Somewhere behind each Hezbollah rocket fired into Israel, the weapons used to massacre Israeli civilians on Oct. 7 and each of the 128 attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, is Iranian financing.
Yet, waivers permitted by the Biden administration are enabling the Islamic Republic to access billions of dollars previously locked up by sanctions.
There was a lot of attention paid to the $6 billion of revenue from Iranian oil sold to South Korea. A waiver allowed that money to be transferred to a Qatari bank. Under pressure, the White House has kept that money frozen.
A lesser-known transaction allowed $10 billion of revenue, for selling electricity to Iraq, to be transferred from an Iraqi bank to a bank in Oman. An assistant secretary of the Treasury says the leaders of Iran have been able to get at that money.
"There have been two transactions," Elizabeth Rosenberg, assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, told the subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on the House Financial Services Committee.
However, when Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., the chair of that subcommittee, pressed for details about the transactions, Rosenberg said, "It would be inappropriate for me to speak in an open setting here about the financial institutions in detail. Although, we’d be happy to, in a closed setting, speak more about that particular matter."
Huizenga tells Fox News that a follow-up briefing providing details on the transactions, classified or otherwise, has not happened.
"They have thrown boat anchors out. They’ve dragged their feet. Whatever analogy you want to use. The point is: They’ve not been transparent, not only with Congress, but with the American people," he said.
Iraq is inexplicably dependent on Iran for electricity and is struggling to keep the lights on. A U.S. Treasury spokesperson said the money moved to Oman eases the burden on the Iraqi government, "which has faced intense pressure from Iran to release the funds directly to the Iranian regime’s control."
The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote in November that "the idea was to quiet the region until after the 2024 U.S. election," and "how little peace the money has bought is clear."
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The Treasury insists the money cannot be spent without U.S. government notification, and the White House says any expenditure is restricted to aid.
"It would go to approved vendors that would purchase food, water, medicine, agricultural products, and then ship that directly into Iran for the benefit of the Iranian people," said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
However, Richard Goldberg, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, says budget support for necessities like aid ends up as budget freedom for weapons and supporting proxies.
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"What we’ve seen is relieving sanctions, relaxing pressure on Iran leads to more illicit activity, leads to more terrorism, more missile proliferation and, of course, advances in their nuclear program."
Huizenga and Goldberg both point out that without additional information from the Treasury, something still unknown is whether the "transactions" made from the $10 billion in Iraqi electricity revenue were completed before or after the October massacre.
