "might well decide to act first" by attacking Iran. The Israelis, Cheney added in an obvious swipe at moderates in the State Department, would "let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterward."
Over the past six months, the administration has adopted almost all of the hard-line stance advocated by the war cabal in the Pentagon. In May, Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, appeared before AIPAC’s annual conference and warned that Iran "must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences." To back up the tough talk, the State Department is spending $66 million to promote political change inside Iran—funding the same kind of dissident groups that helped drive the U.S. to war in Iraq. "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice declared.
In addition, the State Department recently beefed up its Iran Desk from two people to ten, hired more Farsi speakers and set up eight intelligence units in foreign countries to focus on Iran. The administration’s National Security Strategy—the official policy document that sets out U.S. strategic priorities—now calls Iran the "single country" that most threatens U.S. interests.
The shift in official policy has thrilled former members of the cabal. To them, the war in Lebanon represents the final step in their plan to turn Iran into the next Iraq. Ledeen, writing in the National Review on July 13th, could hardly restrain himself. "Faster, please," he urged the White House, arguing that the war should now be taken over by the U.S. military and expanded across the entire region. "The only way we are going to win this war is to bring down those regimes in Tehran and Damascus, and they are not going to fall as a result of fighting between their terrorist proxies in Gaza and Lebanon on the one hand, and Israel on the other. Only the United States can accomplish it," he concluded. "There is no other way."
By James Bamford – Rolling Stone Magazine July, 2006
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/10962352/iran_the_next_war/1
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and other top Iraqi officials are calling for the eviction of an anti-Iranian militant group that is reportedly orchestrating attacks and collecting intelligence inside Iran on behalf of the Department of Defense.
The group, known as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK or MKO), "is interfering in social and political issues as if it’s an Iraqi organization," Maliki told reporters at a recent press conference. "It’s a terrorist organization and the presence of this group in Iraq contradicts the constitution," he said, calling for the group’s eviction.
Although the Iraqi leader neglected to mention the United States, his position is at direct odds with current and former military and White House officials who view the MKO as a potential "democratic" alternative to the present Iranian regime.
Furthermore, the Iraqi Prime Minister’s stance could jeopardize a covert operations program reportedly being directed by the Department of Defense against Tehran. The Pentagon is reportedly running the MKO in Iran’s oil-rich province of Khuzestan — which has been the subject of numerous attacks and terrorist bombings over the past year — and in the opium-smuggling border province of Sistan-Baluchistan, where suspected US/MKO operatives attacked and killed several Iranian officials just this March.
The prime minister’s recent comments on the MKO were reiterated by Iraq’s Deputy Interior Minister for Security Affairs Salam al-Zawba’i who announced a "comprehensive plan, which requires approval of the government to expel the MKO from the country by the year’s end."
The Iraqi official also said that the MKO "seeks to hatch plots against the Iraqi nation." Although he did not cite any specific examples, there are many in Iraq, including the nation’s parliamentary leader, that have accused the US of sponsoring MKO terrorist bombings — not just in Iran — but in Iraq as well.
The recent announcements by Iraqi officials come in the wake of blossoming negotiations between Iraq and Iran, the latter of which has been calling for the MKO’s eviction since the beginning of the 2003 invasion.
If the plan goes through, it may bring the reported US/MKO operations to an end, although it wouldn’t be the first eviction notice the MKO has received. The provisional Iraqi Governing Council expelled the militant group back in 2003, but despite the order, approximately 3,800 members of the group remained in the country under the watch of US forces — presumably so they could be used in future operations against Tehran.
The MKO were supposedly being confined to a US military-run compound northeast of Baghdad, but by January of 2005 the group was reportedly "launching raids" from Camp Habib in Basra on behalf of the US, and had also been given permission by Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff to operate from Pakistan’s Baluchi area, according to US officials who spoke to UPI.
US-sponsored MKO militants are suspected of carrying out the string of terrorist bombings that killed at least 12 people and injured 90 others in Iran just prior to the country’s elections in 2005. They also attacked and killed 22 Iranian officials in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan this March, according to US government officials who spoke to the online publication Raw Story.
The MKO has a long history of violence and has been listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization, making it illegal for anyone in the United States to provide material support to the group. The Treasury Department has also labeled the MKO and its affiliated groups as "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" entities, "effectively freezing all [of their] assets and properties and prohibiting transactions between U.S. persons and these organizations."
Despite their terrorist status, the MKO has conducted a fairly successful lobbying campaign in Washington, DC, garnering support from the Pentagon, the White House, influential foreign policy groups, and several members of Congress.
The Iran Policy Committee (IPC), which has been described as a "spin off" of the highly influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), serves as the MKO’s primary support group in Washington.
Maintaining the bold slogan, "Empowering Iranians for Regime Change," the IPC is urging US officials to step in and counter the Iranian regime’s influence in Iraq.
"Iran’s attempts to bulldoze and beguile Baghdad into evicting the Iranian resistance," IPC member Bruce McColm recently said, "must be resisted by Washington."
Fellow IPC member and retired Marine, Lt. Col. Bill Cowan, went even further: "The United States should put Iran on notice that we are going to threaten its regime in the worst way possible — from within: Tell Tehran that we will be providing money, assistance, and advice to empower Iranian resistance movements."
Any such efforts will surely be complicated by the Iraqi government, which has already cut off water and fuel supplies to the MKO’s main base of operations; restricted the MKO from making contact with governmental institutions; and, on July 27, ordered the militant group to leave the country within the next six months.
Devlin Buckley – Online Journal – Aug 1, 2006
BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nouri Maliki on Wednesday accused a militant Iranian opposition group of meddling in his country’s affairs and suggested that it could face expulsion from Iraq, where it has been based for 20 years.
The Iraqi leader said the Mujahedin Khalq, which is dedicated to toppling Iran’s Islamist government, had become too involved in Iraq’s political and social issues.
"It is interfering as if it is an Iraqi organization, despite the fact that it is considered to be one of the terrorist organizations and its presence in the country contradicts the constitution," Maliki said at a news conference.
In response to a question, he said that government communications with the group had been banned and that a committee had been established "to find out the procedures related to their existence here" and to determine which countries would be ready to accept them as refugees.
The United States has listed the Mujahedin Khalq as a terrorist organization, although some U.S. officials have praised it as a tough opponent of the Iranian government.
The group was believed responsible for the slayings of several U.S. soldiers and civilians working on defense contracts in Iran in the 1970s, when Washington backed the shah. The Mujahedin Khalq also supported and may have aided the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, during which 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days.
Tehran strongly opposes the group and has pressured Baghdad’s Shiite-led government, dominated by parties with long-standing ties to Iran, to clamp down on its activities in Iraq.
A Mujahedin Khalq statement Wednesday said that its members had a right to protection under the Geneva Convention and that their safety was the responsibility of U.S.-led forces.
"Any action against the [Mujahedin] represents nothing but the demands and wishes of the theocracy ruling Iran that have been conveyed to the Iraqi prime minister," the statement said.
A spokesman for the group said earlier that it had not been informed by Baghdad that it may have to leave Iraq, whose government has improved ties with non-Arab Shiite Iran.
The Mujahedin Khalq, which has carried out attacks in Iran, was believed to have received support from former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, whose troops fought the Islamic Republic in the 1980s. But the group’s fortunes changed after a U.S.-led invasion toppled Hussein in 2003. It handed over its weapons after the U.S. bombed its bases.
Its estimated 4,000 members in Iraq are based at Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad. It has many supporters in Europe and North America and operated openly in France until 2003.
Los Angeles Times – July 20, 2006
BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki says he is looking for ways to end the presence in his country of the Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran.
"The presence in the country of this organization violates the constitution," he told a press conference on Wednesday, accusing the organization of interfering in Iran’s internal affairs.
"This organization has been behaving as though it is an Iraqi organization," he added, emphasizing that it is labeled as a terrorist organization in the United States and the European Union.
Maliki said the cabinet decided at a meeting Wednesday to restrict the movements of PMOI members to their base at Camp Ashraf, near the Iranian border, and to prevent them from contacting government officials.
The government will also form a committee to decide whether to allow them to remain in Iraq or find a country to exile them to.
Iran has publicly complained about the continuing presence of the PMOI across its border.
Under the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, the PMOI was supplied with weapons and tanks and periodically carried out armed incursions against Iran as well as helped Iraqi forces put down rebellious Shiites in 1991.
US forces confiscated the organization’s weapons following the March 2003 US-led invasion, taking away some 300 tanks, many of which were subsequently given to the Iraqi armed forces.
The estimated 3,000 PMOI members are now under a kind of US-supervised house arrest at Camp Ashraf, which is mainly for their protection against hostile population on both sides of the border.
The group’s activities are supported by its political wing, the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI) which has offices in France and Germany and carries out lobbying efforts against the Iranian government.
While the PMOI is characterized as a terrorist group by the United States and EU, it has many supporters in the US Congress and British parliament.
AFP – Wed Jul 19
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., April 16, 1963
Raw Story is reporting that the White House is denying the use of terrorist organizations to undermine the Iranian regime.
Earlier today at the White House Press Briefing, Scott McClellan, the outgoing press secretary, denied reports that the U.S. is employing terrorist groups for special operations in Iran, RAW STORY has found.
When asked if U.S. policy has been changed with respect to three different terrorist organizations that have reportedly been active recently against Iran “based on the notion that an enemy of our enemy is our friend,” McClellan insisted that it hadn’t.
“Our policies haven’t changed on those organizations,” said McClellan. “They remain the same.”
“And you’re bringing up organizations that we view as terrorist organizations,” McClellan added.
The reporter cited three different terror group activities: “PKK going over the border into Iraq, the MEK southern border of Iraq into Iran, and also certain operations from Balochistan involving also the Pakistanis.”
In April, RAW STORY’s Larisa Alexandrovna reported (link) that “[o]ne of the operational assets being used by the Defense Department is a right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which is being “run” in two southern regional areas of Iran.”
It prompted me to consult the book State of War by James Risen (pages 216-217):
… This time, the Iranians wanted a trade; in return for the al-Qaeda leaders, Tehran wanted the Americans to hand over members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile terrorist organization that had been supported by Saddam Hussein and based in Iraq since 1986. After the fall of Baghdad, the U.S. military had disarmed the MEK’s thousands of fighters and taken custody of the group’s heavy military equipment, more than two thousand tanks, artillery pieces, armored personnel carriers, and other vehicles provided by Saddam Hussein. But the Bush administration was divided over what to do with the group next.
In a principals committee meeting at the White House in May [2003], the Iranian prisoner exchange proposal was discussed by President Bush and his top advisors. According to people who were in the meeting, President Bush said he thought it sounded like a good deal, since the MEK was a terrorist organization. … The MEK was officially listed as a foreign terrorist group by the State Department; back in the 1970s, the group had killed several Americans living in Iran, including CIA officers based there during the shah’s regime. …
But the idea never got that far. Hard-liners at the Pentagon dug in and ultimately torpedoed any takl of an agreement the Iranians. Defense Secertary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz seemed to think the MEK could be useful in a future war with Iran, and so they appeared eager to keep the group in place inside Iraq. CIA and State Department officials were stunned that the Pentagon leadership would so openly flaunt their willingness to cut a deal with the MEK; they were even more surprised that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz paid no price for their actions. At the White House, officials soon learned that the Pentagon was dreaming up excuses to avoid following through on any further actions to rein in the MEK. One argument was that the military was too busy, with too many other responsibilities in Iraq, to devote the manpower to dismantling the MEK. The Pentagon basically told the White Hosue that “we will get around to it when we get around to it,” noted one former Bush administration official. “And they got away with it.” (emphasis mine)
I cannot help but to be reminded of the United States backing Osama bin Laden and other Islamic militants in Afghanistan, only for them to turn against the U.S. years later. In the short-term, it supported our objective in the region – push out the Soviets – but in the long-term, it has created much more headaches. This is why I studied history as a minor (poiltical science major). To avoid making mistakes in the future, it is best to learn from the past.
The Bush administration doesn’t seem to get that.
The Great Society – Wednesday, May 3, 2006
Page A12 of the April 29th edition of the National Post makes for an interesting read.
Above the fold, the page is dominated by a huge picture of an April 27th ‘Iranian-American rally in New York to denounce Iran’s continued nuclear activities.’ The picture sits above a commanding headline: ‘Bush tears into Iran over "intransigence".’ Two smaller headlines–‘Deadline Passes’ and ‘United Nations nuclear inspectors stonewalled’–precede Steven Edwards’ byline, whence the usual distortions and glaring omissions begin.
What makes this page interesting is not Edwards’ rehearsal of White House spin, but the placement of the prominent photograph of the ‘Iranian-American rally’ (five columns wide out of a possible six) next to another, shorter story running down the single remaining left-hand column entitled ‘Canada a ‘haven’ for terrorists: Washington,’ by Sheldon Alberts.
Alberts’ story is based on the US State Department’s recently released Country Report on Terrorism, but, ironically, the photograph running next to his article (which is obviously meant to reinforce the Edwards’ story’s point about Iran’s alleged nuclear-weapons program) ends up demonstrating that the United States is, itself, a ‘haven for terrorists.’
The demonstrators the National Post has chosen to feature are holding signs and banners bearing the names and pictures of ‘Massoud Rajavi’ and ‘Maryam Rajavi,’ Iranian exiles who have played a variety of leadership roles in the Mojahidin-e-Khalq (MEK) and its associated organizations over many years. The MEK and its various fronts seek the ‘violent overthrow of the Iranian regime.’
How do I know that about the MEK?
Well, since 1997, the MEK has been considered a terrorist organization by–you guessed it–the US State Department, and is, in fact, listed in section 8 of the very report Sheldon Alberts quotes in calling Canada a ‘safe haven’ for terrorists.
Among the activities ascribed to the MEK by the US State Department are the following:
Killing US civilians and supporting the takeover of the US embassy in 1979.
Killing 70 high-ranking Iranian officials in a 1981 bomb attack.
Assisting the government of Saddam Hussein in its war against Iran, and in the crushing of the of the Shi’ite and Kurdish rebellions following the Gulf War.
This one’s worth quoting in full, because of its similarity to the tactics of Al’Qaeda: ‘In April 1992, the MEK conducted near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and installations in 13 countries, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas.’
Other assassinations and attempted assassinations.
Sadly, one learns from the BBC, that the MEK enjoys ‘considerable’ support in the US Congress, despite its history of terrorism.
So, let’s review:
To bolster a story portraying Iran as a global renegade, the National Post runs a huge picture of what can only be called US-based supporters of terrorism (according to the US State Department’s own definition, that is), and, furthermore, it runs this picture next to another article criticizing Canada for being a ‘haven’ for terrorists and their supporters.
The ironies are almost too many to count.
I guess we could laugh this whole thing off, except that we know our governments in the US and Canada (and their friends in the media) repeatedly tell us that we’re engaged in a ‘war on terror,’ and need to do whatever it takes to stop the ‘terrorists’ from destroying democracy, freedom and civilization itself.
In fact, as the supporters of an acknowledged terrorist organization march freely in New York, receiving ‘considerable’ support in the US Congress and benign coverage in the National Post, what we do learn is what the so-called ‘war on terror’ is all about: It’s a war on ‘their’ terror against ‘us.’
As for ‘our’ terror against ‘them’…
rabble.ca – 30 April 2006
In an article by James Graff, “Are The PMOI Iran’s last Hope For A Peaceful Solution?”, TIME Europe has discussed the position of the MKO in the west. Graff wrote:
“…But there are also reasons why Western governments remain wary: among them are the group’s ideological origins in a mixture of Marxism and Islam, the aid they offered to and received from Saddam Hussein, and charges, which they deny, implicating them in terrorist acts in Iran. Many independent analysts, such as Paris-based sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar, say the group has few supporters inside Iran.
The PMOI’s terrorist listing was first secured nine years ago as a concession to the reformist government of Mohammed Khatami, but it has been consistently renewed since then. A legal challenge to the designation was denied in 2004 by the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, in a judgment written by John Roberts, now the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. At Le Bourget, a number of sympathetic politicians spoke in support of the organization, but none who have the ear of sitting governments.
The widow of President François Mitterrand, Danielle, headlined the French contingent, which also featured Edith Cresson, whose stints as prime minister and European Commissioner brought her little credit. And so the battle continues. The Le Bourget gathering had the harmless character of a political rally-cum-family reunion rather than the menace of a terrorist conclave. But the PMOI represents a Third Way the West is still unlikely to embrace — even if it has no other good options either.
Full article:
http://www.time.com/time/europe/eu/article/0,13716,1211079,00.html
TIME Europe, July 10, 2006
Laura Rozen, a senior correspondent, in part of her Washington Post article Iran on the Potomac, described several Iranian dissidents who are pressing Washington, seeking help in fostering regime change back home. The only problem, as she says, is that the exiles can’t agree on a strategy. Among all the opposition, there can be found no equivalent to the Iraqi National Congress, and the exiles have yet to coalesce around a platform or leader.
Mojahedin Khalq Organization, MKO, is one of the exile groups that has advocates in Congress in spite of being blacklisted as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Talking of Alireza Jafarzadeh, Washington spokesman for the MKO, Rozen describes Jafarzadeh as ‘The militant voice’:
"Alireza Jafarzadeh , 49, is the longtime Washington spokesman for the National Council of the Resistance of Iran, the political wing of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq, an anti-regime militant group supported for years by Saddam Hussein. MEK has been on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations since 1997. In 2002, Jafarzadeh and the group announced details of Iran’s previously unknown nuclear program. With NCRI’s Washington office shut down since 2003, Jafarzadeh has reinvented himself as an expert commentator on Iran’s nuclear program. The MEK is reviled by Iran but it has support from the Iran Policy Committee, a group of conservative retired U.S. military officers and Reagan-era officials, who say Washington should work with the MEK to overthrow the Tehran regime."
Washington Post, June 25, 2006
Mujahideen-e Khalq, an Iraq-based group founded to fight Iran’s regime, may be expelled from its base this week.
TEHRAN, IRAN The day Masumeh Roshan had been praying for finally came in late September, when the Iranian mother traveled to Iraq to visit her only son – a teenager she says was lured into ties with terrorism.
But the joyful reunion soon dissolved into tears at Ashraf Camp, where US troops are guarding some 3,800 militants of the Mujahideen-e Khalq Organization (MKO) – the only armed opposition to the ruling clerics of Iran.
Ms. Roshan’s militant son, they said, could not leave.
The case of those holed up in Camp Ashraf, near Baghdad, remains a quirky piece of unfinished business left over from the American campaign to oust Saddam Hussein. It continues to leave a trail of broken lives.
Officially, both the US and Iran label the MKO a terrorist group. The US-appointed Iraq Governing Council concurs: Citing the "black history of this terrorist organization" and its years of working closely with Mr. Hussein, it has ordered the expulsion of the MKO from Iraq by the end of this year.
But the MKO’s fate is unclear. While the Iraqis want it disbanded, the politically savvy group still has support among some congressmen and Pentagon officials, who see it as a potential tool against Iran, a country which President Bush calls part of an "axis of evil."
Some MKO 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 MKO militants for Al Qaeda players now in Iran – the MKO continues to complicate US-Iran-Iraq relations.
Lives on the line
But for those rank-and-file members trying to escape MKO control, resolving the status issue is an urgent need. Ms. Roshan says she hardly recognized the gaunt visage of her 17-year-old boy, Majid Amini, at Ashraf Camp.
"He pulled my ear to his lips, and said: ‘Don’t cry; be sure that I will come with you. I can’t stay here; they are not human beings,’ " Roshan recalls, trying to control her trembling voice.
But Mr. Amini – a Karate kid with an orange belt, who his parents say was recruited to join the MKO in Tehran with promises of completing two school grades in one year and gaining a place in college – was forced to remain behind.
"He took his uniform off, stamped on it, and shouted: ‘I can’t go back! My life will be in danger!’ " Roshan recalls during an interview in Tehran. MKO officers and US troops insisted the young man stay, and Roshan climbed alone onto the bus home. "I was like a dead person," she says.
The voices of former MKO militants give a rare glimpse inside a group they say demands a cult-like control over members, practices Mao-style self-denunciations, and requires worship of husband-and-wife leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.
Recruited from the United States and Europe, or even drawn directly from Iranians held in Iraqi prisoner-of-war camps and jails, the former fighters describe a high level of fear, and speak of their own awakening – and freedom from the MKO’s grip – as if it’s an epiphany.
The US State Department lists the MKO as a terrorist group that conducted assassinations against American citizens in the 1970s – and was behind bombings and killings of hundreds of members of the Iranian regime starting in the early 1980s.
By one count, after the recent invasion of Iraq, the MKO surrendered to US troops 300 tanks, 250 armored personnel carriers, 250 artillery pieces, and 10,000 small arms. Still, the group is reported to be able to continue antiregime broadcasts into Iran.
The Pentagon – after bombing MKO camps in Iraq in the first stages of the invasion – quickly worked out a truce with the group some civilian hawks in the Pentagon believe should be supported and turned into a US tool of opposition against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Militants who were once ready to die for the MKO, however, now have some advice for those who may want to apply the Afghan model to Iran by using the Mujahideen in the same way the Northern Alliance was used against the Taliban.
"I don’t think the US can take advantage of this group," says Arash Sametipour, a former MKO militant recruited in the US. He survived his own attempts to kill himself with cyanide capsules and a hand grenade that blew away his right hand after botching an assassination attempt in Tehran in early 2000.
"When we were on clean-up duty [at Ashraf Camp], at 7 a.m. they played songs with words like ‘At the end of the street, the Mujahideen is waiting – Yankee get out!’ " recalls Mr. Sametipour, who speaks rapid-fire English with an American accent. He remains in prison in Iran, where he was made available at the request of the Monitor. "This organization does not like the US. It is a mixture of Mao and Marxism, and [leader Massoud] Rajavi acts like Stalin."
Ostensibly under US guard, the MKO still keeps its small arms. US officials said in November they were being screened for war crimes and terrorism. The Pentagon denies reports that the militants are able to freely roam or conduct attacks.
MKO representatives could not be contacted for further comment. Both office and cellphone lines in Washington have been disconnected. The MKO office in Paris was unable to provide contact details for two senior officials it said were traveling in Europe.
Western diplomats and analysts agree that the MKO has very little support inside Iran itself. Though many Iranians take issue with their clerical rulers, MKO members are widely seen to be traitors, as they fought alongside Iraqi troops against Iran in the 1980s.
Most Iraqis, too, have little time for the MKO, which helped Hussein’s security forces brutally put down the Kurdish uprising after the Gulf War in 1991, and helped Baghdad quell Shiite unrest in 1999. The group, however, said in a Dec. 11 statement that "throughout its 17 years in Iraq," it had "never" interfered in Iraq’s internal affairs.
Last summer, the US State Department outlawed several MKO-affiliated groups in the US. In June, France arrested 150 activists, including self-declared "president-elect" Maryam Rajavi.
The crackdowns sparked some to publicly commit suicide by setting themselves alight – a type of protest that some suggest could be repeated if the MKO is forced out of Iraq.
Within days of the expulsion order, lawyers for the MKO – arguing that expulsion would violate the laws of war – are reported to have sent letters to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others, asking the Pentagon to overrule the move.
A senior Pentagon official told the Monitor Tuesday that the US was exploring the option of sending former MKO members to a country other than Iran.
"They ought to be vetted," he said, "and anyone who is a criminal deserves to be punished somehow. [But] they don’t have to go back [to Iran]. If they are not guilty of crimes there are various places they could go."
"Scott Peterson is the Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor"