Following insertion of the top security officials of the United States letter in New York Times on October 11 2011, Fox News interviewed former Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, and former Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, on October 16, 2011.

Here is text of Interview:

Fox News: More than a dozen of countries top security officials wrote an open letter to President Obama last week in the New York Times about a group they say has been falsely designated as terrorist.

WASHINGTON, October 22, 2011 (AFP) - Hundreds of protesters gathered Saturday at the White House to demand that the closure of a refugee camp for Iranian exiles in Iraq be postponed, arguing that a massacre will occur when US troops leave.

Wearing yellow hats and waving banners demanding "protection for Camp Ashraf," the demonstrators also called on US President Barack Obama to remove the People's Mujahedeen of Iran group from a blacklist of terror groups.

AS the United States tries to halt Iran’s nuclear program and prepares to withdraw troops from Iraq, American voters should ask why the Obama administration has bent to the will of Tehran’s mullahs and their Iraqi allies on a key issue: the fate of 3,400 unarmed members of the exiled Iranian opposition group, Mujahedeen Khalq, who are living in Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad.

The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, has brazenly murdered members of the Mujahedeen Khalq. Mr. Maliki justifies his attacks by noting that the group is on the United States’ official list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Friends are branded as enemies while real enemies are appeased
As two current high-profile cases demonstrate, the U.S. government's practice of listing "foreign terrorist organizations" (FTOs) has become an increasingly dangerous and hollow political exercise rather than a sober assessment of the real threats to America.

Last month, Afghanistan's ruthless Haqqani Network reportedly staged a brazen attack against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The Haqqanis, who conduct grisly terrorist attacks on hotels, embassies and other targets to advance their agenda to become power brokers in a future political settlement, reportedly are responsible for hundreds of American deaths since 2001. Some American military officers apparently are furious that the Obama administration decided not to designate the Haqqani Network as a terrorist organization because it was feared that listing the group would make it harder for the Afghan government to negotiate with the Haqqanis.