Josh Rogin at The Cable ("Reporting Inside the Foreign Policy Machine") got some inside spin (or was used as a mouthpiece) on the ongoing PMOI/MEK relocation dustup.
Money quote(s):
"For years, a slew of advocates - many of whom have been paid for their services -- have flooded U.S. airwaves on behalf of the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization opposed to the Iranian regime.
After months of difficult negotiations, the MEK has finally begun moving out of its secretive Iraqi home near the Iranian border, called Camp Ashraf. But the group's American advocates have now become a major obstacle in the international effort to move the MEK to a new home in Iraq and avoid a bloody clash with the Iraqi military, officials say.
U.N. special representative in Iraq Martin Kobler, with help from the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and the State Department, has organized efforts to relocate the MEK to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad airport. The first convoy of about 400 MEK members arrived there last month. The second convoy of about 400 MEK members arrived Thursday at Camp Liberty, Reuters reported. " (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)
Camp Ashraf is not, and deliberately so, particularly close to the Iranian border, at least in terms of how much of Iraq actually is.
"(R)etired U.S. officials and politicians -- many of whom admit to being paid by the MEK or one of its many affiliates -- have mounted a sophisticated media campaign accusing the U.N. and the U.S. government of forcing the group to live in subhuman conditions against its will at Camp Liberty, an accusation U.S. officials say is as inaccurate as it is unhelpful."
CAA can neither confirm nor deny whether current conditions at Camp Liberty are "subhuman" nor, if they are, whether that's due to looting or to, as Mr. Rogin relays, actions by the PMOI/MEK themselves.
That being said:
a.) CAA's recollection of how Iraqi military bases were looted by Iraqis themselves following the Iraqi military's defeat by U.S. forces make it entirely believable that a similarly thorough and systematic looting of Camp Liberty occured subsequent to the U.S. withdrawal last year; and
b.) CAA's familiarity with the PMOI/MEK's history of playing-the-West-like-a-fiddle also make it eminently believable that they would themselves degrade conditions at Camp Liberty for propaganda purposes.
(That's just how they roll.)
"(A)ccording to an Obama administration official who works on the issue, it's actually the MEK that is trashing Camp Liberty -- literally. According to this official, the U.N. has reported that MEK members at Camp Liberty have been sabotaging the camp, littering garbage and manipulating the utilities to make things look worse than they really are. While there are some legitimate problems at the camp, the official admitted, the U.N. has been monitoring Camp Liberty's water, sewage, and food systems on a daily basis and the conditions are better than the MEK is portraying."
Sadly, CAA's trust of the U.N. is a degraded as conditions at Camp Liberty are reported, by some, to be. Like arms control, I'd like some U.S. inspectors to backstop reports of "better than the MEK is portraying."
Don't we have an embassy somewhere near there? Isn't the point of moving the PMOI/MEK to Baghdad so that it's easier for the American embassy, as well as the U.N., to monitor conditions?
".... a years-long, multi-million dollar campaign by the MEK and its supporters to enlist famous U.S. politicians and policymakers in their efforts to get the group removed from the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations and resist Iraqi attempts to close Camp Ashraf, which the new government sees as a militarized cult compound on its sovereign territory."
The PMOI/MEK is a somewhat larger organization, or set of organizations, than the purely military, uniformed arm which was resident in Iraq and, subsequent to their capitulation to U.S. forces, consolidated at Camp Ashraf.
They're definitely cult-like, as we understand the term. But they've been essentially disarmed, at least in terms of heavy weaponry.
"The administration official told The Cable that, as delicate negotiations between the U.N., the United States, the Iraqis, and the MEK continue, the role of these often paid advocates is becoming even more unhelpful and potentially dangerous."
These "advocates," paid or otherwise, include some very big name folks, at least some of whom had high enough security clearance access to know better (in terms of who the PMOI/MEK are).
"The relationship between the American advocates and the MEK leadership, led by the Paris-based Maryam Rajavi, has led both to pursue strategies that neglect the dire risks of sabotaging the move from Camp Liberty to Camp Ashraf, the official said. Rajavi is said to have created a cult of personality around herself and to rule the MEK as a unchallenged monarch."
Madam Rajavi, it should be noted, has been at Camp Ashraf, or even in Iraq, since before the U.S. invasion. Her compatriots there are, essentially, pawns in a larger game and hostages to fortune.
"Another example of the American advisors' unhelpfulness was the MEK's recent public call to be relocated en masse to Jordan, an idea the U.S. official said came from the group's American friends. There was just one problem: Nobody had asked the Jordanians."
Given the Jordanian's history with a certain other exile "resistance group," it'll be cold day on the equator before they agree to host the PMOI/MEK.
"The arrival at Camp Liberty Thursday of the second convoy may signal that the MEK is coming around to the realization that the Iraqi government will never allow it to stay at Camp Ashraf. But the U.S. official warned that the group may have more tricks up its sleeve."
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