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Obama welcomes Iran's release of U.S. hiker

WASHINGTON, Sept 14 | Tue Sep 14, 2010 12:32pm EDT

WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday welcomed Iran's release of American hiker Sarah Shourd and said he remained hopeful that Tehran would demonstrate "renewed compassion" by freeing two other Americans.

(Reporting by Ross Colvin, editing by Patricia Zengerle)

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Comments (3)
wyattb wrote:
I want to know who paid a half a billion dollars ransom/bail. did this have presidential approval? Is this the usual pattern to get people back? I do not belive it is.

This begs the question if not why then pay so much for this individual. Either she is a a spy or we have established a poor precedent that opens every American up to kidnap and extortion.

Or is this a back door means for us to channel money to Iran for not making problems for the US?

Sep 14, 2010 1:43pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
jgrush wrote:
It makes me sick to see Iran treated with kid gloves after they kidnap three hikers, essentially torture the families, and allow one to be ransomed, further torturing the remaining victim’s families. All this is about as civilized as Pol Pot. I see this new dialog thing is working out for us.

Sep 14, 2010 1:48pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
jeffzl wrote:
wyattb:

It’s half a million, not half a billion. That’s chump change compared to the multi-million dollar bonuses given out to some high-profile CEOs just a few years ago.

Seriously though, $500k is not that much for a human life, and it’s not even a blip on Iran’s multi-billion dollar GDP.

Sep 14, 2010 2:50pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
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