No, indeed. Look, the U.S. shouldn't have turned over responsibility for Camp Ashraf to the Iraqis in the first place. In fact, I wrote a memo back in late 2008 that I provided to the state department quoting public statements by the Iraqi Prime Minister and the national security adviser, and a range of statements from Tehran, about how they were going to crush, destroy, kill, and otherwise imprison the residents.
You're only legally allowed to hand over responsibility from one party to the Fourth Geneva Convention to another party—which Iraq is—to the Fourth Geneva Convention if you are confident that this party will respect the rights provided to civilians protected in a time of war under the Fourth Geneva Convention. The U.S. knew those requirements were not going to be met by the Iraqis, yet we turned over that responsibility.
I do think if Canada were to step forward and set an example for the rest of the world, even to start with 100 or with a symbolic number of 50 or something like that, it would say that we hear this whole argument about IPNs. We'll go do our own individual assessment. We'll announce that we'll take 50, or we'll announce that we'll take 100. We'll send our own security people to interview them thoroughly. You all can consult with the United States...which, by the way, had seven intelligence agencies and security agencies interview each of these residents when they were in Camp Ashraf in the first place. Presumably with intelligence sharing being what it is between the United States and Canada, you could receive the files of these people and the assessments that were done by U.S. intelligence as well.
Making that announcement publicly would, in my view, force Nouri al-Maliki to let that number go. Given his public claims that he wants them to be resettled, if you call him out on that claim and say, “We're trying to resettle them, but Nouri al-Maliki is blocking us from receiving them”, then that is a pretty hard position for most of the world to be able to defend.