August 2003: Pentagon Has All Contacts with Iranian Dissidents Go Through Douglas Feith

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld issues new Pentagon guidelines for communicating with controversial Iranian dissidents. The new guidelines include clearing all meetings with Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. Included in the contacts list of people who had been meeting with Pentagon analysts include: Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Shah of Iran; Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson, Hossein Khomeini, as well as Iran-contra figure Manucher Ghorbanifar. In response, Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) says, “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.” [New York Daily Sun, 12/2/2003]