Speech By Fromer FBI Chief Mr. Louis Freeh on 26 August - Washington DC
Thank you very much Patrick, Governor, my colleagues here and most importantly thank you to you; you’re a wonderful audience. And thank you Mrs. Rajavi for your eloquence and your 10 point program of freedom that talks about not just fundamental freedoms with freedom of religion freedom of women is just a template of what human rights is all about.
And as I told you in Paris: as soon as this organization is de-listed from what is a mis-listing, we want to come here and I told you I’d give you a tour of the FBI headquarters.You’re great, and our friends and family in many cases in Camp Ashraf hear you and feel your strength and remember the words of the great wartime leader, Winston Churchill, who said never never never never give up.
And your courage, our colleagues, the families of men, women and children in Ashraf, you haven't given up we’re proud to stand by you today and speak to you from this birth of freedom here in Washington DC.
You know we’re here between an earth quake right and a hurricane, but your voice, your voice for freedom today makes more noise and gets more attention in the building behind us and any hurricane or earthquake. You’re great, you're absolutely great and that’s because you are the voice of freedom, you are the voice of change and isn’t it great here in America, and many other places not in Tehran, you can assemble, you can lobby, you can argue, you to defend your rights and ask for freedom; God bless you for doing that.
Like Governor Rendell, I want to talk a little bit to our audience albeit our captive audience on the seventh floor behind us and the White House down the street.
We want to talk to them today about facts, we want to talk to them today about evidence, we want to talk to them about truth, and we want to talk about reality. One of things you do as a lawyer when you're preparing for an argument, you trying to marshal all the arguments that your opponents will make against you and you also try to identify who is it that opposes me; Of course it’s defense counsel, plaintiff’s counsel, on the other side but who is it that opposes us?
Now if we asked that question here today, who is it that opposes the proposition that the MEK is not a terrorist organization?
Well, there are a couple of contenders: there is the regime in Tehran, right? And there's a seriousness listing: I call it a mis-listing in the US Department of State.Have you heard one former respected, or unrespected, government official anywhere in the United States or any place else get up and say publicly that the MEK as terrorist tendencies?
Is it a coincidence that no one of that tenure has approached you?
No, of course not. You know, Gov. Rendell spoke about it before, FBI director, we have CIA directors, we have the former secretary of homeland security whose officers are behind us protecting our rights here today, we have attorney generals, we have the head of the counterterrorism activities in the Department of State, we have ambassadors, we have several chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we have the commandant of the Marine Corps, we have the NATO commander: do you think for one second that any of us would be up here saying that MEK was not a terrorist organization if for a moment there was a whiff of truth that to that? Of course not.
As I said, no one except the powerful regime in Tehran has taken the opposite position.
If you accept the proposition, I don't know if you do, but if you accept the proposition that I know a little bit about terrorism, do you?
Alright well, I'll say it one more time: the MEK does not have a lawful or factual place on the Department of State list of foreign terrorist organizations.
This is not a complicated factual calculation ladies and gentlemen;
I don't envy Madame Secretary Clinton and the decisions that she makes on the seventh floor behind us.
Even in the course of the last few months, decisions of the United States, with respect to Tunisia, with respect to Egypt, with respect to Libya, with respect to Bahrain, with respect to Yemen, these are complicated decisions and I'm glad I'm not the person making the foreign policy decisions in the moment of crisis that they have to be made.
But looking at the facts and the evidence and saying without qualification that there is no credible factual evidence to support the proposition that the MEK should be on the foreign terrorist organization list, is not ladies and gentlemen complicated at all.
Winston Churchill also had another great statement; he said if you remember one time that the Americans can be counted upon to do the right thing after they've exhausted every other possibility. Well, for 14 years the MEK has been unrightfully and unjustifiably on the foreign terrorist organization list.
The facts as we heard from a number of our speakers militate against this. This is an organization that has denounced violence and terrorism it has surrendered its arms to the United States, which you’ll hear about the moment; he has pledged nonviolence and non-terrorism. It has been an assistant to the United States and other governments in providing information about the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
This is an organization that meets every qualification of renouncing terrorism and any intent to perpetrate terrorism activities. So, we have to look at this and we have to understand how in important this is in terms of the decision.
The Court of Appeals, which you’ve heard about, over a year ago ladies and gentlemen, told the Secretary of State that they had violated the due process rights of the PMOI, the MEK, by not giving them access transparency and finding as the court found that the sources that the Department of State was using to argue that this group belongs on the FTO list were unqualified, uncorroborated and not credible.
We have not heard anything in response to that decision by the Department of State except they're reviewing it. Well, review becomes an abusive of process after a certain point. In the world of the law, non-response to a court becomes contemptuous at a certain point. It is time for the Secretary of State to act and to act decisively and importantly to delist the MEK.
I was working in this town in 1997, when the Department of State put this organization on the foreign terrorist organization list. It was a policy decision, which we understood, although did not agree with the factual parameters. It was put on the list because the State Department and the White House believed that they could start a constructive dialogue with Khatami, who was dubbed if you recall, a moderate new president; that didn't work.
The appeasement in 1997 did not work. In 2004, the republican government was told that the incidence of IED's that were killing American servicemen and servicewomen in Iraq, would abate, would disappear, as long as the MEK was maintained on the list; the government agreed to that.
The appeasement has not worked in 14 years, appeasement didn't work ladies and gentlemen in 1933, and it will never work with the terrorist regime in Tehran.We have a very simple request today to Mme.
Secretary, to her colleagues in the Department of State , who we greatly respect; look at the facts, make a decision but please make a decision now because it's critical that you act.
The regime in Tehran, whether it was our Marines in the Beirut barracks, whether it was our airmen is KhobarTowers in 1996, they have had a foreign policy of exporting terrorism mostly directed against the United States and its allies, but more importantly and more brutally directed against its own people: the students who in 2009 and continue to brave this terror and raise their voice of freedom.It is long overdue that this decision is made; ladies and gentlemen it's not just that the listing continues and no decision is made.
As you heard that Gov. Rendell say, the listing gives the Tehran regime a license to kill freedom fighters and that's the important point that we make today to the White House and to the Department of State.
Every moment of this organization is classified by the United States government, The United States of America or as a terrorist organization gives the brutal regime in Tehran the license to arrest, detain, torture and kill its’ own freedom fighters at home and the people in Ashraf wore boldly leading the freedom fight outside of its borders. This license to kill will only abate, will only be removed once that the listing stops.
That has to be done, and has to be done now.I mentioned, and I'll close with this, I mentioned before, we want to know who's opposed to this. Now we know that the regime in Tehran of course is opposed to this because this is the only credible organize freedom resistance to its era and to its hegemony, but who else is opposed to it?
The Prime Minister in Iraq, who by the way is there by virtue of the United States of America and its allies. Just the other day, I'm sure you saw this, he issued a statement in support of Assad of Syria. This is the Prime Minister, who United States of America supports and who also says that the MEK is a terrorist organization.
I don't know what his future is but I know that the future of the 3400 people in Ashraf is not only in his hands but in the hands of the United States. The United States is personally and politically responsible for the safety of those people. We signed pledges with them, we guaranteed them our security; they have the full faith and credit of the United States. So to abandon them now, to Maliki and his surrogate masters in Tehran, would be worse than Srebrenica; it would be standing by and watching a massacre of epic scale.
This government, this administration, will be responsible for if it occurs on their watch while they had the opportunity to protect and rescue these people. We call on the government to do that and to stop its delay, to stop its obfuscation, to stop its process review, whatever that may be and to recognize that this organization should not be listed as a terrorist organization. Then it'll be up to you, and I know you will succeed in carrying the course of freedom to its logical end.
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