3
list, even though it is clear the Mullahs didn't start coming around
and becoming more, how you say, acceptable in their behavior.
The United Kingdom and the European Union have removed the
MEK from the terrorist list. So we should quit playing games and
also remove the MEK from the terrorist list before it results in an-
other massacre, which is one thing that needs to be answered: Did
the fact that the United States Government maintain the MEK on
a terrorist list in any way contribute to the string of decisions that
led to the massacre of 34 innocent people as well as the wounding
of hundreds more?
Now we have much to learn today. What really happened on
April 8th? Can we continue to protect Camp Ashraf2 What is the
solution? Should the residents be relocated to safe areas outside of
Iraq” What is the solution?
That is an interesting question for us to talk about today as well.
I would be interested in hearing suggestions from the panel that
we are about to hear from.
And one last point before we turn it over to Congressman
Carnahan for his opening statement.
I believe I read in a paper that 34 people were killed just a day
or two ago from bombs that went off in Iraq. And it is very easy
to think that those 34 people—well, people are still being killed.
Why are we concerned about Camp Ashraf when you have other
people being killed in these terrorist attacks?
Well, let me note, it is not equal when a terrorist plants a bomb
and kills innocent people. It is not equal to when a government, ex-
ercising its sovereign authority, decides in a willful way to mas-
sacre people and kill them, even though the numbers are the same.
A government is expected to be responsible and to act legally and
lawfully. A terrorist group, you will expect them to be the dregs of
society and of the Earth.
Let us hope that the Maliki government understands that there
is a difference between terrorist activities which are unacceptable
and the activities of this government which are totally inconsistent
with law and civilization. So for government troops to be openly
killing people, as we just saw, is unacceptable anywhere in the civ-
ilized world, and that is a lot different than a terrorist attack. So
we have a moral obligation today as people to call people to task
and to find out exactly what happened.
Mr. Carnahan, do you have an opening statement?
Mr. CARNAHAN. Yes, I do; and I want to thank you, Mr. Chair-
man, for this hearing today and for shining a bright light on this
issue, also for leading our delegation recently to Iraq to meet with
Prime Minister Maliki and officials there as well as our own U.S.
Government officials to really help get to the bottom of this issue.
Thank you.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much.
I would ask Congressman Poe to take over the chair. I have been
called to the floor. I have an amendment on the floor that I have
to take care of. I will be returning very shortly as soon as we do
business.
Mr. Poe, could you take over the chair? And I am sure you have
an opening statement as well.


8
and Yale Law School. He worked as an Assistant United States At-
torney in New York from 1972 through 1996, serving as chief of the
district's official corruption unit from '75 through 76.
Judge, we welcome you today.
Retired Army Colonel Wes Martin is our second panelist. He re-
tired from active duty in 2010. In combat, he served as the senior
antiterrorism force protection officer for all coalition forces in Iraq
during Operation Iraqi Freedom I and II, as J–3 operations officer
for Task Force 134, which was detention operations, and as com-
mander of Forward Operation Base Ashraf. He then served three
tours in the Pentagon. He holds two master's degrees and is cur-
rently a member of the technical staff at the Department of Energy
Sandia National Laboratories.
Our third panelist is Dr. Gary Morsch. He is the founder and
president of Heart to Heart International, a global humanitarian
organization. Dr. Morsch continues to practice family and emer-
gency medicine and does it through Docs Who Care, a medical
staffing company he founded. Dr. Morsch is a member of Army Re-
serve with the rank of colonel and has been deployed to Kosovo and
to Germany as well as to Iraq where he ran a hospital at Camp
Ashraf.
Dr. Ray Takeyh is a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at
the Council on Foreign Relations, adjunct professor for the Center
for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University. He has
a Ph.D. From Oxford University and has served as special advisor
for the Gulf and Southwest Asia at the U.S. Department of State.
He is also the author of the Guardians of the Revolution, Iran’s ap-
proach to the world, which was published in 2009 by Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today.
Judge Mukasey, we will hear from you first. There is a 5-minute
time limit on each of your comments. So if you want to go longer
than that, you can submit it to the record.
So, first, Judge Mukasey.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL MUKASEY
(FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES)
Mr. MUKASEY. Thank you.
I want to thank the chairman, Ranking Member Carnahan,
Judge Poe, Representative Filner, and Representative Jackson Lee
for allowing me to testify at this important hearing on the events
in Camp Ashraf in April of this year that involved the murder of
some 36 innocents by Iraqi forces using weapons and vehicles that
were actually supplied to them by the United States.
I have submitted seven pages of written testimony, making sev-
eral recommendations of what I would hope this committee would
do and could do to try to determine how this massacre came to be
and what can be done to prevent conditions at Ashraf from deterio-
rating even further, and I thank the subcommittee for making
those a part of the record. But I know that the chair of this com-
mittee and others have had direct experience with the Iraqi Gov-
ernment insofar as Ashraf is concerned and know a great deal
more about that subject than I do. So I want to focus my oral testi-
mony today on what the United States has done in the past, some


12
As members of the Subcommittee may be aware, MEK has been classified by the
Department of State during administrations of both parties as a foreign terrorist
organization, based on acts that are alleged to have occurred at the time the Shah was in
power in Iran. Although the State Department has conceded that it has no evidence of
any violent act even attributed to the group since then, the MEK was first placed on the
terrorist list in a misguided effort to please the regime and open up a dialogue, and then
was kept on the list out of fear that if it were taken off then the Iranian government would
act against our interests in Iraq, including by supplying IED’s and other weapons to anti-
government forces in Iraq who would use them as well to kill Americans. Of course, we
know that our attempt at dialogue and our attempt to win the Iranian regime's good will
through this policy of appeasement did not work. There has been no useful dialogue and
Iranian shipments of IED’s into Iraq are the subject of virtually daily news stories; those
weapons are being used to kill Americans.
We know as well that, as I mentioned earlier, the MEK has been the source over
recent years of numerous items of valuable intelligence about Iranian weapons
capabilities. Indeed, it was a revelation from MEK that led to the discovery of the Iranian
facility for uranium enrichment at Natanz and later at Qum. Rather than resorting to
violence, MEK has resorted to our courts in an effort to compel the State Department to
remove it from the list of foreign terrorist organizations, as the European Union has and
as the United Kingdom has. In September 2010 the State Department was directed by the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to re-examine this
designation, and told that the unclassified evidence it relied on was insufficient to support
the listing. Throughout this period, the residents of Ashraf have been law abiding. On
August 24, 2006, Lieutenant Colonel Julie S. Norman of the U.S. Military Police detail at
Ashraf signed a memorandum describing the exemplary behavior of Ashraf residents and
stating that Ashraf residents had been helpful in securing the cooperation of other Iraqis
in the vicinity of Ashraf and persuading them to join the political process, and otherwise
helped protect the security of the area. I am attaching that memorandum as well to my
testimony.
The only information bearing on that designation is whether MEK has undertaken
violent acts against the United States in the last 10 years, and whether it has the capacity
and intent to do so now. Rather than respond to the direction of the Court of Appeals to
justify the continued listing using relevant criteria, the State Department has been
pursuing a strategy of delay. In May 2011, the State Department sent MEK’s lawyers ten
irrelevant documents and asked response to questions that do not deal with information
relevant to the designation. Last week, the United States Ambassador to Iraq, James
Jeffrey, said that MEK must disband before residents of Ashraf can be given the
protection of refugees – which is to say, the protection that was guaranteed them in
writing in 2004 by a United States general. His remarks are a strange echo of similar
demands that have been made since November 2010 by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard
Corps (IRGC), the Iranian ambassador to Iraq, and others in the Iranian government.


14
to Foreign Aid but also to Military Aid, and requires that the latter be withheld unless
there has been a finding by the Secretary of Defense of overriding necessity; there has
been no such finding as to the Iraqi troops who invaded Ashraf.
Finally, this Committee should try to determine what policy the Administration
intends to pursue going forward with respect to MEK, and urge to the extent it can that
the United States act in ways that enable MEK to function as a force opposing the Iranian
regime, not in ways that enable those seeking to annihilate MEK.
The moral position of the United States in this part of the world has been won and
maintained at a frightful cost in wealth and in the lives of our soldiers. We should not
squander it by giving support to those elements in the Iraqi government who are giving
aid and comfort to the regime in Tehran.


20
Mr. POE. Thank you. Dr. Gary Morsch, 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF GARY MORSCH, M.D. (FORMER COMMANDER
OF FORWARD OPERATION BASE ASHRAF)
Dr. MORSCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and ranking member
and members of the subcommittee. Mr. Chairman, before I begin
my—
Mr. POE. Is your microphone on?
Dr. MORSCH. Yes, it is on now. Thank you for this opportunity,
Mr. Chairman.
Before I begin my remarks with your permission I would like to
submit for the record a letter from General James Gardner, Com-
manding General of MMNF-I to MEK Secretary General, dated
February 16th, 2006.
Mr. POE. Without objection, it will be part of the record.
Dr. MORSCH. I would like to also submit a statement by the U.S.
Central Commander on the full disarmament of the MEK. This
statement was released in 2003.
Mr. POE. Without objection, it will also be part of the record.
Dr. MORSCH. Lastly, I would like to provide the written submis-
sion of Mr. Stephen Schneebaum, an international human rights
law scholar, who has written on the rights of the residents of
Ashraf and attached to this written submission are two legal opin-
ions which he has also prepared on the subject.
Mr. POE. Without objection, it is admitted.
Dr. MORSCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have submitted a fairly extensive prepared statement that out-
lines my observations. These observations are based on my direct
role as the lead physician assigned to Camp Ashraf in early 2004
where I lived and worked with the residents of Ashraf on a 24/7
basis.
I arrived in Iraq knowing nothing about the MEK and left Ashraf
with a great knowledge and insight into the organization, as great
a knowledge or insight I believe as any other American or more so.
Let me just say I know the MEK.
Based on my observations I would like to express three simple
conclusions, which I believe are indisputable. Number one, the
MEK and Ashraf are not terrorists. In fact they are allies, friends
and collaborators in our mission in Iraq and the Middle East. Dur-
ing my time in Ashraf they provided intelligence and recon so that
our convoys knew where IEDs had been placed and could then
avoid them. Even more importantly, the MEK worked with local
and regional populations to advocate for their cooperation with the
American mission.
The MEK even organized town hall like meetings with area
sheikhs, participating in roundtable discussions about democracy in
Iraq. Does this sound like the activities of a terrorist organization?
If so, I guess we could use a few more friendly terrorist organiza-
tions like this group. Of course they are not terrorists. The Euro-
pean Union does not consider them terrorists, the French don’t, the
United Kingdom don’t. The U.S. is the only significant country that
keeps them on the terrorist list. This must change and change im-
mediately.


25
The Investigation:
Although I was not directly involved in what I refer to as the Great Investigation, I was present
during the months when every member of the MEK at Ashraf were interviewed, or, in some
cases, interrogated. As I understand it, the lead agency on site was the FBI, although they were
joined and supported by a variety of representatives of OGA's, including the DOS, CIA, DIA, DOJ,
etc.
Arrangements were made to interview a certain number of MEK members each day, and a
system was developed to select those individuals and transport them from the Convention
Center in Ashraf to a series of temporary holding tents where the MEK members were held or
housed, depending on how many hours or days their interviews lasted. MEK members would
then be taken to individual tents that had been set up for the interviews. My role as the
Battalion Surgeon was to ensure that the holding, housing, and interview conditions for the
MEK did not adversely affect the health and well-being of each of interviewee. Because the
Iraqi climate is very dry and hot, it was important to make sure that medically vulnerable MEK
members were observed for signs of dehydration or heat illness. In addition, l monitored the
health of the MEK members who were held for more than a day, making sure that those who
were on prescription medications had access to them, etc.
The numerous personnel who had come to Ashraf for the investigation were housed and fed by
the American forces. I was also responsible for any medical care needed by these personnel.
Due to my knowledge of the MEK, and because I was present in the holding areas throughout
the interviews, I spent a lot of time with the investigators and discussed many of the things they
were learning. From these conversations, it appeared that many of the OGA representatives
had come to Ashraf with expectations that they would find enough evidence on certain MEK
members that would support bringing them back to the US for some type of prosecution. As
talked with some of these OGA personnel, I was struck with the impression that they knew very
specifically who they were planning to identify for prosecution. As the days of the investigation
wore on, the OGA interviewers became more and more frustrated because they were
unsuccessful in finding any, or enough, evidence to warrant transfer to the US. One particular
MEK member that had been previously identified was the son of the Rajavi's. The FBI
interviewers hoped to convince him to abandon the MEK. The young man was held in isolation
for several days, and interviewed for many hours, in the hopes that he would leave the MEK.
There was great frustration when the OGA personnel were unsuccessful in recruiting him. Of
the hundreds and hundreds of MEK members interviewed, I recall one interviewer telling me
that about the only thing they came up with on the MEK members were some unpaid traffic
fines. The interview process finally ended, without any MEK members found to have any
significant ties to criminal activity or terrorism.


36
Mr. MUKASEY. It appears to be a close relationship. The Iranians
call the shots and Maliki acts in accordance with what serves their
interest.
Mr. POE. Colonel, let me ask you this question since you were
there. Are there MEK terrorists today?
Colonel MARTIN. The MEK are not terrorists today. And if I may
continue, sir, in May 1972 the MEK leadership was rolled up and
Rajavi and many others ended up in prison just prior to that, and
then there was a split within the MEK to a Communist Mujahedin
Marxist regime and what we see now is the MEK and it stayed
that way.
The killings of Colonel Schaeffer, Colonel Turner and Lieutenant
Colonel Hawkins were accomplished in June and July 1975, and
the Shah's own police interrogated the killers, and they said they
were part of the Marxist MEK.
When Rajavi was released from prison, he was able to bring the
MEK back together outside of the prisons, and that is the organiza-
tion you see today. It is not the MEK that was doing those execu-
tions. They are not terrorists today, and whatever activities they
did in the past, if we were to hold that against them, then we
should have had nothing to do with Menachem Begin or Anwar
Sadat.
Mr. POE. The United States is getting ready to leave Iraq. So
what happens when we leave?
Colonel MARTIN. When we leave?
Mr. POE. To the camp.
Colonel MARTIN. When we leave, the camp will be annihilated.
Mr. POE. My last question is open to the panel. So what do we
do? What do we do? The United States Government, Congress,
what should we do?
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I think that is such a good question. We will
have each witness give a 1-minute answer.
Colonel MARTIN. My recommendation, sir, is get them delisted
immediately. We get them out of camp as soon as possible, cer-
tainly before the end of the year. I am willing to get on the plane
and go over and help load them up if that is what it takes. When
I was working with the State Department, we tried to get Home-
land Security to see can they come to the United States. No, be-
cause they are a terrorist organization. Well, we delist them. Well,
they were once a terrorist organization even though it was an erro-
neous delisting. We need to get them out of there.
Mr. POE. Judge.
Mr. MUKASEY. I agree and if it takes, in order to get around
Homeland Security objections, a special bill I am sure that that is
something that is not beyond the power of this body. To get some
members, I am not suggesting that all of the residents of Ashraf
be settled here. But certainly if we take the lead, taking some folks
in, then we can persuade other countries to do likewise, but the
first step is delisting. If they are still listed as a terrorist organiza-
tion, it becomes impossible to move them anyplace else. Delisting
is for certain the first and essential step.
Mr. POE. Dr. Morsch.
Dr. MORSCH. Delisting MEK must happen first. We must recom-
mit to fulfilling our promise that we made to the people of Ashraf.


43
Mr. MUKASEY. There is no doubt of it. We have identified, as I
understand it, the precise units that participated in this operation.
So that is relatively easy to come by.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Dr. Morsch, can you document or suggest any
reason why tanks and commandos and guns were approaching that
camp? Was there any national security reason?
Dr. MORSCH. No reason other than I believe the Maliki I govern-
ment is planning to exterminate the people of Ashraf and this is
part of a long series of actions that are probably going to occur
until they are ultimately victorious.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Does that sound like to you a conspiracy with
Iran, a country who has potential nuclear capacity, threatening the
world, and the leader of Iraq is now in cahoots to attack individ-
uals who cannot defend themselves, or at least defend themselves
against tanks.
Dr. MORSCH. Congresswoman, I arrived in Iraq in January 2004,
shortly after the Iraq war began. And so from my first days on the
ground I saw the influence of Iran within Iraq because Ashraf is
close to that border. It has been there ever since, it is growing, it
is obvious, it is intentional, and in fact in 2004 I made the com-
ment to some of my fellow officers Iran—we are basically going to
come in here and take out Saddam, create a power vacuum and
create a greater Tehran right here in Iraq. It is happening right
before our eyes.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me just conclude, Mr. Chairman, I see the
lights. Thank you very much.
Let me conclude by saying my outrage cannot be expressed and
again I ask our Government, which I have great respect for, to im-
mediately denounce and ask for a ceasing of the collaboration be-
tween the Iraqi Government of which we are funding and Iran,
which has become the world's enemy to destroy and kill innocent
persons and whatever laws that we have, Chairman Rohrabacher,
that we can use, the Leahy amendment, should be implemented
immediately.
I yield back.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Ms. Jackson Lee, and
to all of our other members who have participated today. I again
apologize that earlier I had to leave. I did actually go from here
straight to the floor to deal with an amendment that would defund
our friends in Pakistan which has something to do with some of the
issues we are discussing today, and so is vitally important. How-
ever, I am very pleased we were able it get the questioning in from
those of us here able to spend the entire time with us. Let me just
ask you a few questions here.
Dr. Morsch, you were in Camp Ashraf in what year?
Dr. MORSCH. 2004.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. 2004. Now in 2004, correct me if I am wrong,
the FBI actually went to Camp Ashraf and interviewed all of the
residents of Camp Ashraf to find out if any of them were indeed
terrorists; is that correct?
Dr. MORSCH. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Are you aware of what the FBI determined
by their questioning of all of each and every one of the people
there at Camp Ashraf2


47
and the other one I know personally, and he is a good friend. I can
honestly say neither one of those two people were involved.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, it is very difficult for me, after seeing
the video that we had, which is very clear evidence of a massacre
of unarmed people, to then in some way focus attention on perhaps
somewhere they might have people in their organization that be-
lieve in violence in order to overthrow the Mullah regime in Iran.
And that is something that in some way should turn us off toward
that organization.
About the massacre, how do we feel about whether this terrorist
designation, which it seems impossible for the United States, as
compared to all of our European allies, to get rid of this designa-
tion, did it play a significant role in the decision of whoever it was
to commit this massacre? Is there any reason for us to believe that
if they were not designated a terrorist organization that the person
who ordered them to go in with those troops and shoot down un-
armed civilians might not have issued that order?
Colonel?
Colonel MARTIN. I will lead out on that one, sir.
I think yes. Because the State Department has been basically
moving at the pace of a startled snail. And when you see the
Maliki government doing things wrong—and to include the attack
2 years ago—and our State Department and our Government does
nothing about it but we keep them on the terrorist list, claiming
they are a bunch of bad people, we are giving justification. And
then when the attack is over, we also do nothing about it.
We remember the pictures of pictures of Abu Ghraib. This, Abu
Ghraib, was minor compared to what happened at Camp Ashraf.
It was very hideous, and it was very wrong. But all of a sudden
our whole Nation was enflamed, and the world was enflamed, and
it was a recruiting tool for the al Qaeda. But then we see blatant
murder and then we look the other way. That just encourages
In Ore.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. The point is very well made, Colonel.
I think that there are consequences to political designations, and
consequences in the actions of the people who order them and the
people who are decision makers in other countries, which leads us
to Prime Minister Maliki. Does this slaughter that we have seen
of the people in Camp Ashraf indicate that the government now of
Prime Minister Maliki is perhaps in a subservient position to the
Iranian Mullah regime?
Colonel MARTIN. If I may again, sir, I see him subservient to
three different elements. One is the Iranian regime, two is Hakim,
and three is Muqtada al-Sadr.
And we saw this even in the execution of Saddam. Muqtada al-
Sadr was the one who said to his followers, Saddam will not live
to see the light of a new year. And then suddenly Task Force 134
gets a call from Maliki himself saying, I want Saddam turned over
tomorrow. And you remember the spectacle of that.
Maliki is taking orders from three different elements. And, as
you recall, Allawi won the election but Maliki would not follow the
constitution and work with Allawi. And, as a result, Allawi won the
election but he lost the government.



64
Union might be willing to accept substantial numbers of the Ashraf residents. Once the unjust
terrorist label is lifted, the United States too might be persuaded to do the right thing.
But in the interim, it is critical that disastrous mistakes not be made. There should be no doubt:
unless the international community rises to the occasion, the slaughter of innocent human lives is
virtually inevitable.
The time to avert a catastrophe is short. The situation is truly dire. And the obligations of the
United States as a matter of international law are clear.
I hope that the members of this Subcommittee will be vocal and unequivocal in their insistence
that our Government not sit idly by while conditions at Ashraf deteriorate further. The world has
seen too many instances, in recent years, of ignoring the signs of impending disaster. Ashraf
must not be permitted to become another Srebrenica. The United States has responsibilities at
Ashraf, and those obligations must be honored.
I would be pleased to answer the Subcommittee’s questions, or to provide additional information
as may be requested. I can be reached by email at schneebaums®gtlaw.com, or by phone at
202-530–8544.
Again, let me reiterate my gratitude, and the gratitude of the residents of Camp Ashraf and their
families and loved ones, to this Subcommittee and its Chairman in particular for this hearing, and
for your concern for these champions of a free and secular Iran.
Thank you for taking my views into account.
|NOTE: Additional papers by Mr. Schneebaum, submitted for the record by Dr.
Morsch, are not reprinted here but are available in committee records.]
O