Eye on Iran: Senior Justice Official Raised Objections to Iran Cash Payment

Join UANI       Top Stories WSJ: "The head of the national security division at the Justice Department was among the agency's senior officials who objected to paying Iran hundreds of millions of dollars in cash at the same time that Tehran was releasing American prisoners, according to people familiar with the discussions. John Carlin, a Senate-confirmed administration appointee, raised concerns when the State Department notified Justice officials of its plan to deliver to Iran a planeful of cash, saying it would be viewed as a ransom payment, these people said. A number of other high-ranking Justice officials voiced similar concerns as the negotiations proceeded, they said. The U.S. paid Iran $400 million in cash on Jan. 17 as part of a larger $1.7 billion settlement of a failed 1979 arms deal between the U.S. and Iran that was announced that day. Also on that day, Iran released four detained Americans in exchange for the U.S.'s releasing from prison-or dropping charges against-Iranians charged with violating sanctions laws. U.S. officials have said the swap was agreed upon in separate talks. The objection of senior Justice Department officials was that Iranian officials were likely to view the $400 million payment as ransom, thereby undercutting a longstanding U.S. policy that the government doesn't pay ransom for American hostages, these people said." http://t.uani.com/2bc37zM AP: "The foreign ministers of Turkey and Iran agreed Friday to boost trade relations and pledged greater cooperation on resolving the Syria crisis despite their divergences on the issue. At a joint news conference, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif expressed his country's support to Turkey over last month's failed coup attempt by renegade officers within the military that left more than 270 people dead. Turkey has complained of a lack of solidarity from Western allies who have raised concerns over Turkey's massive crackdown on alleged supporters of a movement led by U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. Turkey accuses Gulen of orchestrating the coup. 'I congratulate the Turkish nation for the defiance they showed against the coup-plotters,' Zarif told reporters, in comments translated into Turkish. 'They showed the people of the region that they would not allow democracy and their rights to be taken away from them through coups and the use of force.' ... 'Iran always had good relations with both Turkey and Russia. All of the countries in the region must cooperate to bring peace in Syria and fighting against extremism,' Zarif said." http://t.uani.com/2bcKRu9 AFP: "Iran is preparing to allow local companies to import iPhones for the first time to try to curb the huge market in smuggled Apple products, state media reported on Thursday. The trade ministry has requested licences from the country's Trade Promotion Organization for nine Iranian companies to import iPhones, according to the Tasnim news agency. Unofficial Apple stores are common in Tehran's up-market malls, and many of the country's young and wealthy population carry the latest models of iPhone. The government has largely turned a blind eye to the mass smuggling of phones and other Western goods, but Tasnim said there had been a crackdown in the past two months that had driven up iPhone prices. It said Iran was in the process of registering mobile phones for the first time as part of its anti-smuggling efforts, and that only legally imported phones would be able to operate once the new system was in place in the coming weeks." http://t.uani.com/2aRlR8g Congressional Action The Hill: "Sen. Kelly Ayotte wants details on a $400 million payment made to Iran, arguing the Obama administration hid the transaction from Congress. The New Hampshire Republican sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew after The Wall Street Journal reported details of the payment and that some Justice Department officials had raised concerns. 'Contrary to the President's assertions last week, the covert shipment of a $400 million cash ransom payment to Iran on the day Americans were released by Tehran was purposefully hid from members of Congress,' she said in a statement. 'Equally disturbing, the administration used bulk foreign currency cash transfers to evade the effects of U.S. financial sanctions.' Ayotte is the latest GOP lawmaker to question the administration on the details of the money, which was the first part of a $1.7 billion settlement to resolve a decades-old arms dispute. The administration announced the settlement in January. But opponents of a separate Iran nuclear deal - including Ayotte - have seized on the fact that the payment was made in cash and coincided with the release of U.S. hostages from Iran to argue that it was a 'ransom payment.'" http://t.uani.com/2blqd8a Sanctions Relief Reuters: "Poland's second biggest refiner Lotos said on Friday that it expects oil supplies from Iran to arrive in Gdansk port at the Baltic Sea on August 14. The state-run Lotos said that the tanker Atlantas with 2 million oil barrels has reached the Danish straits and due to draft limits it has to transfer around 700,000 of barrels on a smaller vessel before it enters the Baltic Sea. The supplies are a result of an agreement signed earlier this year between Lotos and National Iranian Oil Company. The cargo is the first Iranian crude sold into this part of the Baltic Sea market since January's lifting of sanctions. In June trade sources said and ship-tracking data showed that the supertanker with Iranian crude is heading towards Gdansk." http://t.uani.com/2b2scN2 Just Auto: "Saipa says its recent agreement to establish a 50:50 joint venture with Citroen, will see a major push on value-added localisation to achieve a 70% domestic component supply within two years. The Iranian-Franco deal will see the JV include the whole value chain, from the design stage through to vehicle marketing, with manufacturing at the Kashan plant, which will be 50% owned by PSA Groupe. News of Saipa's localisation drive comes as Iran's government looks to place domestic manufacture at the heart of overseas interest in the country following the lifting of decades-old sanctions against the Middle East country... 'In the first year we will have at least 35% localisation [with Citroen] and by two years we will increase it to 70%,' Saipa corporate business development, general manager, Ali Momeni, told just-auto from Tehran... The Saipa-Citroen JV will invest more than EUR300m (US$335m) in manufacturing and R&D capacity during the next five years, with the agreement reinforced by technology transfers. It will take effect following the signature of the definitive agreement, scheduled for late 2016, while the end of the ramp-up of the first Citroen vehicle will be reached in 2018 in the Kashan plant." http://t.uani.com/2bbame2 Foreign Affairs AFP: "The timing of Zarif's visit has pleased Ankara, which has hit out at the lack of Western leaders coming to Turkey since the failed coup. Cavusoglu said Zarif was a foreign minister with whom he spoke to most frequently on the night of the coup, adding they may have talked 'four or five times'. Ankara has in the past months worked to maintain a careful balance in relations with Tehran despite the dispute over Syria and Turkey's increasingly close alliance with Iran's regional foe Saudi Arabia." http://t.uani.com/2bnn6Ma Human Rights Al Jazeera: "Maarya, 37, was born in Tehran after her parents fled Afghanistan following the 1979 Russian invasion. For nearly half of her life, she has been working to help educate Afghan children. But it has not been easy: Authorities want to shut down her school, she said, because she does not have the right paperwork to run it and the students are undocumented. Maarya is not the only one doing this type of work. Human Rights Watch has reported on the phenomenon of unlicensed Afghan schools run by refugees, which tend to charge lower tuition fees and do not ask difficult questions about undocumented children. Iranian authorities have periodically shut down such schools, while at other times issuing warnings... 'Afghan is a dirty word,' Maarya said. 'We are accused of being criminals, lazy, uneducated, stealing jobs, driving up the rent - the usual stuff." http://t.uani.com/2aQeQFV Opinion & Analysis Peter R. Huessy in RealClearDefense: "In light of this history, would Reagan have supported the Iran deal? It is obvious President Reagan would have had serious difficulty, as many top security officials do, of going forward with an unsigned not-legally binding "agreement" (more accurately a policy statement) with a treacherous adversary. He would have understood the content of the "deal" is inadequate, the verification regime seriously flawed, and the financial impact of the deal could assure the covert acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran. 'If it had not been for Israel's earlier preemptive [air strikes] operations against both Iraq and Syria (Operations Opera and Orchard, respectively), the Middle East could already have been rife with Arab or Islamist nuclear forces.' Iran continues to threaten the region, the U.S., and the United States most trusted ally Israel. So does the JCPOA make sense for the United States? On balance I don't believe it does. The Senate and House of Representatives as well as the American people overwhelmingly thought the Iran deal is 'fatally flawed.' Almost 60% of both houses of Congress voted against it, which is unprecedented for a White House initiated international agreement. The deal gives Iran a legal path to get nuclear weapons in 11 years, not 15. The financial windfall to Iran clearly could allow significant covert purchases of nuclear weapons from North Korea, whose production capability has significantly increased over the last five years. The 'deal' also shortens the time it would take Iran to acquire sufficient nuclear weapons fuel, from an assumed year to six months or even weeks, according to the former safeguards chief at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ollie Heinonen. The U.S. needs to keep Iran's feet to the fire, dismantle its global terror network and stop its regional aggressions in Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain and Yemen. Our priority should be to ensure that Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons nor the missiles to deliver them at any time not just for the near term. The so-called Iran nuclear deal does not address most of these issues.  Iran could produce nuclear weapons nearly a decade from now, even if up to that time  abiding by the terms of the deal. The U.S. is even required to assist Iran in developing advanced centrifuges that Iran could eventually use to make nuclear weapons fuel. Will Iran wait ten years before getting nuclear weapons? Probably not. In either case, will America be prepared to eventually deal with a nuclear Iran, led by clerics seeking Armageddon as a means of ushering in the "End of Times?" Correcting the nuclear deal with Iran may turn out to be the next administration's single most difficult foreign policy task, vital to U.S. national security. And while speculating what Reagan would do is an interesting question, I think just as Reagan rejected the Soviet proposed nuclear freeze in 1981, so too he would reject the idea that Iran's temporary nuclear freeze is just fine." http://t.uani.com/2b3uE7R MEMRI: "Arab media have recently published statements by officials in the Lebanese Hizbullah and the Gazan Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations, and by their supporters, confirming what has long been known - namely that these Lebanese and Gazan terror organizations receive substantial financial and military assistance from Iran. These statements join many reports, especially in the anti-Iranian media, regarding Iran's funding of various terrorist organizations across the Arab world. According to these reports, the assistance comes mainly from the office of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The following are some examples of these statements and reports from the last two months." http://t.uani.com/2aZuA7l         Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons.  UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.