The State Department on Thursday said they had withheld the payment as “leverage” but insisted again that it was not a ransom.
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The funds were part of a trust fund Iran used before its 1979 Islamic Revolution to buy US military equipment that was tied up for decades in litigation at the tribunal.
I have a problem with that-I don’t know how to swear exclusive allegiance to America and America’s terrorist enemy, the Islamic Terrorist Republic of Iran, at the same time.
On Wednesday, the Journal reported that the cash transfer and prisoner release occurred in a “tightly scripted” exchange, where the delivery of the $400 million was delayed until American hostages held in Iran were “wheels up”.
The Journal reported that USA officials wouldn’t let Iran airlift the cash settlement to Tehran from a Geneva airport until a Swiss Air Force plane carrying three of the freed Americans departed from Tehran.
Both U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have denied that the payment was ransom for the release of the prisoners or tied to the Iran nuclear deal.
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.
Why were dual citizen Iranians back in Iran in the first place, knowing the knowing the risk created by the totalitarian reality of the terrorist Muslim theocracy from which they or their families fled, in which they may even remain “citizens”? US officials have said they expected an imminent ruling on the claim and settled with Tehran instead.
“But we wouldn’t be having this discussion if the Islamic Republic were a government that abided by global norms and did not arbitrarily hold hostages as bargaining chips”, he said.
“There was truly a profound lack of trust on this very hard prisoner exchange track”, a senior administration official said of the secret talks with Iran, “and even over the final 48 hours, there were repeated indications that our people may not actually ever be permitted to leave Iran”.
President Obama and his lieutenants clearly have egg on their faces – and rightfully so after testing our collective intelligence by insisting that there was absolutely no connection between the sequence of events.
“We were able to conclude multiple strands of diplomacy within a 24 hour period, including implementation of the nuclear deal, the prisoner talks and a settlement of an outstanding Hague tribunal claim”, Kirby said, referring to the money claimed by Iran. He has testified as a constitutional expert at hearings before the U.S. House and Senate representing The American Legion. “It was money that they were going to get back anyway”, he said. “The Iranians thought we were pulling a fast one on them, because why would this guy not accept his pardon?”
The various demands led the U.S.to believe there was a possibility the American prisoners would be returned to Iran’s notorious Evin prison, the official said.
Kirby had previously tweeted: “Reports of link between prisoner release & payment to Iran are completely false”.
The explanation is also unlikely to stem the flood of Republican criticism for the changing narrative.
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Republican Sen. John McCain, himself a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said the administration “paid ransom to the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism and has been trying to deny it ever since”.
