“Now that the State Department has admitted the $400 million the Obama administration secretly sent to Iran was tied to the release of USA prisoners, Hillary Clinton must immediately disavow this unsafe blunder or risk putting more Americans in jeopardy”, he said in a statement Friday”.
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As part of the prisoner exchange deal, seven Iranians detained were exchanged for four Americans, including Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, Idaho pastor Saeed Abedini, and former Marine Corps Sergeant Amir Hekmati. “That was our top priority”.
The administration is being criticized for its decision and its initial insistence that the $400 million payment was not connected with the hostages’ release, but Kirby said officials were “very open and honest and forthright about the details of the payment. However, the Obama administration owes the American people, particularly the families of those who have been killed in Iranian-backed terror attacks, truthful answers about the timing of this settlement, and we will keep fighting until we get them”. “The deal that’s behind this, the one that was attached to it, where we’ve had all kinds of instances of denials and lies and pretense in selling the deal to the American people”.
Kirby also acknowledged that the administration had hidden the link.
Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal did a splendid job of documenting the transfer of pallets loaded with cash even as President Obama was insisting back home, “We do not pay ransom for hostages”. What’s worse, giving Iran $400 million and getting American prisoners back or giving Iran $400 million and not getting them back?
“It would have been foolish, imprudent and irresponsible for us not try to maintain maximum leverage”. Second, exchanging hostages for cash in the possession of the United States is in fact a ransom.
Sadly, however, Iran has since taken three more Americans hostage.
White House press secretary Joshua Earnest said that same day that the ransom allegations were meant to undermine the administration’s deal to rein in Iran’s nuclear program.
“Iran is already trying to capitalize on this egregious mistake by taking more US citizens captive”, he added.
The money came from an account used by the Iranian government to buy American military equipment in the days of the USA -backed shah.
The military hardware was never delivered after the Shah was deposed by the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
The Obama administration had earlier denied any connection between the payment and the prisoners. What was not announced, however, is that the initial $400 million payment had already been made.
In the past weeks the White House had insisted that there was no payment made to Iran specifically for the release of the prisoners, though the US had pressured Iran to release the detainees on a number of occasions.
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According to a senior State Department official familiar with the talks, a special claims tribunal in The Hague was preparing to rule on Iran’s claim.
