FOX News

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Former U.S. base in Iraq could shelter Iranian resistance until resettlement.

Is Iran serious in threatening to block the Strait of Hormuz or is this simply saber-rattling? Whatever the motives, inaction is not an option – not any more.

Fearful of the impact of expanded U.S. sanctions, Iran’s first vice president Mohammad Reza Rahimi told the official news agency IRNA on Dec. 27, “If they impose sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz.” This could spell disaster for the whole region as skyrocketing oil prices would wreak havoc on the global economy.

In any contingency planning, it is imperative to establish who our allies are and who our foes are. My firsthand experience tells me that the best-organized, formidable opponents of Tehran, a group known as Mujahedin-e-Khalq, could be quite helpful. Yet our attitude toward the group has been misguided.

During my first tour in Iraq in 2003, I first learned of the existence of a group of Iranians seeking democracy in Iran. I researched the group; interestingly, women played a vital role and held a majority of the senior leadership positions. I deployed my military police brigade to Iraq during Christmas 2003 and assumed responsibility for many missions: the rebuilding of the Iraqi police and protecting that very group of Iranians I had read about, a group the State Department had listed as a foreign terrorist organization.

I was there when they consolidated at Camp Ashraf, their home in Iraq, when all 3,400 members of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, male and female, were biometrically identified, thoroughly investigated and personally interviewed by a Joint Interagency Task Force and a board of officers adjudicating each case. Did we find terrorists, criminals, undesirables among the several thousand men and women living at Camp Ashraf? No. Not one was identified as having links to any criminal acts.

Following the conclusion of the investigation into the background of the residents of Camp Ashraf, I was given the mission to inform Mujahedin-e-Khalq leadership that they were now classified as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention and that my unit was charged with their safety and security – a mission which, to this day I take very seriously and still feel morally responsible for.

I really had to step back and wonder why are they identified as terrorists. What have they done? My soldiers repeatedly asked the same question. I tried very hard to find some credible evidence, a substantiated allegation, some overt or covert criminal act, anything as to why this group was designated as a foreign terrorist organization. I could not, nor could my staff. The group espouses democracy, freedom and especially equal rights for women. And this wasn’t just their propaganda or rhetoric. I witnessed it firsthand, spending a significant amount of time living and working at Camp Ashraf from 2003 until early 2005 and again in 2007 and 2008.

I brought other senior leaders of the coalition forces to Camp Ashraf in order to raise the issue. Each was stunned by what they discovered. They didn’t find a terrorist camp, but instead a small self-sustaining city.

After we handed over the security of Camp Ashraf to the Iraq government, the miseries of the residents began. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government, at the behest of Iran, violently attacked the camp twice in 2009 and 2011, killing 47 defenseless residents and wounding more than 1,000.

Pressured by Iran, the Iraqi government vowed to close Camp Ashraf by year’s end and disperse the residents to other camps in Iraq. That was tantamount to their immediate or phased massacre. As the deadline loomed last week, under extensive international pressure, Mr. Maliki finally relented. He publicly announced the extension of the deadline for six months, although his forces still hold the residents at gunpoint.

Maryam Rajavi, the charismatic leader of the Iranian resistance, campaigned tirelessly for a peaceful solution to the Camp Ashraf crisis. I personally witnessed her determined efforts to save the lives of residents, one of whom is her very own daughter. Her active intervention persuaded the residents to agree in principle to relocate to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near Baghdad International Airport. They would remain there until the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees could resettle them outside of Iraq.

Having received the assurances from the special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for Iraq, Martin Kobler, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mrs. Rajavi announced Dec. 28 that as a gesture of goodwill, 400 residents are prepared to go to Camp Liberty with their moveable property and vehicles at the first opportunity. The relocation is a test of the Iraqi government’s attitude toward the commitments it has given to the United Nations and the United States.

Yet, the threat is still very real. Camp Ashraf has come under repeated rocket attacks in the past few days by forces thought to be affiliated with the Iranian regime. The U.N. has mentioned the attacks to the Iraqi authorities, who confirmed that these attacks did indeed take place.

In order to prevent another violent attack by undisciplined Iraqi troops or terrorists against the unarmed residents of Camp Ashraf, minimum guarantees for safety and protection are necessary.

First, they should be able to move to Camp Liberty with their own vehicles and moveable properties, the falsified and forged arrest warrants against the residents should be annulled, and antagonists should be separated by barring the presence of Iraqi police inside the residential areas of Camp Liberty, specifically the ones for women and girls.

The 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf were given a promise of protection. We must stand by that commitment. We must stress the requirement for these minimum guarantees in fulfillment of our promise.

Abandoning the residents of Camp Ashraf to the horrific whims of the current theocratic Iranian regime, after our promise to protect them, is counter to all of our values. And from the geopolitical perspective, in facing Iran’s rising threat, it is time to see the Mujahedin-e-Khalq and residents of Ashraf for what they are: a trustworthy ally.

Brig. Gen. David Phillips is the former commandant of the Army Military Police School at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and former commander of all police operations in Iraq, which included the protection of Camp Ashraf.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/3/move-camp-ashraf-to-camp-liberty/

Fox News  “Special Report” with Shannon Bream

Special Guests: A.B. Stoddard, Steve Hayes, Charles Krauthammer

MICHAEL MUKASEY, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: Now these people are in a camp where they are defenseless, and the United States troops have pulled out with the result that they are now at the mercy of the Iraqi government which is really doing the biding of the Iranian government. They’ve attacked them twice, both times when the U.S., then U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, was in country.

SHANNON BREAM, GUEST HOST: That is former Attorney General Michael Mukasey talking about a group of Iranian dissidents who actually live in Iraq, and now they’re losing their space where they’ve felt protected and they are moving elsewhere. Let’s talk about it with our panel. We’re back with Steve, A.B., and Charles. A.B., this Camp Ashraf situation is very delicate at this point.

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, THE HILL : This is really going to put us in a terrible position because we are going to get dragged into it. I mean, the U.S. government is trying to continue to partner with Iraq to secure — for their own security. But we’re trying at the same time to stay out of the sectarian tension and political chaos that is mounting there. We find the prime minister now, he wants these people out. They’re going to be moved to a temporary place, Camp Liberty, which is a former U.S. base. There is no final home. There’s plans for a transfer, or what they call resettlement, without U.S. troops, U.N. monitors. Everyone is concerned that they won’t be safe there. There will be violence. Do the residents of the camp even want to be moved to the interim place? He’s defending the sovereignty of Iran throughout.

This is going to be a mess, and we’re going to find ourselves having to take a side, and it’s going to be a very tough situation as we try to take this kind of hands-off approach now whenever trouble erupts in Iraq, as it did within days of us leaving.

BREAM: And this camp currently it sits 50 miles from the Iranian border inside Iraq. And as Jennifer Griffin did in her excellent reporting earlier tonight, talked about the fact the U.S. had an understanding for protection for these folks, Steve.

STEVE HAYES, SENIOR WRITER, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: This is one of the reasons that I think this is such a problem. There’s a human tragedy element to it and then there’s also the political implications of this. The human tragedy is obvious. If we don’t protect them, they could be very well the victim of collusion between these two governments. That would be tragic.

On the political side of thing, the United States unfortunately has a history doing this in Iraq. I mean, remember back to 1991 when George H.W. Bush went on the radio, and people throughout the country heard him, said rise up against your government, we’ve got your backs. The Shiites did this and the Kurds did this in the north, and then we walked away from them.

We can’t do this. If we want people to act on our own interests and our perceived interests, we need to be able to keep our word when we ask people to do things for us and when we make promises. It looks like in this case we’re not keeping a promise.

BREAM: The prime minister, al-Maliki said we’re not going to hand them over to Iran; we’re not going to kill them. We don’t want to oppress or starve them, but their presence here is illegal and illegitimate.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: What’s happening, it’s another event that we’re seeing as a result of the full evacuation that Obama decided on against the generals who wanted a residual force in Iraq that would be a counterweight essentially to Iranian influence. This is entirely Iranian influence.

The group that we are talking about are fanatically anti-regime in Tehran. They have actually helped us. They are the ones that revealed the information about the secret enrichment in Natanz. They have agents inside of Iran, and they are now defenseless.

Why we keep them on the terror list, I don’t understand. They have not engaged in terror in over 15 years, 30 year, and not against the United States. They are an asset. And as we heard in the report earlier in the show, we’ve given them written assurances of protection in return for them turning in their weaponry, of which they had a lot.

So I think it’s a matter of honor, a matter of strategic necessity. The least that we can do is to get them into these camps away from the border with Iran where Iran actually is shelling them occasionally, and to help them resettle. But you can’t do that. They’re officially listed as terrorists, so we have to take them of the list and at the least resettle them.

BREAM: And Steve, more broadly overall the environment in Iraq, a lot of violence in the last few days.

HAYES: Yeah look, Iraq is falling people. There’s no way to dress it up. That’s what’s happening. This is the logical consequence of three years of neglect. That’s what happened with the Obama administration. Phone calls from the Iraqi leaders went unreturned, requests went unfulfilled.

You had an administration, you had a president, a candidate, then Barack Obama, Senator Barack Obama, who ran against Iraq, wasn’t interested, had called it the dumb war. And now you have a president in Barack Obama who neglected this war from the beginning. He handed it off to his vice president who believed that Iraq should be partitioned and split into three different countries. This is the logical consequence of those policy choices.

And I think unfortunately we’re looking at a situation that it’s hard to imagine getting better. You’ve seen this kind of violence and it’s hard to imagine it getting better and probably will get significantly worse over the course of the spring.

STODDARD: It is true, now that we’re gone, Iran will continue to mettle. There’s all this Sunni-Shiite tension, that we’ve lost our leverage. However, leaving Iraq remains popular with the American people. So as things deteriorate throughout 2012, as we expect them to, there’s going to be a debate about whether or not that was the right thing to do. At this moment though, President Obama receives high approval for leaving completely. And so we’ll see if it changes at all.

KRAUTHAMMER: I suspect history be a lot less kind. The tragedy here is that he was handed a won war. The surge had succeeded. Even the Shiite government had taken on the Shiite militias and destroyed them. We had a country that had an election that had representation of Sunnis and Kurds and Shiites. In three years, this administration had one task, work out an arrangement where at least America remains in a noncombat role as we were for the last year-and-a-half to exert pressure, and we did not do that. And to have a won war kicked away as a result is truly tragic.

BREAM: All right, panel, thank you very much.

http://video.foxnews.com/v/1348282835001/political-turmoil-in-iraq/

Fox News

Monday, President Obama welcomed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to the White House with the declaration that U.S. troops were leaving Iraq with “heads held high.” But while administration spin-miesters are promoting the so-called deepening strategic partnership between the United States and Iraq, an emboldened and increasingly defiant Maliki is quickly moving forward with sinister preparations of his own that threaten to jettison President Obama’s mission-accomplished moment.

In collusion with the Mullahs terrorist regime in Tehran, the Iraqi Prime Minister is planning a Srebrenica-style massacre of 3,400 unarmed Iranian dissidents living in his country at Camp Ashraf—each and every one of whom was given a written guarantee of protection by the U.S. government. I was the general who delivered that promise to the residents of Camp Ashraf in 2004.

Camp Ashraf is home to members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) who are “protected persons” under the Geneva Conventions. As the main Iranian opposition movement, MEK is committed to non-violent regime change in Iran and a democratic nuclear-free Iranian future. MEK has provided the US with valuable intelligence about the existence of multiple nuclear sites scattered in different parts of Iran. For these reasons, the Mullahs’ regime in Iran considers MEK an existential threat, and is enlisting a willing Maliki in their evil enterprise to annihilate the residents of Camp Ashraf.

So it’s no surprise that Maliki set the stage for his White House visit by refusing U.S., EU, and U.N. demands to postpone the arbitrary and illegal deadline he imposed for closing Camp Ashraf and making it impossible for UNHCR to register and resettle the residents safely in other countries.

That Maliki’s deadline coincides perfectly with Obama’s date for withdrawal of the US presence in Iraq—Dec 31–, is no accident: It sends a clear and unmistakable message to Washington that the Obama-Maliki relationship is a litmus test for the President’s legacy in Iraq and American credibility throughout the region.

“Closing” Camp Ashraf, is Maliki’s euphemism for dispersing these defenseless men women, and children throughout Iraq where they can be more easily killed out of sight of the international community or kidnapped and brought to Iran where they face execution.

Both Maliki and the Mullahs rationalize the atrocities at Camp Ashraf with the excuse that America has maintained MEK as a listed Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997. The Clinton administration initially added MEK to the State Department’s blacklist as a good will gesture to Iran—mistakenly thought at the time to be moving towards moderation, and the designation was subsequently maintained in an effort to persuade Iran to abandon their nuclear program. But today, we can plainly see that Iran is no closer to moderation; its nuclear ambitions are actually closer to fulfillment, and Obama’s failure to de-list MEK, in the absence of any legal or factual basis, continues to stymie the prospects for democratic change in Iran.

It was about ten years ago that I first learned of the existence of the MEK. Little did I know then that in a very short time I would be personally involved with this group and its fight for survival. With a looming deadline coming on December 31, my fond memories of these Iranians might turn out be just that… memories. But this could be averted.

I know first-hand what it means to suffer at the hands of terrorists – I was the director of security for the Army at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Shortly thereafter, I deployed as the senior military policeman responsible for many missions in Iraq, including the safety and security of the residents of Camp Ashraf.

I was there when they voluntarily disarmed in return for U.S. promises of protection. I saw what remained of their other facilities after they were looted and destroyed by Maliki’s forces. I was there when each and every person of the MEK was biometrically identified, vetted, screened, and interviewed by the U.S. military. Did we find any terrorists or criminals or undesirables among the several thousand men and women? No. Each was thoroughly investigated and not one was identified as having any linkage to criminal acts. A few had unpaid parking tickets. That might seem frivolous, but I mention it to show how thoroughly we investigated each member of the MEK at Camp Ashraf.

I really had to step back and wonder why they are identified as terrorists by the State Department. I tried very hard but I could not find any credible allegation, any overt or covert crime, any reason why this group carried the FTO designation that Maliki and the Mullahs cite as a rationale for their atrocities.

I witnessed firsthand equal rights in action at Camp Ashraf. I spent significant time living and working at Camp Ashraf. I got to know almost every senior leader of the MEK at Ashraf, and many of the residents. After the vetting process was completed I brought the message back to the leadership of Ashraf that they were now classified as protected persons under the Geneva Convention and I was personally charged with their safety and security. And, even though I’m no longer directly responsible for safety and security at Camp Ashraf, I still feel morally responsible, as all of Americans who take pride in our country and our word should be.

I had open and unrestricted access to every area of Camp Ashraf. I staged independent, unannounced inspections and never, discovered any indication of anyone being kept there against his or her will by the Camp’s leadership, as some detractors mistakenly allege. And I really tried to uncover proof of those allegations. But the only thing I was ever able to prove without a doubt was that the allegations were false. Were there any issues between my units, my forces, and the MEK at Ashraf? Of course! But they were few and far between, and all were resolved by simple discussions and mutual understanding.

I spent well over a year seeking definitive guidance regarding a way to resolve the humanitarian crisis at Camp Ashraf. I brought many senior leaders of the coalition forces to Ashraf. They were all stunned that we were keeping these defenseless men, women and children in such limbo. I left Iraq frustrated after that tour, and a year later when I returned, I saw that there had been no change. There was still no definitive guidance. During that tour I was charged with rapidly rebuilding the Iraqi police, and simultaneously I was General Petraeus’s expert on all police and security operations, including security at Camp Ashraf.

We gave the people at Camp Ashraf a promise of protection following a very thorough vetting process—and I know this for a fact because I delivered that promise. I feel so strongly about it that even now, I would return to Ashraf to be an intermediary to ensure the safe relocation of the residents.

I fear that unless we have some type of intermediary, some type of initiative very soon, some due resolve, given the December 31 deadline imposed on Ashraf by the government of Iraq at behest of Tehran, another tragedy will occur. We’ve seen members of this organization viciously attacked in the recent past and dozens of them, young and old killed and about 1,000 wounded by the Iraqi armed forces. In a few weeks, if the deadline to close Camp Ashraf is not postponed, we could see an even greater tragedy.

A cry must be sounded loud and clear—the very same cry that was sounded by thousands of Iranian Americans who stood outside the White House on December 12 as the President was meeting with Maliki, that we will not stand for violence against the defenseless people of Camp Ashraf. Maliki’s arbitrary and illegal deadline must be postponed, his plans for forcible dispersion of Ashraf residents in Iraq shelved, and the U.N. refugee agency encouraged to find the residents sanctuary in third countries.

Evil thrives in darkness, so let’s shed some light on Camp Ashraf: I tried to find a terrorist at Camp Ashraf and I could not. I tried to find people held against their will at Camp Ashraf. I could not. All I found there were people committed to non-violence and a free and democratic Iranian future.

I only hope the world is listening. The time to act is now. This is more than a local issue: the people of “Camp Ashraf,” have relatives in the United States and Europe who care deeply about their fate.

As we exit from Iraq, the Obama White House should take care not to undercut the West’s fight against Iranian nuclear breakout by giving Iraq’s Shia prime minister the impression that the U.S. is a paper tiger that will easily abandon its solemn promises to Ashraf residents by sending them to face certain death in the Iraqi desert.

General David Phillips (ret.) is the former Chief of Military Policy at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and forme commander of all police operations in Iraq which included the protection of Camp Ashraf.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/12/13/as-withdraw-from-iraq-must-still-keep-our-promise-to-residents-camp-ashraf

PR Newswire

As December 31 Deadline Nears for American Military Withdrawal, Fate of 3,400 “Protected Persons” Hangs in the Balance

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — At a press conference at the National Press Club, former Pennsylvania Governors Tom Ridge and Ed Rendell urged the Obama Administration to draw a clear line in the sand with the pro-Iranian government in Iraq: lift the approaching deadline for closing Camp Ashraf, home to more than 3,400 Iranian dissidents, refrain from forcible relocation of the residents that could lead to a massacre and allow their resettlement in third countries.

The dissidents are members the main Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

The Governors, joined by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, retired US Army Colonel Wes Martin, the former commander of Camp Ashraf, and Dr. Ramesh Sepehrrad, Scholar Practitioner from the School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, made their call for action before Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki meets with President Obama in Washington on December 12, 2011.

“The only reason we called this press conference is to call attention to a pending humanitarian disaster, the potential massacre of 3,400 democratic Iranian dissidents.  The massacre can only be avoided by the collective action of Prime Minister Maliki and President Obama,” Governor Ridge stressed.

“We have sent hundreds of thousands of men and women around the world for decades to promote freedom and democracy. It was the ideal that got us into Iraq. US blood and treasure notwithstanding, this administration continues to ignore the commitment it also made when they signed the Status of Forces Agreement to protect and defend and provide for the safety and security of the people at Camp Ashraf… America’s credibility is at stake,” he added.

Governor Rendell laid out an immediate plan of action. “America has an obligation to protect the people of Camp Ashraf. We want President Obama to move swiftly to delist the dissidents from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and do it quickly.  This unfair designation has given Iran and Iraq a license to kill the dissidents at will. Secondly, we want President Obama to insist to Prime Minister Maliki that he delay his order to close the camp on December 31st.”

“[We] have an obligation, we gave our word to protect [Camp Ashraf residents]. Our word has to stand for something…the Maliki Government cannot and should not be trusted to protect the lives of the residents of Ashraf. They aren’t coming to do peaceful relocation.  They are coming to arrest and put in prison the leadership of the MEK,” he added.

Judge Mukasey warned, “The people in Camp Ashraf are facing a crisis that is entirely precipitated by the Iraqi Government acting at the behest of Iran. There is no reason, none, for a deadline of December 31 other than the threat of the Iraqi Government to move in…with troops and arms and vehicles provided by the United States to attack defenseless women and men…  This is not a political matter.  This is a human rights matter. This is matter of the safety and security of people.  This is a matter of the word of the United States.”

“This is a coming disaster that can be averted by the United States President making it clear to Prime Minister Maliki that we will not tolerate this. And if we do not act, this will happen and will go down in history as a disgrace to ourselves, our country, to the remainder of the human race.”

“Make no mistake that it is the Iranian plot that is driving the December 31st deadline, the forcible relocation within Iraq and repatriation to Iran. Through its Iraqi proxies, Tehran is working hard to either surrender or wipe out every single resident of the camp at any cost. So the options are to either die under torture in Iran or be killed in the coming days. Camp Ashraf residents will never surrender to the Iranian regime. They will also resist against any relocation within Iraq unless it is under U.S. protection and UN supervision,” Dr. Sepehrrad underscored.

Recalling his experience as Ashraf base commander, Col. Martin said, “In Ashraf, I had a group of people actually trying the best they could to help the Americans. They were one of our allies, yet we were calling them terrorists. That just doesn’t mean sense… When we would go outside the perimeter, I always knew I had good strong allies on my flank. The Iranian Mujahedeen was around to the same energy to rescue us even though they didn’t have arms.”

SOURCE Institute for Democratic Strategies

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/reaching-across-the-aisle-former-governors-call-for-urgent-intervention-to-save-iranian-dissidents-in-iraq—institute-for-democratic-strategies-134962803.html

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

WASHINGTON — A group of prominent Americans is lobbying President Barack Obama to lift designation of Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen Khalq as a terrorist group, The New York Times reported.

Former CIA directors James Woolsey and Porter Goss and former FBI director Louis Freeh are among those seeking the change, the paper reported.

Others include former attorney general Michael Mukasey, ex-homeland security secretary Tom Ridge, former national security adviser General James Jones and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

The advocates insist their motive is humanitarian: to protect and resettle about 3,400 members of Mujahedeen Khalq, or People?s Mujahedeen, who are now confined in a camp in Iraq, the report said.

Mujahedeen Khalq, a former ally of ex-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, has been designated as a terrorist organization under US law.

But its supporters say the terrorist label, which dates back to 1997, reflecting decades of violence that included the killing of some Americans in the 1970s, is now outdated, unjustified and dangerous, The Times said.

The Iraqi government has said it plans to close Camp Ashraf, where the member of Mujahedeen Khalq are currently staying, by December 31 and move the people elsewhere in Iraq, the paper noted.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iRl-m-9A3bp8T0kLgIOH0EIVDRhg

PRNewswire

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — “Lives in Peril, Honor on the Line: America’s Promise to Protect Camp Ashraf,” was the title of a symposium in which several former senior U.S. officials as well as prominent human rights advocates urged the Obama Administration to prevent an impending humanitarian catastrophe at Camp Ashraf, Iraq, home to thousands of members of Iran’s main opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).  

The panelists also rejected the call made jointly by the Iranian regime and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that the residents of Ashraf must give in to relocation inside Iraq without any reliable protection for their safety and security. The fact that the United States and the United Nations have not yet publically and unequivocally dismissed this ominous plan was equally criticized.

The panel included Alan Dershowitz, Professor of Law at Harvard University; Governor Howard Dean, Secretary Tom Ridge, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy; Richard Ben-Veniste, former Member of the 9/11 Commission; Robert Joseph, former Under Secretary Of State For Arms Control & International Security; Gen. John “Jack” Keane, former Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army; and Christian Whiton, former Special Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs.

Prof. Dershowitz said that “the potential war criminals who run the Iranian regime are so anxious to see Camp Ashraf shut down [because] they are planning the mass killing of the largest concentration of witnesses to their crimes in the world today, those who are living in Camp Ashraf in Iraq.”

“If the president of the US does not demand a change in the Iraqi government’s commitment to close the camp, his silence will be taken as acquiescence, and that is so dangerous, silent acquiescence,” he added.

“It does look like we [the United States and the Iraqi government] are in collusion and as long as we continue to designate the MEK as a terrorist organization, the Iraqi government can send these documents around the world just to provide rationalization for the murder of innocent unarmed people on two occasion in Camp Ashraf,” emphasized Secretary Ridge, adding, “Even today Martin Kobler was told by the Iraqi government, you must move men and women to another location in Iraq.. Why we are letting this government, for whom we’ve sacrificed thousands of lives, tell us what to do which is inconsistent with our broader moral obligation to support humanitarian human rights and to keep our promise, which we gave individually to every member of Camp Ashraf, when we also guaranteed them protections under the Geneva Convention.”

“The person who is representing the United Nations [in Iraq], made the ridiculous suggestion that the people from Ashraf be redistributed inside Iraq, and that somehow, without any guarantee of protection, either from the United States or the United Nations, they would be fine… Explain to me Martin Kobler, what rationale you give for what you have done which is essentially to sign the execution order for 3500 unarmed civilians,” Governor Dean said.

He added, “Mr. President, we do have a responsibility. We gave our word [to Ashraf residents] and we gave it in writing.  We have a responsibility. It is a legal responsibility. I do not want my country to be complicit in the carrying out of war crimes, as the Dutch found out in Srebrenica.”

Congressman Kennedy stressed that “before Maliki can come to this country, we must make clear that the deadline for Camp Ashraf should be rejected and the UN should be allowed to do their job; that he make sure that not only those residents are treated with dignity and respect, but honored the international law that applies to them… This is a moment for the US to set clear for the rest of the world where it stands…”

SOURCE: Iranian American Community of Northern California

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/obama-administration-urged-to-compel-iraq-to-lift-the-deadline-to-close-down-camp-ashraf-in-advance-of-iraqi-prime-ministers-visit-to-the-white-house-according-to-iranian-american-community-of-northern-california-134465558.html