{"id":5636,"date":"2018-07-23T17:26:03","date_gmt":"2018-07-23T15:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iranfreedom.org\/en\/?p=5636"},"modified":"2018-07-23T17:27:49","modified_gmt":"2018-07-23T15:27:49","slug":"free-iran-rally-general-george-casey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iranfreedom.org\/en\/activities-outside-iran\/annual-gathering\/grand-gathering-2018\/2018\/07\/free-iran-rally-general-george-casey\/5636\/","title":{"rendered":"Speech by General George Casey at Free Iran Rally in Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Speech by General George Casey at Free Iran Rally<\/a> in Paris<\/p>\n

George Casey<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to talk briefly about something that I have personal experience in that has been mentioned today, but I believe deserves deeper consideration.\u00a0 And that is Iran\u2019s meddling in and destabilizing its neighbors.<\/p>\n

You know, last Sunday, our Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo was asked by a journalist, \u201cWhat is the U.S. goal with respect to Iran?\u00a0 And here\u2019s what he said.\u00a0 He said, \u201cOur goal is to push Iran to act like a normal country.\u201d\u00a0 To act like a normal country.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cDon\u2019t support terrorism, don\u2019t launch missiles into international airports, and don\u2019t be the world\u2019s largest state sponsor of terrorism.\u201d\u00a0 He went on to say, \u201cNone of these things are difficult.\u00a0 We\u2019re asking them to do the things that normal nations in the international community should do.\u201d\u00a0 That sounds simple, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

Yet today, Iran through its terrorists on the Quds Force continues to support terrorism and destabilize not only its neighbors, but the entire region, and that\u2019s not normal behavior.\u00a0 And I firmly believe that no government that actively imports and exports terror can be a productive player in the world today.\u00a0 Change must come to Iran.<\/p>\n

And I said, direct experience here, from our time in Iraq, many of us in the U.S. military have seen firsthand how Iran uses terrorism to accomplish its political objectives.\u00a0 And as coalition commander, I certainly saw that in Iraq when the regime used terrorism to [0:02:06] sectarian violence and to frustrate the goals of the United States and Iraqis to establish a representative democracy.<\/p>\n

The approach that they used is three-prong.\u00a0 They bought political support through political contributions to Iraqi political leaders and political groups.\u00a0 They bought public support through economic support to communities in this other part of the country, and they fostered sectarian violence by providing training and equipment to the Shia militia organizations.<\/p>\n

By mid-2006, I can tell you there was no question that they were doing this.\u00a0 And I firmly believe that Iran bears responsibility, because their training and equipping of the Iraqi militia groups was a major factor in sustaining the sectarian violence that swept Iraq in 2006 and 2007.<\/p>\n

And to me, that makes Iran directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of coalition forces and thousands of Iraqis.<\/p>\n

You might ask how can I be so sure about that?\u00a0 In 2006, my forces captured six Quds Force operatives in a operations cell in Baghdad that they shared with the Shia militia group.\u00a0 And on the wall were maps of Baghdad that showed their operational plans for forced population movements, purely for sectarian purposes.\u00a0 And there were ledgers, many books of the weapons transfers that came in and out of there.\u00a0 We had caught them red-handed in supporting sectarian violence and terrorism in one of their neighboring countries.\u00a0 That\u2019s not what normal countries do.<\/p>\n

As I look back on that now, I say that was 12 years ago.\u00a0 I can only come- and today they are still destabilizing the region. I can only come to one conclusion\u2014that change must come to Iran before Iran can behave as a normal country.<\/p>\n

Speech by General George Casey at Free Iran Rally<\/a> in Paris<\/h3>\n