Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Why Is the former Propaganda Minister of a Terrorist Group on FoxNews Staff?

host · 04-05-2008, 09:56 AM

Quote:

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2003/20072.htm
On-the-Record Briefing
Ambassador Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism
Remarks at On-the-Record Briefing on the Release of the Annual Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002 report
Washington, DC
April 30, 2003

.....QUESTION: What does the State Department think about the ceasefire that was signed between the MEK and the U.S., U.S. CENTCOM, in Iraq?

Since this group is still on the terrorist list, as I understand it, Americans are not supposed to deal with them at all. <h3>And that's always been kind of a -- there is a problem in Washington, D.C., because they keep an office open here.</h3>

So can you tell me how this squares with the MEK's terrorist status?

AMBASSADOR BLACK: Sure, I'll be happy to, happy to try. The Secretary has recommended that the President determine that the laws that apply to countries that support terrorism no longer apply to Iraq. The President's determination to provide greater flexibility in permitting certain types of trade with and assistance to Iraq; thus, we can treat Iraq like any other country not on the terrorist list.

I think it's important to underscore some facts here. <h3>MEK is designated by the U.S. Government as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. This organization mixes Islam and Marxism in their battle to establish what they claim would be a secular state in Iran.

Until the recent war in Iraq, they were allied with the government of Saddam Hussein and received most of their support from this regime. They have assisted the Hussein regime in suppressing opposition within Iraq, and performed internal security for the Iraqi regime.</h3> MEK, or as some recently referred to as the People's Mujahedin, <h3>has also attacked and killed Americans.</h3>

<h3>The MEK and its many aliases, including the political NCRI, are designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.</h3> The United States Government does not negotiate with terrorists. MEK's opposition to the Iranian Government does not change the fact that they are a terrorist organization. We understand the agreement on the ground in the field is a prelude to the group's surrender. Commanders make tactical decisions to end conflict with enemy combatants successfully.

There's a lot of activity in various areas underway in Iraq -- of which this is one -- I would refer you to CENTCOM and their briefers to get better insight to the decision-making and the actions of our commanders, coalition commanders on the ground.

<h3>This is a pretty special group. They are a Foreign Terrorist Organization.</h3> They are not well liked in Iraq; they could not be put with the general prisoner population. They are following the orders of the coalition commanders, and their situation will be addressed in the coming days and weeks.

Yes, sir. .......

Not only is he a long time Fox News "foreign policy consultant", this man who was the spokesperson and Washington lobbyist for the terrorist group MEK for
12 years, until the US shut it's DC office down in Aug., 2003, but, in this article (He writes about one per week and makes regular Fox News broadcast appearances) he quotes his successor at the terrorist group, in the article:

(How is Alireza Jafarzadeh even permitted to live and work in the US?)

Quote:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,346091,00.html
Ayatollahs’ Quest for Nuclear Weapons

Thursday, April 03, 2008

By Alireza Jafarzadeh

.....CIA Director Michael Hayden on Sunday became the third major Bush administration official to assert that Iran has been pursuing a nuclear weapons program all along. Echoing statements made by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, Hayden told NBC's Meet the Press: “Why would the Iranians be willing to pay the international tariff they appear willing to pay for what they're doing now if they did not have, at a minimum… the desire to keep the option open to develop a nuclear weapon and, perhaps even more so, that they've already decided to do that?”

Critics were quick to point to December's National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which declared with “high confidence” that “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” But the director of National Intelligence, Vice Adm. Mike McConnell, appeared to disavow the NIE conclusion in congressional testimony in early February. McConnell said the wording of an unclassified version of the Estimate released to the public had been careless. “So if I'd had until now to think about it, I probably would have changed a thing or two.”

Apparently, the Brits would have changed a thing or two, as well. On March 5, the British government joined in the fray. A senior British diplomat claimed there was no serious evidence that Iran's efforts to build a nuclear weapon had halted: "I haven't seen any intelligence that gives me even medium confidence that these programmes haven't resumed. It's an uncertain picture." His comments appeared to reflect the findings of an independent British assessment of intelligence on Iran's nuclear program, completed after the American assessment was published.

For one thing, the NIE's authors noted that in deciding whether Iran was in fact pursuing a nuclear weapons program, they did not consider the uranium conversion and enrichment activities Iran declared to be for “civilian purposes.” That is almost laughable. Tehran's entire modus operandi is concealment, via shell companies or “civilian” enrichment projects.

In a news conference in Brussels on February 20, Mohammad Mohaddessin, <h3>the Chairman of the NCRI's Foreign Affairs Committee,</h3> announced that in April 2007, the Iranian regime's nuclear project had entered a new phase. A command and control center, known as Mojdeh site, had been established to head up the drive to complete a nuclear bomb. Many of the activities at the site are disguised as part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps'(IRGC) Malek Ashtar University.....

Foxnews is not even trying to conceal the terrorist resume of their "man", look at the bottom of his article:

Quote:

Until August 2003, Jafarzadeh acted for a dozen years as the chief congressional liaison and media spokesman for the U.S. representative office of Iran's parliament in exile, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

The background for this is in my recent post here, in post #248
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...91#post2426791

How, during a "war on terror", is Fox News able to get away with employing a former terrorist who seems to be doing exactly what he was doing when his MEK group was fighting side by side with Saddam's regime, against Iran?

Could this reporting offer a clue as to how the FCC and FBI and DHS permit a former, high level member of a foreign terrorist group to be employed by Foxnews and write articles contradicting the NIE determination on the status of Iran's nuclear weapons development, blatantly quoting a current spokesperson of their common terrorist organization, in his Foxnews article?

Quote:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7902719/...playmode/1098/
Terror Watch: A Strange Source of Intelligence on Iran
The State Department says MEK is a terror group. Human Rights Watch says it’s a cult. For the White House, MEK is a source of intelligence on Iran.

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
updated 6:51 p.m. ET, Fri., May. 20, 2005...

.....Despite the group's notoriety, Bush himself cited purported intelligence gathered by MEK as evidence of the Iranian regime's rapidly accelerating nuclear ambitions.
At a March 16 press conference, Bush said Iran's hidden nuclear program had been discovered not because of international inspections but "because a dissident group pointed it out to the world." White House aides acknowledged later that the dissident group cited by the president is the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), one of the MEK front groups added to the State Department list two years ago.....