So much for Bush's strategy of pushing Democracy in the Middle East.
The guy WAS democratically elected.
But, he's a war criminal and should be prosecuted as such.
.... or, are we just going to let him get away with it.
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Terrorist claim hits Iran's new president
Tensions rise after US allegations
Jamie Wilson in Washington
Friday July 1, 2005
The Guardian
The White House yesterday ratcheted up tensions with Iran by saying that
it was taking seriously claims by Americans who were held hostage in the
1979 Tehran embassy siege that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's
president-elect, was one of their captors.
President George Bush said "many questions" had been raised by the
allegations that Mr Ahmadinejad was one of the leaders of radical
students who seized the embassy and held 52 hostages for more than year.
Article continues
The claims were made yesterday by five former hostages who said the
incoming Iranian president had been involved in interrogations during
the embassy drama. "As soon as I saw his picture in the paper, I knew
that was the *****," Colonel Charles Scott, 73, told the Washington
Times. "He was one of the top two or three leaders ... The new president
of Iran is a terrorist."
The claims were emphatically denied in Tehran by Mr Ahmadinejad's office
and two of the student ringleaders of the siege, both of whom are now
reformists opposed to the hardline new president. Several former
hostages also said they did not recognise Mr Ahmadinejad.
The White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, said it was taking the
allegations seriously and Mr Bush told reporters: "I have no
information. But obviously his involvement raises many questions."
The US and Iran have been at loggerheads over the country's refusal to
bow to international pressure and abandon its nuclear programme, and
last week the state department dismissed the election as rigged.
If the claims are proved, they could impair efforts to get Iran to give
up its nuclear ambitions. "It's a huge problem. It is difficult enough
to work with Iran and this will make it even more difficult," said
Senator Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on the armed services committee.
Col Scott, now retired and living in Jonesboro, Georgia, reiterated his
claims to the Associated Press. "This is the guy. There's no question
about it," he said. "You could make him a blond and shave his whiskers,
put him in a zoot suit and I'd still spot him."
Three former hostages, David Roeder, William Daugherty and Don Sharer,
who have been exchanging emails with Col Scott since pictures of
president-elect appeared on television, also told the news agency that
they had no doubt that Mr Ahmadinejad, 49, was one of their captors. A
fifth former hostage, Kevin Hermening, said he had reached the same
conclusion.
Militant students seized the US embassy on November 4 1979 and held 52
Americans hostage for 444 days in protest at Washington's refusal to
hand over the ousted shah, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi. The shah, who was
backed by the US, had fled Iran earlier that year after he was
overthrown by the Islamic revolution.
Eight US soldiers were killed during a disastrous rescue operation when
a helicopter and C130 transport plane collided in the desert. The crisis
and the botched rescue are commonly cited as reason for Jimmy Carter's
defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.
Mr Ahmadinejad was a founding member of the Office of Strengthening
Unity, the student organisation that planned the embassy takeover, but
an aide said yesterday that he had initially opposed the occupation.
But Mr Daugherty, who worked for the CIA in Iran and now lives in
Savannah, Georgia, said a man he was convinced was Mr Ahmadinejad was
among a group of ringleaders who had escorted a Vatican representative
during a visit in the early days of the hostage crisis. He said it would
add to pressure on the state department to stop blocking lawsuits filed
by the former hostages seeking $33bn (£18bn) in damages from Iran.
A former embassy guard, Paul Lewis, was one of several former hostages
who could not recollect Mr Ahmadinejad.
Abbas Abdi, a ringleader of the siege turned radical reformer who was
jailed in 2002 for selling intelligence, said: "Ahmadinejad was not
among those who occupied the American embassy after the revolution."
But John Simpson, the BBC's world affairs editor, said: "I knew there
was something faintly familiar about him ... Somewhere in the BBC
archives is the interview I recorded with him and his colleagues, long
after the siege was over."
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