[R-G] Iran's parliament signs resolution to label the CIA, US Army 'terrorist organizations'

[Anthony Fenton]

Copyright 2007 Associated Press
All Rights Reserved
Associated Press Worldstream

September 30, 2007 Sunday 12:11 AM GMT

SECTION: INTERNATIONAL NEWS

LENGTH: 766 words

HEADLINE: Iran's parliament signs resolution to label the CIA, US  
Army 'terrorist organizations'

BYLINE: By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer

DATELINE: TEHRAN Iran

BODY:


Iran's parliament voted to designate the CIA and the U.S. Army as  
"terrorist organizations," a largely symbolic response to a U.S.  
Senate resolution seeking a similar designation for Iran's  
Revolutionary Guards.

The parliament said the Army and the CIA were terrorists because of  
the atomic bombing of Japan; the use of depleted uranium munitions in  
the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq; support of the killings of  
Palestinians by Israel; the bombing and killing of Iraqi civilians  
and the torture of imprisoned terror suspects.

"The aggressor U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency are  
terrorists and also nurture terror," said a statement Saturday by the  
215 lawmakers who signed the resolution at an open session of the 290- 
member Iranian parliament. The session was broadcast live on state- 
run radio.

The resolution, which urges Ahmadinejad's government to treat the two  
as terrorist organizations, would become law if ratified by the  
country's hardline constitutional watchdog but probably would have  
little effect as the two nations have no diplomatic relations.

Ahmadinejad's government was expected to wait for U.S. reaction  
before making its decision. The White House declined to comment  
Saturday.

The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday in favor of a resolution urging the  
State Department to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a  
terrorist organization. Charged with defending the system put in  
place after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Guards answer to  
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and are revered by many for their defense  
of the country during the 1980s war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

The terrorist designation, the first such move against a foreign  
government entity, would cut the Revolutionary Guards off from the  
U.S. financial system and freeze the assets its members or  
subsidiaries have in U.S. jurisdictions. It would also allow the  
Treasury to move against firms subject to U.S. law that do business  
with the Guards, which have vast business interests at home and abroad.

While the proposal attracted overwhelming bipartisan support, a small  
group of Democrats said they feared that labeling the state-sponsored  
organization a terrorist group could be interpreted as a  
congressional authorization of military action in Iran.

Back home after a tour of the U.S. and Latin America, Iranian  
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the hostile reception he received  
at Columbia University failed to damage Iran's image and instead hurt  
America's prestige abroad.

University President Lee Bollinger said before an Ahmadinejad speech  
at his university that the hard-line leader exhibited "all the signs  
of a petty and cruel dictator" who was "brazenly provocative or  
astonishingly uneducated" for his denials of the Holocaust.

Ahmadinejad, who appeared shaken and irate but did not reciprocate  
the insult, said that the world had witnessed "the greatness of the  
Iranian nation" in the face of "insults" by its American host.

"With the grace of God, the Columbia University issue revealed their  
aggressive and mean-spirited image. ... It backfired. What happened  
was exactly opposite of what their shallow minds had presumed,"  
Ahmadinejad said late Friday in comments broadcast Saturday on state  
television. "I believe they made a big mistake. ... They sacrificed  
the prestige of their whole system."

The harsh reception boosted Ahmadinejad's image at home during a time  
of high tensions with Washington over U.S. allegations that Iran is  
secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons and supplying Iraq's  
Shiite militias with deadly weapons that have killed U.S. troops.  
Iran denies both claims.

Ahmadinejad told world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New  
York that his country would defy attempts to impose new sanctions by  
"arrogant powers" seeking to curb its nuclear program, accusing them  
of lying and imposing illegal penalties on his country.

Iran and the U.S. have not had diplomatic ties since Iranian students  
took American diplomats hostage in Tehran following the 1979  
overthrow of U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Iranians have a long list of grievances against the United States,  
including a CIA-backed coup in 1953 that overthrew democratically  
elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and put Pahlavi back on the  
throne.

More recently, there are fears in Iran that either the U.S. or Israel  
will carry out a military strike against it something Iranian  
officials have said would provoke retaliation against Israeli or U.S.  
bases in the region.

Washington has said it is addressing the situation through diplomacy  
but refuses to rule out the use of military action.