State (Dept) Questions Military Tolerance of Iranian Dissidents

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57465-2003Sep10.html

The State Department has expressed concern to the Pentagon that the U.S. military appears to have allowed an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group to continue its activities against the Iranian government, including crossing into Iran to conduct attacks, despite an order from President Bush that the group be disarmed, administration officials said yesterday.

Four months ago, after heavy pressure from the State Department, Bush ordered U.S. military forces to surround the group's camps along the Iraq-Iran border and to force the group to give up its arms. But administration officials said the Pentagon has allowed the group to retain its weapons, come and go from the camps at will and use camp facilities to broadcast propaganda into Iran.

In the past week, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell wrote Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld about the matter after lower-level State Department officials were unable to get answers from their counterparts at the Pentagon, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Powell's note cited reports that the group, known as the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK), enjoyed wide freedom to continue their operations. The note also mentioned that intercepts of Iranian government communications indicated the Mujaheddin continued to pose problems for the government in Tehran.

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"It's unbelievable," one State Department official said. "It's a pretty cushy arrangement for a terrorist organization. But the Pentagon continues to see them as useful, and they seem to be playing a waiting game until the policy toward the MEK changes."