How Much Money Did Obama Send To Iraq

Story highlights

Obama approved the $400 million transfer, which he announced in January
It was the first payment of a $1.seven billion settlement
The funds had been contested since the 1979 Iranian revolution

Washington (CNN)The Obama assistants secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 million in cash on the same day Iran released iv American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal, U.s.a. officials confirmed Wed.

President Barack Obama approved the $400 1000000 transfer, which he had announced in January as part of the Iran nuclear deal. The money was flown into Iran on wooden pallets stacked with Swiss francs, euros and other currencies as the first installment of a $one.seven 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 Iran separately.

Details of the greenbacks delivery drew fresh condemnation of the Iran bargain from Republicans. They charged that the administration had empowered a major sponsor of terrorism because the nuclear agreement enables Tehran to re-enter the international economic system and gives it admission long-frozen funds.

In addition, they said the cash commitment amounted to a ransom payment that violates long-standing The states practice not to pay for hostages. As such, they argued, it encourages Iran to hold onto its remaining Americans prisoners until they tin become more money for them.

"Paying ransom to kidnappers puts Americans fifty-fifty more at risk," said Illinois Republican Sen. Marking Kirk. "While Americans were relieved by Iran's overdue release of illegally imprisoned American hostages, the White House'due south policy of appeasement has led Iran to illegally seize more American hostages, including Siamak Namazi, his father Baquer Namazi and Reza Shahini."

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump jumped on the issue, seeking to alter the discipline 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 bargain and now they're a ability," Trump said Wednesday in Daytona, Florida.

"Nosotros paid $400 million for the hostages," Trump said. "Such a bad precedent was set by Obama. We take 2 more hostages there right? What'south are we going to pay for them? What nosotros're doing is insane."

Autonomous nominee Hillary Clinton, when asked nigh the payment by a local Denver, Colorado, tv set station, said it was "old news."

"It was first reported well-nigh seven or eight months ago, as I think," she told Denver'southward 9News. "And, so far every bit I know, it had zilch to practice with any kind of hostage swap or any other tit-for-tat. It was something that was intended to, as I am told, pay back Islamic republic of iran for contracts that were canceled when the Shah brutal."

US officials said cash had to be flown in because existing US sanctions ban American dollars from being used in a transaction with Iran and because Iran could non access the global financial arrangement due to international sanctions it was nether at the time. The details of the how the transaction occurred were start reported by The Wall Street Journal. CNN reported in January that the transfer of funds had been arrangement.

The money was procured from central banks in Switzerland and the netherlands, official said, and an unmarked cargo plane loaded with Swiss francs, euros and other currencies were flown to Islamic republic of iran.

"They were totally cut off from global banks and there was no other mode to go them the money," one senior official with knowledge of the transaction said.

While the cash transaction took identify the same day equally the release of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and the other Americans, administration officials insist the payment did not constitute ransom and that at that place 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 arms bargain.

"It's against the policy of the U.s. to pay ransom for hostages," White House spokesman Josh Hostage said Wed.

He described the payment equally a "conscious strategic decision that was made on the role of the Obama assistants as we were implementing the deal to prevent Islamic republic of iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon to resolve other longstanding concerns nosotros had with Iran."

"That included securing the release of 5 American citizens who had been unjustly detained in Iran, and closing out a longstanding financial dispute in a way that saved the American people potentially billions of dollars," he said.

In return for the US citizens' release, the U.s. dropped extradition requests for 14 Iranian citizens and freed seven. Former FBI amanuensis Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007, remains missing.

Earnest cast those using the new details most the palettes of cash as people "flailing to justify their continued opposition to the bargain to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

The $400 meg was Iran's to first with, placed into a US-based trust fund to back up American armed services equipment purchases in the 1970s. When the Shah was ousted by a 1979 popular uprising that led to the creation 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 understanding, 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 usa billions of dollars that could have been pursued by Iran," Obama said in Jan. "There was no benefit to the United States in dragging this out."

Equally it was making the Jan cash delivery, the United states of america likewise imposed new sanctions on Islamic republic of iran over its ballistic missile testing. At the same fourth dimension, the White House unfroze a larger pool of Iranian assets, estimated at $100 to $150 billion, as part of the nuclear deal, though administration officials cautioned that Islamic republic of iran would only pocket about $50 billion after legal claims.

Legal claims are one of the reasons the payment to Iran was controversial when Obama first announced information technology. The Clinton administration had agreed in 2000 to pay that $400 1000000 to Americans who had won lawsuits against Iran in U.s.a. courts.

These families and individuals had sued the Islamic Republic for damages after the deaths of loved ones or for beingness the victims themselves of Iran-backed kidnappings or terrorist attacks. At the time, US officials told those families the money would come up from Islamic republic of iran.

With Obama'southward announcement, it became apparent that the payments had come from The states taxpayers and non from Iran at all.

Stuart Eizenstat, the Clinton assistants's deputy Treasury secretary, told Newsweek that Iran had filed a claim with The Hague, limiting the administration's ability to lay claim to the fund.

Critics on Midweek were farther incensed by Iranian claims that the cash amounted to a ransom payment for the four prisoners.

"That sort of ransom payment as part 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 testify a deliverable for the exchange fifty-fifty equally they argued confronting the characterization of it equally a bribe payment.

"As we've made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim 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 $1.7 billion payout that the $400 bandage installment was office of.

"Not only were (the) two negotiations split, 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 Iran were related solely to the settlement of a long-standing claim at the US-Iran Claims Tribunal at The Hague."

"It'southward not surprising that Iran would want to telephone call this a ransom for domestic political reasons," another senior US official said. "Just that is non the case. The confidence congenital during the Iran nuclear negotiations helped the negotiations in other areas, and so it is truthful all these things came together at the same time as implementation twenty-four hour period of the Iran deal. Merely this was non a ransom."

CNN'southward Laura Koran contributed to this study.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/03/politics/us-sends-plane-iran-400-million-cash/index.html

Posted by: jordanmandes.blogspot.com