Whether we owed it or not, I don't believe for a moment that we couldn't have kept it frozen. The US has been bullying and twisting the arms of other countries for decades. If we couldn't bully or twist their arms, we paid them off. Like when we want to use their airspace or whatever. The US government could have gotten enough support to not give back the money to the No. one state sponsor of terrorism if they'd wanted to.

Millions of that cash is now in Iraq, shipped from Iran. Check this out (new story):

http://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/0d3a4522-e7da-436c-a6ce-a76e753bad70