Not A Ransom?…U.S. Held Cash Until Iran Freed Prisoners

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WSJ:

New details of the $400 million U.S. payment to Iran earlier this year depict a tightly scripted exchange specifically timed to the release of several American prisoners held in Iran, based on accounts from U.S. officials and others briefed on the operation.

U.S. officials wouldn’t let Iranians take control of the money until a Swiss Air Force plane carrying three freed Americans departed from Tehran on Jan. 17, the officials said. Once that happened, an Iranian cargo plane was allowed to bring the cash back from a Geneva airport that day, according to the accounts.

President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials have said the payment didn’t amount to ransom, because the money was owed by the U.S. to Iran as part of a longstanding dispute linked to a failed arms deal from the 1970s. U.S. officials have said that the prisoner release and cash transfer took place through two separate diplomatic channels.

But the handling of the payment and its connection to the release of the Americans have raised questions among lawmakers and administration critics.

The use of an Iranian cargo plane to move pallets filled with $400 million brings clarity to one of the mysteries surrounding the cash delivery to Iran first reported by The Wall Street Journal this month. Administration officials have refused to publicly disclose how and when the cash transfer authorized by Mr. Obama took place.

Executives from Iran’s flagship carrier, Iran Air, organized the round-trip flight from Tehran to Geneva where the cash—euros and Swiss francs and other currencies stacked on shipping pallets—was loaded onto the aircraft, these people said.

“Our top priority was getting the Americans home,” said a U.S. official.

Once the Americans were “wheels up” on the morning of Jan. 17, Iranian officials in Geneva were allowed to take custody of the $400 million in currency, according to officials briefed on the exchange.

The payment marked the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement the Obama administration announced it had reached with Tehran in January to resolve a decades-old legal dispute traced back to the final days of Iran’s last monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His government paid $400 million into a Pentagon trust fund in 1979 for military parts that were never delivered because of the Islamic revolution that toppled him.

Mr. Obama said on Aug. 4 that it was necessary to procure the cash for Iran because of economic sanctions on the country.

One other U.S. citizen freed in the January prisoner exchange was released separately.

Republican lawmakers have charged that the $400 million payment equated to a ransom paid by the White House to gain the release of the Americans.

Republican leaders said they are preparing to hold hearings on the $400 million transfer once Congress returns from its summer break in September. Rep. Sean Duffy (R., Wis.), chairman of a House investigative body, sent letters to the Justice and Treasury Departments, as well as the Federal Reserve, on Aug. 10 requesting all records related to the Iran exchange.

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Remember how the liberals whined and cried and accused regan of paying those iranians after the Hostage crisis

We owed them the damn money. We had owed them the money since the 1970s. Iran paid us $400 million for jet fighters. We never delivered what they bought, and we kept the $400 million they paid us. A negotiated settlement was reached that set the amount we would pay to settle the debt, including interest. It was a good deal, because the claims could have resulted in a much higher amount to settle.

A number of long-standing issues between Iran and the United States were being resolved around the same time, because diplomatic relations had been resumed after nearly 40 years, during which time nothing was being negotiated or settled.

What is so difficult to understand about this? Beside the fact, of course, that it runs counter to a bogus republican propaganda meme during an election year…

@Greg: What do the Iranians owe us for destroying our embassy and holding our people hostage?

@Randy, #4:

I don’t know. What do we owe them for attacking and destroying two of their oil platforms and sinking six of their warships?

The whole point of reopening diplomatic channels is to try to improve relations. One thing we got out of negotiations is delaying the emergence of another nuclear state in the Middle East. And we avoided war with Iran, which it appeared might be coming up in the very near future a couple of years back. We don’t need a war with Iran.

@Greg:

Only the willfully blind ever believed that Obama’s complete folding to Iranian demands would delay Iran becoming a member of the nuclear weapon club.

@Pete, #5:

Iranian demands? We applied severely punishing economic sanctions for years that forced Iran to make concessions. Without them, Iran would either have a capability to assemble nuclear warheads on demand, or have actually done so already.

Or, we could have blundered into another disastrous war, this time with Iran, where a “win” would have removed the last main regional opponents of Sunni extremism. That would have been a really excellent follow-up to what we accomplished by neutralizing Saddam Hussein to begin with.

I think Obama has been playing a much smarter game than his predecessor. I think he’s learned from past errors—both his own and those of others. I have no desire to see another reset by someone who has no clue what’s at risk.

@Greg: Yes, Obama is giving them the nuclear bombs that no one previously did! Your knowledge of history is not nearly as good as my 2 year old grand-daughter’s knowledge.