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| Terror Networks |
| Efforts to freeze al-Qaeda cash slowing |
| 2006-01-30 |
| The amount of assets frozen by U.S. anti-terrorism units is declining dramatically each year, prompting a former Bush administration official who helped oversee the program to suggest that a "lack of urgency" is hurting efforts to block terrorist fundraising. "This strategy is an important component of the overall anti-terror strategy," says Jimmy Gurule, a former Treasury Department undersecretary for enforcement. "What I've witnessed is very, very disturbing." Treasury officials reject his criticism and say the decline in blocked assets is not an accurate measure of the effort against terrorism funding. Efforts by the United States and its allies to pursue the assets of individuals, charities and groups with suspected ties to terrorists began under a presidential directive after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It has been a key part of the Bush administration's strategy to make it more difficult for terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda to get money to operatives. In the 16 weeks after the 9/11 attacks, 157 suspected terrorism fundraisers were identified and assets valued at $68 million were frozen. The numbers fell after the initial rush by authorities. However, Gurule says the totals for 2005 — $4.9 million frozen in the accounts of 32 suspects or organizations — suggest the effort is losing intensity because of a lack of help from foreign governments and an uneven commitment by the U.S. government to monitor suspicious transactions at financial institutions in the USA and abroad. "The strategy needs to be re-evaluated, restructured and refocused," says Gurule, who left the Bush administration in 2003 and is a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. "It's time for an overhaul." Stuart Levey, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, says many of the program's successes cannot be disclosed because they are part of classified operations. He says evidence of the effort's success came from senior members of al-Qaeda. Levey says that in correspondence intercepted last year, Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top deputy, asked Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for $100,000. Al-Zawahri said "many of the lines" for financial help "have been cut off." Levey also cites the 9/11 Commission's recent evaluation of the government's strategy against terrorism funding, which the panel gave a grade of A-minus. It was the highest score awarded in the commission's wide-ranging and mostly critical report on federal anti-terrorism efforts. The report did include some criticism of the push to go after terrorists' assets, however. "The government has made significant strides in using terrorism financing as an intelligence tool," the report said. "However, the State Department and Treasury Department are engaged in unhelpful turf battles, and the overall effort is lacking leadership." In October, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that Treasury "lacks meaningful performance measures to assess its terrorist designation and asset blocking efforts." Levey says the GAO's findings are getting "high-level attention" at State and Treasury. "We are trying to react to improve our effort." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |