WT - EXCLUSIVE: U.S. seeks to protect Iran terror group. Iraqis urged to keep camp.

From my archive of press clippings:

Washington Times

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. seeks to protect Iran terror group. Iraqis urged to keep camp.

By Eli Lake (Contact) Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The United States is quietly pressing Iraq not to close a camp that holds more than 3,000 members of an Iranian opposition group that served as Saddam Hussein's shock troops in 1991 when he crushed rebellions after the Gulf War and now is vulnerable to Iraqi and Iranian reprisals.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Last week, Iraqi police stormed Camp Ashraf outside Baghdad, killing at least seven and injuring dozens during clashes with the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, or MEK. At the time, members of a U.S. unit known as Task Force 134, which deals with prisoners of war, were present outside the compound, said two U.S. officials -- one in Washington, one in Iraq -- who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

A day after the raid, officials at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad met with members of the Iraqi government to urge restraint. The next day, the U.S. Army helped medevac at least two dozen injured members of the MEK, the officials said."

"The U.S. has designated the MEK as a terrorist group for these actions and for the assassinations of six Americans in Iran before the 1979 Iranian revolution. But the U.S. nevertheless has sought to protect Camp Ashraf members -- who include women and children -- from Iraqi or Iranian attack and forced repatriation.

The camp had been under U.S. protection since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Iraq now seeks to reassert control under the provisions of the Status of Forces Agreement signed with Washington last year.
Iraqi media have reported that the government plans to close Camp Ashraf and disperse its residents to other locations in Iraq. Such a move could make the dissidents more vulnerable to Iranian intelligence and angry Iraqi Shi'ites who lost family members in 1991."

continued

"President Clinton designated the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization. However, in 2002, the group disclosed that Iran was building a secret nuclear facility south of Tehran. The MEK also claims to have provided valuable intelligence on the Iranian regime to the U.S. military and to no longer commit acts of terrorism. Over the years, the organization has touted itself as a viable opposition movement against Iran, even though it appears to have minimal support within Iran and there is a cult of personality around the group's leader, Maryam Rajavi.

Still, the group has cultivated allies in the U.S. Congress who have pressed the State Department to remove the MEK and affiliated groups from its list of foreign terrorists."

"Raymond Tanter, a member of the National Security Council in the Reagan administration who co-founded and is president of the Iran Policy Committee -- a Washington group that advocates lifting the MEK's terrorist designation -- said Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie told him that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government intends to destroy the camp, disperse its residents and send MEK leaders to Iran. "

&

"Rep. Howard L. Berman, California Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, the committee's ranking Republican, issued a statement last week expressing concern about the situation at Camp Ashraf.

"The Government of Iraq signed an agreement with the United States guaranteeing the physical security and protection of Ashraf residents following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the area," the statement said. "The Iraqi government must live up to its commitment to ensure the continued well-being of those living in Ashraf and prevent their involuntary return to Iran.""

re: "Are You a Domestic Terrorist?"

Spook86 at In From the Cold ("Musings on Life, Love, Politics, Military Affairs, the Media, the Intelligence Community and Just About Anything Else that Captures Our Interest") provides an intelligence professional's perspective.

Money quote(s):

"As reported by Audrey Hudson and Eli Lake of the Washington Times, DHS recently published a nine-page assessment on "Rightwing Extremism" that appears to lump many traditional conservatives in the ranks of potential terrorist."

"Never mind that the "threat" posed by militias and white supremacist organizations has been routinely inflated, and there hasn't been a serious attack from those elements since Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City 15 years ago. Under the leadership of Janet Napolitano, DHS is hot on the trail of conservative reactionaries."

"Homeland Security has a rather odd way of defining possible terrorists, looking for them among the ranks of libertarians, conspiracy theorists and ex-military members, among others."

&

"Welcome back to the pre-9-11 security mindset, where everyone worried about the "next McVeigh" that was supposedly lurking at every militia meeting. Meanwhile, we never paid attention to the really important stuff, like young Muslim men enrolled in U.S. flight schools--the same ones who had no interest in learning to land the aircraft."