That is what a writer at the Albuquerque Journal reports that Bolton has said.
Camp Ashraf is a refugee camp inside Iraq where dissidents from Iran have lived for years. There is not one word in this op-ed suggesting that Obama put pressure on the Iraqi government and on the UN to protect them where they are. Instead author Saeed Shams invokes Bolton who must have said at some point—bring ’em on over to the US.
What a mess we have left in Iraq!
From the Albuquerque Journal:
On Sept. 1st of this year, 52 residents of Camp Ashraf were murdered by Iraqi forces. Many of those who were murdered were in the midst of seeking medical attention and were handcuffed and shot in the head.
Seven residents, refugees from Iran, were taken hostage by the Iraqis. Among these hostages were six women. The hostages remain in Iraq, according to reports from Amnesty International, being housed in the center of Baghdad at an unofficial detention center.
While the Iraqi government continues to deny responsibility for this attack and claims no knowledge of the whereabouts of the hostages, evidence clearly proves otherwise.
[….]
If the prime minister of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, is to prove that he is not a pawn of the Tehran regime, he must heed the call of the UN agencies to release the seven hostages and assure the safety of the Camp Liberty residents until they can be relocated to another country.
Amnesty International has also called upon Iraq to immediately release the seven hostages “unless they are charged with an internationally recognizable criminal offense.” They also brought up the fact that international law prohibits Iraq from forcibly returning “anyone to a country where they would be at risk of serious human rights violations, including torture.”
The great fear is that these seven hostages will be handed over to Iran where they assuredly await countless hours of torture followed by an inhumane death.
Recently John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, called the situation “an embarrassment” for the United States and “a stain on the reputation of the U.S.” He publicly called upon Congress to grant political asylum to the refugees so they can get “out of the death trap they are in.”
The U.S. must honor their commitment to these refugees and provide an example for the rest of the world with the offer of asylum to residents of Camp Liberty.
The stain is on Obama. I’m sure if Obama wanted to put pressure on the Iraqi government, the US could make sure these people are protected right there rather than resettled in some US troubled neighborhood and placed on our welfare rolls.