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a Senate speech after the September 11 attacks, New Jersey Democrat
Robert Torricelli suggested ways in which Congress might help the
federal government fight terrorism. The first change he proposed was
to abolish the five-year statute of limitations on prosecution of
terrorists. "The nation has no statute of limitations for treason
or for murder," he said. "Terrorism is every [bit] as insidious,
and the statute of limitations should be lifted."
But even as
he spoke, Torricelli continued his active support for the National
Council of Resistance of Iran — an organization the State Department
classifies as a front group for the People's Mujahedin of Iran,
a terrorist group supported by Saddam Hussein. From its inception
over 35 years ago, the Mujahedin has consistently engaged in attacks
on American interests overseas. It has killed U.S. servicemen and
civilians, and bombed U.S. business offices; it participated in
the 1979 seizure of the American embassy in Tehran. Despite its
inclusion on the State Department's select list of global terrorist
organizations for the last six years, a spokeswoman for Torricelli
claims the senator still fully supports the group.
Nor is Torricelli
alone. Other members of Congress have also been strong advocates
of the People's Mujahedin. Indeed, at least two congressmen —
James Traficant, an Ohio Democrat, and William "Lacy"
Clay, a Missouri Democrat — wrote to Secretary of State Colin
Powell on the group's behalf after September 11.
How has a terrorist
group managed to win the support of mainstream U.S. politicians?
Simple: Its political representatives in the U.S. have worked hard
to repackage the group as a legitimate dissident organization fighting
for democracy in Iran — whitewashing its record and duping
our leaders.
In its early
years, the People's Mujahedin was devoted to reading Marx, Ho Chi
Minh, and Che Guevara, and adapting their principles to a Shiite
society. Trained in terror tactics by the PLO, the group was devoted
to the violent overthrow of the shah, whom it perceived as a CIA
puppet. But soon after Ayatollah Khomeini deposed the shah, the
People's Mujahedin found itself on the outside of Iran's new power
structure. The group had always been more Marxist than Muslim, and
the clerical forces in the new regime turned against their former
comrades.
In 1981, the
Mujahedin's leaders fled to Paris and threw their support behind
Iraq's Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran and the ayatollah.
In 1986, they moved to Baghdad — where, with Saddam's assistance,
they started another military wing known as the National Liberation
Army. A 1994 State Department report indicates that the Mujahedin
has trained and fought alongside Iraqi troops on a number of occasions,
and that "Saddam Hussein has been one of [its] primary financiers,
providing weapons and cash totaling an estimated hundreds of millions
of dollars."
"They're
a very, very bad bunch," says an official with the anti-Saddam
Iraqi National Congress. "They take direct orders from Saddam,
and they've hoodwinked people on Capitol Hill." A spokesman
for Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the former shah who advocates
Iranian democracy, offers a more diplomatic assessment. "We
do consider that the democratic movement in Iran should be all inclusive,"
he says. "However, we cannot accept those groups that resort
to violence and terrorism as a means of bringing democracy to Iran."
Despite its
violent history, the People's Mujahedin would like to gain international
legitimacy as Iran's "government in exile." Its immediate
goal is to get its name off the State Department's list of terrorist
organizations; to that end, it now purports to support a host of
democratic ideals, from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
to freedom of religion and the free market. It has even abandoned
its revolutionary flag — composed of a Koran verse, a sickle,
and a Kalashnikov assault rifle — for that of the former shah,
whom they worked to depose.
But there's
little evidence of real change. The group's leaders are the same
ones who led it during its anti-shah days, and the U.S. front group's
website openly admits its affiliation with the Iraq-based Mujahedin
military force.
The Mujahedin's
Washington spokesman, Alireza Jafarzadeh, attempts — unconvincingly
— to distance the group from its past. He says, for example,
that the group assassinated Americans in the 1970s because it had
been taken over by radicals; in fact, U.S. intelligence indicates
that Massoud Rajavi, the group's leader, was in firm control at
the time. Jafarzadeh also claims that the 1979 U.S.-embassy takeover
was a Khomeini scheme to test his supporters, and that the Mujahedin
had to either "endorse [it] entirely" or take a vague
and "very calculated" decision to sign on; Jafarzadeh
claims the group took the latter.
But in fact,
on the day of the takeover, the Mujahedin issued a statement: "After
the shah, it's America's turn." And when the hostages were
released, the group boasted that it was "the first force who
rose unequivocally to the support of the occupation of the American
spy center."
Still, the
group continues to find naïve supporters like Congressman Edolphus
Towns, Democrat of New York. He says, "I think they could replace
[Iran's mullahs], I really do." Experts on Iran scoff at this
claim.
Congressman
Gary Ackerman, also a New York Democrat, acknowledges that the Mujahedin's
ties with Iraq are "disturbing," but he brushes them off
as an acceptable tradeoff: "I think it would help if people
understand that when you're trying to get rid of a terrorist regime,
you use who you can." According to Iran Brief, an independent
watchdog publication, Ackerman received more than $32,000 from People's
Mujahedin sympathizers in his 1998 race.
But the Mujahedin's
strongest congressional ally is Torricelli, a senior member of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Iran Brief says he has
received more than $140,000 in Mujahedin-related contributions.
Over the past decade, Torricelli has written a slew of letters to
administration officials and participated in several of the U.S.
front group's events. In his most recent letter, dated August 27,
2001, he urged the State Department not to redesignate the People's
Mujahedin as a terrorist group. On October 5, the group was again
listed among State's 28 targeted organizations. "Our position
remains the same," a Torricelli spokeswoman says, "and
that is that the [group] is a political organization advocating
democracy in Iran."
The spokeswoman
claims that "more than 200" members of Congress support
the Mujahedin; but this is seriously misleading. While a lengthy
"Dear Colleague" letter decrying the Iranian regime —
distributed in October 2000 by Ackerman and Florida Republican Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen — did garner 228 signatures, mention of this group
was buried at the bottom of the back of the page. Had it been more
prominent in the letter, support could well have been considerably
lower. Indiana Republican Dan Burton signed the letter, but his
spokesman now says that the Mujahedin "are not exactly the
kind of people we want to associate with. Most members will sign
on to the generic anti-Iran stuff, but they stay away from these
guys." Burton supported the Mujahedin until 1995, when evidence
presented by the State Department convinced him to withdraw his
backing.
Burton has
it right: There are growing signs that young Iranians are displeased
with their regime, and they certainly deserve our support. But anti-American
terrorists, just as clearly, do not.
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