“Today’s admission by the State Department that they paid a Dollars 400M ransom to release American hostages from Iran further cements Hillary Clinton’s role in crafting disastrous policies that have led to a more risky world”, said Jason Miller, senior communications adviser to the Trump Campaign.
Advertisement
First they vilify President Obama for agreeing to a deal that neglected US prisoners being held by Iran.
But critics have said the carefully choreographed payment was, in effect, a ransom paid in violation of U.S. policy meant to discourage hostage-taking.
Repeating past administration statements, State Department spokesman John Kirby said the negotiations to return the Iranian money from a 1970s account to buy USA military equipment were conducted separately from talks to free four us citizens in Iran.
“Obviously, when you’re inside that 24-hour period and you already now have concerns about the end-game in terms of getting your Americans back, it would have been foolish, imprudent, and irresponsible for us not to try to maintain maximum leverage”, said Kirby on Thursday.
Iran wasn’t using the hostages to get more from the United States than it was entitled to; the United States was using Iran’s money – funds Iran had paid for weapons that the US never delivered – to ensure that Iran fulfilled its promise to release Americans who shouldn’t have been held. As a result, he explained, the U.S. “That was our top priority”, Kirby said.
Republicans pounced on the news Thursday.
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said in a statement: “If it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck”.
“There are arguments by some analysts that downplay the transfer as a ransom payment because this was money owed to Iran in principle and interest”, Amir Toumaj, an Iran expert at the Washington, DC-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insider earlier this month.
US president Barack Obama has previously denied that his administration engaged in a “cash-for-hostages” deal with the government of Iran.
“He denied it was for the hostages, but it was”, Trump said.
“It’s embarrassing for the administration and even for the president to have to deny it”, Krauthammer said of the allegations the payment was ransom. “We were completely open with everybody about it and it is interesting to me how suddenly this became a story again”, he said, seeming to wag a finger at the press for daring to question the obvious.
The administration’s latest comments come after a Wall Street Journal report that the departures of the crisscrossing planes was no coincidence. The fourth American left on a commercial flight.
The administration’s task in denying that allegation just became much more hard. “Only because [the administration] withheld payment at the last minute, did it ensure that the Iranians upheld THEIR commitments” to return the prisoners.
The military hardware was never delivered after the Shah was deposed by the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
“Not only were the two 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 added.
Obama has said his negotiators secured the USA a good deal on a busy diplomatic weekend that also included finalizing the seven-nation nuclear accord.
At an August 4 news conference at the Pentagon, Obama said nothing nefarious occurred.
Iran’s desire to get its money from a decades-old arms deal to make sure the authorities there would not renege on freeing three Americans.
Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said earlier this month that the US didn’t and wouldn’t “pay ransom to secure the release of USA citizens”.
Another of the prisoners, pastor Saeed Abedini, also had linked the two events.
Back in January, Iran released five American prisoners it had been holding.
A ruling on the military fund was expected soon, the official said, as Iran asked previous year for the tribunal to hear its case and Tehran and Washington had been negotiating proposals for a hearing. As the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Emanuele Ottolenghi has recounted, the Obama administration sanctioned Iran Air in 2011 because it is a front for the IRGC and was known to “disguise and manifest weapons shipments [to the Assad regime in Syria] as medicine and generic spare parts”, in addition to transporting missiles and rocket components in contravention of aviation standards.
Advertisement
Stay on topic – This helps keep the thread focused on the discussion at hand.
