Will U.S. Help Iraq With MeK Warrants?

By Cernig

According to UPI, the Iraqi authorities have issued arrest warrants for three members of the neocons' favorite terror outfit, the Mujahedeen e-Kalq. US and Bulgarian troops guard the MeK at their salubrious Camp Ashraf inside Iraq but it has always been uncertain whether they are guarding Iraqis from the former Saddam bully-boys who aspire to be Iran's next government, or vice versa.

In addition to incursions into Iran and targeted killings of Iranian officials and security agents, MEK attacks have often killed civilians there. The MEK has been accused of attacking coalition troops in Iraq, carried out attacks on the Iranian consulate to the UN and 12 other Iranian embassies in 1992, assisted Saddam Hussein in his suppression of Shiite and Kurdish insurgencies in the early 1990s, and killed U.S. military and civilian personnel working in Iran in the 1970s out of anger for American support of the shah. Members of the MEK also supported the 1979 takeover and hostage taking at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

There have been persistent rumors that the U.S. is using the MeK as proxies to fight the current Iranian regime and it's certainly true that their political wing has been the source for many rightwing claims about secret Iranian nuclear programs, the vast bulk of which have proven false on investigation. It's a marriage of convenience - both the neocons within the Bush administration and the MeK hate the current Iranian government and the neocons get fuel for their war hype while the MeK hopes to goad the US into attacking Iran so that they can then take over.

So the big question is - will the U.S. military and the Bush administration allow the Iraqi warrants to be served, or will they bow to neocon pressure and protect the MeK from scrutiny again?