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...here is an excerpt from that article...
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US officials said cash had to be flown in because existing US sanctions ban American dollars from being used in a transaction with Iran and because Iran could not access the global financial system due to international sanctions it was under at the time. The details of the how the transaction occurred were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. CNN reported in January that the transfer of funds had been arrangement.

The money was procured from central 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 way to get 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 Post reporter Jason Rezaian and the other Americans, administration officials insist the payment did not constitute ransom and that there 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’s against the policy of the United States to pay ransom for hostages,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Wednesday.

He described the payment as a “conscious strategic decision that was made on the part of the Obama administration as we were implementing the deal to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon to resolve other longstanding concerns we had with Iran.”

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

n return for the US citizens’ release, the US 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 about the palettes of cash as people “flailing to justify their continued opposition to the deal to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

The $400 million was Iran’s to start with, placed into a US-based trust fund to support American military equipment purchases in the 1970s. When the Shah was ousted by a 1979 popular uprising that led to the creation of the Islamic Republic, the US 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 than $10 billion at arbitration.

“For the United States, this settlement saved us billions of dollars that could have been pursued by Iran,” Obama said in January. “There was no benefit to the United States in dragging this out.”

As it was making the January cash delivery, the US also imposed new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile testing. At the same time, the White House unfroze a larger pool of Iranian assets, estimated at $100 to $150 billion, as part of the nuclear deal, though administration officials cautioned that Iran would only pocket about $50 billion after legal claims.
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In point of fact, the U.S. not only got the release of hostages...but importantly achieved the JCPOA agreement that the IAEA verified had achieved its goal of keeping Iran from accumulating sufficient Uranium and/or Plutonium to make a nuclear weapon...i.e. we, and other signatories to the agreement, got what we wanted from Iran...it was not a hostage deal or they would have never agreed to have IAEA inspectors on the ground in their country, personally verifying compliance.

Now, aren't you glad you have someone to keep you educated on important events? ;-)


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