An extract of Nazi Biglari’s interview with Rayan Crocker American Ambassador in Bagdad, Nazi Biglari: there are two Iranian dissident groups in Iraq: Mujahedin-e-Khalq and the Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan. Do the Americans have any links with these two? 
Rayan Crocker: we consider MKO as a terrorist group. They killed American military officials in Tehran and were a part of Saddam’s intelligence service. Everything is clear. We oppose all terrorist organizations whoever and wherever they are. Nazi Biglari: what will you do with the Mujahedin Khalq in Camp Ashraf? Jalal Talebani has called them terrorist group and said that their presence in Iraq is illegal. Rayan Crocker: this is a crucial question and we are negotiating the case with Iraqi administration. If they are supposed to leave Iraq, they should have a destination that should be designated. March 4th,2008 Translation: Nejat Society
To fight the Iranian Regime, the Bush administration decided to not only sit at a table with the evil but also to invite itself to evil ‘s table, allying with a group that has been designated as a foreign terror organization by the State Department since 1997. In fact the position taken by the group and its ideology are perfectly opposite to those of the United Stated as well as the Islamic Republics ideas, but its leaders impudent manipulators, animated by a logic of existence ,are making alliance with the worst enemies of the Islamic Regime to prolong their existence. Michael Rubin qualifies the MEK (Mujahedin-e-Kalq) as “monsters of the left”, a lable that perfectly characterizes this cult-like group which has mixed terrorism, autocracy, Islamism and Marxism since its creation. Born on the vestige of a reformist movement formed in 1960’s by Mehdi Bazargan, MEK was created by a group of students of whom Masud Rajavi supposes that God not only created the world but he leads it to a historical evolution that ends to a society without classes, omitting the capitalistic inequalities. Their theory is a strange “syncretism” where Marxism and Islam coexist and reject the conservative clerics. According to them, the Shiite clerics as well as the Sunnites failed to understand the real essence of Quran and its dynamism. Masud Rajavi who affirms himself as the only leader, interpret religion to justify terrorism. In his opinion, a person who dies while a terror operation is equal to martyr and in his interpretation of Shiite, he has the glorification of a martyr.
A dictator who never had power MEK, engaged in armed struggle without kindness against Shah multiply the assassination and attempts against American interests in Iran. In 1979, the movement was one of the elements who supported the hostage taking of American diplomats in Tehran. Meanwhile, the group supported the Soviet invasion to Afqanistan and opposed the resistance of Afghan Mujahedin. Reorganized by Rajavi, MEK functioned as a communist party inspired by Trotskyite, with its central committee and political office and youth and propaganda organizations to recruit new members. Rajavi, with his Stalinist mustache, has not invented a democratic system but a tyranny and rigorous hierarchy that put him on the head with the absolute power. For Muajhedin’s leader, Khomeini’s reaching power, means the victory of conservative clerics to which he has always opposed. On the other hand, the revolution’s leader views the mix of Marxism and Islam as intolerable. At the head of a delegation, on the early days after the revolution, Rajavi was received by Ayatollah Khomeini in Qom but the leader of the revolution refuses his offers frigidly presenting a lesson on what the true Islam is. The gap between the two sides deepened everyday so as Khomeini’s supporters call Mujahedin “hypocrites” or “infidels”, the verbal oppression increased and reached a physical phase that is forgotten today. The MKO’s partisans who were called,” God’s enemies “ were executed in large numbers. And of course MKO respond by the assassinations and attempts which mounted to 10000 victims during 1981 to 1982. On July 29th, 1981, Rajavi accompanied by Bani Sadr, the ex-president of Islamic Republic, fled Iran on a military aircraft that landed on military base of Evreux. Rajavi found refugee in Auver-sur-Oise where his medicine brother resided, a few meters from Ravoux motel in which Vincent van Gohg died, Rajavi installed his general base and changed it to a camp which still exists there. In order to continue his existence, this dictator who has never had power, rules a weakened group, serves the worst enemy of his country: Saddam Hussein. Mujahedin became the supplementary army for Iraqis in the bloody war between Iran and Iraq. Today all Iranians with any opinion share one idea: the betrayal and hatred towards Mujahedin as a group of “traitors” and” terrorists”. Murder with Tanks In 1991, following the defeat of Saddam Hussein, the future of Iraq is the subject of discussions among a small group of advisors of Bush father. Robert Gates has already prepared a lot of scenarios. One of them considers the creation of a mini-state in Southern Iraq dominated by Shiites. Gates was supposed to create an army similar to that of South of Lebanon which is Israelis’ agent. Washington repeatedly calls the Shiites and Kurds for uprising. These calculations were due to the Americans’ assurance of Saddam’s heavy failure. They were sure that he could not oppress the internal uprisings. On the first occasion, a message of support was sent to Iranian Kurds, however it was so vague that the Kurds couldn’t confirm or deny it. At the same time, the American military experts crossed Turkey borders and arrived in Kurdistan. Bush and his partisans were shocked when Saddam Hussein oppressed Kurdish and Shiites uprisings violently. “They had no plan any more” told me a collaborator of Dick Cheney at that time. “I remember that we asked our intelligence Service: how could the Revolutionary Guard of President oppress the uprisings. They were not able to give any answer.” And the reason: “ the soldiers who were wearing the uniforms of revolutionary Guard , Saddam’s favorite force, and assassinated Kurdish civilians and Shiites opponents in Basra were all MEK members. The son of Jalal Talibani, Iraqi Kurds’ leader, says: “Until the fall of Saddam’s Regime, it (MKO) was a part of Iraqi army that played an important role in oppressing Kurdish uprisings in 1991.” New York Times published the testimony, on these events, of a former member of MEK who was the body guard of Masud Rajavi and his second wife Maryam. He says:” they told us that if these rebels succeed to overthrow saddam Hussien, it would be the end to our movement too”¦ Maryam Rajavi advised us to take them under the tanks and keep our bullets for the other operations.”
Unique Manipulators There are evil states” out there but some allegedly “Revolutionary” movements are also evil, including FARC in Colombia and MEK. Masud Rajavi and his second wife Maryam control their movement with despotism: the members are not allowed to read anything except that of MEK, living collectively ,they must remain single ,deprived of any sexual relations, attend regular meetings of auto-criticizing. In 1985, Maryam and Masud got married, believing that their marriage is the beginner of an ideological revolution in the organization, forced the few married couples of MKO to divorce in order to devote themselves physically and mentally to the cult of personality that they created. These qualified manipulators know well how naive and oblivious the democratic governments of the world are. Therefore, in 1986 they set out for lobbying in European parliaments especially in that of France they succeed to collect the signatures and 3000 parliamentarians on a petition. In 1992 they repeated the same operation in the United States and could collect the signatures of 1500 of members and collaborators of American congress to “support National Council of Resistance of Iran as a democratic alternative to Khomeini’s regime in Iran.” They also sent some delegations to meet British Workers Party, communist Party of Italy and Greece, attracting the welcome of several human rights organization and famous scholars. They all had forgotten that enemy of an enemy is not necessarily their friend. Michael Rubin, the specialist of Iran in American Enterprise Institute who is however close to neo-conservatives, speaks of a real aversion for the movement: “Within the United States, MKO members tell Congressmen, their staffs, and other policymakers what they want to hear: That the MKO is the only opposition movement capable of ousting the unpopular and repressive Islamic Republic. They are slick. Friendly lawmakers and commentators get Christmas baskets full of nuts and sweets. Well-dressed and well-spoken representatives of MKO front organizations approach American writers, politicians, and pundits who are critical of the regime.’’
Four points that are not negotiable. Tehran has repeatedly asked Paris for the extradition of MKO leaders and the halt of their activities in French soil. According to the research on relations between Iran and France, published in 2006: “”¦ Iran has decided to put pressure on France to accept the expulsion of MKO’s chief and organize the content of Eurodif.” For the cause, the hostage takings in Lebanon and several attempts were organized by Iran. “At beginning of December 1985” write Dominique Lorentz “the Iranians awaken President Mitterrand with two operations. On December 7th two bombs exploded simultaneously in Galeries Lafayette and Printemp.” I visited Ronald Dumas in his house in Paris, he told me of his first visit in Iran:” it was 1951, I was working for a small newspaper and I had a skin problem that made me have beard. Mossadeqh was on power at that time and had sympathy for me.” Having finished his nostalgic memories, Duma talked of four points that are not negotiable according to Mitterrand, in Iran-France relations: Refusing to pay ransom for the release of detained hostages, to discuss the military contracts with Iraq or to deliver arms to Iran. The last point: he refused the expulsion of Iranian political refugees including Masud Rajavi and former president Bani Sadr.”
The Queen of Bees
A few months later Masud Rajavi was extradited to Iraq by Jacque Chirac who had just come to the head of federal government. The Iranian authorities pleased of such decision were definitely wrong. Rajavi became the ally of their worst enemy and the executor of Saddam’s dirtiest deals. Rajavi possessed an army included of 7000 to 8000 men, heavily armed that its main mission was the oppression of internal uprisings for Baath regime in Iraqi territory and launching sabotage operations and assassinations in Iran. In 1987, the Interior Minister, Charles Pasqua, announced the expulsion of Iranian opponents, especially the Mujahedin. The decision causes a wave of protests. High Commissioner for Refugees declares its concern and Human Rights League protests. Jack Lang claims:” Shame on Pasqua. Shame on Chirac’s government for this inappropriate act means the denial of refugees’ rights and alliance with Khomeini’s dictatorship .” Lionel Jospin names it “brutal expulsion.” Charles Pasqua’ s response is both ironic and exact:” you are free to have sympathy for Muajhedin-e-Khalq that today, fight the regime of Khomeini as well as yesterday that they helped him to reach the power. You will fail to represent them as democratic and you can not imagine what kind of regime will they establish in Iran if they take the power.” The only problem was that a few months later, Pasqua signed a text of support for MEK” The movement which has a little interest in democracy starts a large campaign of protestation all over Europe and America in July 1985, with the blind help of Western newspapers. The pressures succeed finally. Paris accepts the return of seven of the extradited people. On June 17th, 2003, 1300 policemen raided the organization’s headquarter in Auver-Sur-Oise . One hundred sixty-five members and responsible were arrested including their president Maryam Rajavi. In a protest gesture, ten of Mujahedin self- immolated; two of them died. Maryam Rajavi, wearing her Chanel jacket and the scarf always on her head, was released.
The explanation was a little short. The movement has used France as a support base for years. And, in Auver-Sur-Oise, behind the walls and towers that protect her headquarter, Maryam Rajavi continue to control her organization like a queen of bees in her beehive. 2003 was an excellent year for MEK. The fall of Saddam served them with another supporter: The United Stated.
Chapter14 In March 2003,the American troops surrounded camp Ashraf ,the principal military base of Mujahedin in Iraqi territory ,located on the West of Iranian border at a hundred kilometers North of Bagdad. It contained 3850 men, armed with heavy arms including tanks and artilleries. They are disarmed and detained in the camp. Tehran sent a message to White House, by its intermediate Javad Zarif, its ambassador in United Nations. Iran proposed to exchange the Al-Qiada high-ranking members who had been detained in Iran, following the September 11th, for the 3850 men of MEK. “Your terrorists instead of ours” mentioned Zarif. The suggestion that was made in the middle of March became the subject of a meeting between Bush and his top advisors. As always, Cheney was sitting on the right side of the president ,in the Situation Room. This conference room , especially decorated ,is located in the basement of the White House. A lot of rooms surround it, with large maps of different regions of the world on the walls. The information that is transmitted every morning to the White House by the secret services are reproduced on these maps. The Situation Room is also equipped with extra ordinarily sophisticated computers that let the authorities in the room contact instantly with any part of the world. Bush, who had had the war on terror and particularly the elimination of terrorists, should have been satisfied with this suggestion. Besides, the deal was good to Iran because if they could have reached the [MKO] leaders, they could have used their intelligence to prohibit the emergence of possible attacks. But, finally the Americans refused the suggestion that Cheney resumed declaring:”we preserve all the options.”
“This group loves the United States” For Washington, MEK is not only an “option”, but also a reality; it has an office in the very official building of National Press, a high place of the whole American Press in American Capital. On April 8th, 2003, Ileana Rose-Lehtinen, republican from Florida, president of the sub-committee on international relations for Near-East and Central Asia declared about Mujahedin:” this group loves the United States. They are assisting us in war on terrorism they’re pro-US . This group has not fought against the US. It’s simply not true. .” In Washington, numerous figures including Paul Wolfowitz and Dauglas Feith are reviewing MEK as an ideal instrument for the politics they would like to take against Iran. The grouplet also tries to seem credible. Its spokesman in Washington, AliReza Jaafar zade, who took distance from the MKO in 2003, fed the Americans with the revelations on Iranian nuclear program. On May 10th,2003 general Ray Odierno, commandant of the forth infantry division installed in Iraq. declared:”I would say that any organization that has given up its equipment to the coalition clearly is cooperating with us, and I believe that it should be reviewed whether they are still a terrorist organization or not.” A declaration that is a little thought of, shows the spiritual status of many military officials. Michael Ledeen has well said:” I’m not the man to get closer that 300 kilometers to MEK, these men are not supported, they have no legality.” He knows well that it is a lie. Mujahidin were received at least by the United States that became their really political sponsor.
“A terrorist group is not necessarily illegal” Just after the reelection of George W.Bush, the Vice-president Cheney declared on January 20th, 2005 on CBS:” if you provide a list of potential zones of problem, Iran is on the top.“ At the same time, he asked the director of CIA to think of using MKO forces for sabotage operations inside Iran. Maryam Rajavi and her movement who assassinated in the past several Americans and served Saddam Hussein as supplemetary force, became an arm in the hands of American president and his advisors. The only obstacle against an open cooperation between MEK and the American administration: the organization has figured on the list of foreign terrorist organizations of the State Department since 1997. A designation that curiously didn’t forbid it from having an office and activities in American capital. John Ashcroft, the ultra-conservative minister of Justice, supports the group actively and one of his collaborators explains this juridical ambiguity:”the simple designation of a group as a foreign terrorist organization doesn’t make it necessarily illegal.” The organization is recorded by the Justice Department as a lobbyist foundation, an activity that they are skilled in. In January 2005, a former collaborator of Ronald Reagan, Raymond Tanter, created Iran Policy Committee, composed of “former officials of White House, State Department and Pentagon, The Intelligence Agencies, the research centers and universities.” And, he fails to mention the several important representatives of arm industries. According to members of IPC “Iran poses the main treat against the United States and its allies.” Since its creation, the committee put pressure on the Administration to remove MEK from the terrorist list and “to put these freedom fighters on the top of the strategy for regime change in Iran.” During a conference, on November 21st 2005, Taner declared :” one of the military options is the ‘ Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator [ a nuclear bomb tactic in large measure] that could have the capacity to destruct the tunnels profoundly undergrounded and sub terrain installations.” After, this radical introduction, he adds: “the international community should realize that there is only one group that can terrify the regime of Tehran: the People’s Mujahedin and National Council Resistance of Iran, the political coalition that MEK belongs to. [..] They are not only the best sources of Intelligence on the potential violation of the rules of non-proliferation, by Iran; but also they are possible allies of the West to bring regime change in Tehran.”
“The Increasing quarrel of the civilizations” Tanter’s innovation was supported by Tom Tancerdo, the Representative of Colorado in house of Representatives. The man whose reputation is due to his plan for the deport of clandestine workers on American territory, the construction of a wall throughout the borders of the country and the necessity for the United States to engage in the “The Increasing quarrel of the civilizations’’. “ I think” he says, “we are not fighting only a small group who took religion as hostage, but a civilization that is determined to destruct us: radical Islam. Radical Islam has been the enemy of Christians since centuries ago. ‘’ In 2005, he also founded “the Assembly for Democracy and the League for Human Rights in Iran.” He described Maryam Rajavi as “very charismatic; she believes in the women’s rights, she believes in democracy in Iran. I support her efforts. I know that the US has qualified it as a terrorist organization, but you have to know that they were designated after the Clinton Administration was seeking to achieve a relation with Iran and with Mullahs; these ones wanted to formulate an only exigency: that the Mujahedin be listed as a terrorist organization and the designation was made due to political reasons and it doesn’t mean that they pose a threat to the United States. “
“Thanks, sister Maryam” On the early days of May 2005, MEK organized a large demonstration in Washington, at Constitution Hall, to represent itself as the legitimate representative of resistance .A lot of members of Congress were present. A number of lecturer were there too. One of them was Captain Vivian Gembara of the fourth infantry division, a jurist who negotiated the disarmement of Mujahedin in Iraq. She is the daughter of an officer of special forces that was a really legend during the Vietnam War:”It’s just simply imprudent” she said “ to continue the exclusion of MEK, since we have to face a much more important threat in Iran.” On October 20th,2005, Maryam Rajavi addressed the congress. The self-proclaimed President of Iran attended the Capitol by video satellite directly from Auver-Sur-d’Oise . The 51 year-old woman received the cheers of the audience with a humble smile. At the end of her speeches, the democrat representative of Texas, Sheila Jackson said emotionally:” thanks, sister Maryam.” The title “Freedom Fighter” is an appropriate title for any political rebel … At their eras, Jonas Savimbi in Angola and Masud in Afghanistan practiced it successfully, having received financial and military support. Maryam Rajavi promises exactly what her sympathizers like to hear. In January 2005, she engaged in organizing the free elections in six months following the regime change and to form a constituent assembly in order to lead the affairs by the representatives elected by people.” The admirable declarations that were contradicted by the report published Human Rights Watch at the same time. Twenty–eight onerous pages with the appropriate title:” No Exit: Human Rights abuses inside the MEK Camp.” According to Joe Stork the director of Middle East branch of HRW, in Washington: ”The Iranian government has a shameful record on human rights, but it will be a big mistake to support a dissident group that is responsible of a lot of cases of human rights violations.” The reports are based on the evidences of twelve former Mujahedin who were interviewed from February to May, 2005. They explained the use of torture, maltreatment and solidarity confinement after they had criticized the undemocratic methods of the movement and declared their willingness to leave the organization. Two of them declared that they had witnessed the death of two prisoners during the interrogations. “The MEK” they said “ has installed special prisons in its Iraqi Camps where the dissidents are detained.” One of the eyewitnesses explained that he had been imprisoned for eight and a half years, the other one, for five years.The four other defectors, accused of having opinions, affirmed of having been severely tortured and forced to sign false confessions in which they are recognized of having links with the agents of Iranians Intelligence Service. Three former Mujahedin witnessed the death of Parviz Ahmadi, the commander of a unit. He died in February 1995 after he was beaten violently. It lasted three years for the MEK to announce his death, in the organization journal, Mojahed, as a “martyr” assassinated by the Iranian Intelligence Service. All these testimonies, finally describe the very evidence that ” People’s Mujahedin is not a political movement but a cult devoted to the personality of the couple leaders.’’ The report was not considered as important by the media. It should be said that nowadays in Washington the tensions are on the rise as well as 2002-2003 while the American invasion to Iraq.
” CIA attracts too much lightening” In the fall 2004,while George Bush was campaigning for his reelection , declared in an interview by Fox NEWS network that feeds him with a pleasant support:” Iran will never be allowed to achieve nuclear weapons” In February 2005, in his annual lecture on state of Union , he spoke a long speech on Iran that “ is the principal state sponsor of terrorism that seeks the program of the development of nuclear weapons, depriving its own people of liberty […]” . A few days before that, in January 2005 , “ Iran Freedom Support Act” , intended to support a transition toward democracy in Iran, was introduced in the Chamber of Representatives. A month later it would be adopted by Senate. The act permits financing the opposition groups. At the head is the MEK which the only one that has an operational structure. In the unrevealed scene of American politics, including the State Department and the Pentagon, MEK is a source of confrontations. A testimony of this iron arm summarizes the situation:” the militarists consider them as their comrades and the diplomats consider them as terrorists” Condi Rice reproaches Rumsfeld for using MEK secretly for the clandestine operations. The information of the State Secretary is exact. They have become the “counter Iranian”, used in a totally illegal way, by the pentagon and DIA, the secret military services for the guerilla’s activity inside Iran. CIA is totally put away,” because it attracts too much complaints against the administration“ said to me, one of the officials of CIA.
“Our policy has not changed” There is not any presidential directive to permit such operations. The thing that, allows, at least in theory, to short-circuit the eventual investigations of Senate and home of Representatives. The camps, controlled by the Special Forces and located in the deserts around Iran – Iraq border, have been used for the formation and military training of Mujahedin for their sabotage operations inside Iran. An only man who knows everything on these clandestine operations is the sub-secretary of Defense, Stephen Combone, and a neo-conservative that a lot of people consider him as the real arm of Rumsfeld. A man “in shadow”, according to one of his collaborators, he is literally fascinated by the potentiality of MEK: about the intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program, but also because it is the only group that has the power to launch terrorist operations to make the Iranian leaders anxious. Cambone has also negotiated with the Pakistani authorities and gained the agreement of President Parvis Musharaf so as the Mujahedin could use the Baluchistan Province to launch their operations. Interviewed by a reporter, the spokesman of the White House, Scott Mc Clellan, denies the intervention of the Administration. “ – a lot of reports” asks a journalist,” reveal the operations launched in Iran, from three different areas. PKK on Iraqi border, MEK on the Southern border and also some operations from Baluchistan. Does the United- States have any policy? There are also some reports on the possible operations launched by the Special Forces in Iran.” “- our policies towards these organization haven’t changed” replied the spokesman of White house. […] “We still consider them as terrorist organizations.” “ – and we have never cooperated with them, I mean ….?” “Our policies haven’t changed” repeated Mc Clellan. Auver-Sur-Oise, April 2007. The man who joins us in the garden of this property, located at 200 meters from Mairie Place, is a close collaborator of Maryam Rajavi … in his forties, fine moustache, imposing glasses, he oppose my questions as well as the spokesman of the White House :’ we have no contact with the United States and we don’t launch ,with their help , any operation inside Iran.” To any question he gives the same smile. “No, we don’t receive any financial aid from Washington.” an American military operation against Iran? His fingers touch the edge of the cup of coffee: “our position is very clear. We oppose any foreign intervention.”
Translation: Nejat Society
WASHINGTON, Feb 29 (IPS) – The George W. Bush administration has long pushed the "laptop documents" — 1,000 pages of technical documents supposedly from a stolen Iranian laptop — as hard evidence of Iranian intentions to build a nuclear weapon. Now charges based on those documents pose the only remaining obstacles to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declaring that Iran has resolved all unanswered questions about its nuclear programme.
But those documents have long been regarded with great suspicion by U.S. and foreign analysts. German officials have identified the source of the laptop documents in November 2004 as the Mujahideen e Khalq (MEK), which along with its political arm, the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), is listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organisation.
There are some indications, moreover, that the MEK obtained the documents not from an Iranian source but from Israel’s Mossad.
In its latest report on Iran, circulated Feb. 22, the IAEA, under strong pressure from the Bush administration, included descriptions of plans for a facility to produce "green salt", technical specifications for high explosives testing and the schematic layout of a missile reentry vehicle that appears capable of holding a nuclear weapon. Iran has been asked to provide full explanations for these alleged activities.
Tehran has denounced the documents on which the charges are based as fabrications provided by the MEK, and has demanded copies of the documents to analyse, but the United States had refused to do so.
The Iranian assertion is supported by statements by German officials. A few days after then Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the laptop documents, Karsten Voight, the coordinator for German-American relations in the German Foreign Ministry, was reported by the Wall Street Journal Nov. 22, 2004 as saying that the information had been provided by "an Iranian dissident group".
A German official familiar with the issue confirmed to this writer that the NCRI had been the source of the laptop documents. "I can assure you that the documents came from the Iranian resistance organisation," the source said.
The Germans have been deeply involved in intelligence collection and analysis regarding the Iranian nuclear programme. According to a story by Washington Post reporter Dafna Linzer soon after the laptop documents were first mentioned publicly by Powell in late 2004, U.S. officials said they had been stolen from an Iranian whom German intelligence had been trying to recruit, and had been given to intelligence officials of an unnamed country in Turkey.
The German account of the origins of the laptop documents contradicts the insistence by unnamed U.S. intelligence officials who insisted to journalists William J. Broad and David Sanger in November 2005 that the laptop documents did not come from any Iranian resistance groups.
Despite the fact that it was listed as a terrorist organisation, the MEK was a favourite of neoconservatives in the Pentagon, who were proposing in 2003-2004 to use it as part of a policy to destabilise Iran. The United States is known to have used intelligence from the MEK on Iranian military questions for years. It was considered a credible source of intelligence on the Iranian nuclear programme after 2002, mainly because of its identification of the facility in Natanz as a nuclear site.
The German source said he did not know whether the documents were authentic or not. However, CIA analysts, and European and IAEA officials who were given access to the laptop documents in 2005 were very sceptical about their authenticity.
The Guardian’s Julian Borger last February quoted an IAEA official as saying there is "doubt over the provenance of the computer".
A senior European diplomat who had examined the documents was quoted by the New York Times in November 2005 as saying, "I can fabricate that data. It looks beautiful, but is open to doubt."
Scott Ritter, the former U.S. military intelligence officer who was chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, noted in an interview that the CIA has the capability test the authenticity of laptop documents through forensic tests that would reveal when different versions of different documents were created.
The fact that the agency could not rule out the possibility of fabrication, according to Ritter, indicates that it had either chosen not to do such tests or that the tests had revealed fraud.
Despite its having been credited with the Natanz intelligence coup in 2002, the overall record of the MEK on the Iranian nuclear programme has been very poor. The CIA continued to submit intelligence from the Iranian group about alleged Iranian nuclear weapons-related work to the IAEA over the next five years, without identifying the source.
But that intelligence turned out to be unreliable. A senior IAEA official told the Los Angeles Times in February 2007 that, since 2002, "pretty much all the intelligence that has come to us has proved to be wrong."
Former State Department deputy intelligence director for the Near East and South Asia Wayne White doubts that the MEK has actually had the contacts within the Iranian bureaucracy and scientific community necessary to come up with intelligence such as Natanz and the laptop documents. "I find it very hard to believe that supporters of the MEK haven’t been thoroughly rooted out of the Iranian bureaucracy," says White. "I think they are without key sources in the Iranian government."
In her February 2006 report on the laptop documents, the Post’s Linzer said CIA analysts had originally speculated that a "third country, such as Israel, had fabricated the evidence". They eventually "discounted that theory", she wrote, without explaining why.
Since 2002, new information has emerged indicating that the MEK did not obtain the 2002 data on Natanz itself but received it from the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. Yossi Melman and Meier Javadanfar, who co-authored a book on the Iranian nuclear programme last year, write that they were told by "very senior Israeli Intelligence officials" in late 2006 that Israeli intelligence had known about Natanz for a full year before the Iranian group’s press conference. They explained that they had chosen not to reveal it to the public "because of safety concerns for the sources that provided the information".
Shahriar Ahy, an adviser to monarchist leader Reza Pahlavi, told journalist Connie Bruck that the detailed information on Natanz had not come from MEK but from "a friendly government, and it had come to more than one opposition group, not only the mujahideen."
Bruck wrote in the New Yorker on Mar, 16, 2006 that when he was asked if the "friendly government" was Israel, Ahy smiled and said, "The friendly government did not want to be the source of it, publicly. If the friendly government gives it to the U.S. publicly, then it would be received differently. Better to come from an opposition group."
srael has maintained a relationship with the MEK since the late 1990s, according to Bruck, including assistance to the organisation in beaming broadcasts by the NCRI from Paris into Iran. An Israeli diplomat confirmed that Israel had found the MEK "useful", Bruck reported, but the official declined to elaborate.
*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.
By Gareth Porter-IPS-Feb 29
Abetting Terrorism and Treason, Promoting Aggression on Iran
There is no irony in appeasement, according to major media who, on February 20 and 21, reported on a press conference held in Brussels by the National Council of Resistance of Iran. From an Associated Press account:
in exiled Iranian opposition group claimed Wednesday that Tehran was speeding up a program to develop nuclear weapons.”The Iran regime entered a new phase in its nuclear project,”said Mohammad Mohaddessin of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran.
The NCRI is the political wing of the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran, which advocates the overthrow of government in Tehran. The Mujahedeen has been designated a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union as well as Iran. [1]
The PMOI”a.k.a., the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MeK)”made the same claim in December 2002. The allegation then”that the Iranian regime was enriching uranium at weapons-grade level within secret facilities”turned out to be only partially (and irrelevantly) true: the facilities existed (not a violation in itself), but contrary to the group’s claims, were not weapons-production sites. Still, the information from the MeK”contrived in conjunction with Israeli entities”was used by U.S. hawks to pass sanctions against Iran. But their case has been so weak; the neocons have had to use blatant coercion to persuade UNSC nations to vote in favor.
The most notable and dangerous in all this is that the unproven MeK-Israeli, nuclear weapons claim is the basis for the main finding of the most recent National Intelligence Estimate: that Iran had”halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.”Iran never had a weapons program”at least not one that has been confirmed by U.S. intelligence, the IAEA, or anyone else but Iranian”dissidents”and Israelis and neocons, i.e., the ones who have been wrong all along.
Further deconstruction of the Iranian nukes fraud and the neocons’ nuclear shakedown of Iran:
Iran was late in reporting which is a Safeguard issue. . . . Tehran voluntarily stopped the process of enriched uranium; it also allowed the IAEA to carry out intrusive, spot inspections. No country has allowed as many inspection hours as Iran. [Tehran] proposed to operate Iran’s enrichment program as joint ventures with private and public sector firms from other countries; this would ensure that the program remained transparent and could not be secretly diverted for military purposes, at the same time it would maintain Iran’s sovereignty by having an indigenously enriched uranium cycle . . . Although this was rejected, Iran continued to cooperate.
Iran suspended its enrichment activities for two and half years, but each time under pressure from the U.S., the burden of proof was transferred to Iran knowing the negative could not be proved. [2]
‘Coverage’
All this occurs, when in fact no evidence has ever been verified that supports the weapons charge, as AP surprisingly points out (albeit in the last two sentences of the story and about a year late on the timeline). What media always fail to mention, however, is that the lack of damning proof of an Iranian weapons program, then and now, undercuts the misleading NIE conclusion and the nuclear leg of the neocons’ aggressive campaign.
by omitting such vital facts, major media are perpetuating the prevailing U.S.-Israeli-NCRI conjecture, asserting that Tehran had a viable nuclear weapons program at one time, has resumed it, and is now accelerating the manufacturing process.
In that regard, news media are lying and abetting terrorism and treason. Terrorism, because all individuals who harbor, fund, arm, train, feed, or employ terrorists are terrorists (George Bush’s words not mine). Treason, because the Mek and their handlers in and around the U.S. government are violating U.S. and international law and constantly lying to the people of the United States and the world in an effort to drum up support for further violent insurrection and aggressive war in the Middle East.
Nothing dubious here
Major news media conceal the U.S. government’s dubious relations with the MeK. It is of no consequence that the United States has been harboring, funding, training, and employing U.S.-designated terrorist groups in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East. [3] [4] [5]
Some news media provide extra”coverage”by inserting a misleading historical context in an effort to soften the image of the Iranian”opposition group.”From the EU Observer’s report on the NCRI press conference:
[T]he PMOI was persecuted by the Iranian government, with thousands of their members killed. They were subsequently sheltered by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. [6]
The insinuation that the”persecut[ion]”was unprovoked is absurd. Prosecuted is more like it, according to the U.S. State Department:
According to a 2003 report by the State Department,”During the 1970s, the MEK killed US military personnel and US civilians working on defense projects in Tehran.¦ The MEK detonated bombs in the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and the Premier’s office, killing some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials.¦ In 1991, it assisted the Government of Iraq in suppressing the Shia and Kurdish uprisings in southern Iraq and the Kurdish uprisings in the north.”In other words, the MEK was a terrorist group”one that took its orders from Saddam Hussein. [7]
But to”mainstream”news media, it doesn’t matter that the same Iranian opposition group with a history of committing terrorism on U.S. and Iranian civilians is relied upon as the means to justify and accomplish the neocons and the Mek’s mutual ends of regime-change and resource procurement in Iran.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, spokesman for the MeK, has appeared intermittently over the past few years as a”Middle East Expert,”or”Terror Expert,”on CNN and Fox. Of course there’s never a hint as to his affiliation with the MeK, much less its terrorist designation. But hey, how can he be a terrorist when he heads his own D.C.-based think-tank!
Nothing illicit here
The most thoroughly unreported facts about U.S.-Iranian affairs are the most incriminating ones.
The Algiers Accords, signed by Iran and the United States on January 19, 1981, clearly states,”The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs.”[8 (.pdf)]
Yet, from the Iraq-Iran War, during which the United States funded Saddam Hussein and supplied him with WMDs which he then used against Iran—to the current war build-up against Iran, whereby groups like the MeK and Jundallah are being harbored, funded, and employed”the laundry list of Algiers Accords violations by the United States is long and ugly. And every violation is a violation of the U.S. Constitution, which states that such contracts are to be treated as law of the land.
Move along, folks
One of the most irony-deficient (and shamelessly self-effacing) examples of U.S.-Iran media coverage came in the Observer’s uncritical account of the NCRI’s use of fallacious war propaganda to emotionally blackmail and upbraid the EU into taking a more aggressive stance toward Iran:
Referring to the”huge trade”between Europe and Iran, Mr Mohaddessin said:”The EU is trying to achieve security through appeasing the Iranian regime. The EU is appeasing the Iranian regime and it is a disaster for the Iranian people. You remember what happened in the 1930s? They carried out exactly the same policy with Hitler that the EU is doing now with the Iranian regime.”[9]
This reality-inversion of a comparison is trumpeted almost exclusively by fringe pro-war elements within and around U.S. and Israeli governments and in”pro-western”think-tanks; the other 99.7% of the world laughs it off, knowing that the only Middle Eastern regime with a modern history of aggressive war and secret nuclear weapons production is the one in Israel.
In 1986, former Israeli nuclear facility worker, Mordechai Vanunu, revealed to a foreign news news reporter that Israel was developing nuclear weapons in secret facilities—a confirmation of what the rest of the world had already hypothesized. He was kidnapped by Mossad agents in Italy, charged with treason, and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Unlike the MeK and others, he didn’t confide in or collaborate with a foreign government, and wasn’t revealing information that wasn’t already known outside of Israel. Nevertheless, he has been a political prisoner for the last 21 years. Even his 2004 release gave him little freedom: he is not allowed to leave the country and is under, among other restrictions, curfew and gag order, not allowed to talk to foreigners. [10]
Although Vanunu’s claims about Israel’s illicit nuclear weapons program were true and were made on moral and legal grounds”and the treatment he has received is unlawful and at times barbaric his story is still ignored by mainstream media.
the other hand, the NCRI-MeK is a U.S.-designated terror organization with a verified history of terrorism against Iranian and U.S. targets and treason against their people; yet they are treated by the U.S. government and major news media as trustworthy allies, and their flawed, Israeli-assisted intelligence is considered more credible than that of any U.S. intelligence agency.
And to top it all: By not giving in to U.S.-Israel-MeK demands for aggression toward Iran”the demands of U.S. and EU-branded terrorists”the EU is”appeasing the Iranian regime.”Such is the criminal hypocrisy of deceptive and aggressive war, and the irony of appeasement.
[1] Raf Casert (AP):”Group Claims Iran Speeding Up Nuke Plans”: Associated Press: February 20, 2008 http://apnews.myway.com//article/20080221/D8UUE8RG0.html
[2] Soraya Sepaphour-Ulrich:”Iran Intelligence Report: Another Psychological Warfare?”: CounterCurrents: December 5, 2007 http://www.countercurrents.org/ulrich051207.htm
[3] Rostam Pourzal:”Who Among Iranians Fears the NIE?”: ZNet: December 19, 2007
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=14540§i..15
[4] Ardeshir Ommani:”U.S. Support for Terror in Iran”: CASMII: April 10, 2007
www.campaigniran.org
[5] Larisa Alexandrovna:”On Cheney, Rumsfeld order, US outsourcing special ops, intelligence to Iraq terror group, intelligence officials say”: The Raw Story: April 13, 2006
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/US_outsourcing_special_operations_
intelligence_gathering_0413.html
[6] Leigh Phillips (euobserver.com):”Iran opposition group accuses EU of ‘appeasement'”: EU Observer: February 20, 2008 http://euobserver.com/9/25698
[7] Craig Unger:”From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Iraq”: Vanity Fair: March 2007 http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/whitehouse200703?printable=true¤tPage=all
[8] Algiera, the United States & Iran:”The Algiers Accords”: Pars Times: Accessed on February 22, 2008 http://www.parstimes.com/history/algiers_accords.pdf
More on the 1981 Algiers Accords and the neocons:”US Wants to Have It Both Ways on Iranian Nonintervention Pact,”by Reese Erlich http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/29/5503/
[9] Phillips/EU Observer
[10] Eileen Fleming:”The Vanunu Saga: 2008″: We Are Wide Awake: February 2008
by Dan Alba, wearewideawake.org
The United States is clandestinely funding militant groups within Iran’s borders to destabilize the country, The Daily Telegraph says.
According to the daily, CIA officials are secretly funding militias among the numerous ethnic minorities clustered in Iran’s border regions in order to mount pressure on the country to give up its nuclear program.
Funding for their separatist causes comes directly from the CIA’s classified budget but is now”no great secret”, according to one former high-ranking CIA official in Washington speaking anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph.
“The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran’s ethnic minorities to destabilize the Iranian regime,”said Fred Burton, a former US State Department counter-terrorism agent.
Some of the groups have resorted to terrorist methods. These include the notorious Mujahedin Khalq Organization [MKO] which has a long and bloody history of targeting Iranian civilians and government officials alike.
Another group claimed to be supported by the CIA is the Jundullah organization known for attacking high-profile Iranian targets, especially government and security officials.
Although Washington officially denies involvement in such activity, Tehran has long maintained that it has detected the hand of both US and Britain in guerrilla attacks on internal security forces.
Daily Telegraph, reported by Press TV, February 24, 2008 -http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=44463§ionid=351020101
I’m very excited and pleased to introduce today’s guest poster, Danny Postel,
who comes to us with some absolutely chilling revelations about the bad faith of the neoconservatives’ supposed dedication to”freedom”(I know, I know: you’re shocked). Danny is the author of Reading “Legitimation Crisis” in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism and is co-coordinator of the Committee for Academic and Intellectual Freedom of the International Society for Iranian Studies. —Rick Perlstein By Danny Postel During the week of October 22-26, an official announcement effuses, “The nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever – Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.” Ringmastered by David Horowitz, this circus will be performing under the tent of something called the”Terrorism Awareness Project.” The purpose of this ballyhoolooza, we are told, is to confront the “Big Lies” of the Left regarding terrorism and militant Islam. Worthy subjects, to be sure. Indeed I would like to help the sponsors of the “wake-up call” promote awareness of them. Toward this end, let’s consider the American Right’s “special relationship” with one group of terrorists. The U.S. State Department officially considers the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) a Foreign Terrorist Organization. While those honors date back to 1994, they’ve been renewed during the Bush years. Indeed in 2003 Foggy Bottom went further, including the National Council of Resistance of Iran — an MEK alias — under the terrorist designation. (The MEK is also known as the People’s Mujahedeen.) To make a long and bizarre story short, the MEK got its start in early 1960s Iran, helped overthrow the Shah in 1979, but quickly turned on the revolutionary government it helped bring to power. Employing an ideological blend of Stalinism and Islamism, the tactics of a paramilitary guerilla faction, and the organizational structure of a cult, the group went into exile, eventually making their home in Iraq in the mid-1980s. Not only did Saddam give the organization cover: he armed, funded, and utilized them for a variety of ends over two decades. The group’s wicked political brew was on spectacular display on the old MEK flag (see below; since abandoned) [editor, Iran-Interlink – this is still the official MEK logo], with its sickle and Kalashnikov positioned atop ofbeneath a Koranic verse. (Not — to state the obvious — that the mere presence of a Koranic verse in and of itself implies Islamist political commitments, but in this case the shoe very much fits.) Here you have virtually everything the Right claims to oppose all rolled into one: Islamism, Marxism, terrorism, and Saddam. Naturally, then, neoconservatives would utterly deplore the MEK and everything it stands for, right? The MEK would in fact make an ideal target for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week and Terrorism Awareness efforts, no? Well, no. At least one of the carnival’s acts, it turns out, is rather fond of the Islamo-Stalinist-terrorist cult group, and has repeatedly argued for the removal of the MEK from the State Department’s list of terrorist groups and indeed urged the U.S. government to embrace it. Daniel Pipes, who will be speaking at Tufts on October 24th as part of the Horowitz high jinks, has made the MEK a recurring theme in his writings going back several years. Pipes has also gone to bat for the MEK right in the pages of Horowitz’s house organ. But Pipes is far from alone on the Right in championing the MEK. He co-authored the first piece linked to above with Patrick Clawson of the right-wing Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Right-wing commentator Max Boot has argued not merely for the removal of the MEK from the terrorist list but for funding and unleashing it to do battle with Iranian forces — this while casually acknowledging that it is a “political cult.” (More on Boot’s disfigured views .) In some cases the MEK plays a stealth role in the media machinery of the American Right. What the FOX News Channel tells viewers about Alireza Jafarzadeh when he appears on its airwaves is that he is an “FNC Foreign Affairs Analyst.” What you have to go to the FOX News website to discover, however, is that Jafarzadeh served “for a dozen years as the chief congressional liaison and media spokesman for the U.S. representative office of Iran’s parliament in exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.” But it is scarcely known that the sonorous-sounding National Council of Resistance of Iran is in fact a front name for the MEK. Now, it’s true that Jafarzadeh discontinued his post with the National Council of Resistance of Iran—but only when (and only because) its Washington office was forced to close in 2003 as a result of the State Department decision about it being a front for the MEK. It’s not like he had a change of heart. If you attend an “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” event, you might want to ask the speakers about this terrorist cult and whether they condemn it. Some of them might — not all neoconservatives agree on the MEK. But the fact that several prominent American conservatives have cozied up to an Islamist-Stalinist cult that was on Saddam’s payroll and the State Department considers a terrorist organization — this raises serious questions (to put it mildly) about the Right’s bedfellows and the calculus that determines them. It suggests the need for a little more terrorism awareness. CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS –infowars.net
The Libertarian Party seems to know how to get its own message out to a politically sensitized electorate who are really fed up with Bush’s irrationality and seek for something better. Bush is said to deliver his annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress next week and Libertarian Steve Kubby delivered his own version directly to the American people via Internet video in advance.
In part of his speech that he referred to as offering “an assessment of our nation’s situation and answers to the question, Steve Kubby said he had a pretty good idea of what Bush was going to say and leave many things untold. In respect to Iran and financing terrorist groups like MKO he said:
President Bush is going to tell you that IRAN represents yet another military challenge to US power and that “all options remain on the table” for dealing with that threat. What he’s not going to tell you is that neither the International Atomic Energy Agency nor our government’s very own intelligence services agree with his claim that Iran is actively seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Nor is he going to tell you that enmity between Iran and the US is and always has been almost entirely a function of US intervention in the Middle East, including financing the bombing and murder campaigns of terror groups like the MEK within Iran’s borders.
President Bush will tell you none of these things, because telling you those things might lead you to ask yourself what the hell you were thinking when you consented to allow him, his party, and those who pretend to be his opponents in Congress, to exercise power over yourself, your family, your friends and your neighbors in the first place.
January 26, 2008
For the reasons discussed, relocation of MKO to France, and also other European countries, after its expulsion from Iraq is out of the question. The next option, then, might be the United State of America. In spite of telltales that the organization benefits from a number of supporters inside the Congress and other lobbying bodies, for many reasons, including ideological and strategic challenges, MKO is barred to inter the US territories, let alone to be accepted as political settlers.
It is a well proven fact that MKO ideologically antagonizes the capitalist camp characterized as deterring man’s evolution. In MKO ‘s early ideological texts, the group’s anti-capitalist ideas and its ambition to implement a radical redistribution of wealth as well as to inaugurate a classless society are fundamentally sanctioned principles. In contrast to their strongly claimed pro-democratic conducts especially in the past few years, there is no close affinity between MKO’s ideology and liberalism. In many critical situations that the organization has considered as turning-points, and particularly in the course of its ideological revolution, MKO has reiterated the significance of its ideology, even compared with those of Marxist groups, as extremely antagonizing capitalism and especially that of the America’s. Unlike terrorist groups like al-Qaeda whose antagonism with America is rooted in their reactionary and historical positions, MKO’s contradiction is generated out of a scientific comprehension and socio-historical dynamism. Giving further clarification about MKO’s ideological revolution, Mehdi Abrishamch has stated:
Mojahedin’s ideological grasp, in contrast to others, has distinctively and quantitatively historical and social inclinations. Nowhere else can you possibly find the world explained as in MKO and chiefly by Rajavi. [1]
That is MKO’s last achievement revealed particularly following the ideological revolution, which is exactly concurrent with the publication of the State Department’s genuine report on MKO. Although some five months after the publication of the State Department’s report, and in a hasty response to the report, the organization published a book entitled The Democracy Betrayed, the report itself and the later registration of MKO as a FTO proved that the US has developed a deep understanding of MKO and its dual nature and that, it would no longer be duped by the group’s fallacious mottos and claims. The latest report of the State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism released on April 30 discloses even a deeper appreciation of the organization by stating that the group’s leader has established a”cult of personality”. Thus, the US is well aware of the group’s left ideological drift that in circumstances shifts tactics in pro-democratic disguise.
The support MKO claims is receiving from a number of neocons, by the means of which it might practice the proposed “third option”, proves to be nothing above a political ploy regarding the group as cost-effective instrument against Iran. Even in some instances MKO is looked upon as a worthless implement since Americans have no doubt that advertised publicity of MKO among Iranians ends to the gates of a castle in the air.
It seems that the existing US-Iran tensions can be an alibi to grant MKO a temporal settlement in the US soil. However, MKO’s terrorist tag and the US determination to combat terrorism on the one hand and MKO’s insistence on preserving its militarist structure that indicates its tenacity of resorting to armed struggle strategy on the other hand disillusions Americans to trust and endure presence of the organization on their soil. The capacity of MKO as a terrorist organization to conduct terrorist operation anywhere in the world is a truth Americans fail to come to terms with as stated in the State Department’s latest report:
MEK leadership and members across the world maintain the capacity and will to commit terrorist acts in Europe, the Middle East, the United State, Canada, and beyond. [2]
Americans believe that MKO has the capacity to conduct its terrorist feats under an idealistic cult structure throughout the world. The self-immolation and suicide operations are known to be the most practical stratagem and revolutionary deeds advocated by the leaders:
Many members and sympathizers of Mojahedin, residing in military camps as combatants against the regime or scattered in different countries, are urging to commit self-immolation or other self-sacrifice deeds to advance Iranian modern revolution. [3]
Of course, Americans admit that in spite of MKO’s open manipulation of propaganda and terrorist approaches to achieve its objective in its campaign against the Iranian government, it has never been tried for its crimes:
The group’s worldwide campaign against the Iranian government uses propaganda and terrorism to achieve its objectives and has been supported by reprehensible regimes, including that of Saddam Hussein. During the 1970s, the MEK assassinated several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians working on defense projects in Tehran and supported the violent takeover in 1979 of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Despite U.S. efforts, MEK members have never been brought to justice for the group’s role in these illegal acts. [4]
The cause is not malfunctioning of judiciary systems but MKO’s capacity of adaptation strengthened through other complicated ideological and cultist teachings. MKO’s inherent tendency toward Machiavellianism frustrates having any trust in its promises and Americans are well aware of the fact that even the group’s surrendering of weapons following the invasion of the coalition forces to Iraq was a tactic to prevent its complete demise. Stated in the State Department’s report:
Following an initial Coalition bombardment of the MEK’s facilities in Iraq at the outset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, MEK leadership negotiated a cease-fire with Coalition Forces and voluntarily surrendered their heavy-arms to Coalition control. [5]
MKO has the potentiality of perpetrating terrorist operations in the US far beyond the menaces of al-Qaeda. Even much above the terrorist threats, MKO’s cultist deeds, like self-immolations in some European countries, are perpetration of unspeakable cultist prejudice and violence which Americans can never tolerate because they have had enough of these deeds by destructive cults that have shaken the country only in the past few years. Thus, MKO’s presence in the US will impose irreparable damages both on the country’s policy making and the nation. The American citizens never consent to live next-door with the terrorists and the cultists.
References:
[1]. Lecture delivered by Mehdi Abrishamchi on the ideological revolution within MKO.
[2]. The State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, the report released on April 30.
[3]. Mojahed, No. 253: Massoud Rajavi’s speech made in the first open session of the ideological revolution in Paris.
[4]. The State Department Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, the report released on April 30.
[5]. Ibid.
Editor’s note: The recently released National Intelligence Estimate says Iran had “suspended its nuclear weapon program.” But Iran’s purported nuclear weapons program never existed, writes NAM contributing editor William O. Beeman. Beeman is professor and chair of the department of anthropology at the University of Minnesota and author of “The ‘Great Satan’ vs. the ‘Mad Mullahs’: How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other.”
Iran has never had a proven nuclear weapons program. Ever. This inconvenient fact stands as an indictment of the Bush administration’s stance on Iran.
The recently released 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran “suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003” caught the Bush administration flat-footed. In his panic, Bush grasped desperately at the idea that the weapons program may have once existed. However, the report does not offer a scintilla of evidence that the weapons program was ever an established fact.
Designating 2003 as the date that Iran “stopped” its program is telling:
this is the year the Bush administration first decided to create a case for attacking Iran based on the purported danger of its nuclear program.
In February 2003, the U.S. government-designated terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq, better known as the MEK (or MKO) “revealed” the existence of Iran’s nuclear facilities to Washington. The MEK, which had been purged from Iran during the period following the 1979 revolution, took up residence in Iraq under the protection of Saddam Hussein. The MEK, sometimes identified as an “Islamic Marxist” organization, is dedicated to the overthrow of the current Iranian government. It has been assiduous in courting American lawmakers to recruit U.S. support for its cause. Legislators such as Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and Florida Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen have championed this cause, and neoconservatives Patrick Clawson and Daniel Pipes lobbied for its removal from the U.S. list of terrorist organizations in order to use the MEK in the Bush White House drive for regime change in Iran.
Subsequently, the Bush administration claimed that Iran had “concealed” its weapons program for decades, and began a campaign to shut down all nuclear development.
In fact, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) grants all nations the “inalienable right” to peaceful nuclear development. Further, it does not require any nation to report its facilities to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) until fissile material, such as uranium, is actually introduced into the facility.
Iran did indeed have a brief reporting lapse. It revealed the start of its nuclear enrichment experiments at the time they began, rather than announcing this to the IAEA 180 days before experimentation as was required. This was in 2003, and it was the only serious breech of protocol.
The National Intelligence Estimate now identifies 2003 as the date when the weapons program stopped — literally at the point when the Bush administration first became aware of it.
2003 was two years before the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It was more than a year before the United States began to lobby for U.N. economic sanctions against Iran. Claiming that “international pressure” had caused Iran to modify its behavior, the Bush administration tried desperately to justify its exaggerated characterizations of the danger Iran posed to the world. The only event that the Bush administration can now claim as constituting “international pressure” is the May 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.
If the international community understands that Iran never had a weapons program, President George W. Bush’s statement that Iran could start the program up “again” is clearly absurd.
It is now clear that the Bush administration’s campaign to convince the world of the danger of Iran’s purported immanent nuclear weapons was a sham. The campaign was one in a series of public pretexts to effect regime change in the Islamic Republic. No amount of equivocation, or bluster about Iran’s “continuing” danger can mask the fact that American credibility on this issue has been irrevocably damaged.
The only positive outcome of this debacle may be that the Bush administration may finally accept that differences with Iran can only be solved by actually talking to the leaders of the Islamic Republic. Restoration of diplomatic relations, even at a low level, will begin the process of reducing the hostile atmosphere that has been created, and will start the long, slow process toward the restoration of productive and peaceful relations.
New America Media, News Analysis, William O. Beeman
Many of us remember the Iraqi exile groups whose tall tales the Administration used to justify the invasion of their country in 2003. Fewer people are aware that similar groups from other Middle Eastern countries frequent the halls of Congress and editorial board rooms carrying their frightening ghost-written books with guidance from pro-war think tanks. The organized challenge against the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) summary on Iran this month included such a group, which for years cried wolf about Iran.
The NIE’s critics are complaining that it falsely weakens the Bush administration’s campaign against Iran. Trusting that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons is suicidal, warn the neoconservatives who prompted the invasion of Iraq in search of imaginary banned weapons. As in the period that preceded the Iraq War, the hawks are now validated by an exile entity dedicated to violent regime change. The Iranian enabler group that has replaced the old Iraqi National Congress is the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). In cooperation with leading neoconservative figures, NCRI has for over a decade spared no effort to destroy any chance of a U.S.-Iranian détente.
Eight days after the NIE summary assured the world that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons at this time international media reported that NCRI dismissed the report’s findings. No other Iranian opposition group has actively challenged the new NIE’s credibility.
Going even farther, NCRI’s Washington spokesman, Alireza Jafarzadeh, claimed that Iran’s nuclear program is managed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp’s (IRGC) scientists during a Fox News interview. As the most trusted branch of Iran’s armed forces, the IRGC was late this year designated by the White House as a sponsor of international terrorism. The exile group has also echoed the Washington war party’s claims that Iran is arming Iraqi resistance groups with advanced weapons resulting in U.S. casualties.
NCRI’s scare campaign against Iran is an attempt to overcome its own infamy. The”Council”is a front group based in Paris for the Mojahedin-e Khalgh Organization (known also as MEK, MKO, or PMOI), according to the U.S. State Department, which bans both as a single terrorist organization. MEK’s pariah status makes it entirely dependent on the goodwill of the U.S. military, which has since the spring of 2003 sheltered its 3,500-plus fighters in northern Iraq after they disarmed.
The militia has for a quarter-century topped Tehran’s”most wanted”terrorist list and is now sought by Iraq’s government for atrocities it allegedly committed in Saddam’s service. It fled Iran in the mid 1980s and fought on the Iraqi side during the Iran-Iraq war, hoping to overthrow the young Islamic Republic. Its campaign to deepen Western distrust of Iran is motivated primarily by the real possibility that its key figures will face capital crimes charges in Iraq and Iran if a U.S. accommodation with Iran ends the militia’s utility to U.S. strategists as a bargaining chip. The latest sign of MEK’s vulnerability emerged December 16 when Iran asked that the next round of U.S.-Iran negotiations in Baghdad address MEK’s status.
Like the old Iraqi National Congress headed by Ahmad Chalabi, the MEK has powerful conservative backers in Western capitals that promote it as a democratic alternative. In Washington, these have included John Ashcroft, Dick Armey, Richard Perle, and members of Congress Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Tom Tancredo, all of whom were and remain advocates of the Iraq invasion. Among officially designated foreign terrorist organizations, MEK is the only one that can obtain street demonstration permits in Washington through its thinly disguised front operations. Poster-size portraits of the husband and wife team that have headed MEK for a generation are in abundance at such rallies, including one held on the grounds of U.S. Congress in 2004.
The surest way for the MEK to stay in business appears to be just the path they are following. They need to make themselves indispensable to the warmongers in the United States by helping subvert accommodation with Iran. (In this, they share the predicament of their neocon masters, who will be out of a job if peace prevails for too long.)
If Washington decides against an all out war on Iran and opts instead for a”low intensity conflict,”as Ronald Reagan’s wars of attrition in Central America came to be known, the MEK can well be the core of a Contra-style mercenary force. Claiming the mantle of the”Reagan Revolution,”the neoconservatives would certainly welcome that as the next best thing to the war that they want badly even after the NIE largely vindicated Iran. There have been persistent rumors over the past year that American military or intelligence agencies have trained selected MEK operatives for clandestine missions in Iran, after having them renounce terrorism and swear allegiance to”democracy.”
If, on the other hand, the Bush administration or its successor chooses sustained dialog instead of confrontation with Iran, the future of the MEK will never be far from the minds of Iranian negotiators. The White House has stressed its twin objectives of strengthening the government of”liberated”Iraq and limiting Tehran’s influence there. Iranian leaders see an inherent contradiction in that policy. They are anxious to find out whether the U.S. will continue to shelter the MEK as an irritant to Iran or will transfer custody of the militia to Iran’s trusted Iraqi authorities as an affirmation of Iraqi sovereignty. As Washington prepares for its next round of talks on Iraqi security with Iran in January, a sure way it can build confidence would be to agree to discuss this sensitive matter.
Rostam Pourzal, Alternet.org, December 28, 2007