Judge Michael Mukasey Former US attorney General: Mrs. Rajavi, honored guest, my fellow Ashrafis, we are meeting today on an anniversary that is sad and solemn for MEK, but sad as well for my country United States although in a different way.
On this day a year ago 52 residents of Camp Ashraf were remained behind to safeguard property of the MEK as they have been guaranteed the right to do, when most of the residents of Ashraf moved voluntarily to Camp Liberty. Those people were murdered in cold blood by a unit of the Iraqi military. The people who carried out this massacre showed all of the signs of a military force. They wore identical uniforms, ever identical soft white caps so they could be recognized by one another. The technique they used to carrying and aiming their weapons made it plain that they had military training likely from the United States. The weapons they used were of United States manufacture. The white soft cap that they wore showed that they had no fear of being attacked by the people they were massacring. They didn’t even have to wear helmets.
This attack came years after the United States military promised in writing, following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 that if members of MEK surrendered their weapons, they would be treated as protected persons under the Geneva Conventions. When the United States withdrew from Iraq in 2011, the government purported to transfer the responsibility to the Iraqi government, because it, rather than the United States was in charge. Now it should not be easy for a government to wash its hands of responsibility, and in fact it isn’t easy, even as the United States cites international law permitting the transfer of responsibility to a government in control. It disregards that part of the international law that says if the transfer is to a power that either cannot or will not follow through, that does not relieve the maker of the promise of its responsibility for keeping it and the maker of that promise was the United States.
Especially in these paralyze times with the residents of Camp Liberty caught between the horror of the Iraqi government that is under the pressure from Iran in one hand, and the ISIS from another, what can we do? Well as bob Torricelli said victory will come, but it is not going to come without action and we cannot sit by and wait for the others to act. One thing we have to do is to keep insisting that the US government airlift the residents out and place them at least temporarily in a location outside Iraq in the United States if necessary. US planes fly and function and fight in Iraq airspace today as they attack ISIS and as they rescue other minorities. There is no reason why they cannot function other humanitarian mission. That is simply a manner of morality.
Second; as Gen. Shelton said we must resist the idea that in order to defeat ISIS, United States should cooperate with Iran, whether implicitly of explicitly. Iran and ISIS are two sides of the same coin. Moreover, the Iranian regime and in particular Gen. Suleimani and the Quds force are desperate to regain the initiative in Iraq, by being seen as an instrument  for defeating ISIS, even as the centrifuges in Natanz and Qum continue to spin and Arak draws ever closer to a nuclear weapon. We cannot permit that.
We must insist that the residents of Liberty and Ashraf not be used as bargaining counters in an attempt to win an agreement from Iran on nuclear weapons. That agreement is a mirage. The people in Liberty and Ashraf are real. You don’t sacrifice real people in pursuit of a mirage.
Forth; we must keep account of the new Iraqi government and make it clear to al-Ebadi that he will be judged by how he treats residents of Liberty and Ashraf.
Those are short term strategies, ladies and gentlemen, but long term as Mrs. Rajavi and other have said, there is no substitute for regime change in Iran. That is the only way out of this conundrum that is the only honorable way out of this conundrum.
And as long as you and we continue to raise our voices, that way will be found.