Posted on 12/02/2003 2:48:06 PM PST by Pan_Yans Wife
The inquiries from Mr. Rockefellers committee began in October, and it was around this time the August guidance was reiterated to Pentagon officials.
One administration official said word traveled quickly. It went down the chain of command to cease and desist all contacts with the Iranian Diaspora, the official said.
Senator Brownback, a Republican of Kansas, said he thought now was the time to increase contact with Iranian Democrats. My overall viewpoint is that we need to engage the Iranian Diaspora the people who have come out of Iran, the defectors who have come out of the regime of the mullahs and engage with them to communicate into Iran and help people organize for democracy in that country, he said.
But with the State Department taking the lead, some activists are worried.
The State Department has been less inclined to be in touch with prodemocracy advocates, especially those who believe in the universality of human rights and are opposed to the Islamic Republic, an Iran scholar and human rights activist in Washington, Roya Boroumand, told the Sun.
The American Enterprise Institutes vice president for foreign and defense policy studies, Danielle Pletka, said the new guidelines have denied the Pentagons analysts the ability to collect important information.
I think information is a commodity we trade in freely in the United States. The idea that informational meetings with Iranians should be off-limits to members of our government that deal with nonproliferation and national security seems to me to be foolish in the extreme, she said.
Odd. I thought this was the United States? Perhaps Boroumand was speaking about the State Dept of Iran or Red China or Saudi Arabia.
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