what country did obama give millions and billions of dollars to fund terrorism
Story highlights
- Obama approved the $400 million transfer, which he announced in January
- It was the kickoff payment of a $1.7 billion settlement
- The funds had been contested since the 1979 Iranian revolution
Washington (CNN)The Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 one thousand thousand in cash on the same day Islamic republic of iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal, U.s.a. officials confirmed Wednesday.
President Barack Obama approved the $400 million transfer, which he had appear in January equally part of the Islamic republic of iran nuclear deal. The money was flown into Iran on wooden pallets stacked with Swiss francs, euros and other currencies equally the kickoff installment of a $1.7 billion settlement resolving claims at an international tribunal at The Hague over a failed arms deal under the time of the Shah.
A fifth American man was released by Islamic republic of iran separately.
Details of the cash delivery drew fresh condemnation of the Islamic republic of iran bargain from Republicans. They charged that the administration had empowered a major sponsor of terrorism because the nuclear understanding enables Tehran to re-enter the international economy and gives information technology access long-frozen funds.
In addition, they said the cash commitment amounted to a ransom payment that violates long-standing US practise non to pay for hostages. Every bit such, they argued, it encourages Iran to hold onto its remaining Americans prisoners until they can get more than money for them.
"Paying bribe to kidnappers puts Americans fifty-fifty more than at adventure," said Illinois Republican Sen. Mark Kirk. "While Americans were relieved by Iran's overdue release of illegally imprisoned American hostages, the White House's policy of appeasement has led Iran to illegally seize more than American hostages, including Siamak Namazi, his father Baquer Namazi and Reza Shahini."
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump jumped on the issue, seeking to modify the subject later a punishing week of gaffes and reproaches from members of the GOP.
"Iran was in big trouble, they had sanctions, they were dying, we took off the sanctions and made this horrible deal and now they're a ability," Trump said Wednesday in Daytona, Florida.
"We paid $400 million for the hostages," Trump said. "Such a bad precedent was set past Obama. We take two more hostages there right? What's are we going to pay for them? What we're doing is insane."
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, when asked most the payment by a local Denver, Colorado, tv station, said it was "old news."
"It was first reported about seven or eight months agone, every bit I recall," she told Denver's 9News. "And, so far as I know, information technology had zero to do with any kind of hostage swap or any other tit-for-tat. It was something that was intended to, equally I am told, pay back Islamic republic of iran for contracts that were canceled when the Shah fell."
U.s.a. officials said cash had to be flown in considering existing US sanctions ban American dollars from existence used in a transaction with Islamic republic of iran and because Iran could non access the global financial system due to international sanctions it was under at the time. The details of the how the transaction occurred were first reported by The Wall Street Periodical. CNN reported in Jan that the transfer of funds had been arrangement.
The coin was procured from central banks in Switzerland and the netherlands, official said, and an unmarked cargo aeroplane loaded with Swiss francs, euros and other currencies were flown to Iran.
"They were totally cut off from global banks and there was no other fashion to get them the coin," 1 senior official with knowledge of the transaction said.
While the greenbacks transaction took place the aforementioned mean solar day as the release of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and the other Americans, administration officials insist the payment did not found ransom and that in that location were was no quid pro quo for the payment. They said the agreement on the release of the prisoners dovetailed with the resolution of parallel negotiations over the dispute of the failed artillery deal.
"It's against the policy of the United States to pay bribe for hostages," White House spokesman Josh Hostage said Wednesday.
He described the payment as a "conscious strategic conclusion that was made on the role of the Obama assistants as we were implementing the deal to forbid Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon to resolve other longstanding concerns we had with Iran."
"That included securing the release of five American citizens who had been unjustly detained in Iran, and closing out a longstanding fiscal dispute in a way that saved the American people potentially billions of dollars," he said.
In return for the US citizens' release, the US dropped extradition requests for 14 Iranian citizens and freed seven. Onetime FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007, remains missing.
Hostage cast those using the new details almost the palettes of cash equally people "flailing to justify their continued opposition to the deal to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."
The $400 million was Iran's to start with, placed into a Us-based trust fund to back up American military equipment purchases in the 1970s. When the Shah was ousted by a 1979 popular insurgence that led to the cosmos of the Islamic Commonwealth, the US froze the trust fund. Iran has been fighting for a return of the funds through international courts since 1981.
In announcing the agreement, Obama said that paying the $400 million -- plus $i.3 billion in interest -- was saving American taxpayers billions of dollars. The Iranians had been seeking more than than $10 billion at arbitration.
"For the United States, this settlement saved us billions of dollars that could take been pursued by Islamic republic of iran," Obama said in January. "There was no benefit to the U.s.a. in dragging this out."
Equally it was making the January greenbacks delivery, the The states also imposed new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile testing. At the same fourth dimension, the White Business firm unfroze a larger pool of Iranian assets, estimated at $100 to $150 billion, as role of the nuclear deal, though administration officials cautioned that Iran would only pocket about $50 billion subsequently legal claims.
Legal claims are one of the reasons the payment to Iran was controversial when Obama commencement announced information technology. The Clinton assistants had agreed in 2000 to pay that $400 one thousand thousand to Americans who had won lawsuits against Iran in US courts.
These families and individuals had sued the Islamic Republic for damages subsequently the deaths of loved ones or for being the victims themselves of Islamic republic of iran-backed kidnappings or terrorist attacks. At the time, US officials told those families the money would come up from Iran.
With Obama's announcement, information technology became apparent that the payments had come from US taxpayers and not from Iran at all.
Stuart Eizenstat, the Clinton assistants'due south deputy Treasury secretarial assistant, told Newsweek that Iran had filed a merits with The Hague, limiting the assistants'south power to lay claim to the fund.
Critics on Wednesday were farther incensed past Iranian claims that the cash amounted to a ransom payment for the four prisoners.
"That sort of bribe payment as function of the Iran deal is an outrage," said Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
US officials conceded that the Iranian negotiators involved in the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to coincide with the release of the Americans to prove a deliverable for the exchange even equally they argued confronting the characterization of information technology equally a bribe payment.
"As nosotros've made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding merits at The Hague Tribunal were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home," Country Department Spokesman John Kirby said, referring to the $1.seven billion payout that the $400 cast installment was office of.
"Not only were (the) ii negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of the Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years," he said. "The funds that were transferred to Islamic republic of iran were related solely to the settlement of a long-continuing claim at the US-Islamic republic of iran Claims Tribunal at The Hague."
"It's not surprising that Islamic republic of iran would desire to call this a ransom for domestic political reasons," some other senior The states official said. "But that is not the example. The conviction built during the Iran nuclear negotiations helped the negotiations in other areas, and so information technology is true all these things came together at the same time as implementation mean solar day of the Iran deal. But this was not a bribe."
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/03/politics/us-sends-plane-iran-400-million-cash/index.html
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