Socio-Economics History Blog

Socio-Economics History Blog

30,000 Iranian Spies? Library of Congress Withdraws Report !

by mosesman

Goering

  • 30,000 Iranian spies? Library of Congress withdraws report! 
    by Christian Science Monitor 
    A US Library of Congress report asserting that Iran’s Intelligence agency has 30,000 employees has been widely quoted – and criticized. The report has been withdrawn and is now under revision.
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    An official with the Library of Congress says a widely cited but poorly sourced report his office did on Iran’s intelligence ministry has been pulled from circulation.
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    As we detailed last week, the study’s ill-supported claim that the Iranian intelligence ministry has 30,000 employees was picked up by CNN and others. News outlets have also seized on other assertions in the report.
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    The report, which was produced on behalf of a Pentagon office, had been posted on a non-public government-only website. It was leaked earlier this month.
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    “The report was pulled for revisions after the Division staff identified a passage that should have been caveated but was missed in the initial reviews,” said Federal Research Division chief David Osborne in an email. “The report will be re-posted when revised.”
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    Osborne declined to specify the passage in question. It might have had nothing to do with the 30,000 figure. Another section of the report prompted a married couple branded as spies for Iran to consider legal action.
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    The report flatly claims that a British woman and her Iranian-born husband are operatives for Iran’s intelligence ministry. The husband, Massoud Khodabandeh, is a former-member-turned-fierce-critic of the Mujahadin-e Khalq (MEK), a small exile group that has long fought the government of Iran and was recently removed from the U.S. government’s list of terrorist organizations.
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    The report even includes their pictures. The report’s source for the spy claim is a 2007 essay published on a now-defunct website by Rabbi Daniel Zucker, who is chair of a group called Americans for Democracy in the Middle East and has frequently written in support of the MEK.
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    The Zucker piece in turn cites a 2005 post on another now-defunct pro-MEK website called iranterror.com. That site also states Khodabandeh and his wife are operatives for Iranian intelligence, but does not offer any sources or evidence.
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    read more!

Goebbels_Big_Lie2

Image: MEK is just one of many terrorist organizations, that despite being listed by the US State Department as such, still receives weapons, training, cash, and political support from the US government. This is a pattern seen repeated in Libya and most recently in Syria – each case spun and excused with a myriad of lies wrapped in false, constantly shifting narratives.
Image: MEK is just one of many terrorist organizations, that despite being listed by the US State Department as such, still receives weapons, training, cash, and political support from the US government. This is a pattern seen repeated in Libya and most recently in Syria – each case spun and excused with a myriad of lies wrapped in false, constantly shifting narratives.

end