A Time To Betray, a website run by a former CIA agent who infiltrated the Revolutionary Guard in Iran, posted a story yesterday about the visit to the White House by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The article can also be found in yesterday’s Washington Times. Mr. al-Maliki, an Iraqi Shiite, included Hadi Farhan al-Amiri, transportation minister in Mr. al-Maliki’s Iraqi government.
The article reports:
Louis J. Freeh, who served as FBI director in the Clinton administrationand the early months of the George W. Bush administration, said it was shocking that Mr. al-Maliki would include Mr. al-Amiri in his visit to Washington.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has been involved in “countless acts of terrorism, which are acts of war against the United States,” Mr. Freehsaid in an interview.
Mr. al-Amiri served as a commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Badr Corps, a battalion that was tasked with operations in Iraq. He remained active in the Badr Corps during the late 1980s and 1990s, when he was working on resistance efforts against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.
Unfortunately, the rest of the information in the article is also not encouraging. While Mr. al-Maliki was visiting the White House, there was a group of protesters outside protesting in support of the Iranian exiles in Camp Ashraf, located about 49 miles north of Baghdad.
The article further reports:
The Iraqi government has set a Dec. 31 deadline to close the camp, which houses members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), listed by the U.S. as a terrorist group. The exiles’ supporters fear the camp’s unarmed residents will be massacred because of their opposition to Iran’s government.
Current and former members of Congress, former officials who served in Republican and Democratic administrations, a former Iraqi official and a former senior commanding officer at Camp Ashraf spoke at the protest.
“We did not fight and die … for you to deliver the integrity of Iraq to the mullahs in Iran,” said former Sen. Robert G. Torricelli, New Jersey Democrat, in remarks directed at Mr. al-Maliki.
My concern here is that Iraq will degenerate into a situation similar to the killing fields of Cambodia after America left Vietnam. America is leaving Iraq before the government can stand on its own. Despite statements from the President, Iraq will now become a satellite state of Iran, as have most of the other countries in the region. I believe we could have prevented this had President Obama taken the time to complete the job President Bush had nearly finished when he left office. It is unfortunate the President Obama values the support of his political base more than he values the safety of the Iraqi people and the people in the Middle East.
