The Obama administration’s payment of 400 million in cash to Iran, that coincided with the release of American prisoners, was not essentially a ransom payment.
Advertisement
“This administration has embarrassed our country as no administration has before, going so far as to fund Islamic terror through cash payments to Iran”, he said in a statement.
Although concerns persist that the money was a reward for the release of Americans, those concerns relate to four private USA citizens who were held in Iranian prison – not the 10 US sailors who went too close to an Iranian military installation and were briefly held by Iranian forces and reprimanded by their own superiors for the navigation mistake.
“The United States does not pay ransoms”, Kerry told a news conference in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires. “What we are doing is insane”. “It is not our policy”.
In follow-up to its first article, however, The Wall Street Journal reported that top Justice Department officials did object to the cash shipments to Iran.
Be proactive – Use the “Flag as Inappropriate” link at the upper right corner of each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
“I’m not confident that we can trust the Russians and Vladimir Putin”, he said.
“This wasn’t some nefarious deal”, Obama said during a news conference at the Pentagon. They also are labeling it an example of irresponsible administration dealings with a rogue power.
“At the time we explained that Iran had pressed a claim before an global tribunal about them recovering money of theirs that we had frozen; that, as a effect of its working its way through the worldwide tribunal, it was the assessment of our lawyers that we were now at a point where there was significant litigation risk and we could end up costing ourselves billions of dollars”, Obama said.
According to the WSJ’s report on Wednesday, the DOJ’s objection – that the money would be seen as a ransom payment – was overruled by the State Department.
His push to lessen the burden on nonviolent drug offenders reflects his long-stated view that the US needs to remedy the consequences of decades of onerous sentencing requirements that put tens of thousands behind bars for too long. But the administration had refused to say how and when the $1.7 billion would be transmitted to Iran. “The only people who are making that suggestion are right-wingers in Iran who don’t like the deal, and Republicans in the United States that don’t like the deal”.
“Number two, this story is not a new story”.
Of course, the White House was quick to dismiss this new detail, which it conveniently left out of the announcement in January about a $400 million payment to Iran, in the wake of that dubious nuclear deal.
“We were aware… of the optics…”
“Kerry: “… But let me speak to this transfer, because I know a lot about it. Because I was, obviously, negotiating the fundamental nuclear agreement with Iran, I’m aware of what was going on-more than aware. The $400 million was part of a larger settlement arising after Iranian government in the 1970’s under the Shah purchased United States military equipment never delivered as the result of the Iranian revolution.
Iran had been seeking more than $10 billion in arbitration.
Advertisement
Officials also said the cash was delivered in such an unorthodox manner because Iran was still isolated from the global financial system owing to worldwide sanctions.
