UK MP Steve McCabe hits back in Saddam row

A Birmingham Labour MP is at the centre of a row after attending a meeting in the House of Commons of a group which has supported terrorism and is loyal to Saddam Hussein.

Steve McCabe accepted an invitation to meet members of the National Council of Resistance in Iran last Thursday.

Although the group is not banned in this country, it has been declared a terrorist organisation by the US State Department and its assets have been frozen.

The NCRI has close links with the People's Mujahedin of Iran and until the fall of Saddam ran military camps in Iraq. PMOI fighters helped Saddam brutally quash Kurdish and Shia uprisings in Iraq.

Mr McCabe, MP for Birmingham Hall Green, dismissed as "nonsense" a national newspaper report which stated he had invited the NCRI to the Commons.

He declined to discuss the matter in detail, adding: "There are a number of inaccuracies in the story. It was a deliberate attempt to mislead."

Mr McCabe, as parliamentary private secretary to Education Secretary Charles Clarke, is a junior member of the Government.

He said he will talk to lawyers about the report. He added: "The NCRI is a legal organisation in this country. To suggest in any way that I am linked to terrorism is nonsense."

The US has declared NCRI and PMOI as the same organisation.