Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I also want to welcome you back again, Colonel Martin. I recall your last compelling testimony before us. Today, you again eloquently described the harassment and brutality at Camp Hurriya, and perhaps the most graphic reference in your testimony was the one in which you referred to Mayor Giuliani's position that “this is a concentration camp”. You noted that “One spark could easily set this camp ablaze with a slaughter that would dwarf the 2009 and 2011 attacks. Then Hurriya could become an extermination camp”.
That to me is perhaps the most alarming testimony that I've heard on this issue. I just want to say that it dovetails somewhat with a statement or submission made by my colleague and friend, Professor Alan Dershowitz, who characterized the situation recently in a meeting in Washington as follows:
We have two emergencies: Now, we have the existing emergency of the facility itself. But we also have the continuing humanitarian emergency that every day, every day that a member of Camp Ashraf lives in Iraq is a day that they do not know whether they will complete that day in safety or alive.
He went on to say: Iraq has become basically a wholly-owned subsidiary of Iran—
—and then concluded on this main point: And therefore the main issue is to get these innocent people out of Iraq and to safety in places around the world where they can live in peace.
We are now awaiting the transfer of 1,200 more people into a situation that Professor Dershowitz has described as a dual emergency, underpinned by what you have described. My question is, should we be working not so much to facilitate the move of the other 1,200 to Hurriya but to remove those who are there, along with the 1,200, to a safe haven?