Teheran arms curbs 'eased' during N-talks
Oman Tribune - 06 October, 2015
http://www.gulfinthemedia.com/index.php?id=765171&news_type=Top&lang=en

Addressing concerns that a landmark nuclear deal reached this year could
boost Iran’s military power, the Obama administration reassured critics that
it would maintain and enforce its remaining tough sanctions against the
country.

Yet the US government has pursued far fewer violations of a long-standing
arms embargo against Iran in the past year compared to recent years,
according to a review of court records and interviews with two senior
officials involved in sanctions enforcement.

The sharp fall in new prosecutions did not reflect fewer attempts by Iran to
break the embargo, the officials said. Rather, uncertainty among prosecutors
and agents on how the terms of the deal would affect cases made them
reluctant to commit already scarce resources with the same vigour as in
previous years, the officials said.

The more relaxed enforcement raises questions over how strictly the arms
embargo and other remaining sanctions will be applied in future, since the
nuclear deal still needs to be implemented and Iran will likely remain
sensitive to a tough sanctions regime.

In the 2014-15 fiscal year, which ended on September 30, US law enforcement
officials filed fresh charges just twice against those suspected of
attempting to smuggle weapons and related technology from the United States
to Iran, according to court records.

Eight such cases were brought in 2013-14. By comparison, around 10 to 12
such cases were brought in each of the preceding six years. “There’s been a
precipitous drop-off,” said one of the senior US officials, who declined to
be identified. “The facts are the facts – there’s no other explanation.”

The official added there was already a “reticence” in some agencies and US
federal prosecutors’ offices to pursue the cases because they are so tough
to build and time-consuming.

“And if we’re going to normalise things with Iran soon, people are asking,
‘Is it worth it?’”

The nuclear deal, reached in July after two years of concerted negotiations,
tasks Iran with dismantling much of its nuclear infrastructure in return for
the removal of many of the international sanctions placed on it over the
past five years.

The US sanctions being lifted are largely nuclear-related measures that
barred other countries from dealing with Iran’s banking and oil sectors.

US sanctions for Iran’s alleged human rights violations and support for
militant groups remain in place, as do measures barring US persons from most
trade with Iran. A United Nations embargo on conventional weapons will be
lifted in five years, and a UN embargo on ballistic missiles in eight.

Multiple US laws and regulations still bar the export of US goods and
technology to Iran, especially anything related to defence.

Obama administration officials say they continued to aggressively enforce
sanctions against Iran throughout the negotiations, are still doing so, and
will strictly enforce the remaining sanctions after the deal is implemented.

“The Justice Department continues to pursue criminal prosecutions against
those that seek to circumvent US sanctions involving Iran and other export
controls,” said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for the department, adding there
were numerous ongoing cases.

A senior Commerce Department official said its Office of Export Enforcement
“continues to vigorously enforce sanctions on Iran” and that Iran cases make
up the bulk of its current file.

A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a Department of
Homeland Security agency, did not respond to a request for comment.

Elizabeth Bourassa, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department’s Office of
Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said the department had enforced
sanctions at the same pace since a framework deal was announced with Iran in
April as it did in the preceding year and a half.

“Since the start of the negotiating period, Ofac imposed sanctions on more
than 100 Iran-related individuals and entities, concluded more than 20
Iran-related enforcement actions, and assessed approximately $ 525 million
in penalties for violations of Iran-related sanctions,” Bourassa said.

In the past decade, individuals have attempted to export a range of US goods
with military applications to Iran, such as aircraft parts, night-vision
goggles, and a horizontal lathe used to make high-grade steel, according to
court documents.

The second senior law enforcement official said that as a deal with Iran
grew closer in the past year, front-line agents and prosecutors who enforce
Iran sanctions followed the situation closely, carefully weighing whether it
was worth it to open new investigations.

Iran arms embargo cases can be highly complex, specialised, time-consuming
and sometimes involve high-risk undercover operations, the official said.

Some prosecutors and agents were wary of investing years of time and money
in cases that might suddenly become moot, said the official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity. “No one distributed a memo saying, ‘Don’t work these
cases’ - no one is that stupid,” the official said. “But with this deal
coming, everything was thrown up in the air, everyone was looking for
guidance.”

There are also indications that this summer, as negotiations with Iran
reached a critical point, Obama administration officials were concerned with
how sanctions enforcement could affect the talks.

Representative Patrick Meehan, a Republican critic of the Iran deal and a
former federal prosecutor, said the drop in prosecutions and the letter from
Treasury indicated that the Obama administration relaxed sanctions to
protect the negotiations.

“There should have been clear signals sent from the administration that
there is to be no interruption, that the law is clear and unambiguous,”
Meehan said.

He authored a bill that would prevent sanctions relief for Iran until it
pays restitution to victims of Iranian-backed attacks, prompting the White
House to say Obama would veto any legislation that prevents implementation
of the deal.

“There’s a subtle way of simply chilling out the willingness of
investigators to pursue the cases in the first place,” Meehan said. “I look
at the pattern and that’s what disturbs me.”