28Oct03-John J. Lumpkin-State Department Official Slams Pentagon
Tue Oct 28,10:56 PM ET Add White House - AP Cabinet & State to My Yahoo!
By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - A top State Department official criticized the military Tuesday for agreeing to a wartime cease-fire with an Iranian rebel group based in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
"We shouldn't have been signing a cease-fire with a foreign terrorist organization," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The military signed an April 16 cease-fire with the Mujahedeen Khalq after warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition invading Iraq and bombed Mujahedeen Khalq sites. The group agreed to disarm and was not attacked again.
Armitage did not say how he believed the group should have been handled.
Pentagon officials have defended the cease-fire decision, saying the military's focus at the time was to defeat Iraq, and American troops could not afford to be fighting another heavily armed group at the same time.
The State Department's list of terrorist groups includes the Mujahedeen Khalq, which wants to overthrow Iran's Islamic government and has sought to make common cause with U.S. and other Western officials. It also has received weapons and support from Saddam, the deposed Iraqi president, who allowed the group's guerrillas to operate from eastern Iraq.
The U.S. government had maintained an ambiguous posture toward the group, even allowing it and an associated organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, to maintain offices in Washington. In August, however, the State Department shut down both groups' offices, which brought rare praise from Iran.
Some have suggested the act was to persuade Iran to surrender senior al-Qaida members believed to have taken up residence in the country. Iran may want the Americans to do more to the fighters in Iraq, such as turning them over to Iran, before negotiating about the al-Qaida operatives.
That is unlikely, Armitage said Tuesday.
"There have been speculations about making swaps with Iran. ... Although we may have some real complaints against terrorists, we also have some real strong views about how people should be treated," he said. "But if we find that people qualify as terrorists under our definition, then they're going to have to be dealt with in a legal manner."
The Iranian government has similarly said it won't turn over al-Qaida suspects to the United States but suggested it may put them on trial or send them to their home countries.
Since the Mujahedeen Khalq capitulated to U.S. forces, troops confiscated more than 2,100 vehicles and destroyed weapons caches, the U.S. Central Command said.
Defense officials who have discussed the situation on condition of anonymity said the Iranian fighters remain contained and disarmed in camps in eastern Iraq. Coalition forces have entered the camps to search for banned weapons and question members of the group about terrorist activities, defense officials said.
"They are contained, as I understand it, by the U.S. military, primarily the Army, and they have been disarmed of their major weapons," Armitage said. "I don't think all of them have turned over their sidearms. They are not allowed, as I understand it, free access in and out of their own camp."
Associated Press reporters Matt Kelley and Ken Guggenheim contributed to this report.
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