U.S. Court of Appeals Slams Secretary of State Rice: Re-Designation of Iranian Opposition Group as Terrorist Flawed

Washington, DC—On 16 July 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals—D.C. Circuit ruled that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice erred in renewing the terrorist listing of an Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). The Court ordered Secretary Clinton to review the process of re-designation.

According to IPC President and former member of the National Security Council at the White House, Professor Raymond Tanter, “The Court’s decision provides Secretary Clinton with an opportunity to reverse the errors of Secretary Rice.”

The Court asserted, “The PMOI was notified of the Secretary’s [Rice’s] decision and permitted access to the unclassified portion of the record only after the decision was final. And even though the PMOI was given the opportunity to include in the record its own evidence supporting delisting, it had no opportunity to rebut the unclassified portion of the record the Secretary was compiling…”

According to R. Bruce McColm, President of the Institute for Democratic Strategies, “Clinton’s review could allow the PMOI to rebut questionable evidence Rice used.” Regarding that evidence, the Court judged, “Some of the reports included in the Secretary’s analysis on their face express reservations about the accuracy of the information contained therein…the Secretary did not indicate whether she accepted or discredited the reports…” As McColm points out, the Clinton State Department conceded that “the ultimate sources of the information was [sic] unknown and as such, their access, veracity, and motivations were unknown…”

General Thomas McInerney (Lt Gen, US Air Force Ret) said, “Condoleezza Rice’s errors do not surprise me in the least, given her pattern of appeasing rogue regimes, such as Syria, North Korea, and Iran. By failing to follow the rule of law in re-designating an organization that represents pro-democracy forces in Iran, Rice appeases the ayatollahs and suppresses democracy in Iran.”

General Paul Vallely (MG, US Army Ret) said, “National security grounds can be used as a basis to revoke a terrorist designation; Secretary Rice’s failure to appreciate the national security benefits of revoking the PMOI listing was typical of her tenure as Secretary of State. The PMOI provides valuable intelligence on Tehran’s subversion of Iraq and the Iranian nuclear program. Such information provided by the PMOI could be used as lead intelligence to compare with that provided by Iranian defectors, such as nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri.”