Iranian Rebels Urge Pentagon Not to Let Iraq Expel Them

Iranian Rebels Urge Pentagon Not to Let Iraq Expel Them
By DOUGLAS JEHL

New York Times
December 13, 2003

Representatives of an Iranian opposition group are appealing to the Pentagon to overrule an order this week by the Iraqi Governing Council that would expel its members from Iraq by the end of the year, possibly to Iran.

The group, the People's Mujahedeen, or Mujahedeen Khalq, maintained armed camps in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. It is listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, but it has strong supporters in the Pentagon, who see it as an important pressure point on the Iranian government.

The request was sent on Thursday to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and shown to The New York Times on Friday by someone sympathetic to the group. It is being cast by some in the organization as a last-ditch effort to avoid an expulsion that could put its members into the hands of the Tehran government.

Iran has quietly been seeking to persuade the Bush administration to agree to hand over the group, administration officials said. Tehran has relayed word through intermediaries that it may move in turn to expel members of Al Qaeda that it says it has in custody. But the Bush administration has rejected the idea of such an exchange.

The group's status in Iraq since the American invasion has remained murky, with several thousand of its members confined to a sprawling camp outside Baghdad under American military supervision as part of a cease-fire agreement reached in April.

None of the group's members have been detained by the United States, and they have been permitted to keep some small weapons and to continue broadcasts into Iran.

Bush administration officials have defended that treatment as appropriate to the group's status as a terrorist organization. But the State Department spokesman, Richard A. Boucher, has refused to say whether the administration supports the order by the Iraqi Governing Council, whose authority to act unilaterally remains uncertain. Mr. Boucher has said only that American officials will be ''discussing the matter'' with their Iraqi counterparts.

In appealing to the Pentagon, the Mujahedeen are clearly reaching out to factions within the administration that have shown the most sympathy for the group, which has carried out many acts of sabotage and assassination inside Iran and which the Iranian government regards as its most powerful external foe.

In a letter sent Thursday to Mr. Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and others, a lawyer for the group argued that the United States had an obligation under the Geneva Convention as the occupying power in Iraq to prevent the organization's members from being expelled.

Any expulsion, particularly to Iran, ''would constitute a violation of the laws of war and an egregious breach of international human rights law,'' said the letter from Marc Hezelin, a Swiss lawyer representing the group.

Larry Di Rita, a spokesman for Mr. Rumsfeld, declined to comment on Friday, saying he did not know whether the defense secretary had received Mr. Hezelin's letter.

Iran has hailed the decision to expel the group by the end of the year. The order did not specify a destination, but the Iranian statement suggested that Tehran believed that it would be given custody of the fighters.

The People's Mujahedeen was listed as a terrorist organization by the United States during the Clinton administration, which blamed it for the killing of Americans in Iran in the 1970's.

Last summer, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell raised the pressure by outlawing several of the group's affiliates in the United States, while France moved even more harshly in June by arresting more than 150 members in raids outside Paris.

American warplanes bombed the Mujahedeen's camps in Iraq during the war. But the group, which operated with the support of the Hussein government, did not take part in attacks against United States forces.

In the months since, the Pentagon and the State Department have squabbled about how the organization should be treated, with the Pentagon winning an initial battle that led to a negotiated agreement rather than an unconditional surrender.

The State Department has succeeded in blocking any reconsideration of the group's status as a terrorist organization, an option being pressed by some at the Pentagon to add to pressure on Iran.

But senior officials say the administation has been united in rejecting a proposal floated during the summer by Iran for an exchange of Mujahedeen members for Qaeda fighters whom Iran said it was willing to surrender to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab countries.

At a State Department briefing this week, Mr. Boucher said that all countries had an obligation to act against terrorism, and that the obligation was ''not dependent on some two-way deal.''