Acts of War

The MEK traces its roots back to the CIA-orchestrated overthrow
of the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeg. Formed
among students and intellectuals, the MEK emerged in the 1960s as a
serious threat to the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. Facing brutal
repression from the Shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, the MEK became
expert at blending into Iranian society, forming a cellular
organizational structure which made it virtually impossible to
eradicate. The MEK membership also became adept at gaining access to
positions of sensitivity and authority. When the Shah was overthrown in
1978, the MEK played a major role and for a while worked hand in glove
with the Islamic Revolution in crafting a post-Shah Iran. In 1979 the
MEK had a central role in orchestrating the seizure of the U.S. Embassy
in Tehran, and holding 55 Americans hostage for 444 days.

However, relations between the MEK and the Islamic regime in
Tehran soured, and after the MEK staged a bloody coup attempt in 1981,
all ties were severed and the two sides engaged in a violent civil war.
Revolutionary Guard members who were active at that time have
acknowledged how difficult it was to fight the MEK. In the end, massive
acts of arbitrary arrest, torture and executions were required to break
the back of mainstream MEK activity in Iran, although even the
Revolutionary Guard today admits the MEK remains active and is
virtually impossible to completely eradicate.

It is this stubborn ability to survive and operate inside Iran,
at a time when no other intelligence service can establish and maintain
a meaningful agent network there, which makes the MEK such an asset to
nations such as the United States and Israel. The MEK is able to
provide some useful intelligence; however, its overall value as an
intelligence resource is negatively impacted by the fact that it is the
sole source of human intelligence in Iran. As such, the group has taken
to exaggerating and fabricating reports to serve its own political
agenda. In this way, there is little to differentiate the MEK from
another Middle Eastern expatriate opposition group, the Iraqi National
Congress, or INC, which infamously supplied inaccurate intelligence to
the United States and other governments and helped influence the U.S.
decision to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. Today, the MEK
sees itself in a similar role, providing sole-sourced intelligence to
the United States and Israel in an effort to facilitate American
military operations against Iran and, eventually, to overthrow the
Islamic regime in Tehran.

The current situation concerning the MEK would be laughable if
it were not for the violent reality of that organization’s activities.
Upon its arrival in Iraq in 1986, the group was placed under the
control of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat, or intelligence service. The
MEK was a heavily militarized organization and in 1988 participated in
division-size military operations against Iran. The organization
represents no state and can be found on the U.S. State Department’s
list of terrorist organizations, yet since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in
2003, the MEK has been under the protection of the U.S. military. Its
fighters are even given “protected status” under the Geneva
Conventions. The MEK says its members in Iraq are refugees, not
terrorists. And yet one would be hard-pressed to find why the 1951
Geneva Convention on Refugees should confer refugee status on an active
paramilitary organization that uses “refugee camps” inside Iraq as its
bases.

The MEK is behind much of the intelligence being used by the
International Atomic Energy Agency in building its case that Iran may
be pursuing (or did in fact pursue in the past) a nuclear weapons
program. The complexity of the MEK-CIA relationship was recently
underscored by the agency’s acquisition of a laptop computer allegedly
containing numerous secret documents pertaining to an Iranian nuclear
weapons program. Much has been made about this computer and its
contents. The United States has led the charge against Iran within
international diplomatic circles, citing the laptop information as the
primary source proving Iran’s ongoing involvement in clandestine
nuclear weapons activity. Of course, the information on the computer,
being derived from questionable sources (i.e., the MEK and the CIA,
both sworn enemies of Iran) is controversial and its veracity is
questioned by many, including me.

Now, I have a simple solution to the issue of the laptop
computer: Give it the UNSCOM treatment. Assemble a team of CIA, FBI and
Defense Department forensic computer analysts and probe the computer,
byte by byte. Construct a chronological record of how and when the data
on the computer were assembled. Check the “logic” of the data, making
sure everything fits together in a manner consistent with the
computer’s stated function and use. Tell us when the computer was
turned on and logged into and how it was used. Then, with this complex
usage template constructed, overlay the various themes which have been
derived from the computer’s contents, pertaining to projects, studies
and other activities of interest. One should be able to rapidly
ascertain whether or not the computer is truly a key piece of
intelligence pertaining to Iran’s nuclear programs.

The fact that this computer is acknowledged as coming from the
MEK and the fact that a proper forensic investigation would probably
demonstrate the fabricated nature of the data contained are why the
U.S. government will never agree to such an investigation being done. A
prosecutor, when making a case of criminal action, must lay out
evidence in a simple, direct manner, allowing not only the judge and
jury to see it but also the accused. If the evidence is as strong as
the prosecutor maintains, it is usually bad news for the defendant.
However, if the defendant is able to demonstrate inconsistencies and
inaccuracies in the data being presented, then the prosecution is the
one in trouble. And if the defense is able to demonstrate that the
entire case is built upon fabricated evidence, the case is generally
thrown out. This, in short, is what should be done with the IAEA’s
ongoing probe into allegations that Iran has pursued nuclear weapons.
The evidence used by the IAEA is unable to withstand even the most
rudimentary cross-examination. It is speculative at best, and most
probably fabricated. Iran has done the right thing in refusing to
legitimize this illegitimate source of information.

A key question that must be asked is why, then, does the IAEA
continue to permit Olli Heinonen, the agency’s Finnish deputy director
for safeguards and the IAEA official responsible for the ongoing
technical inspections in Iran, to wage his one-man campaign on behalf
of the United States, Britain and (indirectly) Israel regarding
allegations derived from sources of such questionable veracity (the
MEK-supplied laptop computer)? Moreover, why is such an official given
free rein to discuss such sensitive data with the press, or with
politically motivated outside agencies, in a manner that results in
questionable allegations appearing in the public arena as unquestioned
fact? Under normal circumstances, leaks of the sort that have occurred
regarding the ongoing investigation into Iran’s alleged past studies on
nuclear weapons would be subjected to a thorough investigation to
determine the source and to ensure that appropriate measures are taken
to end them. And yet, in Vienna, Heinonen’s repeated transgressions are
treated as a giant “non-event,” the 800-pound gorilla in the room that
everyone pretends isn’t really there.

Heinonen has become the pro-war yin to the anti-confrontation
yang of his boss, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. Every time
ElBaradei releases the results of the IAEA probe of Iran, pointing out
that the IAEA can find no evidence of any past or present nuclear
weapons program, and that there is a full understanding of Iran’s
controversial centrifuge-based enrichment program, Heinonen throws a
monkey wrench into the works. Well-publicized briefings are given to
IAEA-based diplomats. Mysteriously, leaks from undisclosed sources
occur. Heinonen’s Finnish nationality serves as a flimsy cover for
neutrality that long ago disappeared. He is no longer serving in the
role as unbiased inspector, but rather a front for the active pursuit
of an American- and Israeli-inspired disinformation campaign designed
to keep alive the flimsy allegations of a nonexistent Iranian nuclear
weapons program in order to justify the continued warlike stance taken
by the U.S. and Israel against Iran.

The fact that the IAEA is being used as a front to pursue this
blatantly anti-Iranian propaganda is a disservice to an organization
with a mission of vital world importance. The interjection of not only
the unverified (and unverifiable) MEK laptop computer data, side by
side with a newly placed emphasis on a document relating to the forming
of uranium metal into hemispheres of the kind useful in a nuclear
weapon, is an amateurish manipulation of data to achieve a preordained
outcome. Calling the Iranian possession of the aforementioned document
“alarming,” Heinonen (and the media) skipped past the history of the
document, which, of course, has been well explained by Iran previously
as something the Pakistani nuclear proliferator A.Q. Khan inserted on
his own volition to a delivery of documentation pertaining to
centrifuges. Far from being a “top-secret” document protected by Iran’s
security services, it was discarded in a file of old material that Iran
provided to the IAEA inspectors. When the IAEA found the document, Iran
allowed it to be fully examined by the inspectors, and answered every
question posed by the IAEA about how the document came to be in Iran.
For Heinonen to call the document “alarming,” at this late stage in the
game, is not only irresponsible but factually inaccurate, given the
definition of the word. The Iranian document in question is neither a
cause for alarm, seeing as it is not a source for any “sudden fear
brought on by the sense of danger,” nor does it provide any “warning of
existing or approaching danger,” unless one is speaking of the danger
of military action on the part of the United States derived from
Heinonen’s unfortunate actions and choice of words.

Olli Heinonen might as well become a salaried member of the Bush
administration, since he is operating in lock step with the U.S.
government’s objective of painting Iran as a threat worthy of military
action. Shortly after Heinonen’s alarmist briefing in March 2008, the
U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, Gregory Schulte, emerged to announce, “As
today’s briefing showed us, there are strong reasons to suspect that
Iran was working covertly and deceitfully, at least until recently, to
build a bomb.” Heinonen’s briefing provided nothing of the sort, being
derived from an irrelevant document and a laptop computer of
questionable provenance. But that did not matter to Schulte, who noted
that “Iran has refused to explain or even acknowledge past work on
weaponization.” Schulte did not bother to note that it would be
difficult for Iran to explain or acknowledge that which it has not
done. “This is particularly troubling,” Schulte went on, “when combined
with Iran’s determined effort to master the technology to enrich
uranium.” Why is this so troubling? Because, as Schulte noted, “Uranium
enrichment is not necessary for Iran’s civil program but it is
necessary to produce the fissile material that could be weaponized into
a bomb.”

This, of course, is the crux of the issue: Iran’s ongoing
enrichment program. Not because it is illegal; Iran is permitted to
enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under Article IV of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. Not again because Iran’s centrifuge program
is operating in an undeclared, unmonitored fashion; the IAEA had stated
it has a full understanding of the scope and work of the Iranian
centrifuge enrichment program and that all associated nuclear material
is accounted for and safeguarded. The problem has never been, and will
never be, Iran’s enrichment program. The problem is American policy
objectives of regime change in Iran, pushed by a combination of
American desires for global hegemony and an activist Israeli agenda
which seeks regional security, in perpetuity, through military and
economic supremacy. The specter of nuclear enrichment is simply a
vehicle for facilitating the larger policy objectives. Olli Heinonen,
and those who support and sustain his work, must be aware of the larger
geopolitical context of his actions, which makes them all the more
puzzling and contemptible.

A major culprit in this entire sordid affair is the mainstream
media. Displaying an almost uncanny inability to connect the dots, the
editors who run America’s largest newspapers, and the producers who put
together America’s biggest television news programs, have collectively
facilitated the most simplistic, inane and factually unfounded story
lines coming out of the Bush White House. The most recent fairy tale
was one of “diplomacy,” on the part of one William Burns, the No. 3
diplomat in the State Department.

I have studied the minutes of meetings involving John McCloy, an
American official who served numerous administrations, Democratic and
Republican alike, in the decades following the end of the Second World
War. His diplomacy with the Soviets, conducted with senior Soviet
negotiator Valerein Zorin and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev himself,
was real, genuine, direct and designed to resolve differences. The
transcripts of the diplomacy conducted between Henry Kissinger and Le
Duc Tho to bring an end to the Vietnam conflict is likewise a study in
the give and take required to achieve the status of real diplomacy.

Sending a relatively obscure official like Burns to “observe” a
meeting between the European Union and Iran, with instructions not to
interact, not to initiate, not to discuss, cannot under any
circumstances be construed as diplomacy. Any student of diplomatic
history could tell you this. And yet the esteemed editors and news
producers used the term diplomacy, without challenge or clarification,
to describe Burns’ mission to Geneva on July 19. The decision to send
him there was hailed as a “significant concession” on the part of the
Bush administration, a step away from war and an indication of a new
desire within the White House to resolve the Iranian impasse through
diplomacy. How this was going to happen with a diplomat hobbled and
muzzled to the degree Burns was apparently skipped the attention of
these writers and their bosses. Diplomacy, America was told, was the
new policy option of choice for the Bush administration.

Of course, the Geneva talks produced nothing. The United States
had made sure Europe, through its foreign policy chief, Javier Solana,
had no maneuvering room when it came to the core issue of uranium
enrichment: Iran must suspend all enrichment before any movement could
be made on any other issue. Furthermore, the American-backed program of
investigation concerning the MEK-supplied laptop computer further
poisoned the diplomatic waters. Iran, predictably, refused to suspend
its enrichment program, and rejected the Heinonen-led investigation
into nuclear weaponization, refusing to cooperate further with the IAEA
on that matter, noting that it fell outside the scope of the IAEA’s
mandate in Iran.

Condoleezza Rice was quick to respond. After a debriefing from
Burns, who flew to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where Rice was
holding closed-door meetings with the foreign ministers of six Arab
nations on the issue of Iran, Rice told the media that Iran “was not
serious” about resolving the standoff. Having played the diplomacy
card, Rice moved on with the real agenda: If Iran did not fully
cooperate with the international community (i.e., suspend its
enrichment program), then it would face a new round of economic
sanctions and undisclosed punitive measures, both unilaterally on the
part of the United States and Europe, as well as in the form of even
broader sanctions from the United Nations Security Council (although it
is doubtful that Russia and China would go along with such a plan).

The issue of unilateral U.S. sanctions is most worrisome. Both
the House of Representatives, through HR 362, and the Senate, through
SR 580, are preparing legislation that would call for an air, ground
and sea blockade of Iran. Back in October 1962, President John F.
Kennedy, when considering the imposition of a naval blockade against
Cuba in response to the presence of Soviet missiles in that nation,
opined that “a blockade is a major military operation, too. It’s an act
of war.” Which, of course, it is. The false diplomacy waged by the
White House in Geneva simply pre-empted any congressional call for a
diplomatic outreach. Now the president can move on with the mission of
facilitating a larger war with Iran by legitimizing yet another act of
aggression.

One day, in the not-so-distant future, Americans will awake to
the reality that American military forces are engaged in a shooting war
with Iran. Many will scratch their heads and wonder, “How did that
happen?” The answer is simple: We all let it happen. We are at war with
Iran right now. We just don’t have the moral courage to admit it.

Scott Ritter is a former U.N. weapons inspector and Marine
intelligence officer who has written extensively about Iran.