American Special Forces provided training during the George W. Bush administration to a terrorist group bent on the overthrow of the Iranian government, according to the New Yorker.

 

According to a story by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, the Joint Special Operations Command spent time during Bush’s second term in office training members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), a dissident Iranian opposition group that was first listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department in 1997.

 

Beginning in 2005, MEK members were brought to a remote location in the Nevada desert where they were taught cryptography, “small-unit tactics, and weaponry,” according to the story. The training was discontinued before Bush left office.

 

Despite its continued presence on the State Department’s terrorist list, the MEK is well-funded and has enlisted the aid of politicians of both major U.S. parties, including former Vermont governor Howard Dean, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, and former Congressmen Lee Hamilton and Patrick Kennedy on the Democratic side; and former Congressman Porter Goss, former National Security Advisor Fran Townsend, and former Transportation Secretary Andrew Card on the Republican side.

 

During the 1970s, MEK perpetrated several bombings that killed some Americans, which is what led to its inclusion on the terror list. However it now shares a common enemy with the U.S.: the theocratic dictatorship of Iran. There is a suspicion that the MEK worked with Israeli intelligence to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists over the past two years.

-David Wallechinsky, Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Our Men In Iran? (by Seymour M. Hersh, New Yorker)

Why are Howard Dean and Rudy Giuliani Lobbying for a Terrorist Group? (by Matt Bewig, AllGov)

Terrorist Group Lobbies Congress for De-Listing (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)