[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 51 (Wednesday, March 28, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E472-E474]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    SUPPORTING GOVERNOR ED RENDELL'S REMARKS REGARDING CAMP LIBERTY

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. STEVE COHEN

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 28, 2012

  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I am disturbed by recent press reports 
attacking former Pennsylvania Governor, Ed Rendell for taking a stand 
in support of the residents of Camp Ashraf as well as Iran's main 
opposition movement, the MEK.
  Mr. Rendell is not alone, and he is backed by several dozen senior 
former U.S. Government officials who have taken the same position 
because they feel that position actually serves the national security 
interests of our country. Some 21 senior officials from past 
administrations, whose job it was to keep this country safe, agreed 
with Mr. Rendell when they filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Court of 
Appeals-DC Circuit in February in support of delisting the MEK. Among 
the former officials were a CIA Director, a FBI Director, an Attorney 
General of the United States, a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
a State Department coordinator for counter-terrorism, and a Marine 
Corps Commandant.
  Governor Rendell spoke at an event in the Cannon Caucus Room on 
February 3, 2012 and eloquently made the case for why the MEK should 
have been delisted long ago.

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Governor Rendell's views are in line with almost 100 Members of 
Congress who co-sponsored H. Res. 60 ``Urging the Secretary of State to 
remove the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran from the Department 
of State's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.'' I would like to 
submit Governor Rendell's comments for the Record.

  Remarks of Former Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell, U.S Capitol, 
                   Washington, D.C.--February 3, 2012

       Good afternoon. I want to start out by saying I have come 
     to many of these things. I have come to too many. It's not 
     that I don't like you. You are a wonderful people. As Alan 
     Dershowitz said, this has a feel of a civil rights movement.
       I have been told how much myself and our other officials 
     have helped this cause. But I look at where we are and I'm 
     not sure that all of our speaking out, all of our rallies in 
     front of the White House, Geneva, Paris and Brussels, here in 
     Washington and in the Cannon Building, I'm not sure we have 
     accomplished much.
       And it is terribly frustrating to me. I want to stop coming 
     to these meetings. I want to see you all in Teheran someday. 
     (Applause)
       We talk about how difficult it is to be at the end of the 
     row speakers. So much has been said that we want to say 
     ourselves. And today it's been said in resoundingly good 
     fashion. Senator D'Amato talked about the fact that what our 
     country has done here is a disgrace. And I echo those 
     sentiments. When I first got involved with this issue and 
     started learning about Ashraf and learning about the fact the 
     United States Government in general, United State's forces 
     contracted with each and every one of the residents of 
     Ashraf, if they relinquished their weapons, we promised them 
     we would protect them.
       Have we lived up to our promise? Absolutely not. Maybe 
     until 2009 we did a pretty good job thanks to General 
     Phillips and Colonel Martin, who is not with us today, we did 
     a fine job of protecting them.
       But all of a sudden in 2009, when we turned it over to the 
     Iraqis, all responsibility for military action and police 
     action was turned over to the Iraqis we essentially washed 
     our hands on that promise. And yes, Senator D'Amato is right. 
     In 2009 and in 2011, not only did this attack occur with the 
     use of vehicles and weapons that had been given to the Iraqi 
     police by the United States of America, but United States 
     forces in both instances were withdrawn from the immediate 
     area so they could not do anything to stop the carnage.
       Is that what the promise was? Of course not. It's 
     diametrically opposed to the promise we made. And that 
     General was speaking for the United States of America and for 
     all 300 million of our citizens.
       Subsequent to that have we stood by the residents of 
     Ashraf. Did we take a stand and say, wait. Why can't we do 
     this right here in Ashraf? Why does it have to be a closure 
     of the camp. To what purpose? Iraqi Government, tell me the 
     purpose, legitimate purpose, Iraqi security or anything else 
     that is going to be served by closing down Ashraf. Well, the 
     only excuse we ever heard was the belief that there's 
     intimidation in Ashraf and the individuals could not be free 
     to speak their will about where they wanted to go.
       Well, that would have been an easy problem to solve. Just 
     set up, the General can tell me where, set up something 
     outside the gates where individual residents one by one can 
     talk freely right there.
       There was no need to close Ashraf in the beginning. And the 
     United States Government should have stood by and residents, 
     stood by our promise and said, no.
       And then how are we going to ensure protection of the 
     residents? Well, it's my belief that we should have done one 
     of two things; one, we should have left a small number of 
     United States Marines to protect the residents of Ashraf. 
     (Applause)
       We agreed to leave. Well, we agreed to leave South Korea. 
     And, General, am I right, are there still U.S. military 
     personnel in Korea. And how many years has that been? About 
     40. So we could have easily done that and lived up to our 
     responsibilities. One of my proudest moments was when the 
     President said, we aren't going to let the residents of 
     Benghazi be subject to genocide.
       And U.S. military power and NATO power is going to stop 
     that from happening. And we did. We toppled one of the worst 
     dictators. We never contracted with the people in Benghazi. 
     We never promised them anything. But we as America, we 
     believed it was our right to do so and we did. We signed a 
     contract with these residents. They are much better position 
     to expect our help and protection than the residents of 
     Benghazi were. One of the things the director will tell you 
     is we get on almost weekly calls with Ambassador Freeh that 
     was handling this for the State Department. It is stunning to 
     me that the United States Government wants to disengage here.
       They didn't want to be part of signing of the MOU. They 
     reluctantly agreed to, after pressure from us, to send the 
     U.S. observers into so-called Camp Liberty, although it's not 
     clear when they are coming.
       They can't come unannounced. We have disengaged. We wiped 
     our hands of an issue where we gave our word. So, yes, it's 
     time for the U.S. to stand up. It's time for us to fulfill 
     our responsibility. It's time to not only fulfill our 
     obligation to the resident of Ashraf. It's time to fulfill 
     our obligation to 4,000 plus United States soldiers who died 
     in Iraq.
       You have heard me say as Governor of Pennsylvania I was the 
     commander in chief Pennsylvania National Guard. No national 
     guard in the country lost more men and women in Iraq than 
     Pennsylvania did.
       I used to comfort the families, try to comfort the 
     families, by telling them their sons or in one case their 
     daughter, had died creating democracy and making Iraq a 
     better place. I don't know what I will say to them now 
     knowing what I know about what is happening here.
       So it's time for us to act. What should that action be? 
     First and foremost we should not let Camp Liberty be turned 
     into a prison. We should not. That's Job 1 for the United 
     States. Job 1 for the UN.
       Freedom of movement was essential. Everyone says this is a 
     refugee camp. It's meeting the standards of a refugee camp. 
     What is the difference between the normal refugee camp and 
     what is proposed in Camp Liberty?
       The difference is the residents of the normal refugee camp 
     can leave. They can go if they have the ability, if there's a 
     park or river down the road, they can go to the river, and 
     bathe, swim, they can go to the park, if they have money, 
     they can go to the local market.
       They have freedom of movement. That makes a huge difference 
     when you are talking about what goes on in a camp. Here the 
     Iraqis have made it clear, as long as their position holds, 
     freedom of movement, the people are going to be inside the 
     small area forever. We should insist that, the U.S. should 
     insist there be freedom of movement. We should insist the MOU 
     be enforced. There is not one resident of Ashraf over there 
     yet and the MOU is being put aside. The MOU clearly says the 
     residents can take personal property and vehicles. The Iraqis 
     now say that's not the case.
       It is time for us, the United States, to join the UN and be 
     heard loud and clear, whatever the leverage is, I agree with 
     Ambassador Ginsberg, we have got to have leverage, and we 
     should enforce it. It's time to be heard. Time to say no one 
     is going. No on is leaving. (Applause)
       And next it is time to de-list. If you have been coming to 
     these regularly, you have heard me say I think we should put 
     de-listing on the back burner. And the most important thing 
     is the safety of the residents.
       But I don't believe that anymore. Let me tell you why. I 
     was sent the Forest News Agency release. The Iranian 
     Ambassador, and let me read you a couple of quotes from this 
     release. The Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran and 
     Iraq stress that the representatives in Iraq in meetings they 
     have had repeatedly stressed that the UN considers the MEK a 
     terrorist group and will not support it under any 
     circumstances.
       It goes on. Referred to U.S. officials support for the 
     terrorist group. He referred to us and said, the terrorist 
     MEK group in the past few years has been constantly supported 
     by the U.S. and western elements. But it is interesting now 
     that the U.S. Government has announced it's not prepared to 
     accept even one member of this terrorist organization and 
     under no circumstances will allow them onto its soil. It goes 
     further. It said the members of the terrorist group by the 
     Government of Iran will not include and the amnesty will 
     include individuals whose hands are not tainted in blood. 
     Meaning that this idea that we relocate all the residents of 
     Ashraf to Liberty and there will be no rest. He's given fair 
     warning here.
       What was our response? We brought all this up for his 
     response. His response was, oh, the Iranians they exaggerate 
     all the time. They don't really tell the truth. You can't 
     believe anything they say.
       That's not engagement. That is not us living up to our 
     responsibility. It is time to de-list just because of these 
     statements. (Applause)
       We have sent a message. We think it's time to act. It is 
     time to stand up. If the State Department won't de-list as it 
     should voluntarily, it's time to go back to court. It's time 
     to say to the Court we want you to mandamus. That's a legal 
     term in which the court requires an agency or an individual 
     to do what they are statutorily required to do. The Court 
     gave an order to the State Department to come back and show 
     evidence why the MEK should not be de-listed. The Court can 
     issue a mandamus to say to them come in here within 30 days 
     and show us why the MEK should not be de-listed.
       Now some people say, don't issue, don't go seek a mandamus. 
     That means the State Department will say we are not de-
     listing them. If they say that, then the Court is asked to 
     review the evidence. When they reviewed the evidence in 2008, 
     when the Secretary Rice refused to de-list, they found there 
     wasn't any evidence.
       If they review the evidence in 2012--guess what? No 
     evidence. So it's time to stand up and say, this is not a 
     terrorist organization. No evidence to the contrary.
       In the last decade no open source terrorist database, and 
     they are all over the internet, has listed one single act by 
     the MEK or any members of terrorism. And the statute says 
     terrorist acts against the United States America. That hasn't 
     happened. Never going to happen.
       So let's de-list. Let's give all the Congressmen who came 
     in here and they have spoken up, they have passed 
     resolutions. Those are all good things. Those are all 
     increased pressure. But it is time--Senator D'Amato was 
     saying there would be a bill along lines of what Ambassador 
     Ginsberg said, the only

[[Page E474]]

     way to hit them is to hit them where it counts.
       No military planes or any other equipment to the Iraqi 
     Government until boom, boom, boom. Don't say we are not a 
     party to this. We were a party to stopping the slaughter in 
     Benghazi. We never promised we would.
       We are a party to this because, number one, we promised. 
     And number two, because we are the United States of America.

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