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U.S. Would Remove Iranian Opposition in Iraq
The United States will "give no quarter" to the Iranian opposition based in Iraq if U.S. forces invade the country, a U.S. official said.I like that phrasing... The Mujahideen Khalq organization, which broke with the Tehran government in the early years of the Iranian revolution, has thousands of well-armed and disciplined troops and large military bases in Iraq along the Iranian border. "We see them as part of the problem, an element that would have to be removed," the U.S. official said. The United States has designated the group as a "foreign terrorist organization" but the Mujahideen has many supporters in the U.S. Congress and it continues to run an office a few blocks from the White House. In that case it should be shut down... The U.S. official said the Mujahideen had "American blood on its hands" because the group had killed some Americans during attacks in Tehran during the late 1970s, before the Islamic Revolution. "We are not going to be giving them any quarter and we don't expect others to give them aid or comfort," he added. Without Sammy, who's there to give it to them? One aim of any U.S. military operation in Iraq was "dismantling the infrastructure of terrorism in Iraq," he said. "The Mujahideen is part of that infrastructure. It has been used to crush the Shi'a uprising in the south and is part of (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein's brutal apparatus." That would imply that that Ba'ath, which is Sammy's brutal appratus, is also not going to be treated gently, contrary to opinions expressed in the past few days. Mujahideen officials in Washington were not immediately available for comment. Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-02-19 |
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