Obama Vetoes Plan to Disclose Assets of Iran’s Leaders
A number of members of Congress have drafted a proposal calling for the disclosure of assets belonging to Ayatollah Khamenei, Hassan Rouhani, and several commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Basij. The White House has announced that Barack Obama will veto this proposed plan.
The White House announced that Barack Obama will veto a new congressional proposal regarding the disclosure of assets held by Iran’s leaders, including Ayatollah Khamenei. In a statement released by the White House on Wednesday (September 21/Shahrivar 31), it stated: “Providing such information would also expose the sources and methods of intelligence gathering.”
Warning that the proposed congressional plan would further obscure suspicious transactions, the White House wrote that Obama’s senior advisors recommend that he veto the plan.
The proposed congressional plan targets the disclosure of assets belonging to Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s leader; Hassan Rouhani, the president; and several high-ranking officials associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Quds Force (the military wing of the Guards engaged in extraterritorial operations), and Basij commanders.
Bruce Poliquin, a member of Congress and proponent and author of this plan, believes that its passage would help show the world how Iran “facilitates human rights violations through money stolen from its own people.”
The White House argued that the plan to “reveal the assets of Iran’s leaders” will not cause Tehran to cease financing terrorism or money laundering, and on the contrary, this plan would even provoke Iranian officials to further conceal their assets.
The White House also said that this plan could “be interpreted by Iran” as an attempt by the United States to undermine the nuclear agreement with Tehran.
Republicans critical of Obama have characterized the $400 million cash payment to Iran in January of this year as “ransom” for the release of American prisoners.
The White House said that the payment to Iran relates to an arms deal worth $1.7 billion that was concluded with Iran during the Mohammad Reza Pahlavi era and was suspended following the 1979 Revolution.
Source: DW
