Kirby On Iran Funds: "Regime Was Never Going Receive Money"

White House National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby has offered a forceful defence of the Biden administration's plan to unfreeze USD$6b in Iranian oil revenue, following reports today that Washington and Qatar have reached an agreement to indefinitely block transferring the funds.

• Kirby: "Every single dime of that money is still sitting in a Qatari bank... not one dime of it has been spent."
• Kirby: "In certain audiences inconvenient facts are easy to forget... the regime was never gonna see a dime of that money... and this account was set up by the previous administration for this exact purpose... we've done nothing different, it's the same process..."
• Kirby declined to confirm the Qatar agreement saying: "I'm not going to speculate on future transactions," but added that the US, "has oversight over all transactions."
• Kirby says the US has, "no direct evidence that Iran was a participant in these attacks in any way," later adding that Iran is, "broadly complicit" in the attacks due their historical support for Hamas.
• A short time Reuters reported a counterclaim published by Iran's Nournews stating that, "There has been no change in Iran's access to its foreign funds in Qatari banks, and the existing agreement remains in effect."
• The prisoner swap-oil revenue deal, which was formulated during the administration of former President Donald Trump, is shaping up as a major foreign policy vulnerability for President Biden ahead of the 2024 election. It could deliver political blowback for Biden similar to that which followed the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.