U.S. said slow to move against Iranian group

U.S. said slow to move against Iranian group
Reuters
November 13, 2003
By Arshad Mohammed

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Some U.S. officials said on Thursday the U.S. military has not moved fast enough against the Mujahideen-e-Khalq Iranian opposition group in Iraq despite its U.S. designation as a "foreign terrorist organization."

The White House sought to quash suggestions the military has treated the group, which seeks the overthrow of the Iranian government, leniently and stressed the U.S. policy that it is a "terrorist organization."

U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, quickly echoed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said MEK members in Iraq were being screened for "possible involvement in war crimes, terrorism and other criminal activities."

Rice's comments in an interview with the Washington Post -- parts of which were repeated almost verbatim in a written statement from Rumsfeld, exposed a rift within the Bush administration over the group.

Members of the group surrendered to U.S. forces in Iraq and are now in camps in Northern Iraq but U.S. officials say there are questions about whether they have been fully disarmed.

"I don't know why DOD (the Department of Defense) isn't moving more aggressively against them. It's been an issue," said a State Department official who asked not to be named.

Rice's comments followed a Washington Post report on Sunday that described an easygoing relationship between U.S. soldiers and MEK members in Iraq and that quoted a U.S. sergeant as saying: "The problem is they're still labeled as terrorists, even though we both know they're not."

"The U.S. remains committed to preventing the MEK contained in Iraq from engaging in terrorist activity and to preventing its reconstitution inside Iraq as a terrorist organization," the Rumsfeld statement said. He said MEK "heavy equipment" had been seized but said nothing about its small arms.

Some U.S. officials suggested that the U.S. forces on the ground were moving slowly because they had more pressing worries, such as fending off the rising number of guerrilla attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq.

"They've got these guys penned up, they know where they are, they're not doing anything. They've got a whole country to sort of pacify ... so I think it's a question of means more than anything else," said one official. "It's just basically a question of how do you get everything done that needs to be done as quickly as everybody wants it to get done."