WASHINGTON, Feb. 26, 2014, OIAC \u2013 Top American supporters of the Iranian resistance are growing increasingly critical of the Obama administration for failing to keep a U.S. promise to protect more than 3,000 Iranian dissidents in an overcrowded refugee camp in Iraq, where they have been under repeated deadly attacks by Iraqi gunmen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a deal. It was a bargain, and the United States has never lived up to that bargain,\u201d Ed Rendell, a former chairman of the Democratic Party, told a weekend forum of Iranian-Americans at the Los Angeles Convention Center on February 22.<\/p>\n
The Iranian dissidents handed over their weapons to U.S. forces voluntarily in 2003 in exchange for a U.S. pledge to treat them as protected persons under the Geneva Conventions. But in 2009, the Obama administration turned that responsibility over to the Iraqi government, which later launched three lethal attacks against the dissidents in Camp Ashraf, their home of 27 years north of Baghdad, and facilitated four more missile attacks on Camp Liberty, near Baghdad International Airport, where the nearly 3,000 dissidents now reside.<\/p>\n
Mr. Rendell also denounced the United Nations for failing to open an independent investigation into the attacks and relying on the Iraqi government to conduct its own probe into the killings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s like asking Al Capone to investigate the St. Valentine\u2019s Day murders,\u201d he said, referring to the infamous gangland killings in Chicago in 1929.<\/p>\n
Patrick Kennedy, a former Democratic congressman from Rhode Island, declared that U.S. policy toward Iran \u201cmust change, and it must change now.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called the dissidents \u201ccourageous\u201d and denounced Iran\u2019s brutal and intolerant theocratic regime.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt tortures and imprisons and represses all of its 78 million people. \u2026 It is also the central banker and chief arms dealer for every major terrorist organization around the world. \u2026 Tehran supports the two most violent regimes in the Middle East: Syria\u2019s Bashar Assad and Iraq\u2019s Nouri al-Maliki. This \u2026 is an example of them supporting international war criminals,\u201d said Mr. Kennedy, the nephew of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and son of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Tom Ridge, Homeland Security Secretary under President George W. Bush, also criticized the administration for \u201cempty words\u201d and \u201cunfulfilled promises.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI take it personally \u2014 as a former soldier, former public servant and now as a private citizen \u2014 that my country has not kept its word,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Newt Gingrich, a Republican and former speaker of the House of Representatives, dismissed the current nuclear negotiations with Iran and criticized the State Department for claiming that the talks are going well, despite comments from Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the talks are useless.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the administration is done dancing, after the last great effort to schmooze and talk and posture, there will be a document. It will be pathetic,\u201d Mr. Gingrich predicted. \u201cThere will either be no agreement or an agreement so bad that not even the New York Times will be able to support it.\u201d<\/p>\n
A speaker who expressed the most remorse for the plight of the dissidents in Iraq was a man who had a direct hand in persuading them to leave Camp Ashraf and relocate to a much smaller, dilapidated, and insecure Camp Liberty in Baghdad.<\/p>\n
Retired Lt. Col. Leo McCloskey said he and his officers believed promises by Iraqi officials that they would protect the dissidents from Iranian retribution and help relocate the dissidents to safe countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart is heavy with sadness for what has been done to these unarmed and defenseless people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world is silent to their plight. They die by clubs, bullets, rockets and lack of medical care. They were once freedom fighters who desired one thing: freedom from the oppression in their homeland, Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see Rouhani for what he is; a demagogue, and a murderous mullah. He has boasted as much about suppressing the university students as about cheating the west, and we are not going to be fooled,\u201d emphasized Nasser Sharif, President of California Society for Democracy in Iran, which organized the symposium.<\/p>\n
In sharing that view, Ross Amin, Vice President of the Organization of Iranian-American Communities (OIAC.ORG), added, \u201cThe international community, in particular the United States, must keep its vigilance and act firmly. The only acceptable result of the nuclear negotiations must be the complete dismantling of the nuclear weapons program and the IAEA\u2019s snap inspections of all of the suspected sites.\u201d<\/p>\n
SOURCE OIAC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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