Curveball Revisited Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

According to an article last week in the Washington Post, some of our best intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program is coming from the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK), a militant group based in Iraq that is dedicated to overthrowing the Iranian government.  Pretty scary considering the disastrous intelligence that came from Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) in the run up to the Iraq War.

The MEK is a group of terrorists / freedom fighters / American allies that our government can’t seem to make up its mind about.  In 1997 they were added to the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist groups, but after the U.S. invasion in 2003 the Bush Administration granted them status of “protected persons” under the Geneva Convention.  Saddam saw the group as a useful ally in undermining the Iranian regime.  The Bush Administration seems to be using them for the same purposes.

Cutting deals sometimes with unsavory characters is an unfortunate reality in foreign policy.  The real problem here is that according to the article this group is providing key intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons program and its operations in Iraq.  Have we learned nothing from Chalabi, “Curveball” and the INC?  This group’s sole mission is to overthrow the Iranian government.  They have every incentive to cook up the intelligence and no reason to be straightforward with us.  Are we really going to go down this path again?

Still, all the claims in the article were made by the MEK and weren’t backed up by American intelligence or military sources.  So let’s hope against hope that it’s just shoddy reporting and not another case of the administration using questionable sources to build its case.

Comments

[shahab]

Both former State Department official Martin Indyk and Jack Straw have admitted that the MEK were put on the FTO list only at the behest of the Iranian regime. They are not a terror organization but rather a legitimate movement that has been used by the west in their policy of appeasement of the Iranian regime. It is time that the people really take a look at the facts with respect to the MEK and not the rhetoric that has been spewed in the effort to appease the mullahs.

[J Thomas]

Shahab, are you saying that MEK has not done sabotage or assassination in iran or elsewhere?

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