How Much Money Did Obsma Send To Iran

Story highlights

Obama canonical the $400 million transfer, which he announced in January
It was the beginning payment of a $one.7 billion settlement
The funds had been contested since the 1979 Iranian revolution

Washington (CNN)The Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 one thousand thousand in cash on the same day Iran released 4 American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal, United states officials confirmed Wednesday.

President Barack Obama approved the $400 million transfer, which he had announced in January as role of the Iran nuclear bargain. The money was flown into Iran on wooden pallets stacked with Swiss francs, euros and other currencies as the first installment of a $one.7 billion settlement resolving claims at an international tribunal at The Hague over a failed arms deal under the time of the Shah.

A fifth American human was released past Iran separately.

Details of the cash commitment drew fresh condemnation of the Iran bargain from Republicans. They charged that the administration had empowered a major sponsor of terrorism considering the nuclear agreement enables Tehran to re-enter the international economy and gives it access long-frozen funds.

In addition, they said the greenbacks delivery amounted to a bribe payment that violates long-standing US practice not to pay for hostages. Equally such, they argued, it encourages Iran to hold onto its remaining Americans prisoners until they tin go more money for them.

"Paying ransom to kidnappers puts Americans even more at risk," said Illinois Republican Sen. Mark Kirk. "While Americans were relieved by Iran'southward overdue release of illegally imprisoned American hostages, the White House'south policy of appeasement has led Iran to illegally seize more than American hostages, including Siamak Namazi, his father Baquer Namazi and Reza Shahini."

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump jumped on the outcome, seeking to change the subject field after a punishing week of gaffes and reproaches from members of the GOP.

"Iran was in big problem, they had sanctions, they were dying, we took off the sanctions and fabricated this horrible deal and now they're a power," Trump said Wednesday in Daytona, Florida.

"We paid $400 million for the hostages," Trump said. "Such a bad precedent was set by Obama. Nosotros have ii more hostages at that place right? What's are we going to pay for them? What we're doing is insane."

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, when asked about the payment by a local Denver, Colorado, boob tube station, said it was "sometime news."

"It was starting time reported about seven or eight months agone, as I recall," she told Denver's 9News. "And, so far every bit I know, it had zilch to do with any kind of hostage swap or any other tit-for-tat. It was something that was intended to, as I am told, pay dorsum Islamic republic of iran for contracts that were canceled when the Shah savage."

Usa officials said greenbacks had to be flown in because existing US sanctions ban American dollars from being used in a transaction with Iran and because Iran could non access the global financial system due to international sanctions information technology was under at the time. The details of the how the transaction occurred were first reported past The Wall Street Journal. CNN reported in January that the transfer of funds had been arrangement.

The money was procured from cardinal banks in Switzerland and the netherlands, official said, and an unmarked cargo plane loaded with Swiss francs, euros and other currencies were flown to Iran.

"They were totally cut off from global banks and there was no other manner to become them the money," one senior official with knowledge of the transaction said.

While the cash transaction took place the same day as the release of Washington Mail service reporter Jason Rezaian and the other Americans, administration officials insist the payment did not constitute ransom and that at that place were was no quid pro quo for the payment. They said the agreement on the release of the prisoners dovetailed with the resolution of parallel negotiations over the dispute of the failed arms deal.

"It'south against the policy of the Usa to pay ransom for hostages," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Wednesday.

He described the payment as a "conscious strategic decision that was fabricated on the role of the Obama administration as we were implementing the deal to preclude Islamic republic of iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon to resolve other longstanding concerns nosotros had with Islamic republic of iran."

"That included securing the release of five American citizens who had been unjustly detained in Iran, and closing out a longstanding fiscal dispute in a manner that saved the American people potentially billions of dollars," he said.

In render for the US citizens' release, the The states dropped extradition requests for 14 Iranian citizens and freed seven. Former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007, remains missing.

Earnest cast those using the new details almost the palettes of cash every bit people "flailing to justify their connected opposition to the deal to foreclose Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

The $400 million was Islamic republic of iran'south to commencement with, placed into a United states-based trust fund to back up American military equipment purchases in the 1970s. When the Shah was ousted past a 1979 popular uprising that led to the creation of the Islamic Republic, the U.s. froze the trust fund. Iran has been fighting for a return of the funds through international courts since 1981.

In announcing the agreement, Obama said that paying the $400 million -- plus $1.3 billion in interest -- was saving American taxpayers billions of dollars. The Iranians had been seeking more $x billion at arbitration.

"For the The states, this settlement saved u.s. billions of dollars that could have been pursued by Iran," Obama said in January. "There was no benefit to the Usa in dragging this out."

As it was making the January greenbacks commitment, the US as well imposed new sanctions on Islamic republic of iran over its ballistic missile testing. At the aforementioned time, the White House unfroze a larger pool of Iranian assets, estimated at $100 to $150 billion, every bit part of the nuclear deal, though administration officials cautioned that Iran would only pocket about $l billion later legal claims.

Legal claims are ane of the reasons the payment to Iran was controversial when Obama starting time announced it. The Clinton administration had agreed in 2000 to pay that $400 million to Americans who had won lawsuits against Iran in The states courts.

These families and individuals had sued the Islamic Republic for damages after the deaths of loved ones or for being the victims themselves of Islamic republic of iran-backed kidnappings or terrorist attacks. At the time, United states of america officials told those families the money would come from Islamic republic of iran.

With Obama's announcement, it became apparent that the payments had come from Usa taxpayers and not from Islamic republic of iran at all.

Stuart Eizenstat, the Clinton administration'south deputy Treasury secretary, told Newsweek that Islamic republic of iran had filed a claim with The Hague, limiting the administration'southward ability to lay claim to the fund.

Critics on Wednesday were further incensed past Iranian claims that the cash amounted to a ransom payment for the four prisoners.

"That sort of bribe payment as part of the Islamic republic of iran bargain is an outrage," said Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.

US officials conceded that the Iranian negotiators involved in the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to coincide with the release of the Americans to prove a deliverable for the exchange even as they argued against the characterization of it equally a ransom payment.

"As we've made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim at The Hague Tribunal were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens dwelling house," Country Department Spokesman John Kirby said, referring to the $1.7 billion payout that the $400 cast installment was part of.

"Non only were (the) ii negotiations dissever, 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 said. "The funds that were transferred to Iran were related solely to the settlement of a long-standing merits at the U.s.a.-Iran Claims Tribunal at The Hague."

"It's non surprising that Iran would want to call this a ransom for domestic political reasons," some other senior US official said. "But that is non the case. The conviction built during the Iran nuclear negotiations helped the negotiations in other areas, and so it is true all these things came together at the same time as implementation day of the Iran deal. Only this was not a ransom."

CNN's Laura Koran contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/03/politics/us-sends-plane-iran-400-million-cash/index.html

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