{"id":11844,"date":"2012-03-30T19:13:07","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T18:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/multimedia\/ashraf-liberty\/11844-lieutenant-colonel-leo-mccloskey-i-lived-with-ashraf-residents-for-13-months"},"modified":"2023-01-14T03:53:17","modified_gmt":"2023-01-14T02:53:17","slug":"lieutenant-colonel-leo-mccloskey-i-lived-with-ashraf-residents-for-13-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/ashraf-liberty\/lieutenant-colonel-leo-mccloskey-i-lived-with-ashraf-residents-for-13-months\/","title":{"rendered":"Lieutenant Colonel Leo McCloskey \u2013 I Lived With Ashraf Residents for 13 Months"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lieutenant Colonel Leo McCloskey<\/strong>: March 24, 2012 Paris – Thank you.\u00a0 Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen; I\u2019m not a professional speaker so I won\u2019t probably be as good as everybody else here.\u00a0 But I want to say one thing, that I am a citizen of Ashraf.\u00a0 I know your children.\u00a0 I know your brothers and your sisters, your father s and mothers.\u00a0 Let us stand for them today.<\/p>\n

Today I am also a former soldier.\u00a0 During my 13 months in Ashraf I had the responsibility for the protection of the people of Ashraf.\u00a0 That protection was granted to them under the Fourth Geneva Convention, and those people willingly accepted that protection from the U.S. after having given up their arms in their own protection, they trusted in the United States for their protection.\u00a0 They did this in exchange for trust.\u00a0 A trust that today we must still believe in.\u00a0 A trust that still must be given to this world to make sure that these people are free and safe.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2004 to 2008, approximately 300 decided to go back to Iran.\u00a0 Very few were ever heard from again.\u00a0 But I can tell you about one person that we did hear from again.\u00a0 And that was Batoul Sultani, if you haven\u2019t heard that name.\u00a0 She was a resident of Ashraf who left and went back to Iran.\u00a0 Within a month or two after she left, I got a frantic call in the middle of the night from one of our police stations outside of Ashraf saying that Ms. Sultani was back in Iraq with an Iranian passport.\u00a0 And she told me a story through my interpreter that she had been brought back to Iran and was being forced to come back to Iraq because for protection of her family.\u00a0 She said that she escaped from her captors in Baghdad, and then she wanted to come back to Camp Ashraf.\u00a0 Well, shortly thereafter she did show up back at Ashraf, in protest, saying that her husband was being held captive by the people of Ashraf.\u00a0 I personally interviewed her husband, as I have interviewed thousands of other people in Camp Ashraf, along with family members.\u00a0\u00a0 She was there at the behest of the Quds Force as an agent of the Iranian government.\u00a0 I can tell you that the people of Ashraf are there because they want to be there.\u00a0 [applause]<\/p>\n

Like in some organizations, some people do want to leave, and people were allowed to leave by the leadership and by the residents of Ashraf.\u00a0 They came to us with full faith that we would get them refugee status, and then they would go on with their life in other countries in Europe.\u00a0 The UN came in and they vetted these people.\u00a0 They listened to their stories.\u00a0 They learned what countries they wanted to go to.\u00a0 And we put them in a camp called the Ashraf Refugee Camp, with the intent that this would serve as an example if we could relocate these people to other places around the world, that that would then say to the residents of Ashraf, you don\u2019t need to stay here anymore.\u00a0 You can go any time.\u00a0 And believing that this policy of graceful degradation would lead to the closure of Camp Ashraf.<\/p>\n

Well, I can tell you one thing, those poor people sat in the Ashraf Refugee Camp for four years, with a lot of promises from the Red Cross, from the UN, all the other agencies.\u00a0 And I sat and I watched European Union people come in, everybody promising to help and take the refugees from Ashraf.\u00a0 I want to tell you that nobody voluntarily took the residents of Ashraf Refugee Camp.\u00a0 It got so bad that the refugees in the camp wanted to be let free.\u00a0 They had earned money while working at our camp and they had sufficient funds to be released.\u00a0 I finally convinced our leadership to let them go, and we gradually started up with very small groups of them and we would open up the gates, they would take their personal belongings and they would leave the camp.\u00a0 Many made their way into Turkey and several of them died trying to make their way to freedom.\u00a0 We then decided to build a special refugee camp up in Duhok in Kurdistan.\u00a0 The Kurdish government worked with us and the UN worked with us and we thought it was a great idea to do that and so we moved them up to Duhok.\u00a0 And those people sat in hotels and before we could get them settled into the new refugee camp which we were going to build, the government of Erbil came and they took them away, with the blessing of UN.\u00a0 And without our ability to really control the situation, they moved them into apartments in Erbil.\u00a0 I do not know the fate of those people to this day.\u00a0 But I do know and what I did hear was that the Quds Force wanted to have control of the former residents of Ashraf.\u00a0 Now I tell you that story because it\u2019s important to understand we need the world to help us here.\u00a0 If we couldn\u2019t get refugee status, if we couldn\u2019t move people from a refugee camp into freedom in other counties how are we going to get the situation done here with the people that are in Ashraf now?\u00a0 We need some help.<\/p>\n

I want to tell you a little bit about the people that I lived with for 13 months.\u00a0 People who I shared meals with.\u00a0 People who I visited in their homes.\u00a0 We guaranteed them that they wouldn\u2019t be forcibly returned to Iran.\u00a0 And during my 13 months working with the people of Ashraf, I made several observations.\u00a0 One observation is they had a great relationship with the people in the villages around them.\u00a0 And that relationship saved U.S. soldiers.\u00a0 And I want to do a little side note here.\u00a0 We lost 13 soldiers protecting the people of Ashraf.\u00a0 There\u2019s a dedication on the part of America that we made and we have another 20 soldiers that lost arms and legs.\u00a0 And I have memories that will go on with me for the rest of my life of what it took to protect the people of Ashraf.\u00a0 Why am I here today?\u00a0 Because I take my responsibility seriously.\u00a0 [applause]<\/p>\n

These people in Ashraf they were very self-sufficient.\u00a0 They could build everything.\u00a0 They built manufacturing facilities.\u00a0 They could do anything they wanted to do with only their hands and a few tools.\u00a0 They paid for their own fuel, their food and their supplies.\u00a0 The only thing we had to do was provide convoys back and forth to Baghdad so they could pick up their supplies.\u00a0 When they had serious medical problems they would buy the right equipment.\u00a0 At one point we had some people who were seriously ill in the camp and they needed a CAT scan.\u00a0 The leadership worked out a way to get a CAT scan into Ashraf, but the Iraqi government wouldn\u2019t let us bring it in there.\u00a0 The people of Ashraf had their own hospital, well-maintained, and they took care of their own people.\u00a0 They had educational facilities where people received college educations.\u00a0 They maintained farms.\u00a0 And I have one very special friend, my farmer friend, that I used to visit his gardens and I would eat of his food.\u00a0 Their manufacturing facilities where they made the trailers, I\u2019ve seen trailers in America, I\u2019ve never seen as many well-produced products as what they made themselves in Iraq and they sold to take care of themselves.\u00a0 They had tailor shops and computer labs.<\/p>\n

They always expressed a desire to live in peace. They never demonstrated any desire to harm anybody in Iraq.\u00a0 They also provided ongoing support to the local villagers by providing medical care.\u00a0 And I can tell you one story shortly before I left.\u00a0 We had a villager, little boy ten years old, a building fell on top of him.\u00a0 In the end the people, the family came, Iraqi family, with this little boy in their arms.\u00a0 And his head was very severely damaged.\u00a0 And as a show of good faith the doctors at Ashraf came and we took him there to the hospital and they performed surgery and they saved that little boy.\u00a0 I was there. [applause] The people of Iraq owe it to the people of Ashraf for what they did for the people surrounding them.\u00a0 The people of Ashraf, besides the medical care, provided jobs.\u00a0 There were no jobs in the area in Diyala province except in Ashraf.\u00a0 And the local villagers made a living at Ashraf.\u00a0 Again the Iraqi people owe the people of Ashraf.\u00a0 Water.\u00a0 We all take it for granted.\u00a0 I have this bottle of water that I can drink today.\u00a0 But if you were in the desert in Ashraf you would not see running water anywhere except in Camp Ashraf.\u00a0 They took the water from the Tigris and the Euphrates and they pumped it for miles and miles and miles.\u00a0 They built a filtration plant and they filtered the water.\u00a0 And then they distributed it to all the villages around us.\u00a0 [applause] The Iraqi government cannot even provide water for the refugees in Liberty.\u00a0 [applause]<\/p>\n

Bottom line here, the people of Ashraf are not terrorists.\u00a0 They are people trying to be a symbol of courage, as you are in here.\u00a0 They have willingly undergone years of isolation in a very difficult environment.\u00a0 They have cooperated with the United States military, U.S. embassy, UNHCR, International Red Cross, the government of Iraq.\u00a0 They have demonstrated that they\u2019re willing to go to the extremes to help out the situation, as they\u2019ve done now with the people that have moved to Liberty in the hope that by moving there they would find freedom.\u00a0 But they\u2019re not finding that.<\/p>\n

Today the people of Ashraf are under attack.\u00a0 The people who are now responsible for protecting them are not protecting them.\u00a0 They have promised to leave the city to be moved to another place that would be safe.\u00a0 As an addition they were being moved to Liberty.\u00a0 As in the past the citizens did that in good faith and they have moved.\u00a0 Only it\u2019s not their home.\u00a0 Ashraf was their home for 20, 25 years.\u00a0 Moving them to a strange place is very difficult.\u00a0 They do not have their own possession, the things that were comfortable around them in Ashraf. All that was stripped of them when they were moved to the conditions in Liberty.\u00a0 Even though they\u2019re very resourceful people, if you don\u2019t give people the tools they can\u2019t take care of themselves.\u00a0 And that\u2019s why Liberty is like a prison.\u00a0 It does not have clean water.\u00a0 It does not have proper sanitation.\u00a0 It does not have constant electricity.\u00a0 And it does not have freedom of movement.\u00a0 You cannot put people in a cage and put police with guns and cameras around them 24 hours a day; you can\u2019t invade their private space any time you feel like it and make them free people.\u00a0 This is bad and it needs to be changed.<\/p>\n

Why are the people of Ashraf being treated like this?\u00a0 Is it because of a supposed military history?\u00a0 And there is military history here.\u00a0 I have been to Ashraf.\u00a0 But that was a long time ago.\u00a0 Is it because of the ties with Iran?\u00a0 Hmm, where did Maliki live under Saddam?<\/p>\n

So that makes it more, the more people they move into Liberty the more of a prison environment it is.\u00a0 And I gotta tell you, what they have been doing in Ashraf is also a crime.\u00a0 I have personal contact, phone contact on a regular basis with my friends in Ashraf.\u00a0 I talk to them every month by phone.\u00a0 And I get e-mails every day.\u00a0 I know what happens.\u00a0 I know about the invasions into all the space.\u00a0 I know about the loudspeakers and how all night the torture is on them.\u00a0 I saw the video that you saw here earlier right after it happened.\u00a0 I know the people that were killed.\u00a0 And what they did in Ashraf and what they continue to do in Ashraf is wrong.\u00a0 Just as it\u2019s wrong to move them into Liberty now.\u00a0 [applause]<\/p>\n

My time in Ashraf I worked with the UN.\u00a0 Although they were afraid to come to Ashraf.\u00a0 They called Ashraf Refugee Camp a UN refugee camp.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t see any UN in my camp.\u00a0 They would not come.\u00a0 They did it by video.\u00a0 I did not see many Red Cross come into Ashraf until it was safe for them to come there.\u00a0 Where are they now?\u00a0 They are not in Ashraf.\u00a0 They are not in Liberty.\u00a0 They are outside Liberty.\u00a0 They are not in Ashraf.\u00a0 Where is the International Red Cross?\u00a0 The people who were so willing to take and repatriate people back to Iran are not present and did not stay.\u00a0 I tried to get them to put a base inside Ashraf before we left.\u00a0 They wouldn\u2019t do it.\u00a0 Where is UNAMI or any of these other organizations that claim that they can help these people?\u00a0 We need them to be present to help the situation.<\/p>\n

When I lived in Ashraf I was adjacent to the city of Ashraf, and I frequently toured the city and spoke with the residents and visiting families.\u00a0 I still have my notes about the children and the families of how they felt about their relatives over in Ashraf, and the torture that their families had endured because of their family members.\u00a0 Everybody I spoke to in Ashraf said they were there because they wanted to be there.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019ve had family members come to the gates and say, \u201cMy child is being held against her will.\u00a0 Mustafa.\u201d\u00a0 And he stayed at that gate day after day.\u00a0 And every time I would go in and I would talk to her, \u201cYou\u2019re sure you want to stay here?\u201d and she would say, \u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0 So the people of Ashraf are dedicated to staying in Ashraf until the solution is solved.<\/p>\n

I have been asked by your leadership are the people of Ashraf a paramilitary organization?\u00a0 And I say that\u2019s a very complicated question.\u00a0 In Ashraf the people during my time were in military uniforms.\u00a0 And on days of celebration, like your religious holidays, they would parade in uniform.\u00a0 Very, very beautiful parades with people.\u00a0 But these people didn\u2019t have weapons.\u00a0 These people lived in dormitories, and yes the men and women live separately because that is part of your organization.\u00a0 But all of the people had one desire, to stand up for your organization\u2019s seeing the regime in Iran fall.\u00a0 They are the symbol on the Iranian border. [applause] Ashraf, unlike the life you have here, you have nice clothes, you can drive down the street and shop in all the beautiful stores here, Ashraf is like a place left in time.\u00a0 After the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime, people of Ashraf did surrender and got protected persons status.\u00a0 And they continued to live the same way they had lived.\u00a0 They had military uniforms because that\u2019s the only clothes they had.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t able to go to the shop and buy all new clothes.\u00a0 They had to live with what they had.\u00a0 To me, their lifestyle, their regimentation, was the only way they could survive.\u00a0 Could you imagine being held or being in a camp 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with a Iraqi army outside, Iraqi police ready to arrest you, the Quds force dropping rockets in on us at a regular basis?\u00a0 You had to have some regimentation in order for that group to survive.\u00a0 They\u2019re heroes and they should be heroes to all of you.\u00a0 [applause] Anybody that calls Ashraf today a paramilitary base, to me is very incendiary, and it demonstrates an insensitivity to the plight of the residents of Ashraf.<\/p>\n

But what must we do to ensure the protection and relocation of the citizens of Ashraf?\u00a0 As we all know, and have heard many times in the speeches today, there are approximately 1,200 residents that have been moved to Liberty. We know of one fatality so far.\u00a0 The conditions of the camp are unbearable.\u00a0 The Iraqi police have installed the cameras and they\u2019ve got their police uniforms with their SWAT teams throughout the camp.\u00a0 There is no clear plan by the Iraqi government to move them anywhere, even though Mrs. Rajavi has discussed moving them to Jordan, in the area of Jordan.\u00a0 The Iraqi government is not willing to support this.\u00a0 The residents no longer even have the tools to take care of themselves. Bottom line, Camp Liberty is a prison, it is not a refugee camp.<\/p>\n

When the U.S. operated Ashraf Refugee Camp all were highly vetted by the UN but none could get asylum to other countries.\u00a0 Is it likely now that the Iraqi government, under the conditions that they\u2019re setting up, are going to be able to move these people to the Western countries?\u00a0 My answer is it\u2019s highly unlikely.\u00a0 Therefore the move of the Ashraf residents to Liberty to me is the stupidest thing in the world.\u00a0 Why not bring the UN to Ashraf?\u00a0 Why move the people to Baghdad to put them in a prison?\u00a0 Let the UN go to Ashraf.\u00a0 But first we must get the State Department of the United States to take the MEK off the terrorist list.\u00a0 [applause]<\/p>\n

Second of all, the lack of movement by any of the residents\u00a0 of Ashraf into Liberty has no bearing on whether or not they should be on the terrorist, the MEK should be on the terrorist list or not.\u00a0 It\u2019s a separate issue.\u00a0 The UN has to establish a satellite office inside Liberty.\u00a0 They must have an office also inside Ashraf to protect the people of Ashraf.\u00a0 No additional movement should be done until some of these issues are settled.\u00a0 Teams of human rights inspectors should also be present to make sure that the conditions that the people are living in are up to standards.\u00a0 Thank you for your time. The citizens of Ashraf must be a priority for all of us in this room.\u00a0 [applause]\u00a0 Finally, the people of Ashraf have suffered enough.\u00a0 Now is the time for them to be freed from their tasks that they have done for so many years.\u00a0 I am willing to travel to Ashraf at any time.\u00a0 [applause]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lieutenant Colonel Leo McCloskey: March 24, 2012 Paris – Thank you.  Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen; I’m not a professional speaker so I won’t probably be as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38721,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[175],"class_list":{"0":"post-11844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ashraf-liberty","8":"tag-updated"},"yoast_head":"\nLieutenant Colonel Leo McCloskey \u2013 I Lived With Ashraf Residents for 13 Months - NCRI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lieutenant Colonel Leo McCloskey: March 24, 2012 Paris - Thank you.\u00a0 Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen; I\u2019m not a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/ashraf-liberty\/lieutenant-colonel-leo-mccloskey-i-lived-with-ashraf-residents-for-13-months\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lieutenant Colonel Leo McCloskey \u2013 I Lived With Ashraf Residents for 13 Months - NCRI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lieutenant Colonel Leo McCloskey: March 24, 2012 Paris - Thank you.\u00a0 Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen; 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