The Obama administration made two additional cash payments totaling $1.3 billion, after delivering $400 million to Iran by plane in January, to resolve a failed arms deal, administration officials told lawmakers Tuesday.
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The administration announced the settlement last January but withheld details that have since emerged.
Critics, including some in Congress, have attacked the payments as ransom.
Furthermore, he said, “the transfer of this cash, which is untraceable, easy to hide, and valuable to a regime like Iran’s with billions of dollars in illicit activities, would have severe consequences for American national security and that of our regional allies”.
Looking back, Tonor said the Obama administration acted with an “overabundance of caution with regard to the confidentiality of these financial transactions”.
Not for lack of trying on the part of Congress.
Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick, R-Penn., questioned State Department officials about why the payment to Iran had to be in cash, which Republicans repeatedly referred to as “the currency of terrorism”.
Administration officials testified that it is against USA policy to pay ransom for hostages and that the money was part of a settlement the United States owed Iran from a failed arms deal before the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
But she provided neither a legal analysis of the claim nor a calculation of the interest paid.
The State Department maintained the assertion that the payment was not a ransom, however.
The White House secretly sent $400 million in cash to Iran to ransom some hostages. Naghdi’s argument suggests that the Iranian-Americans arrested were actually agents of infiltration sent by the United States in order to influence Iranian society and decision-making centers in the country.
Paul Ahern, the assistant general counsel for enforcement and intelligence at the Treasury Department, said the $400 million came from a fund called the Foreign Military Sales Trust Fund. The administration responded it had resolved the VTVPA claims “by securing a favorable resolution on the interest owed” Iran.
“The payments were made within hours of the hostages being released, and the plane carrying the hostages was not allowed to leave Tehran until the plane with the ransom payment arrived”, the senator added.
(2) Even if the IRGC did not have physical control over the cash when it touched down, the money was then allocated to the Iranian military at the behest of Supreme Leader Khamenei – over the summer Iran’s Guardian Council moved the $1.7 billion into the military’s budget [e]. He said his lawyers assessed that “there was significant litigation risk” regarding Iran’s claim.
The House may consider a resolution condemning the payments. The money was converted into hard currency and bank notes before being transferred to an official from the Central Bank of Iran for transport to Tehran, according to the officials.
The nation’s progress in getting more people covered by health insurance slowed significantly this year, the government confirmed Wednesday in a report that tempers a historic achievement of the Obama.
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Rick Richman writes for Commentary, The New York Sun and other publications.
