An Iranian group's lobbying campaign to get removed from the U.S. list of terror organizations looks to be a success. But what does that say about the state of politics in Washington?
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.. Is every one of these men and women a principled supporter of the MEK, dedicated to the liberation of Iran from Islamist tyranny? Seems doubtful. As their own records in government will attest, most did nothing for the MEK when in a position to do so. The more likely explanation is that at least some of these folks have been persuaded with money, most of it coming in the form of speaking fees. And there is lots of it. Where does it come from? The FBI won't tell those on Capitol Hill who have asked; the MEK insists the money is from its donors.
Wink and a nod: Hilary Clinton walks past MEK activists
It's no secret how a group gets designated as terrorists in the eyes of the U.S. government.Section 219 of theImmigration and Nationality Act enumerates the authorities of the secretary of state in listing a group as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). The act references the existing statutory definitions of terrorism, provides avenues for appeal of the classification, and otherwise lays out various processes for review.
Nowhere, however, does the act lay out the options for buying your way out of a designation. Luckily, the Iranian expat group Mojahedin e-Khalq (MEK) soon to be "delisted" as an FTO, according to multiple reports, has provided us with a roadmap. But first, a little background.
The MEK, an anti-shah, Islamist, Marxist Iranian opposition group that fell afoul of the Islamic Revolution early on, was designated -- put on the terrorist list -- in 1997. It earned the designation fair and square, having been involved in numerous attacks, including the hostage-taking and murder of Americans, according to a State Department report. Indeed, it was at times more hardline than the mullahs: The group reportedly condemned the new Iranian government's decision to release the American hostages in 1980 as "surrender."
More recently, the MEK has restricted its attacks to Iranian nationals. Those curious can check out this lengthy FBI report for all the gory details. Suffice it to say that these erstwhile Marxists have proven themselves remarkably adaptable: The leadership moved with ease from the shah's Iran, onward to France and, once ousted from Paris, to a congenial perch in Baghdad, where the MEK was reportedly involved in Saddam's extermination campaign against the Kurds and repression of Iraq's Shia.
But the world is now a different place -- Saddam is gone and the MEK claims it has reformed. Certainly, the embassy takeovers and the anti-American, anti-Israel rhetoric are gone. Now it appears that the MEK is merely a cult-like organization -- intensely devoted to its leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi and virulently opposed to the Islamic Republic. Reports from former members suggest that followers require permission from the Rajavis to marry, that parents are separated from children, that communication with outsiders is banned, and that more senior followers are required to divorce to commit themselves more fully to the fight.
The State Department has long resisted efforts to remove the MEK from the terrorist list. As of 2004, the FBI had evidence that the group was still planning attacks against Iranian targets around the world. In addition -- and this is no small caveat -- successive secretaries of state in both Republican and Democratic administrations have recognized that delisting the MEK could throw a monkey wrench into efforts toward rapprochement with Iran. For while most Iranians may loathe the system imposed on them by the ayatollahs and their loyal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, they also loathe the MEK.
Setting aside the fact that the MEK worked hand in glove with other masterminds of the Islamic Revolution, Iranians are rightly wary of the fact that the MEK sided with the hated Saddam in his war against Iran. Indeed, the MEK has never appeared as the voice of democratic hope for the Iranian people, but merely another dictatorship in waiting. Washington, however, has been more suggestible.
The recent history of the MEK -- also known in other guises such as the National Council of Resistance, the National Liberation Army, and the People's Mojahedin of Iran -- has featured various front groups that have lobbied aggressively for the removal of the MEK's terrorist designation. These lavishly resourced groups have pursued a sophisticated and multi-dimensional campaign that reached from the state-by-state field offices to the toniest K St. lobbying shops. And their efforts have gained substantial momentum in recent years, leaning on former senior government officials and journalists to make their case.
On Capitol Hill, the MEK emphasizes its credentials as an opponent of the Iranian regime, allowing wannabe masters of the "great game" to imagine that this enemy of our enemy is our friend. Among Republicans and Democrats alike, there is seemingly little curiosity as to the MEK's nature or its plans for Iran should it ever should come to power.
A who's who of former government officials have led the way in advocating for the MEK in Washington's corridors of power. There's former New York City mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean, President Barack Obama's former National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, and the former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Democrat Lee Hamilton. There's also Mitt Romney advisor Mitchell Reiss and former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. Who says bipartisanship is dead in Washington?
Is every one of these men and women a principled supporter of the MEK, dedicated to the liberation of Iran from Islamist tyranny? Seems doubtful. As their own records in government will attest, most did nothing for the MEK when in a position to do so. The more likely explanation is that at least some of these folks have been persuaded with money, most of it coming in the form of speaking fees. And there is lots of it. Where does it come from? The FBI won't tell those on Capitol Hill who have asked; the MEK insists the money is from its donors.
The ethics of accepting money for a speaking gig from a designated terrorist group is dubious -- but if it's happening through non-designated fronts, it's likely to be legally kosher. On the other hand, the Washington Postreportedin July that some of these speakers are also taking part in regular briefings and negotiations regarding the fate of Camp Ashraf, the MEK camp inside Iraq that the government in Baghdad is disbanding.
According to State Department sources, participants in those calls were advocates on behalf of the MEK, and were being used to relay messages to and from the group. If so, these individuals were acting as unregistered foreign agents for the MEK. The law is specific on this question: Acting on behalf of a foreign organization without properly registering with the U.S. government is a crime. The Justice Department is reportedly investigating former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell for his MEK ties, but few are sanguine the probe will go anywhere.
So what's the lesson here? Pretty simple. Announce you've renounced terrorism. Buy a bunch of supporters. Lobby to get off the terrorism list. Et voila.
The tale of the MEK reflects poorly on all involved, from the State Department to Capitol Hill to undeclared lobbyists. Unfortunately, the designation of foreign terrorist organizations has become a highly politicized exercise in which some groups are designated for the right reasons (terrorism) and others are not labeled, despite clearly meeting the statute's requirements. For example, the Haqqani network in Pakistan was only designated in September despite its long association with other terrorist groups and its own terrorist activities. At the very least, however, we will soon find out whether, freed of the opprobrium of its terrorist designation, the MEK will make any difference in our long-running battle with Iran. Somehow, I doubt it.
Ros-Lehtinen defends MEK as State Dept anger grows
aka; Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, Rajavi cult
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... The MEK seems to believe it can keep control of Camp Ashraf, its longtime compound near the Iran-Iraq border, and Clinton will still be under pressure to delist the group, this official said. "What bothers all of us working for a peaceful solution is that the MEK seems to believe all they have to do is hold firm and do whatever they want. They are being encouraged in this view by some of their American supporters," the official said. "If you are [MEK leader Maryam] Rajavi and are surrounded by all these people, you may think they can actually deliver and that is just terrible." This week, the MEK got the support of two new powerful Americans ...
The State Department is growing increasing frustrated with the MEK and its American lobbyists, and now with two leading lawmakers who are injecting themselves into the cause of the Iranian dissident group.
Tensions between Foggy Bottom and supporters of the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization opposed to the Iranian regime, have been building for months. The plan to relocate 3,200 members of the group from its compound in Iraq to a former U.S. military base appear stalled as the group lobbies to be taken off the list of terrorist organizations.
A federal court has ordered the State Department to make a decision on delisting the MEK by October, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has indicated that the group's willingness to complete the move to the former base, Camp Liberty, will be a key factor in the department's decision. State Department officials, however, now believe the MEK is stalling.
"It is past time for the MEK to recognize that Ashraf is not going to remain an MEK base in Iraq," Daniel Benjamin, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, told reporters on a conference call earlier this month. "The Iraqi government is committed to closing it, and any plan to wait out the government in the hope that something will change is irresponsible and dangerous."
Administration officials believe the MEK is getting bad advice and unhelpful support from its team of American advocates, some of whom are paid handsomely to advise the MEK and lobby the administration on its behalf (though all insist they are promoting the MEK's cause out of sincere conviction). The Treasury Department has opened an investigation into the funds paid to these activists, which often come from Iranian-American groups in the United States and are paid through a speakers' bureau.
An administration official told The Cable that the efforts on behalf of the MEK of Americans like Rudy Giuliani, Tom Ridge, Ed Rendell, James Jones, Mitchell Reiss, and now Newt Gingrich represent "sheer irresponsibility and greed which puts people's lives at risk,"
The Brunswick Group, the firm representing the advocates, declined to comment.
The MEK seems to believe it can keep control of Camp Ashraf, its longtime compound near the Iran-Iraq border, and Clinton will still be under pressure to delist the group, this official said.
"What bothers all of us working for a peaceful solution is that the MEK seems to believe all they have to do is hold firm and do whatever they want. They are being encouraged in this view by some of their American supporters," the official said. "If you are [MEK leader Maryam] Rajavi and are surrounded by all these people, you may think they can actually deliver and that is just terrible."
This week, the MEK got the support of two new powerful Americans, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA). The pair are circulating a letter this week to Clinton asking her to improve the conditions in Camp Liberty for the MEK.
"We respectfully request that the Department of State seek the Iraqi government's agreement to and implementation of a number of humanitarian measures. Until these measures are implemented, further voluntary relocation of Camp Ashraf residents would only exacerbate the current dreadful living conditions in Camp Liberty," the lawmakers wrote in the draft letter, obtained by The Cable.
Specifically, the lawmakers are requesting that the MEK residents in Camp Liberty be connected to the Iraqi main water system, be given more power generators, and be given new cars and trucks and other supplies. The administration official said that some of the requests are valid but the characterization of the conditions in Camp Liberty as "dreadful" is unfair.
"Really, are new cars a basic human right?" the official said.
Ambassador Dan Fried, the State Department official in charge of aiding the relocation of the MEK from Camp Ashraf, held a conference call with congressional staffers Tuesday, having just returned from Iraq. One staffer on the call said Fried was "furious" over congressional attempts to interfere in the transfer of MEK members to Camp Liberty. The Iraqi government has set a July 20 deadline for closing Camp Ashraf but the MEK are refusing to go, Fried told the staffers.
Fried said the Ros-Lehtinen letter was deeply unhelpful in that it further hardened the MEK's attitude against compromise, according to one witness sympathetic to his argument.
"From my perspective, these congressional attempts to placate the MEK's refusal to leave Ashraf is nothing short of irresponsible," this staffer said. "It's pandering of the worst sort and completely undermines U.S. policy. It's clear that Ros-Lehtinen and Sherman aren't actually interested in resolving the standoff, but posturing for political purposes by carrying the MEK's water."
Training Terrorists in Nevada: Seymour Hersh on U.S. Aid to Iranian Group Tied to Scientist Killings
(Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult)
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... Journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed that the Bush administration secretly trained an Iranian opposition group on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorists. Hersh reports the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command trained operatives from Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK, at a secret site in Nevada beginning in 2005. According to Hersh, MEK members were trained in intercepting communications, cryptography, weaponry and small unit tactics at the Nevada site up until President Obama took office. The MEK has been listed as a foreign terrorist groups since 1997 and is linked to a number of attacks, spanning from the murders of six U.S. citizens ...
Journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed that the Bush administration secretly trained an Iranian opposition group on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorists. Hersh reports the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command trained operatives from Mujahideen-e-Khalq, or MEK, at a secret site in Nevada beginning in 2005. According to Hersh, MEK members were trained in intercepting communications, cryptography, weaponry and small unit tactics at the Nevada site up until President Obama took office. The MEK has been listed as a foreign terrorist groups since 1997 and is linked to a number of attacks, spanning from the murders of six U.S. citizens in the 1970s to the recent wave of assassinations targeting Iranian nuclear scientists. Hersh also discusses the role of Israeli intelligence and notes the Obama administration knew about the training, "because they have access to what was going on in the previous administration in this area in terms of the MEK, in terms of operations inside Iran." His new report for The New Yorker blog, "Our Men in Iran?," comes as nuclear talks are set to resume this week between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. [includes rush transcript]
Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter for The New Yorker magazine. His latest piece for their website’s "News Desk" blog is titled "Our Men in Iran?"
... Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2007. M.E.K. spokesmen have denied any involvement in the killings, but early last month NBC News quoted two senior Obama Administration officials as confirming that the attacks were carried out by M.E.K. units that were financed and trained by Mossad, the Israeli secret service. NBC further quoted the Administration officials as denying any American involvement in the M.E.K. activities. The former senior intelligence official I spoke with seconded the NBC report that the Israelis were working with the M.E.K., adding ...
From the air, the terrain of the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, with its arid high plains and remote mountain peaks, has the look of northwest Iran. The site, some sixty-five miles northwest of Las Vegas, was once used for nuclear testing, and now includes a counterintelligence training facility and a private airport capable of handling Boeing 737 aircraft. It’s a restricted area, and inhospitable—in certain sections, the curious are warned that the site’s security personnel are authorized to use deadly force, if necessary, against intruders.
It was here that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. The M.E.K. had its beginnings as a Marxist-Islamist student-led group and, in the nineteen-seventies, it was linked to the assassination of six American citizens. It was initially part of the broad-based revolution that led to the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran. But, within a few years, the group was waging a bloody internal war with the ruling clerics, and, in 1997, it was listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department. In 2002, the M.E.K. earned some international credibility by publicly revealing—accurately—that Iran had begun enriching uranium at a secret underground location. Mohamed ElBaradei, who at the time was the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear monitoring agency, told me later that he had been informed that the information was supplied by the Mossad. The M.E.K.’s ties with Western intelligence deepened after the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush Administration’s fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations. Funds were covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and, ultimately, for anti-regime terrorist activities. Directly, or indirectly, the M.E.K. ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants.
Despite the growing ties, and a much-intensified lobbying effort organized by its advocates, M.E.K. has remained on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations—which meant that secrecy was essential in the Nevada training. “We did train them here, and washed them through the Energy Department because the D.O.E. owns all this land in southern Nevada,” a former senior American intelligence official told me. “We were deploying them over long distances in the desert and mountains, and building their capacity in communications—coördinating commo is a big deal.” (A spokesman for J.S.O.C. said that “U.S. Special Operations Forces were neither aware of nor involved in the training of M.E.K. members.”)
The training ended sometime before President Obama took office, the former official said. In a separate interview, a retired four-star general, who has advised the Bush and Obama Administrations on national-security issues, said that he had been privately briefed in 2005 about the training of Iranians associated with the M.E.K. in Nevada by an American involved in the program. They got “the standard training,” he said, “in commo, crypto [cryptography], small-unit tactics, and weaponry—that went on for six months,” the retired general said. “They were kept in little pods.” He also was told, he said, that the men doing the training were from JSOC, which, by 2005, had become a major instrument in the Bush Administration’s global war on terror. “The JSOC trainers were not front-line guys who had been in the field, but second- and third-tier guys—trainers and the like—and they started going off the reservation. ‘If we’re going to teach you tactics, let me show you some really sexy stuff…’ ”
It was the ad-hoc training that provoked the worried telephone calls to him, the former general said. “I told one of the guys who called me that they were all in over their heads, and all of them could end up trouble unless they got something in writing. The Iranians are very, very good at counterintelligence, and stuff like this is just too hard to contain.” The site in Nevada was being utilized at the same time, he said, for advanced training of élite Iraqi combat units. (The retired general said he only knew of the one M.E.K.-affiliated group that went though the training course; the former senior intelligence official said that he was aware of training that went on through 2007.)
Allan Gerson, a Washington attorney for the M.E.K., notes that the M.E.K. has publicly and repeatedly renounced terror. Gerson said he would not comment on the alleged training in Nevada. But such training, if true, he said, would be “especially incongruent with the State Department’s decision to continue to maintain the M.E.K. on the terrorist list. How can the U.S. train those on State’s foreign terrorist list, when others face criminal penalties for providing a nickel to the same organization?”
Robert Baer, a retired C.I.A. agent who is fluent in Arabic and had worked under cover in Kurdistan and throughout the Middle East in his career, initially had told me in early 2004 of being recruited by a private American company—working, so he believed, on behalf of the Bush Administration—to return to Iraq. “They wanted me to help the M.E.K. collect intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program,” Baer recalled. “They thought I knew Farsi, which I did not. I said I’d get back to them, but never did.” Baer, now living in California, recalled that it was made clear to him at the time that the operation was “a long-term thing—not just a one-shot deal.”
Massoud Khodabandeh, an I.T. expert now living in England who consults for the Iraqi government, was an official with the M.E.K. before defecting in 1996. In a telephone interview, he acknowledged that he is an avowed enemy of the M.E.K., and has advocated against the group. Khodabandeh said that he had been with the group since before the fall of the Shah and, as a computer expert, was deeply involved in intelligence activities as well as providing security for the M.E.K. leadership. For the past decade, he and his English wife have run a support program for other defectors. Khodabandeh told me that he had heard from more recent defectors about the training in Nevada. He was told that the communications training in Nevada involved more than teaching how to keep in contact during attacks—it also involved communication intercepts. The United States, he said, at one point found a way to penetrate some major Iranian communications systems. At the time, he said, the U.S. provided M.E.K. operatives with the ability to intercept telephone calls and text messages inside Iran—which M.E.K. operatives translated and shared with American signals intelligence experts. He does not know whether this activity is ongoing.
Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2007. M.E.K. spokesmen have denied any involvement in the killings, but early last month NBC News quoted two senior Obama Administration officials as confirming that the attacks were carried out by M.E.K. units that were financed and trained by Mossad, the Israeli secret service. NBC further quoted the Administration officials as denying any American involvement in the M.E.K. activities. The former senior intelligence official I spoke with seconded the NBC report that the Israelis were working with the M.E.K., adding that the operations benefitted from American intelligence. He said that the targets were not “Einsteins”; “The goal is to affect Iranian psychology and morale,” he said, and to “demoralize the whole system—nuclear delivery vehicles, nuclear enrichment facilities, power plants.” Attacks have also been carried out on pipelines. He added that the operations are “primarily being done by M.E.K. through liaison with the Israelis, but the United States is now providing the intelligence.” An adviser to the special-operations community told me that the links between the United States and M.E.K. activities inside Iran had been long-standing. “Everything being done inside Iran now is being done with surrogates,” he said.
The sources I spoke to were unable to say whether the people trained in Nevada were now involved in operations in Iran or elsewhere. But they pointed to the general benefit of American support. “The M.E.K. was a total joke,” the senior Pentagon consultant said, “and now it’s a real network inside Iran. How did the M.E.K. get so much more efficient?” he asked rhetorically. “Part of it is the training in Nevada. Part of it is logistical support in Kurdistan, and part of it is inside Iran. M.E.K. now has a capacity for efficient operations than it never had before.”
In mid-January, a few days after an assassination by car bomb of an Iranian nuclear scientist in Tehran, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, at a town-hall meeting of soldiers at Fort Bliss, Texas, acknowledged that the U.S. government has “some ideas as to who might be involved, but we don’t know exactly who was involved.” He added, “But I can tell you one thing: the United States was not involved in that kind of effort. That’s not what the United States does.”
... Ex-MEK member Eduard Termado is now living in Germany. His face is scarred to the point of being misshapen. His complexion is grey, his skin blotched and waxy, and his forehead constantly covered in dribbling beads of sweat - but then he spent nine years as a prisoner of war in Iraq. He joined the MEK hoping to help Iranian democracy and did not like what he saw. He says that after three years he asked to leave, but was told he couldn't. He stayed for 12 years. He now says joining the MEK was the biggest mistake of his life and he has expressed that feeling in an unusual way. He has married and produced three children. "My family is my protest against the MEK," he says ...
How do you get a group described by the US government as a cult and an officially designated foreign terrorist organisation to be viewed by many congressmen and parliamentarians as champions of human rights and secular democracy?
It would challenge even the most talented PR executive.
The starkly differing perceptions of the MEK or People's Mujahideen of Iran could be a case study in the power of image management - of what can be achieved not with guns but by the way information is disseminated.
The organisation has a history of ideological and tactical flexibility.
Since the 1970s, its rhetoric has changed from Islamist to secular; from socialist to capitalist; from pro-Iranian-revolution to anti-Iranian-revolution; from pro-Saddam to pro-American; from violent to peaceful.
And there is another dichotomy - it has admiring supporters and ardent critics.
Take, for example, the US military officers who had to deal with the MEK after they invaded Iraq in 2003.
Not only was the MEK heavily armed and designated as terrorist by the US government, it also had some very striking internal social policies.
For example, it required its members in Iraq to divorce. Why? Because love was distracting them from their struggle against the mullahs in Iran.
And the trouble is that people love their children too.
So the MEK leadership asked its members to send their children away to foster families in Europe. Europe would be safer, the group explained.
Some parents have not seen their children for 20 years and more.
And just to add to the mix, former members consistently describe participating in regular public confessions of their sexual fantasies.
You might think that would set alarm bells ringing - and for some US officers it did.
One colonel I spoke to, who had daily contact with the MEK leadership for six months in 2004, said that the organisation was a cult, and that some of the members who wanted to get out had to run away.
And yet another officer, who was there at precisely the same time and is now a retired general, has become an active lobbyist on the MEK's behalf.
With his open smile and earnest friendly manner, he is a good advocate. "Cult? How about admirably focused group?" he says. "And I never heard of anyone being held against their will."
We later emailed him about a former member who claimed to have told the general to his face that people were held against their will. "He's lying," the general replied.
You just have to decide which side to believe.
Ex-MEK member Eduard Termado is now living in Germany.
His face is scarred to the point of being misshapen. His complexion is grey, his skin blotched and waxy, and his forehead constantly covered in dribbling beads of sweat - but then he spent nine years as a prisoner of war in Iraq.
He joined the MEK hoping to help Iranian democracy and did not like what he saw.
He says that after three years he asked to leave, but was told he couldn't. He stayed for 12 years.
He now says joining the MEK was the biggest mistake of his life and he has expressed that feeling in an unusual way.
He has married and produced three children. "My family is my protest against the MEK," he says.
There are many other stories.
Children who never forgave their parents for abandoning them. Children who did forgive and are now joyously reunited. Divorcees who have got out of the organisation saying they still love their former spouses who are still in.
In over 25 years of reporting, I have been lied to often enough but, as successive former MEK members told what they had been through, their tears seemed real enough to me.
And yet a significant number of politicians in the US and UK would say I was tricked because the former MEK members who spread these kind of stories are, in fact, Iranian agents.
There are more than 30 big names - people like Rudy Giuliani former mayor of New York, Howard Dean at one time the democratic presidential hopeful, a retired governor, a former head of the FBI.
Many get paid. Of those who have declared their earnings, the going rate for a pro-MEK speech seems to be $20,000 (£12,500) for 10 minutes. But then many other prominent MEK supporters act without payment.
Why do people take such strong positions on the MEK?
After a month talking to people on both sides of the argument, I am left thinking this. Some supporters are paid, others see the MEK through the prism of Iran - they will just support anything that offers hope of change there. Many are well motivated but some are naive.
And the former members?
Some are embittered, others just seem broken.
Which is when it occurred to me - the perception people have of the MEK may say more about them than about the organisation itself.
It is so difficult to pin down you can see your own reflection in it.
How to listen to From Our Own Correspondent:
BBC Radio 4: A 30-minute programme on Saturdays, 11:30 BST.
Second 30-minute programme on Thursdays, 11:00 BST (some weeks only).
... Whether they leave voluntarily, or by force, leave they must. The PMOI has a history of killing Americans and mounting attacks within Iran. But it now says it has renounced violence and should be removed from America's list of designated foreign terrorist organisations. Its high profile PR campaign involves paying senior retired US officials who then speak on its behalf. We report on the way in which a former pariah group accused of killing Americans has won over intelligence experts, generals, and congressmen from both sides of the political divide...
The People's Mujahedin of Iran - a group of dissident Iranians who have been fighting to topple the Mullahs since the 1980s - say they fear they are about to be massacred.
Over 3,000 PMOI members – designated terrorists by the US and a cult by some former members - live in Iraq at Camp Ashraf, 40 miles north of Baghdad and 70 miles from Iran itself.
The camp residents say they are vulnerable because with the US now having left Iraq, they are at the mercy of the pro-Iranian, Iraqi government, which is demanding the camp be closed down.
Whether they leave voluntarily, or by force, leave they must.
The PMOI has a history of killing Americans and mounting attacks within Iran.
But it now says it has renounced violence and should be removed from America's list of designated foreign terrorist organisations.
Its high profile PR campaign involves paying senior retired US officials who then speak on its behalf.
We report on the way in which a former pariah group accused of killing Americans has won over intelligence experts, generals, and congressmen from both sides of the political divide.
As the deadline for the closing of Camp Ashraf draws near we ask just who are the People's Mujahedin of Iran - terrorists or freedom fighters?
A cult or a deeply committed army who could be used by the US to fight for change in Iran?
... Under federal law, advocates for foreign organizations are required to register as lobbyists and provide details about their clients and income. But the MEK supporters have not registered, which would require disclosing the amounts they are paid and the identities of officials with whom they meet. The supporters argue that they are acting legitimately to facilitate U.S. policy decisions, which could make them exempt from registration requirements.But scholars of lobbying regulations say the contacts with administration officials easily meet the definition of lobbying under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, a law that has sometimes led to criminal charges ...
Joby Warrick and Julie Tate, Friday, July 6, 2:45 AM
A well-financed lobbying campaign by prominent U.S. politicians and former officials on behalf of a designated terrorist organization is focusing new attention on the group and its influential advocates.
Supporters of the Iranian opposition group Mujaheddin-e Khalq, or MEK, have met with senior Obama administration officials to push for the organization’s removal from the State Department’s terrorist list and better treatment of its members at a camp in Iraq.
Public appearances on behalf of the MEK by such people as former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, former Pennsylvania governor Edward G. Rendell and former Obama national security adviser James L. Jones had already sparked an investigation by the Treasury Department into whether payments of tens of thousands of dollars to some of them violated anti-terrorism laws.
In recent weeks, new questions have been raised about whether private meetings, conference calls and other contact with officials at the State Department and elsewhere in the administration over the past year require the advocates’ registration as lobbyists or agents of a foreign entity.
Under federal law, advocates for foreign organizations are required to register as lobbyists and provide details about their clients and income. But the MEK supporters have not registered, which would require disclosing the amounts they are paid and the identities of officials with whom they meet.
The supporters argue that they are acting legitimately to facilitate U.S. policy decisions, which could make them exempt from registration requirements.
But scholars of lobbying regulations say the contacts with administration officials easily meet the definition of lobbying under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, a law that has sometimes led to criminal charges.
“The law applies to anyone engaged in political or lobbying activity — or even propaganda — on behalf of a foreign ‘principal,’ a term that is defined broadly,” said David Cole, a professor and expert on criminal and constitutional law at Georgetown University Law School. “It’s a very low bar.”
The MEK has been campaigning for years to get off the terrorist list, including buying advertisements in The Washington Post and other publications. A federal appeals court has given Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton until October to make a decision on whether to remove the group.
At the same time, the MEK and its advocates have been clashing with the Iraqi government over efforts to relocate 3,300 MEK members living in exile at a former Iraqi military base since the mid-1980s.
The MEK has enlisted some of the biggest names in U.S. politics and national security. In addition to Giuliani, Rendell and Jones, the group’s advocates have included former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge, former Vermont governor Howard Dean, former U.S. attorney general Michael Mukasey, former FBI director Louis Freeh, former Joint Chiefs chairman Hugh Shelton, former U.N. ambassadors John Bolton and Bill Richardson, and Mitchell Reiss, a former State Department official who has been among Republican president candidate Mitt Romney’s top foreign policy advisers since 2008.
Rendell, Giuliani and Mukasey were among 16 prominent former U.S. officials who flew to Paris for a pro-MEK rally last month. Also in Paris was Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and Republican presidential candidate. In a video, Gingrich is seen bowing to the MEK’s co-founder. Afterward, Gingrich appealed for “decisive action” by the United States on the group’s behalf.
The MEK and its umbrella group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, denied asking anyone to lobby for them
The dissidents “have not asked anyone in the United States to advocate for them, nor do they have any agents or lobbyists in that country,” said Shahin Gobadi, a spokesman. He said State Department officials had asked U.S. supporters to intervene to prevent a “humanitarian catastrophe” at the MEK’s Iraqi camp, and noted that more than 100 U.S. lawmakers have co-sponsored legislation to remove the MEK from the terrorist list.
Still, some of the MEK’s prominent surrogates have acknowledged accepting travel expenses from MEK-allied groups as well as speaking fees of $10,000 to $40,000 per engagement. Rendell has acknowledged accepting more than $150,000 in expenses from MEK supporters. Before he began speaking on their behalf, he says, he knew very little about the MEK.
The supporters, some of whom have acknowledged intervening on the MEK’s behalf with U.S. officials, say their motives are humanitarian. They say pro-Iranian elements in the Iraqi government have attacked the group’s followers since U.S. troops who had protected them left Iraq.
“A number of us are working with the State Department to facilitate the removal of the Iranian dissidents” from the MEK’s base in Iraq, Dean said in an e-mail response to a Post query. “Since this is an effort to facilitate U.S. government policy, it does not require any form of registration.”
None of the other participants responded to requests for comment.
Federal lobbying law defines a foreign “agent” as someone who acts “at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal, or of a person any of whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in part by a foreign principal.” It covers activities that include acting as a publicity agency or political consultant or representing the interests of the foreign group “before any agency or official of the government of the United States.”
“The only defense would be if you can claim that you’re doing it on your own, unpaid,” said a retired senior U.S. official and expert on lobbying law, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss hypothetical cases covered by the statute. “But if you’re getting money from the same group to make speeches, it’s pretty hard to make the case.”
Although the foreign agents act is often flouted in practice, “the fact that it’s a criminal statute shows how the government regards this kind of activity,” the former official said.
In addition to meeting with the MEK supporters, State Department officials have acknowledged that they have used them to relay messages directly to the MEK leadership to try to resolve what has become a dangerous standoff over the closing of Camp Ashraf, the former Iraqi army base northeast of Baghdad that has served as the group’s home in exile since 1986.
With the Iraq government vowing to close the camp by July 20, U.S. and U.N. officials are seeking to relocate its 3,300 residents to the grounds of what was once Camp Liberty, the former U.S. military base near Baghdad’s airport.
The controversy over lobbying is the latest wrinkle in an ongoing dispute over U.S. policy toward the MEK, whose name translates as “People’s Holy Warriors of Iran,” befitting its self-described status as the leading Iranian opposition group dedicated to overthrowing the country’s ruling mullahs.
Founded by Iranian students in the 1960s as a Marxist-Islamist movement, the group is accused of killing six Americans in terrorist attacks in the 1970s during its struggle to topple the U.S.-backed shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Some of its members participated in the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 before the MEK broke with Iran’s new Islamic rulers and began attacking the regime with suicide bombings and assassinations. Many of the group’s leaders were captured, tried and executed.
MEK officials sought exile abroad, first in France and later in Iraq, where the group found common cause with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The dictator provided the movement with a sanctuary — later dubbed Camp Ashraf — as well as weapons, tanks and other equipment. MEK troops fought against their countrymen during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war.
Connections to Iraq
MEK leaders officially renounced terrorism in 2001, but ties to the Iraqi dictator earned the group the hatred of Iranians and many Iraqis. In 2003, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq left the group without its powerful sponsor and with few appealing prospects, unable to return to Iran and detested by the new Iraqi leadership. No other countries offered refuge to a group that, in addition to the terrorism stigma from the 1970s, had gained a reputation for cultlike behavior — MEK members at Camp Ashraf wear military clothing and adhere to a doctrine that requires mandatory divorce for married members as well as celibacy, enforced separation of the sexes and unquestioned allegiance to the MEK’s leadership.
“I see them as a cross between Hezbollah and the Branch Davidians,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It is legitimate to debate whether the MEK meets the Justice Department’s legal definition of a terrorist organization. But it is outright false to claim that they are a legitimate, democracy-minded opposition group with a wide base inside Iran.”
The group did possess two attributes that would eventually allow it to build a network of allies and friends. One was an extensive cash reserve, some of it donated by wealthy Iranians in the West, and the rest acquired from still-unknown sources, something MEK leaders decline to discuss. The other was a deep antipathy for the Iranian government, a view widely shared by many conservative Republicans as well as more hawkish Democrats.
The MEK’s appeal as a potential partner against Iran sharpened in 2002 when the group exposed the existence of a secret uranium-enrichment plant near the Iranian town of Natanz. Slowly, a small band of influential Americans began advocating direct U.S. support for the dissidents as a tool for undermining Iran’s theocratic government.
“What’s the answer? Regime change,” said Ridge, the former homeland security secretary, in a speech on behalf of the MEK in late May. “The heart of this effort, we all believe, is to recognize democratic opposition — it is the MEK.”
Rendell and other MEK supporters also have acknowledged that their advocacy has attracted the attention of federal prosecutors. Since the spring, Treasury Department officials have interviewed several of the group’s supporters to determine whether they violated U.S. law by providing support to an organization on the U.S. terrorist list. A Treasury spokesman, John Sullivan, said the department does not comment on “potential investigations.” Other U.S. officials familiar with the group said the inquiry remains essentially on hold while awaiting a formal decision on the MEK’s terrorist status.
“The MEK is a designated terrorist group,” Sullivan said. “Therefore, U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group.”
State Department view
Depending on events at Camp Ashraf, the MEK could soon lose its terrorist label. Clinton told Congress in May that the State Department would look favorably toward delisting the group if it complies with U.N. efforts to relocate its members in Iraq to new temporary quarters.
More than half the members have completed the move, but transfers of the remaining 1,200 have stalled amid complaints from the MEK about poor conditions and mistreatment by Iraqi officials. MEK leaders are balking at sending additional convoys to Camp Liberty, having apparently calculated that their Washington advocates can secure better terms for them.
In recent days, tensions between Iraqis and MEK officials have escalated, raising fears that the situation could turn violent if the exiles refuse to vacate Camp Ashraf by the July 20 deadline, U.S. officials say.
“The great tragedy is that people who say they want to help the MEK have instead emboldened their sense of entitled status, and that could get them into serious trouble,” said a senior State Department official involved in MEK policy discussions. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
“If the supporters want to save lives, they could do the MEK a great service by getting them to focus on real issues and not stage extravagant provocations,” the official said.
