I have a feeling this has to do with downing of the Iranian flight 655 back in 1988 (yes, 37 years ago) and if so this puts the entire situation in a different light. Downing passenger planes is not a good thing to do and the compensation to the Iranians should have been paid decades ago.
A plane load of CASH?
CASH??????? A half a billion dollars of CASH???
Compensation was paid by the US to Iran in 1996.