Wampum

Gordon Johndroe, spokesperson for the NSC:

The president and his national security team over the last several months have continued to receive information that Iranians were supplying IED equipment and or training that was being used to harm American soldiers.

Dowlat Nowrouzi, spokesperson for the MEK/PMOI/NRO in the UK:

Thousands of members of SCIRI and the Badr Brigades are still on Teheran's payroll. They receive monthly sums in Rials in return for carrying out "terrorist attacks" and causing "chaos".

Good to know who's running the Regime's Iran policy. Maryam Rajavi and her happy band of elves status terrorists.

Concerning contacts with Iranian opposition groups, there are numerous such groups in the United States and abroad that do not espouse violence and whose political aims range from supporting a return of the monarchy to establishing a constitutional democracy. Many focus their efforts on Iranian human rights abuses, and work closely with the U.N. Human Rights Committee and private human rights groups. We do meet with representatives of such groups at their request, and believe these contacts are useful as an informational exchange.

However, the National Council of Resistance is closely linked to the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI), also known as the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). Both groups are led by Masud Rajavi. The Administration maintains a policy of no contacts with the PMOI and, by extension, the NCR. This decision is based on our opposition to the PMOI's use of terrorism. Just as we vigorously oppose the Iranian Government's support for terrorism, we do not condone the use of terror and violence in turn by the Mojahedin or any other opposition group. Nor can we forget that U.S. citizens were the victims of PMOI terrorism in the 1970s, or that the group supported the takeover of our Embassy in 1979 and the holding of U.S. diplomats. The PMOI's claim that the organization is not responsible for actions carried out while its current leaders were in jail is a facile one and, in the case of the Embassy takeover, erroneous. As shown in attached 1981 excerpts from the PMOI's own newspaper--published after current PMOI leader Masud Rajavi was released from jail in February 1979--the group fully supported the Embassy takeover and opposed releasing our diplomats. Only in recent years has the PMOI sought to distance itself from its past in order to gain Western support.

Other factors support our view that it would be inappropriate to deal with the PMOI/NCR. The National Council of Resistance's claims to be a democratic organization have never been substantiated by its actions. The NCR did, at its inception, include a diverse range of Iranian opposition groups. However, within three years most of the groups that were not controlled by Masud Rajavi had left the organization. According to Ervand Abrahamian's book The Iranian Mojahedin (Yale University Press, 1989), these groups left because the NCR was not democratic, but rather manipulated by Rajavi.

In years since, most Iranian opposition groups have continued to refuse cooperation with the NCR. A recent example was a 1992 interview with the late Dr. Sa'id of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (Iran), who denied any links or connections with the PMOI, and said, `In our opinion, our cooperation with the PMOI right now is impossible.' We have no reason to believe the PMOI has become democratic, nor that an Iranian government established by the NCR would be.

In a different area, I would note that the PMOI/NCR reporting often contains questionable statements and assertions which do not stand up to later examination. Our intelligence community judges that their reporting is not reliable without validation from other sources.

Our own analysis does not support PMOI claims to widespread support inside Iran. The PMOI's military wing, the national Liberation Army, continues to be based in Iraq and retains the support and financing of Saddam Hussein's regime. The PMOI joined Iraqi forces in the eight-year war with Iran. These ties to Iraq have discredited the Mojahedin and NCR in the eyes of many Iranians, and the organization does not represent a significant political force among Iranians.

Wendy R. Sherman, Assistant Secretary, Legislative Affairs, to Rep. Lee Hamilton (D), September 28, 1993, who then advocated "opening a dialogue with the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which espouses democracy and human rights".