US officials reportedly loaded an unmarked cargo plane with $400 million in cash stacked on pallets and delivered it to Iranian officials around the same time the prisoners were released in January.
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He pointed out that the payment, along with an additional $1.3 billion in interest to be paid later, was announced by the administration when it was concluded in January, a day after the implementation of a landmark nuclear agreement with Iran.
Revelations that a plane carrying $400 million in cash arrived in Iran as the Islamic regime released US hostages prove that President Obama engaged in a cash-for-hostages deal, congressional Republicans charged Wednesday.
In fact, the sheer coincidence of the delivery and the date of the American prisoners’ release seemed to point to the fact that the United States just paid ransom to a country that will most certainly use the money to develop weapons of mass destruction.
House Speaker Paul Ryan also joined the critics, saying, “If true, this report confirms our longstanding suspicion that the administration paid a ransom in exchange for Americans unjustly detained in Iran”.
“The timing of this, despite administration protests to the contrary, suggests that this was a ransom payment”, Jonathan Schanzer, an expert on terrorism finance and the vice president of research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“We do not pay ransom for hostages”, he said.
The Wall Street Journal today published a story describing the delivery of $400 million in cash to Tehran in January.
Due to worldwide sanctions against Iran, the payment had to be made in cash, some United States officials argue.
Kerry said the payment was part of a deal under the then-U.S.-backed shah to buy $400 million worth of military equipment in 1970s.
“And it is not at all clear to me why it is that cash, as opposed to a check or a wire transfer, has made this into a new story. 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”.
White House officials said Wednesday the payment was not a ransom, but rather repayment of money owed to Iran for a canceled arms deal four decades ago. In its response, the administration confirmed that taxpayers would be on the hook for the $1.7 billion payment, but denied any connection between the settlement and the prisoners’ release.
“This wasn’t some nefarious deal”, President Obama said.
“There was no benefit to the United States of America to drag this out”, he said. “It would also mark another chapter in the ongoing saga of misleading the American people to sell this risky deal”.
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“The bulk of the money we know has been going to shoring up their economic weakness, and that’s exactly what we predicted”, Earnest continued.
