At least 26 Iraqi refugees who were part of last year's failed CIA-backed effort to oust President Saddam Hussein are being held in California jails while authorities weigh reports that they could be spies or terrorists, sources in the anti-Saddam movement said Saturday.
Among the detainees is Safa Ldin Batat, a former Iraqi Army officer who was poisoned by Saddam's agents in 1995 and nearly died, according to Nabeel Musawi, political liaison for the anti-Saddam Iraqi National Congress in England.Musawi called the detention of the 26 Iraqis, some of whom worked with the CIA, "a shock and a surprise," and said that U.S. authorities had cleared them for evacuation last October and November after Saddam's forces rolled into opposition bastions in northern Iraq, quashing a CIA-supported attempt to oust him from power.
However, White House spokesman David Johnson Saturday confirmed a New York Times report that national security was the main reason the individuals were being held. "They were people who under U.S. law were believed to represent a security risk if allowed to remain in the United States," he said.
"Based on interviews by the FBI, there were reasonable grounds to suspect that they could present a national security risk," Justice Department spokeswoman Carole Florman said.
Although the 25 men and one woman could face deportation, Florman stressed that nothing will be done until they have appeared before an immigration judge. "There really hasn't been a decision on whether the (Immigration and Naturalization Service) is going to push for (denial) in every one of these cases," she said.
An applicant can be denied political asylum on national security grounds if the person is suspected of being a terrorist, criminal or spy, Florman said.
One of those detained, Khalid Abbas, was released recently and allowed to go to relatives in Houston, Musawi said.
The detainees represent a small minority of the estimated 5,000 to 6,000 refugees who have been granted asylum in the United States since Saddam's army stormed into opposition sanctuaries in northern Iraq last Aug. 31.
Two groups, the Iraqi National Accord and the Iraqi National Congress, played major roles in the effort to undermine Saddam after the end of the 1991 gulf war. Initially, the CIA put its main efforts behind the INC, which was fighting Saddam from inside the country.
But when the Kurdish opposition groups bickered among themselves, the CIA turned to the INA, dominated by Jordan-based former Iraqi military and intelligence officers who allegedly had defected because they wanted to oust Saddam.
The ease with which Saddam crushed the two groups' secret operation against him last year led to suspicion that the movement was deeply infiltrated. When several hundred evacuees seeking political asylum were transferred from Turkey to Guam last year, they underwent background checks and were questioned by FBI agents.