Iran might swap terrorists for help from U.S.

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Iran might be willing to hand over al- Qaeda terrorists it is holding if the United States cracks down on an Iraq-based terrorist group that Iran says is carrying out a propaganda campaign against the Tehran regime.

A top-level Iranian official, who asked not to be named, confirmed that his government is holding several al- Qaeda prisoners. According to U.S. intelligence, the detainees include Seif Al-Adel, the terrorist network's No. 3 leader and its chief of military operations.

U.S. interrogators badly want access to Al-Adel and the others, who they believe might be able to shed light on plans to attack the United States, or even help point the way to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The Iranian official, who has direct knowledge of the negotiations between Iran and the United States, suggested that Iran might be willing to comply with U.S. requests to extradite the prisoners to their home countries, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. There, U.S. intelligence officials would have access to the prisoners that they do not have in Iran.

But for now, the Iranian government is refusing to do that because it says the Bush administration has failed to rein in a violent Iranian exile group called the Mujahedin el-Khalq (MEK). Tehran had hoped that the United States would neutralize the MEK once coalition forces toppled Saddam Hussein. Instead, the Iranian official says, the MEK has been allowed to resume broadcasting anti- government propaganda into Iran, has kept its light weapons and has retained access to its heavy weapons — which are under U.S. guard — to maintain them. ---

you end up with more terrorists. Makes no sense to me. But nothing this whacked out bunch of assholes do on foreign policy ever makes sense to me.