>>173423
-(20)
Who did POTUS meet with yesterday?
Was AG Sessions there?
How many MI generals were on the WH list to attend a separate meeting?
Could those meetings have been combined?
Why were certain rooms in the WH renovated?
Where was the meeting on Monday?
Why aren’t phones allowed in this room (one of many).
What firm was contracted to conduct the renovations?
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https://www.propublica.org/article/haitians-under-u.s.-treatment-are-often-separated-from-families
Haitians Under U.S. Treatment Are Often Separated From Families(ProPublica.org)
The U.S. government has brought needed medical services to thousands of Haitian earthquake survivors. But a bureaucratic tangle has left some people struggling to find out what happened to family members who were taken away for treatment.
by Sheri FinkFeb. 2, 2010, 12:50 p.m. EST
A helicopter lands on the USNS Comfort hospital ship off of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Jan. 23, 2010. (Thony Belizaire/AFP/Getty Images) PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – In turning tents into sophisticated operating theaters and deploying a gleaming hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, to the coast of Port-au-Prince, the U.S. government has brought needed medical services to thousands of Haitian earthquake survivors.
But after top U.S. doctors operate on severe injuries and treat infections, it is up to Haitian family members to see their loved ones through the long process of healing.
The ability of the U.S. system to connect with these family members nearly three weeks after the Jan. 12 disaster remains uncertain at best.
Navy helicopters often whisk the ill and injured from one medical site to another without documentation, leaving family members behind. As of last week there was no phone number for relatives to call to check on hundreds of patients being treated aboard the Comfort.
"Patients actually die from that, when they’re left alone with no family," said Nick Goldsberry, a registered nurse working at a tent hospital in Port-au-Prince with San Diego-based International Relief Teams.
Kevin Tweedy, a public information officer for a different field hospital in Port-au-Prince run by the U.S. National Disaster Medical System, struggled to find information for concerned relatives last week. On Tuesday he gripped a small cell phone to his ear. "People are getting upset," he told Keziah Furth, an American nurse volunteering as a liaison officer for the Comfort. "They’re beating on the gates. They want to know where their family member is."
The family of one of those patients spent last week in anguish. Gerd Belizaire, a 35-year-old engineer, was buried under rubble after the earthquake. Days after being rescued, he developed difficulty breathing, and the oxygen level in his blood dipped dangerously low. Doctors at the U.S. government field hospital put a tube in his throat to help him breathe, and one of Belizaire’s brothers, Ketler, scoured the city for a tank of oxygen.
Family of Gerd Belizaire, Ketler Belizaire (left) and Giovanni Belizaire at the American field hospital (Photo by Sheri Fink) Belizaire remained in critical condition, and a week ago Saturday the American doctors arranged urgent transport to the Comfort for intensive care. His wife, mother and brother bid him emotional goodbyes.
All week the family was unable to find out what happened to him. On Wednesday, a relative in the United States said he had reached someone by phone who informed him that Belizaire had died.
But Belizaire’s brothers and wife in Haiti were unable to confirm that information, even when I tried to help them navigate the bureaucratic labyrinth. They made daily visits back to the field hospital, and we placed phone calls to at least a half-dozen phone numbers on the Comfort. "It’s killing me," Belizaire’s wife, Giovanni, said on Wednesday.
On Sunday a relative, Dashley Beaubrun, said in an e-mail that the family had been told Thursday that Belizaire was alive, but had received no information since that time. A brother, Vladimir Gousse, said by phone that he was still awaiting news.
But a final call to a military public affairs officer on Sunday night revealed the worst. A patient matching Belizaire’s age, last name and with a similar first name, "Gend," had been recorded as deceased.
He had been dead on arrival to the Comfort, a day after he was picked up for urgent transport. Where he spent the intervening hours was unknown. According to the ship’s public information office, Belizaire’s body was released to the Haitian Ministry of Health more than a week ago. But the family has been unable to locate him.
"We looked at all the bodies, all the files, we can’t find his name," Belizaire’s wife said Monday. "I don’t know what to do. If he’s dead, where’s the body?"
U.S. soldiers carry an injured woman to a Navy helicopter bound for the USNS Comfort on Jan. 23, 2010 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) The reasons for the bureaucratic tangle are unclear. Patients who arrive on the Comfort are immediately entered into an electronic record-keeping system. Tracking them should be a matter of a few mouse clicks. The hospital ship has supported numerous international relief efforts for years, so the need to provide answers to families should not have been a surprise. The Comfort had been deployed to Haiti before, as recently as last spring.
To be sure, the massive scale of the disaster, the deaths of Haitian officials and destruction of infrastructure have posed numerous challenges to coordination and communication. Last week, public affairs officers with the U.S. Joint Information Center for Haiti could not provide an explanation for the delay in making patient information available to families, except to say that the Comfort was working with non-governmental organizations to come up with a solution. "It’s very, very important to us," said one officer. "As soon as we can get that information out, we’ll let everybody know."
Lt. David Shark, a Navy assistant public affairs officer working on the Comfort, said on Sunday that a patient hot line for the ship was established on Saturday. However, he did not have the number and did not provide it after several requests. He also said that family members are allowed to travel to the ship with patients, and some have done so. But many field hospital personnel had been unaware of that.
A soldier is lifted back into a Navy helicopter after transporting a baby to the American field hospital in Port-au-Prince, Jan. 25, 2010
(Photo by Sheri Fink) Medical transports with unaccompanied children have been another disturbing problem. Last week, a U.S. Navy helicopter hovered over the American field hospital. A soldier descended a zip line carrying a baby whose head was grossly enlarged. The only information the hospital was given was that the baby had "water on the brain." The helicopter's propeller wash sprayed debris into the eyes of two medical workers and wreaked havoc in an adjacent "tent city" where thousands huddled under sheets propped up by tree branches.
Roughly a dozen other children were delivered to the American field hospital in recent days without family members, documents or even minimal information on where the children were being transported from.
Vanessa Rouzier, a pediatrician at a Haitian medical clinic, Gheskio, that is hosting the American field hospital, was outraged by the practice. "To me it’s shocking and unethical," she said. "It has to stop. You end up with orphans who may not be orphans."
Rouzier said rumors were flying among Haitians that foreigners were abducting children or stealing patients’ organs. (On Sunday, 10 members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Idaho were arrested in Haiti amid accusations that they tried to spirit children out of the country to the Dominican Republic.)
"Many people are getting offended," Rouzier said. "‘How can you take my sister for five days now and not even tell me if she’s alive or dead?’ That would be a scandal in the U.S. Then they take minors without parents for amputations."
Staff at the American field hospital began making arrangements for a nearby orphanage to accept the unaccompanied children after they were treated. In the meantime, the Americans turned the hospital’s post-operative tent into a nursery and assigned staff to provide comfort and care. Some bonded with the children and began asking whether adoption might be possible.
Ultimately Rouzier and her colleagues located close relatives of nearly all of the children.
She and other Haitians said they were impressed and overwhelmed by America’s generosity, even as they were concerned by the missteps.
Doing good, Rouzier said, needs to be done the right way.
"When they leave, who’s going to stay behind to pay the price for it?" she asked. "Us."
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Mueller FBI Director September 4, 2001 (just in time to cover up 9/11) till September 4, 2013
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US sent plane with $400 million in cash to Iran
Elise Labott Nicole Gaouette Kevin Liptak
By Elise Labott, Nicole Gaouette and Kevin Liptak, CNN
7 minute read
Updated 11:53 AM EDT, Thu August 4, 2016
Iran receives $400 million same day Americans released
02:27 - Source: CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Obama approved the $400 million transfer, which he announced in January
It was the first payment of a $1.7 billion settlement
The funds had been contested since the 1979 Iranian revolution
Washington
CNN
—
The Obama administration secretly arranged a plane delivery of $400 million in cash on the same day Iran released four American prisoners and formally implemented the nuclear deal, US officials confirmed Wednesday.
President Barack Obama approved the $400 million transfer, which he had announced in January as part of the Iran nuclear deal. The money was flown into Iran on wooden pallets stacked with Swiss francs, euros and other currencies as the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement resolving claims at an international tribunal at The Hague over a failed arms deal under the time of the Shah.
A fifth American man was released by Iran separately.
Details of the cash delivery drew fresh condemnation of the Iran deal from Republicans. They charged that the administration had empowered a major sponsor of terrorism because the nuclear agreement enables Tehran to re-enter the international economy and gives it access long-frozen funds.
In addition, they said the cash delivery amounted to a ransom payment that violates long-standing US practice not to pay for hostages. As such, they argued, it encourages Iran to hold onto its remaining Americans prisoners until they can get more money for them.
“Paying ransom to kidnappers puts Americans even more at risk,” said Illinois Republican Sen. Mark Kirk. “While Americans were relieved by Iran’s overdue release of illegally imprisoned American hostages, the White House’s policy of appeasement has led Iran to illegally seize more American hostages, including Siamak Namazi, his father Baquer Namazi and Reza Shahini.”
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump jumped on the issue, seeking to change the subject after a punishing week of gaffes and reproaches from members of the GOP.
“Iran was in big trouble, they had sanctions, they were dying, we took off the sanctions and made this horrible deal and now they’re a power,” Trump said Wednesday in Daytona, Florida.
“We paid $400 million for the hostages,” Trump said. “Such a bad precedent was set by Obama. We have two more hostages there right? What’s are we going to pay for them? What we’re doing is insane.”
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, when asked about the payment by a local Denver, Colorado, television station, said it was “old news.”
“It was first reported about seven or eight months ago, as I recall,” she told Denver’s 9News. “And, so far as I know, it had nothing to do with any kind of hostage swap or any other tit-for-tat. It was something that was intended to, as I am told, pay back Iran for contracts that were canceled when the Shah fell.”
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.
In 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.
Legal claims are one of the reasons the payment to Iran was controversial when Obama first announced it. The Clinton administration had agreed in 2000 to pay that $400 million to Americans who had won lawsuits against Iran in US courts.
These families and individuals had sued the Islamic Republic for damages after the deaths of loved ones or for being the victims themselves of Iran-backed kidnappings or terrorist attacks. At the time, US officials told those families the money would come from Iran.
With Obama’s announcement, it became apparent that the payments had come from US taxpayers and not from Iran at all.
Stuart Eizenstat, the Clinton administration’s deputy Treasury secretary, told Newsweek that Iran had filed a claim with The Hague, limiting the administration’s ability to lay claim to the fund.
Critics on Wednesday were further incensed by Iranian claims that the cash amounted to a ransom payment for the four prisoners.
“That sort of ransom payment as part of the Iran deal is an outrage,” said Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida.
US officials conceded that the Iranian negotiators involved in the prisoner exchange said they wanted the cash to coincide with the release of the Americans to prove a deliverable for the exchange even as they argued against the characterization of it as a ransom payment.
“As we’ve made clear, the negotiations over the settlement of an outstanding claim at The Hague Tribunal were completely separate from the discussions about returning our American citizens home,” State Department Spokesman John Kirby said, referring to the $1.7 billion payout that the $400 cast installment was part of.
“Not only were (the) two negotiations separate, they were conducted by different teams on each side, including, in the case of the Hague claims, by technical experts involved in these negotiations for many years,” he said. “The funds that were transferred to Iran were related solely to the settlement of a long-standing claim at the US-Iran Claims Tribunal at The Hague.”
“It’s not surprising that Iran would want to call this a ransom for domestic political reasons,” another senior US official said. “But that is not the case. The confidence built during the Iran nuclear negotiations helped the negotiations in other areas, so it is true all these things came together at the same time as implementation day of the Iran deal. But this was not a ransom.”