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75–862PDF 2012

CONDITIONS AT CAMP LIBERTY:

U.S. AND IRAQI FAILURES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND 

INVESTIGATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

Serial No. 112–181

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

RON PAUL, Texas 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

DAVID RIVERA, Florida 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina 

ROBERT TURNER, New York 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

FREDERICA WILSON, Florida 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

YLEEM D.S. POBLETE, Staff Director 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

DANA ROHRABACHER, California, Chairman 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

RON PAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

DAVID RIVERA, Florida 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

KAREN BASS, California 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESS 

The Honorable Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr., chairman, The Stimson Center ....... 3

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

The Honorable Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr.: Prepared statement .......................... 6

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 20

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 21

The Honorable Lincoln P. Bloomfield, Jr.: Statement on the Relocation Process of Camp Ashraf Asylum Seekers, by Tahar Boumedra .............................. 22

(1)

CONDITIONS AT CAMP LIBERTY: U.S. AND 

IRAQI FAILURES 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS, 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3 o’clock p.m., in room 

2255 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Dana Rohrabacher 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. This hearing of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee for the Foreign Affairs Committee will now 

come to order. We now move into the formal hearing on United 

States and Iraqi failures in regard to Camp Ashraf, and by extension, the strategic situation in Iraq and the region. I say this because the motive behind the attacks on Camp Ashraf comes from 

Iran through the Maliki government in Iraq which has aligned 

itself with the dictatorship in Tehran. Ashraf is only one example 

of this growing threat to American interests in the region, and 

could well be very symbolic of what we can expect in this region. 

Consider Shiite militias and the terrorists groups of like 

Hezbollah that operate in Iraq, funded and armed by Iran. The Iranian elite special squads, the Quds Force, also operates in Iraq 

without interference by the Maliki government. President Barack 

Obama was unable to negotiate a new Status of Forces Agreement 

with Prime Minister Maliki that would have allowed a small American military presence in Iraq past the end of 2011. He then placed 

limits on the size of the U.S. Embassy staff and the CIA. The 

Maliki government was adamant that U.S. forces leave the country, thus removing a check on their actions. Iran was also adamant 

about the United States withdrawal. 

The day after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, the Sunni Vice President al-Hashemi, a long-time foe of Shiite Prime Minister Maliki, 

was charged with terrorism. Hashemi fled first to Kurdistan, the 

province there in Iraq, and then on to Turkey. In September, on 

September 9th, in fact, he was sentenced in absentia to death by 

hanging. Maliki, who was once hailed as an Iraqi nationalist, has 

obviously become a sectarian plotting against the Sunnis and the 

Kurds of his own country. He has provoked a new domestic unrest 

and violence. The Sunnis were persuaded to turn on al-Qaeda in 

Iraq because we promised that they would get a fair shake in a 

democratic country. But that promise is fading, and the door may 

open again for al-Qaeda to rebuild. 

2

An editorial Monday, in the British Guardian newspaper, raised 

questions of whether Maliki would become an outright dictator or 

not. It ended with the statement, and I quote, ‘‘Maliki’s quest for 

domination could drive his country back into civil war.’’ Iraq is a 

conduit for weapons and supplies to the Syrian dictatorship which 

is trying to crush an uprising of its Sunni majority. The Syrian regime is allied with Iran. 

I initially supported the invasion of Iraq, I personally did, to 

overthrow the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. I thought that was 

what was the right thing for us to do, to oppose dictatorships, the 

United States, and to help people struggling to create democratic 

societies. In retrospect, I consider this to have been one of the 

greatest errors I have ever made, and certainly the greatest error 

made by the previous administration, the Bush administration. 

We sent an Army into Baghdad to get rid of a hostile government, which we did. But then while our troops were still there, 

what happened but a hostile government came into power. But this 

new hostile government is a hostile government aligned with the 

most dangerous regime in the region, Iran, which is a supporter of 

terrorism and has ambitions to develop nuclear weapons. 

Americans need to think about this a long time to figure out 

what we should be doing in the future and what policies we have. 

But one thing is sure, we should always be on the side of people 

who are longing for freedom, and that is where Camp Ashraf comes 

in. The Camp Ashraf story may start about human rights, but is 

ending up as part of a tragic, an epic tragedy that ties into how 

or who lost Iraq. 

With us today to discuss this tale is Lincoln Bloomfield, Jr. We 

had invited Ambassador Daniel Fried to testify on behalf of the 

State Department, but Ambassador Fried is in charge of Camp 

Ashraf and that issue, but he is out of the country, and the State 

Department said he was the only one who could actually discuss 

this adequately. So today we have with us Lincoln Bloomfield, Jr. 

instead. Given that since the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq 

that the State Department is the charge of U.S. policy, and now all 

our troops are gone so now it is all up to the State Department, 

I found it hard to believe that they could not find someone to come 

up here and tell us what it is all about. So be it. 

Mr. Bloomfield is the chairman of the Stimson Center. He was 

the Special Envoy for the Man-Portable Air Defense Systems threat 

reduction from 2008–2009, and Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs from 2001–2005. Mr. Bloomfield previously 

served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from 1992–93, Deputy Assistant Vice President for National 

Security Affairs in ’91–92, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from ’88 to ’89, 

among other positions. And I don’t see how you could squeeze anymore positions into that resume dating back to 1981. 

Mr. Bloomfield, if you could try to limit your testimony so we 

could have a few questions, because we expect some votes here fairly soon. 

You may proceed. 

3

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE LINCOLN P. BLOOMFIELD, 

JR., CHAIRMAN, THE STIMSON CENTER 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. Thank you, Chairman Rohrabacher, and thank 

you for the invitation to appear before this subcommittee. With 

your permission, sir, I have prepared some testimony and would 

ask that it be introduced into the record of the hearing. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. I will also be referring, I expect, to Mr. 

Boumedra’s testimony, and perhaps if it is permissible, his testimony and his briefing could be made part of the record of the hearing too, if that is permissible. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. So ordered, without objection. 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. Thank you very much. 

With your permission, sir, I will take just 1 minute. I have had 

five jobs in the State Department, and I am going to talk about the 

State Department. I would like to just say a word of respect and 

condolence for the four State Department employees who lost their 

lives in Benghazi. It is a terrible loss, and I offer my condolences 

to their families and friends and to the State Department community. It just reminds us how tough and how important the work 

they do is. And even though I will be framing a policy issue that 

is very much of a problem for the State Department, it does not 

imply any disrespect at all for their vital mission or the people who 

serve. 

I have one message, and I would hope that folks will digest my 

prepared testimony. There are copies here and it will be made 

available for the record. Mr. Boumedra testified as a human rights 

expert and as a former U.N. official, and it was clear from his briefing that he is very much concerned that the United Nations uphold 

its own principles. So the reason he resigned was that he felt that 

he was not being true to the principles of the U.N., and I respect 

that. 

There are people in this room and there are constituents for the 

members of the subcommittee who have friends and relatives in 

Camp Liberty and Camp Ashraf, and there is no question that they 

are vitally concerned for the welfare of their friends and relatives 

in Camp Liberty and Camp Ashraf. I share both of those concerns, 

but my message has really a third focus, which is United States 

interests and U.S. policy. 

Looking at the facts in this case, I believe that what Mr. 

Boumedra has brought to light has serious implications for U.S. 

policy. And Mr. Chairman, you talked about these as well, and I 

want to amplify the point that you were getting at. 

From my perspective, what we thought was happening in Iraq 

was that we were undergoing a process of relocation of 3,400 people 

to a place where UNHCR could process them as potential refugees. 

And the hope was, and the U.S. Government hope is, that they will 

complete the process, that most, if not all, will qualify as refugees, 

and that they will find third-party countries who are willing to 

take them. And in a perfect world, all of them will be relocated 

elsewhere safely and securely, problem solved. Secretary Clinton 

herself testified in February to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the United States’ policy was to try to process these 

4

people as expeditiously as possible, safely and securely, and to see 

them passed along to willing third countries. 

What we have heard from Mr. Boumedra is something very, very 

different. You heard him mention the Iranian Embassy. I have 

heard him talk about at least five meetings where the Iranian Embassy was at the decision table, and what we have heard is that 

an element of the Iraqi Government surrounding the Prime Minister of Iraq is implementing an agenda that is very much Iran’s 

agenda. 

I am here today because I don’t believe that the scenario that 

Mr. Boumedra has revealed as the real scenario that UNAMI has 

been supporting can be squared with the U.S. goal here. I think 

that they are operating directly at cross purposes, and I think that 

poses some serious problems and some serious risks. 

Some of the implications are that it puts the United States in the 

horrific position of giving this population at Camp Ashraf essentially two choices. Either move to what you have clearly learned is 

a detention facility with seven checkpoints guarded by a group that 

is commanded by Colonel Sadiq Muhammad Kazem, who led the 

April 2011 massacre at Camp Ashraf. He led the massacre. 

Now Mr. Boumedra says he was taking orders—we have heard 

that before, in the Nuremberg trial—but he led the massacre. He 

is in command of security at Camp Liberty. I pray that no one at 

the State Department knew that when they consented to a process 

that would drive people to be put under the command of the man 

who led the massacre. That alone has to be a human rights violation, to be facing down the guns of the people who wounded you, 

who killed the people among you. It is clearly a problem. 

And so there has been resistance among this population not to 

be put in that position, but they have been told, again by the Secretary of State in the same testimony, that her deliberations on the 

foreign terrorist organization list, her decision whether to re-list or 

de-list the MEK, will be guided in large part by how much cooperation this population exercises in leaving willingly and going to 

Camp Liberty. So look at the choice. 

And I must add, we have heard through the appeals court process that Secretary Clinton herself has been preoccupied with some 

pretty major crises in the world, and I take them at their word that 

she has been not able to review the file herself. But to put the Secretary of State in the position of saying, either go to a detention 

center where you are going to be unarmed, looking at people who 

have killed people amongst you, or plan to be on the terrorism list 

from now to eternity where you can’t travel, your families are separated from folks in the U.S., and all of your movements are being 

tracked by financial investigators and FBI and counterterrorism 

people, that is the choice we have given them. 

And I just don’t believe the United States, if they knew all the 

facts that we have now learned, would allow themselves, would 

allow the United States to be behind that kind of a Hobson’s 

choice. There would have to be a third option that respects principles of human rights. I think America is better than that, and I 

hope the Secretary of State will become acquainted at least with 

those facts. We should not be coercing the population into an untenable and illegal situation. 

5

Secondly, there has been some concern—and I have investigated 

the open source material about the MEK history—that Iranian intelligence for years has been planting false information. It doesn’t 

mean that the MEK was not conducting armed resistance against 

the mullahs in Iran, and I could talk about that. But my point is 

that when they leave, when the last group leaves Camp Ashraf, 

what protection do they have, do we have that there won’t be some 

attempt to plant false evidence that they were planning terrorist 

activities, thereby to manipulate our counterterrorism policy? Some 

of the residents of Camp Ashraf have asked for a third-party, independent investigation of Camp Ashraf, and have been told no, and 

I believe the U.S. Government has said it is not necessary. That 

is a risk. 

The third risk is a third massacre. Imagine if Colonel Sadiq, who 

by the way did travel. He went to France this summer to try to 

brief the European Parliament and was arrested at the door and 

held for several hours and then put on a plane back to Iraq. But 

if there is a third massacre, this does implicate United States law. 

And as someone who has worked for years on security assistance 

relationships, with this one we have lost a lot of troops to try to 

get us to the point where U.S. and Iraqi forces will mentor and will 

be partners for many years. We have huge programs with jobs 

lined up behind them: Fighter aircraft and tanks. There are assembly lines that are waiting for these programs to go forward. 

If there is a third massacre, the Arms Export Control Act could 

severely complicate that. It would give the Congress and the administration a terrible choice of either overlooking the law and giving them a pass under those circumstances, or interrupting a program for which so many troops fought and died. There is also the 

Leahy Human Rights law, and if Colonel Sadiq doesn’t qualify as 

someone who has committed gross human rights violations, I don’t 

know who would. But he should be banned under the law from ever 

receiving training from the United States. 

Those are two laws that I helped enforce and wrote the guidance 

for in some cases, and there is no good outcome here. And so I 

guess I would say, as long as this Iranian and Prime Minister 

Maliki’s agenda to do as Mr. Boumedra said, it is an announced 

policy to make their lives unbearable. So we hear a lot about clean 

water and air conditioning and private property, and these are 

huge issues, but if you look at it strategically as part of a plan to 

make them lose their will and say, all right, I can’t look at this 120 

degree container box anymore, just let me out of here, and put 

them out into the open in Iraq where they could be vulnerable to 

Iraqi elements or to Iranian intelligence, and then take the top 

200, thereabouts, for whom there are arrest warrants out who can 

never qualify by the way as refugees as long as there is a warrant 

out, the plan would obviously be to turn them over to Iran, which 

violates the non-refoulement principle which is a cardinal principle 

of humanitarian law. 

Do we want to be a party to such things? I testified last December that I wondered why we didn’t try to move the whole enterprise 

of the UNHCR to a safe harbor somewhere else. I repeat that recommendation today, and I redouble my belief that U.S. interests 

and the State Department’s interests would be much better served 

6

if Secretary Clinton tried really hard, maybe at the U.N. General 

Assembly meetings this month, to find a friendly country to take 

all of these people, not to let them loose but to let them be processed as refugees without threats to their lives and without violations of international law and principles of humanitarian standards 

and human rights law. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bloomfield follows:]


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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. So it is indisputable 

that Iran’s mullah dictatorship now has significant influence on the 

Government of Iraq and its policies, correct? 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. They happen to run part of the government. I 

question whether that is the sentiment of all of the Iraqi people, 

but yes, sir. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, significant influence on its government 

and its policies, that doesn’t necessarily mean its people. There 

have been reports that, in fact, there might be some Iranian special 

type of hit squads or whatever operating inside Iraq. Do you know 

anything about that? 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. I have heard the former commander of U.S. 

forces and coalition forces in Iraq say that he had a special unit 

during his tenure in the last 5 or 6 years that was tracking Iranian 

agents inside Iraq. They broke into a safe house and captured six 

of them one night, and four of them had diplomatic papers and had 

to be let go. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Are these like Hezbollah units as well. I 

mean——

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. I don’t know of Hezbollah units. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay. 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. By the way, I am given to understand that the 

Ambassador of Iran in Baghdad is a senior Quds Force commander. 

I can’t tell you I know that but I would certainly invite the Director 

of National Intelligence to answer the question. It shouldn’t be too 

hard. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It is not hard to ask the question. It is hard 

to get an answer on these things. So you have stressed today that 

Colonel Sadiq, the man who was in command of the troops that invaded Camp Ashraf and massacred, what, 34 dead and hundreds 

wounded of unarmed people, that he is now in charge of the security for the camp that we have agreed to send these people to? 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would suggest that is a disgrace, and obviously our people on the scene know that. This is just disgraceful. 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt 

and I would——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It is pretty hard to miss that. That is pretty 

hard to miss. In fact, if I remember seeing the photos, have you 

seen the videos from——

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. Yes. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Was he the fat guy up there shooting his gun 

at the people? 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. I don’t know, sir. 

Mr. POE. You are correct. That is who he was. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. That is who he was. This is a disgrace, and 

it is a betrayal of everything America believes in. We made a deal 

with these people, and now we have someone who has already committed a massacre against them and put that person in charge of 

their security. Yes. 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. If I could make a comment, Mr. Chairman, we 

can look back and say this was a mistake, that was a mistake, but 

we could also look forward and say, worse things can happen. A 

12

third massacre could happen. That would be detrimental to America’s honor and reputation. 

One of the things I learned from listening to Mr. Boumedra is 

that the U.S. forces who provided Fourth Geneva Convention Protected Persons status to all of the residents of Camp Ashraf in 2003 

and gave them Protected Persons identity cards. There is a RAND 

report which we could discuss; I have some issues with the report, 

which tries to make the case that it should never have been granted, but that in any case it didn’t outlive when U.S. troops pulled 

back from Camp Ashraf. 

Mr. Boumedra says, under Article 45 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which I have read and tried to understand as a non-lawyer, if the party that you give the security over to, namely Iraq, 

does a good job, then you are fine. If the party that you hand security over to does not uphold their security, you continue to have 

that obligation. And he wrote this in his column in The Hill, that 

the United States has an international legal obligation that continues to this day. A promise made in 2003 has not expired for 

those residents. So it is more than just a moral issue. It is a legal 

obligation. And I daresay that is why so many senior former U.S. 

leaders are outspoken on this issue. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, it is not just say an obligation to fulfill 

a contract. What we are talking about is the potential massacre of 

unarmed human beings, and that if that outcome happens it will 

not be because, oh, we didn’t know that that was possible. What 

a mistake we made by overlooking the fact that the colonel who 

last oversaw the massacres was now put in charge of their security. 

This is not mistakes. This is evil dereliction of duty on the part of 

our people who are supposed to have policies of our Government 

that reflect what I consider to be the moral base of American policy. I mean if we have no moral base to our policy how do we expect anything else of the world? 

Secretary of State, for example, we have no doubt that the Secretary of State knows exactly what this situation is. I mean this 

is not, well, I am so busy that I overlooked it. I was just too busy 

out on the Pacific pivoting around there and too busy over here. 

No, she knows. And it is the policy of this administration. It is the 

policy that was decided upon by this administration, this Secretary 

of State and this President to make a rotten, corrupt deal with the 

mullah dictatorship in Iran. That is what it is all about. It is not 

about a mistake. It is about an intentional deal that has been made 

and kept from the American people. Now how do you verify that 

that deal actually exists? Well, it is sort of like the old thing, 

quack-quack. If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and talks 

like a duck and flies like a duck, it is probably a duck. And that 

is what we probably have on our hands here, not a duck, but what 

we have is an immoral deal between our Government and the 

mullah dictatorship, because all the indications are that that is 

what is driving this bad policy. 

I will now yield to Judge Poe who will tell us whether or not 

what I said is admissible in his court. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Bloomfield, thank you for your candor. I am surprised, but 

I do appreciate your candor today. We have a large group of people 

13

here that are seated behind you, and I see tired eyes in this audience. These are just regular folks. Many of them as you know have 

family in Ashraf or Liberty. Many of them had family in Camp 

Ashraf. They have friends that have been murdered in Camp 

Ashraf by the Maliki government. The person in charge you have 

mentioned is now in charge of Liberty, Camp Liberty. 

And these eyes that I see, these tired eyes, they are tired for a 

lot of reasons. They are tired of being treated not like people, but 

like criminals, maybe even worse than criminals. They are tired of 

promises, promises, promises. They are tired of abuse. They are 

tired of having their property stolen from them. They are tired of 

being treated as subhumans. They are tired of losing the lives or 

the loss of lives of their family and their friends. Tired eyes. They 

are tired of Maliki. They are tired of Iran. And they are tired of 

the United States’ promises to keep them safe. 

We are as you know the human rights country in the world. We 

have done a pretty good job spreading that gospel. We haven’t done 

a very good job at all with these people, the MEK. They are in the 

situation they are in because of the United States, in my opinion. 

We labeled them as a foreign terrorist organization. You don’t see 

the eyes of terrorists in this room. They are not terrorists. 

And we have it in our power to help this bad situation with the 

Maliki government, with the Iranian Goverment, with the criminals that are stealing their property and stealing their lives. We 

have it in our power to fix it. You mentioned that it would be great 

if we could get them all to some other country. 

They can’t get in another country. They can’t leave Iraq because 

no country will take them because we, the United States, have 

given them a label of a foreign terrorist organization. We remove 

that label as we should have done a long time ago, and then they 

will have hope to go to some other country, even the United States. 

But they can’t get out of their concentration camp because of the 

label, our label. And in the last year, the State Department has 

been stonewalling court orders in our country, telling them to get 

it together, make up your mind. Review the designation, whether 

they should keep that designation or not. And by making no decision they are still labeled. So the day of reckoning ought to be the 

Secretary of State when she goes to the U.N., in my opinion, ought 

to say, guess what, folks. We are removing the FTO designation 

from the MEK, and now we are going to help those people get out 

of Iraq and actually be free. And then we may no longer see tired 

eyes, but eyes that believe in liberty in Camp Liberty. 

I have one question. Well, I have a lot of questions. I don’t know 

how much time you are going to let me talk, but I am going to talk 

until you make me stop. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Go for it. 

Mr. POE. I understand your position. I understand your position 

in our Government, and some of our questions probably should be 

to others. What can we do to make sure as a nation, us, that Martin Kobler is removed from any authority in the United Nations? 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. Well, Judge Poe, as you know I am speaking 

as a former official——

Mr. POE. I know. 

14

Mr. BLOOMFIELD [continuing]. But for myself. In my testimony 

you will see I was shocked and disappointed by the statement out 

of the U.N. Under Secretary General for Political Affairs office on 

July 28th, their reaction to the news that Mr. Boumedra was lodging serious complaints about UNAMI’s conduct in Iraq and violation of U.N. principles. The U.N. spokesman said, we are disappointed that this great process is being distorted and 

misportrayed. In other words, the messenger is being dismissed as 

not credible. That is all they have said. Well, there may be some 

other correspondence going on but I will leave that to Mr. 

Boumedra to talk about. But that was the public statement. 

I am not aware that the U.S. Government has made an official 

statement of reaction. I urge them to be very careful. And I cite an 

example where when I had 320 people in the State Department 

under my leadership there was an allegation made. I didn’t know 

if it was true or false. I didn’t know if the person was credible or 

not. I had no choice but to do the right thing, which is have a town 

hall meeting, announce that we are going to allow the professional 

investigators to come in, and we are all going to cooperate. And it 

was painful. It slowed us down in our work, but we did the right 

thing. Because the minute you start sending a message that standards and laws and rules can be overlooked it is a very slippery 

slope. 

So my answer, sir, would be the U.N. should be sending in another envoy. Maybe if they don’t want to dismiss Mr. Kobler they 

should send in a veteran to ride sidesaddle and watch over what 

happens from there. That is point one. 

Point two is really for the U.S. Government. I am here to tell you 

that I don’t think the Government of Iran ever wants the residents, 

the exiles inside Iraq to leave alive. Because if they do they will 

find safe harbor in countries around the world and they will conduct political activities aimed at ending the dictatorship in Tehran. 

We know that the government of Tehran does not want that to 

happen. That is clearly now revealed to be the operative policy. I 

think the State Department needs to take a deep breath and say 

our plan, the one the Secretary testified to, the smooth processing 

and onward relocation, is going to take years and it is probably not 

going to happen, because the Government of Iraq or the Prime 

Minister’s office with the Iranian Embassy and the regime in 

Tehran right behind them, is going to obstruct this at every turn. 

It is a losing proposition. We need to think of something different. 

My view is perhaps they could be granted refugee status, but 

short of that the UNHCR process could be relocated to a safe facility where they are still under the sort of supervision of the United 

Nations. They could be interviewed and there would be no coercion. 

There would be no threats to the public safety and to the lives of 

these people. And there would be no question of the United States 

being complicit in the violation of international humanitarian 

standards and human rights law. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, it is clear that the government of 

Tehran, the mullah dictatorship, is not acting in good faith. After 

all, what they really want is, as you say, they want this group of 

people to be squashed like bugs so that they won’t be bothered by 

15

them in some way. It appears that the Government of Iraq is not 

operating in good faith. Any government that places a perpetrator 

of a massacre in charge of security over the same group of people 

who have been massacred certainly isn’t operating in good faith. 

There is no doubt that these people know what they are doing. 

Well, that leaves the United States Government. Are we operating in good faith? Is our State Department operating in good 

faith? Considering the fact that this could be solved, we believe at 

least, at least we know that would be a very good policy that we 

could solve this situation in an acceptable way if our designation 

of this group as a terrorist group was taken off, I don’t see how we 

can assume that our Government is operating in good faith. That 

is pretty bad. I mean this is pretty bad. The mullah regime is not 

operating in good faith. The lap dogs of the mullah regime in Iraq 

are not operating in good faith. And the United States State Department is not operating in good faith. I am kind of disappointed 

that we are in that crowd. 

And so let us just note this. In 1939, the U.S. St. Louis, a passenger vessel, was loaded with Jews in Europe and it took off for 

the West, and a whole shipload of Jews who are going to escape 

the holocaust. Well, Mr. Bloomfield, you know what happened to 

that ship, don’t you? We turned them down. We turned them down. 

Well, if the United States turned them down, why should anybody 

else accept them? So we turned them down and then they went to 

Cuba and then they went elsewhere, and no one would take them, 

because after all, the United States turned them down. And a significant number of them ended up back in Europe and died in the 

holocaust. 

Is this the type of decision making that is acceptable for the 

United States today, as we have a group of people who have already suffered a massacre knowing that they may well be massacred again? And we are just going to say no, we are not going 

to change that designation, and we expect the ship to sail on? 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. Mr. Chairman, I will give you my perspective. 

As someone who has served in five administrations I can’t get the 

policy calculus out of my mind. A lot of issues are imperfect. There 

are a lot of issues that are hard, and they are sometimes too hard. 

The results aren’t pretty. No one can say this is easy for the State 

Department, and I recognize that. The question now is, what 

should we be doing right now to rectify the situation? I will just 

say, a foreign terrorist organization listing is not an impediment to 

living up to our human rights standards and fulfilling our international legal obligations. As a superpower, anything less is not acceptable. We can do this the right way. So there is no excuse not 

to stand up for our principles. 

If we were to back away from Mr. Maliki’s activities as if to say 

ceding him the playing field at a time, frankly, when Iran is losing 

its grip in Syria and Lebanon, this is not the time for us to be sort 

of ceding territory in what used to be the strongest country in the 

Arab world to people who are not fulfilling international legal principles. What we should be doing is making an issue of it and urging 

them and showing them a way forward that says, if you straighten 

up we can do this the right way, but you need to stop abusing an 

at-risk population. 

16

On the issue of the foreign terrorist listing, I think the analogy 

can go a little further. What is a foreign terrorist organization listing? What does that mean? It means we have some of the smartest, 

most patriotic and talented people who were good enough to get 

into the Treasury Department, the FBI, and the National Counterterrorism Center; these are the people who are supposed to be 

tracking terrorists around the world. And so if you are on that list 

they are chasing you through Interpol. They are looking for financial transactions. They are looking for front companies. They are 

checking airline manifests. That is their job and they do it very 

well. So if a group is on that list and I am a European government, 

I am thinking to myself, do I really want the Treasury Department 

and FBI and all these people tracking, do I want to bring people 

in who will attract all of this law enforcement scrutiny and jam up 

my airline security and all of that? I don’t think the U.S. Government has been honest about the burden that FTO places. 

Now should they be on the list or not? I have never answered 

that question. I have studied this issue, but I have left it to people 

to read the evidence for themselves. Now I am close to completing 

a very in-depth study of all the allegations including the history, 

and I cannot find anything that comports with the 2004 law, certainly not within 2 to 5 years, that would fall under the definition 

of terrorism. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. But if you will permit me, sir, imagine that there is something classified. Imagine 

that there is a smoking gun piece of intelligence. 

All I can say is, if it is more than 1 month old, if it is 1 year 

old or 2 years old and we haven’t released it, and I were the British 

Government, I would say, you let us have a royal wedding, you let 

us have the Queen’s 60th Jubilee, and we had the Olympic Games, 

and you didn’t tell us that there was a smoking gun of terrorist activity by people who are running around our country free? So that 

would be issue one. And if the answer was, well, actually we did 

share it with the Brits, then you are going to have a call from the 

appeals court, which we know for a fact hasn’t seen it. They are 

waiting for this dossier saying, you gave it to a foreign country but 

you didn’t give it to a court of law in America. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Or how about you didn’t give it to the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the committee in Congress that is supposed to oversee American foreign policy? 

Mr. BLOOMFIELD. I thought you would finish the thought for me. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes. It is outrageous. It is obviously to me 

and it should be obvious to any honest observer that this designation is out of some corrupt agreement with someone, and that 

someone is likely to be the mullah regime in Tehran. I don’t know 

what we got for it. Probably that they wouldn’t be supporting certain terrorist activities as long as we kept this terrorist group—and 

what is a dictatorship of mullahs who have murdered so many people in their country, what do they think a terrorist group is? That 

is anybody who opposes them in an organized way. 

Now we appreciate your testimony today. I think that we have, 

what—well, I am sorry. We are done. And I thank you very much. 

If Ms. Jackson Lee was here now we would be free to keep it open, 

but we are not going to hold everybody here. 

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Thank you, all. Let us make sure that America will make the 

right decision as long as we are there as U.S. citizens holding the 

decision makers’ feet to the fire saying, these are our standards as 

American. You better represent those standards or you are not our 

Government. So that is what it is all about, all of us together. That 

is what America is, us, United States. We better stand for something better in this world or there is no hope for anyone in this 

world. 

Thank you. This meeting is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:59 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE LINCOLN P. BLOOMFIELD, 

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