Five Americans freed in prisoner swap with Iran, official says
Five Americans freed in prisoner swap with Iran, official says
Republicans have blasted the prisoner exchange, which includes the release of $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil revenues, as rewarding Tehran for imprisoning foreign nationals.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Days before the Americans were released, Republican lawmakers in Washington blasted the deal, saying it amounted to a “ransom” payment and will only encourage Iran to imprison more foreigners.
The families and some former hostages say the Biden administration had to use the leverage it had available to secure the freedom of the imprisoned U.S. citizens, or face the prospect of the Americans staying incarcerated indefinitely.
A graduate of White Plains High School in New York and a business consultant with degrees from Tufts and Rutgers universities, he was arrested in 2015 and convicted of espionage in a trial that only lasted a few hours.
As a first step in the prisoner exchange, the five Americans were placed under house arrest Aug. 10 with their release contingent on the transfer of the $6 billion in frozen oil revenues from South Korea to Qatar’s central bank.
Iran’s use of the released funds will be overseen by Qatar, and restricted to the purchase of food, medicine or other items for humanitarian purposes as allowed under U.S. sanctions.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, however, told NBC News' Lester Holt in an exclusive interview that Tehran will decide how to spend the $6 billion.
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6I guess we know now that each person cost about $1,200,000,000
4Still better than Reagan's deal to swap hostages for weapons though
6Maybe one or more of them were spies and their intel was worth that much
1
I thought the US government had a policy against paying ransoms. But we did it with the basketball player in Russia, too This will come back to haunt us because it clearly communicated to terrorist organizations (even if they are governments of foreign nations) that the US will pay you if you threaten enough citizens.
-4Iran is a sovereign state. If we fear their actions, we use diplomacy, not indefinite detention of their people. This isn't Al Qaeda or ISIS or something.
8
This has happened before: Iran has taken American-Iranians hostage and demanded a ransom. A Democrat president paid the ransom and justified the payment somehow to silence those who opposed giving in to a terrorist regime and funding their activities.
-5