ExecutiveAction analysis concludes RAND report on MeK highly flawed, biased and inaccurate; urges investigations and new impartial study
Source: ExecutiveAction LLC
WASHINGTON, February 25, 2010 – ExecutiveAction LLC today released a detailed analysis of the RAND Report, The Mujahedin-e Khalq: A Policy Conundrum, calling the document “deeply flawed” and “polemical.” According to Neil C. Livingstone, Chairman and CEO of ExecutiveAction, LLC, the report appears to have been written to “justify the destruction of the MeK as a group, without regard to their lives or the consequences of the U.S. committing grave breaches of international law.”
“The RAND report fails to include material evidence, misrepresents critical issues, contains biased and pejorative characterizations, and utilizes sources of dubious credibility,” Livingstone said. “The report clearly violates RAND’s standard of ‘objective analysis’ and thus its recommendations should be disregarded by policymakers.”
The RAND report, released in July 2009, focuses on the circumstances surrounding the detention of the 3,400 MeK members at Camp Ashraf and whether they were taken into custody and detained under the appropriate terms. It recommends the U.S. should encourage the government of Iraq to involuntarily deport (refoule) the entire population of Ashraf to Iran, in violation of international law.
“The RAND report fails to make any reference to the fact that membership in the MeK is a longstanding capital crime in Iran and is likely a death sentence for those forced to return,” Livingstone said.
Following the distribution of the RAND report on the MeK, ExecutiveAction was retained by an American citizen to conduct an evaluation of the document, including the authors’ objectivity, thoroughness, and recommendations. ExecutiveAction’s monograph, Courting Disaster: How a Biased, Inaccurate RAND Corporation Report Imperils Lives, Flouts International Law, and Betrays Its Own Standards, presents its findings and analysis. This includes:
• Questionable Experience – The government-funded report on the MeK was assigned by RAND to authors with virtually no experience researching and writing about Iran.
• Propagandistic Attack – More than half of the report focuses on delegitimizing the MeK by repeating long-discredited claims about its leadership and history.
• Critical Materials Absent – The RAND authors omit material information, fail to present conflicting viewpoints, and exclude relevant and credible information, including statements from senior U.S. military officers.
• Dubious Citations – Numerous citations referred to in the report are highly biased and cite individuals known to be supporters of the Iranian government, which is seeking to destroy the MeK. Assertions are advanced without citations and many of the report’s findings are contradicted by publicly available news sources that the authors failed to present.
• Violates International Law – Recommendations in the report are in clear violation of international law.
RAND Corporation’s Standards for High Quality Research state unequivocally that “research should be objective, independent, and balanced.” As a result of its failure to uphold this standard, ExecutiveAction’s report recommends:
1. RAND conduct an independent investigation to determine how the flawed report on the MeK could have been produced. If it views the report as legitimate scholarship, it calls into question the veracity of all its publications.
2. Congress, in its fiduciary responsibility, task the General Accountability Office to conduct an investigation and to examine the processes in place at RAND to ensure its publications attain “high standards for research and objectivity.”
3. DoD, which commissioned the report, reject its recommendations and commission a new impartial study that includes authors with respected and appropriate expertise to properly address the issues in question regarding the MeK.
A copy of the 130 page report is available from ExecutiveAction for $19.95 or it can be downloaded without cost from its website – http://www.executiveaction.com/randreport.
Contact: Greta Sullivan
202-223-4888
