From the Los Angeles Times

Terrorism money is still flowing
The United States vowed to smother funding, but a lack of cooperation --
global and domestic -- along with other problems have hobbled the effort.
By Josh Meyer
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
March 24, 2008
WASHINGTON -- The U.S.-led effort to choke off financing for Al Qaeda and
other terrorist groups is foundering because setbacks at home and abroad
have undermined the Bush administration's highly touted counter-terrorism
weapon, according to current and former officials and independent experts.
In some cases, extremist groups have blunted financial anti-terrorism tools
by finding new ways to raise, transfer and spend their money. In other
cases, the administration has stumbled over legal difficulties and
interagency fighting, officials and experts say.
But the most serious problems are fractures and mistrust within the
coalition of nations that the United States admits it needs to target
financiers of terrorism and to stanch the flow of funding from wealthy
donors to extremist causes.
"The international cooperation and focus is dropping, the farther we get
from 9/11," said Michael Jacobson, who was a senior advisor in the Treasury
Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence until March
2007. "Some countries lack political will. Others just don't have the basic
capacity to govern their countries, much less create a viable financial
intelligence unit."
Many current and former officials and experts say that because of political,
legal, cultural and technical problems, the administration-led coalition is
deteriorating.
"Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other terrorist groups continue to have access to
the funds they need for active and expanded indoctrination, recruitment,
maintenance, armament and operations," said Victor D. Comras, a former
United Nations terrorism finance official.
Internationally, the sense of urgency over terrorism financing has waned
since the 2001 attacks. As political climates have changed and negative
perceptions of the United States have risen, key allies are cooperating
less, current and former officials say.
In the Middle East and elsewhere, many countries have resisted U.S. pressure
to investigate and identify financiers.
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other key nations have not taken the necessary
steps to crack down on terrorist financing or suspect money flowing across
their borders. Other countries, including Afghanistan and some African
nations, lack the financial infrastructure to cooperate meaningfully.
Also, the most deadly terrorist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001, have cost so
little -- often less than $10,000 -- that they are virtually impossible to
detect by following a money trail.
Terrorist networks need larger sums to travel, train operatives, bribe
government officials, evade capture and expand support bases. Increasingly,
however, they are moving funds below the radar of U.S.-led enforcement and
intelligence-gathering efforts, officials and experts said.
Cash couriers use donkeys and camels in places like Pakistan and
Afghanistan, for instance, and private jets are used in oil-rich Persian
Gulf kingdoms to move cash, gold and jewels. The networks continue to rely
on a centuries-old informal banking system known as hawala, which leaves
virtually no trail.
Overall, it is nearly impossible to distinguish funds meant for potential
terrorism from legitimate transactions, said a senior State Department
official, who, like some of the those interviewed, spoke on condition of
anonymity because of prohibitions against commenting on the record on
counter-terrorism.
Current and former U.S. officials acknowledge they are struggling,
especially because much-needed allies are unwilling or unable to assist.
"It's not as much that we're not properly executing our strategy," said
Robert Grenier, a former senior CIA official. "It's that the strategy is of
limited utility in countering terrorism financing given the mechanisms that
terrorists use."
The effort begins
Thirteen days after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, President Bush
announced "a major thrust of our war on terrorism . . . a strike on the
financial foundation of the global terror network."
"We will starve the terrorists of funding, turn them against each other,
rout them out of their safe hiding places and bring them to justice," Bush
said in a Rose Garden speech, flanked by his secretaries of Treasury and
State.
Over the next six years, that effort stretched across the federal
government, including the CIA, the FBI and the Justice and Homeland Security
departments.
The administration also enlisted allies and international organizations such
as the United Nations.
In the first years, scores of alleged terrorists and their financiers were
identified, and their banks and associates were targeted by officials
worldwide. The intelligence-gathering helped catch several important Al
Qaeda figures, including Hambali, Southeast Asia chieftain.
Stuart Levey, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial
intelligence, said in an interview last week that the campaign had deterred
would-be financiers and helped uncover terrorism funding sources.
The intelligence-gathering has exerted serious financial stress on Al Qaeda
networks, Levey said. As a result of Treasury and U.N. efforts, terrorists
have been forced out of the international banking system and into riskier
ventures that could ultimately trip them up, Levey said.
"I'm generally very pleased with the overall counter-terrorist financing
enterprise, especially with the worldwide pressure we have put on Al Qaeda,"
he said. "No doubt, there are problems we haven't solved, but we continue to
treat them with the urgency they deserve."
Levey, who has made 75 foreign trips since 2004, is widely credited for
enlisting help from many governments. But like other current and former
officials at Treasury and elsewhere, Levey acknowledged that significant
challenges remain, especially on the international front.
A January report by the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force said that
the international effort has had only limited success in detecting terrorism
financing activities. The United States and other participating countries
must reexamine how terrorists raise and move money and devise techniques to
combat them, said the task force, an international body that sets standards
for fighting money-laundering and terrorist financing.
Last June, the Defense Department issued its first report on financial
counter-terrorism, and found many shortcomings first cited by a 2002
independent task force of the Council on Foreign Relations. Both recommended
establishment of a czar or agency to coordinate all U.S. agencies and report
directly to the White House. Both also called for a U.S.-led international
organization dedicated to investigating terrorist financing.
"To be successful, the U.S. must address the problem . . . under the
guida

Papadillos wrote:
Remember John Edward pooh-poohing the "war on terror"?

Papadillos wrote:
Remember John Edward pooh-poohing the "war on terror"?

You have missed the point of the article, and the point of whatever it was
that John Edwards (you got his name wrong) might have said.
You can no more have a "war on terror" than you can have a "war on poverty"
or a "war on global warming". Such an expression is a figure of speech and
no more.