[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9022]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         POLITICAL IED IN IRAQ

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, having just returned from Iraq with 
other Members to see our military, we further met with Prime Minister 
Maliki. We discussed the killing of the 35 freedom-seeking Iranian 
dissidents at Camp Ashraf by Iraqi authorities. The United States has 
turned over the protection of these people who oppose Iranian dictator 
Ahmadinejad to Iraq. The Prime Minister's candid position was that the 
dissidents were responsible for their own deaths and the Iraqi 
Government was not to be blamed for their recent demise.
  Upon requesting that we wished to visit the camp to hear from the 
people who actually saw what happened, you would have thought a 
political IED had gone off. The Prime Minister curtly rejected that 
request. In an effort to fairly get at the truth, the statements from 
the ones actually present at the homicides was important. It is 
disturbing that the Prime Minister refused us access to the Iranian 
dissidents he promised the United States he would protect.
  What does the Iraqi Government have to hide? Maybe the truth. 
Meanwhile, 35 innocent people are dead and hundreds of others are 
wounded by this new ``free'' democracy in Iraq.
  And that's just the way it is.

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