Guardian.co.uk  |  May 22, 2012

Banned Iranian Terror Group Lobbies For Legitimacy On Capitol Hill

MEK winning support in Congress – but questions raised over whether lobbying campaign amounts to support for terrorism

By Chris McGreal in Washington

The MEK, which was banned in 1997, supported the Islamic revolution in Iran and later allied itself with Saddam Hussein. Photograph: Jose Luis Magana/AP

A banned terrorist group is conducting what members of Congress describe as one of the most effective lobbying campaigns seen on Capitol Hill, winning support from politicians even in the face of a government investigation of its legality.

Former heads of the CIA, FBI, homeland security and the US military have joined members of Congress of both major parties in backing a legal action by the People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, known as the MEK, to be removed from the US list of proscribed terrorist organisations.

But the openness of the campaign and the large amounts of money backing it, with donations to congressional campaign funds and large payments for speeches in support of the MEK, has prompted an investigation into potential breaches of laws against financial dealings with banned organisations and whether the campaign amounts to material support for terrorism.

Among those under investigation are the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Hugh Shelton, the former FBI director, Louis Freeh, and Michael Mukasey, who, as attorney-general, oversaw the prosecution of terrorism cases.

The heavyweight political backing for the MEK has surprised some US officials because of the organisation's past as a Marxist-Islamist group responsible for the killing of Americans. At one time the MEK supported the Islamic revolution in Iran.

Later it allied itself with the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The group was banned in 1997.

The MEK has also been described as a "cult" by a leading US thinktank for practices such as forcing members to give up their children in order to dedicate more time to the cause. But it has won backing on Capitol Hill by projecting itself as a democratic alternative to the present Iranian government.

Among the group's strongest supporters in Congress is Dana Rohrabacher, an influential Republican member of the House of Representative foreign affairs committee and chairman of its oversight and investigations subcommittee.

"These guys have got one of the best PR campaigns and political campaigns that I've seen on Capitol Hill for a long time," he told the Guardian. "They're a very efficient and effective lobbying effort. People on both sides here have been recruited by these people who know how to work the system here in Washington."

Rohrabacher said he did not care that the MEK is listed as a terrorist organisation, arguing that it was only proscribed to appease the Iranian leadership at a time when Washington was attempting to improve relations with Tehran.

The group has won a court order requiring the state department, which draws up the terrorism list, to review the case and make a decision on its application to be removed. This month, the state department stalled by saying that it cannot make a decision until the MEK clears out of a camp in Iraq, Camp Ashraf, where the group was once an armed military force.

The organisation's supporters, including Rohrabacher, say that is a pretext because the state department fears that unbanning the MEK would outrage Tehran during delicate negotiations over Iran's nuclear programme.

Rohrabacher said the government investigation is not legitimate and designed to suppress support for what he calls the Iranian opposition.

"What we've got here is yet an escalation of a fundamentally dishonourable bargain that was made in the past, which should never have been made with the mullahs, and every step now... more here