Subscribe Today
Request a Clip
Iranian MP Javad Karimi-Ghadousi, a member of the parliamentary National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee, revealed details of a budgetary dispute among top Iranian officials, in which President Hassan Rouhani had opposed transferring money to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). According to this report, Rouhani had said: "A large part of the budget of the Armed Forces is wasted on destroying the government, instead of going toward the country's defense." Karimi-Ghadousi posted his statements on the Internet on March 12.
Javad Karimi-Ghadousi: "The West says to us: Each country should have only one army. You have two. You must dismantle the IRGC. Major-General Bagheri, Chief-of-Staff of the Armed Forces, wrote a letter to President Rouhani, saying: 'You must provide a budget for the Armed Forces. [Not doing so] causes a problem.'
[...]
"The President, who heads the Supreme National Security Council, answered: 'The constitution stipulates that the budget of the Armed Forces should be separate from the shocking, wasteful budget of certain cultural and propaganda groups. A large part of the budget of the Armed forces is wasted on destroying the government, instead of going toward the country's defense. The law and our religion prohibit this.'
[...]
"The General Staff informed the Supreme National Security Council that because of the withholding of the budget, missile production had stopped. After you approved in parliament the law for confronting America, you allocated a trillion tomans [to missile production], we received this budget, and we began producing missiles again. The board members of the budget coordination committee, who approved this year's budget, said to me: We went to the office of President Rouhani, and he said: I cannot finance two armies in this country – both the IRGC and the army.
[...]
"Amazing – the West says the same thing. One of the two armies must be dismantled."
Latest Clips
