SierraSil, 14 March 2012 – Brigadier General David Phillips (ret) is the former commander of all U.S. military police operations in Iraq, as well as the expert on all police and security operations for the commanding American General in Iraq, David Petraeus.
Today General Phillips is calling on Washington to forestall what he fears is a massacre in the making at a place called Camp Ashraf.
Located in Iraq, Camp Ashraf is home to 3400 members of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, also known as MEK. Iranian dissidents General Phillips credits with having alerted the world to Iran’s nuclear program, as well as saving his life.
MEK is also on the United States list of terrorist organizations. Placed there, says Phillips, in 1997 as a gesture of political goodwill from Washington to the then newly elected Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.
Canada also lists MEK as a terrorist organization.
The terrorist designation didn’t though stop the U.S. from interacting with Camp Ashraf residents who would voluntarily disarm to American forces in 2004, in return receiving a written pledge of protection from the United States.
Five years later the Americans handed protection of Camp Ashraf to the Iraqi military which subsequently twice attacked the camp, killing 47 and wounding more than 1000. Attacks Tehran praised Baghdad for carrying out.
Iran’s intent for the MEK was made clear by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a 2009 statement to the Iraqi government. “We await the implementation of our agreement regarding the expulsion of the hypocrites”. Expulsion to where? General Phillips believes to Iran, where they would simply “disappear”.
The General isn’t the only American to call on his government to honour its pledge of protection to the 3400 souls at Camp Ashraf. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding MEK be freed of its terrorist label.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former FBI Director Louis Freeh are demanding justice, with Giuliani saying “this group is not a terrorist group. Lift the designation and let’s have our country on the right side.”
Howard Dean, former Governor of Vermont adds “Our government has a question about whether they are a moral government.”
The administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton though refuse to act even in the face of a 2010 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia which directed the issue specifically to Clinton, determining the State Department to be in violation of due process rights for Camp Ashraf residents.
As far as the Iraqi government is concerned, Camp Ashraf’s residents must be moved to Camp Liberty in Baghdad, where conditions have been described as “inhumane.”
General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee recently said of the Iraqi government and military assuming total responsibility for the residents of Camp Ashraf “the concern is a real one”.
For General Phillips the matter is intensely personal. It is about a pledge of American security for the 3400 human beings. A pledge delivered in person by an American General who now fears a potential approaching tragedy.