Solid article. Will be interesting to watch how the Supreme Court acts on this, especially since Gorsuch seems to be spearheading this. Be a bit ironic that the president, who seemed to want to be king, ended up nominating a judge that reigned his (or the position’s) powers in.
Yeah I was wrong about the "These People".. So my bad on using that language... They have some serious fundamental differences.... But they do believe in "jihad"... T_Man
You don't know what you're talking about. The 1979 MoU stipulated that the unexpended funds would be placed in an interest-bearing account. As it turns out, these funds were not based in such an account—no U.S. administration implemented that requirement. The reasons for this are not clear. Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman, who testified on this issue before the Senate, noted that the United States “does not let [FMS accounts] accrue interest.” That $400 million was not generating interest. The U.S. and Tehran negotiated the interest to be paid and it was paid by American tax payers. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/mark...iran-and-1-7-billion-sorting-out-the-details/
Trump has essentially told Iran that if they kill an American, he has the power to make them pay tremendously. We can wipe them out in a matter of minutes and now they know that. The media’s defense of a terrorist that only wants to kill the American people is mind boggling to me.
Thing is now they have a stronger incentive to obtain nuclear weapons because well you know these things don't happen to countries with nukes.
Due to failures of the US admins not implementing the requirement. They could have continued to fight it and ended up having to pay more. Still, most if not all other claims before the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal have incorporated compensation for accrued interest. This is consistent with the position adopted by the Treasury Department at the outset of the 1979 assets freeze, although in nearly every case the amount of the interest to be paid has been subject to some haggling between Washington and Tehran. Obama administration officials maintain that a Tribunal decision may have resulted in a much larger judgment on the issue of accrued interest.
Did you read the whole article? They explain it in detail right here. WHY DID THE UNITED STATES PAY IRAN? In the 1960s and 1970s, Iran was the largest partner of the U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Program. As an Obama administration official explained earlier this year, “As part of the FMS Program, a Trust Fund was established with Iranian funds to pay U.S. contractors as work progressed on the various contracts.” In February 1979, days before the culmination of Iran’s revolution, the United States and Iran agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that halted these payments and voided many of the remaining purchases. The MoU also called for Iran’s unexpended FMS funds to be placed in an interest-bearing account. Later that year, after Iran’s seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and the detention of the American diplomats, the Carter administration froze all Iranian assets in the United States. The standoff was resolved nearly 15 months later, with an agreement that freed the hostages and established the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal to resolve the labyrinth of financial and commercial disputes that had emerged. In 1982, Iran filed a claim with the Tribunal pertaining to the FMS Trust Fund, which Lisa Grosh, Assistant Legal Advisor at the Department of State, has described as “a multi-billion dollar breach-of-contract dispute covering 1,126 huge military sales contracts.” Grosh stated that the two sides engaged in some 40 rounds of negotiations “at this level” over several decades. Iran ramped up efforts to adjudicate the claim in 2015, asking the Tribunal to schedule comprehensive hearings on the outstanding FMS claims and requesting a preliminary ruling. The FMS Trust Fund amounted to $600 million until the George H. W. Bush administration returned $200 million to Iran in a partial settlement in 1990. WHO PAID WHO? AND HOW? The settlement announced in January involved two parts: return of the $400 million principal and payment of $1.3 billion in interest. To return the principal, the Treasury, working with the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, made a $400 million wire transfer from DFAS to the Swiss National Bank. The $400 million was then converted into Swiss francs and withdrawn in franc banknotes, which were transferred to Geneva. On January 17, the banknotes were disbursed to an official from the Central Bank of Iran. The interest was paid from the Judgment Fund, which pays “court judgments and Justice Department compromise settlements of actual or imminent lawsuits against the government.” For a payment to be made by the Judgment Fund, Treasury must receive confirmation from the Attorney General that the settlement is in the United States’ best interests. According to Mary McCord, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division at the Department of Justice, “[a]ssessment of a settlement payment from the Judgment Fund includes consideration of the exposure that the United States faces from the claim proposed for settlement, … likelihood of an adverse ruling against the United States, the likely size of such an award, the background of the litigation, the tribunal, relevant legal arguments, relevant facts and governing legal doctrines.” Since the Judgment Fund does not allow the processing of individual claims of amounts over ten digits, the agreed upon interest—$1.3 billion—was split into 13 claims of $99,999,999.99 and one claim of the remaining $10,390,236.28. These amounts were transferred from the Judgment Fund to the Dutch National Bank, where they were converted into euros and withdrawn in euro banknotes. The Dutch bank then disbursed the notes to a representative from the Central Bank of Iran.
Yes. It clearly states the interest was paid as a negotiation between the U.S. and Iran and came not from an interest bearing account where the $400 million was parked but from the American tax payer. Reading isn't that hard.
Posters have asserted the interest was from that $400 million sitting in a bank account since 1979. That is not correct. I am simply correcting that erroneous statement. I'm not taking a position on or arguing anything else.
I went to the Judgment Fun website linked in the post Jiggy drew attention to. The fund was started in the early 1950s and appears to be a sort of federal "self-insurance" mechanism. I don't think I understand what the other posters are saying here either.
That's not what it said. Evidently reading is hard. the Treasury, working with the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, made a $400 million wire transfer from DFAS to the Swiss National Bank. The $400 million was then converted into Swiss francs and withdrawn in franc banknotes, which were transferred to Geneva. On January 17, the banknotes were disbursed to an official from the Central Bank of Iran.
It's unclear what point you're trying to make here. I'll lay it out as clearly as possible for you one more time. The U.S. paid Iran $1.7 billion in cash in 2015. $400 million for the money "owed" from 1979 and $1.3 billion of negotiated interest. This interest payment did not come from that $400 million sitting in an interest bearing account for 35 years. You're just factually wrong for asserting that. It came as a negotiation and was paid by the tax payers. The Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan analytic arm of Congress, reviewed this cash transfer in a 2018 report. It gave a total of $1.7 billion. That was the amount that U.S. and Iranian negotiators settled on to resolve an arms contract between the United States and Iran that predated the Iranian revolution in 1979. Iran had paid for military equipment, and it was never delivered. As of 1990, there were $400 million in that account. Negotiators agreed that accrued interest would add $1.3 billion to the amount, which is a lot of money — but 25 years is a long time for interest to build up the balance. The United States sent the money to Iran in euros, Swiss francs and other currencies. Trump embellished when he mentioned barrels and boxes. Reports at the time said the money was packed and loaded onto pallets, similar to how other bulk goods are shipped. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-...nald-trump-iran-150-billion-and-18-billion-c/ Where did the interest money come from? The 1979 MoU stipulated that the unexpended funds would be placed in an interest-bearing account. As it turns out, these funds were not based in such an account—no U.S. administration implemented that requirement. The reasons for this are not clear. Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman, who testified on this issue before the Senate, noted that the United States “does not let [FMS accounts] accrue interest.” https://www.brookings.edu/blog/mark...iran-and-1-7-billion-sorting-out-the-details/ Your link: The interest was paid from the Judgment Fund, which pays “court judgments and Justice Department compromise settlements of actual or imminent lawsuits against the government.” For a payment to be made by the Judgment Fund Where do you think the money in the Judgment Fund comes from? Jesus Christ.
So the money came from an obscure account that no tax payer even know existed unless they researched it? The Obama plan didn’t work and neither did Trump’s “maximum pressure”. We are back to where we started with Iran’s nuclear ambition.
