Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you the situation in Camp Ashraf, Iraq, and the former National Liberation Army of the Mujahedin e-Khalq, the MeK. Before I proceed, there is one thing that must be stated up front. As the first an

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Right. The first one we should probably raise is the founding of the MeK, and that's what people like to go to and call it a Marxist-Leninist organization. The MeK was founded in 1965 by a group of students who did some study, and what they came up with was that there should be

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  From what I've seen, it's not tribal in Iran and Iraq. But at this point in time, it is religious, and at this point in time, there are a lot of opportunists. I'll drop back to my role as the anti-terrorism officer for all of Iraq. The United States, before it invaded.... First

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Sure.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I smile with a feeling of pain, almost, but I am very pleased that you have totally captured it. Let me hit the second point first. The people who are speaking out.... Tom Ridge, the former Director of Homeland Security, is saying that there was not a single document that came

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That's a good point. I've said publicly many times that I centre the problem down towards the State Department. I've said that this State Department is serving Hillary Clinton no better than they served Colin Powell when they sent him to those “weapons of mass destruction” speec

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  With the Mujahedin e-Khalq it went over a period of years. When I was the anti-terrorism officer I went to the commanding general over all detention operations in October 2003, because I had a serious problem I had detected and needed to talk to her about. That was that she had a

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  When I became base commander I was exposed to them on almost an hourly basis.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I had individuals who fooled me greatly, but as to an organization of that magnitude that I personally dealt with over that period of time, no.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  You're correct, and I owe the gentleman beside you an apology. That's one rumour I forgot to mention. We did have those rumours that they were still armed. I did have the ability to check all the camps, and even before I arrived there were inspections of all the camps. We had the

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Not through shaking the hands. We did have another facility that had about 190 what we refer to as defectors, and those were the two of the agreements. Julie Norman worked one just before I got there, and I worked a clarification of one. The people did leave. We had a couple of w

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That is the hardest of all. I have a philosophy that if you beat the enemy you feel good about it; if he beats you, you live with it. If we don't do something different we'll be living with their death. They will be rolled up by Maliki. We saw what was done in 2009, and it was mo

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Sir, that is an excellent question. Also, at congressional hearings with Congressman Rohrabacher yesterday those same issues were brought up. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson pointed out to the State Department that she feels the condition you just described should be set down, and

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Sir, your comments are totally on target, and I agree with you 100%. To show you how much Maliki is actually behind this, this is the magazine of his political party. The centre article is titled “MeK Organization: international terrorist from previous dictatorship and the depth