U.S. freezes fewer terror assets (a "lack of urgency" is hurting efforts)

[rodeodance]

......."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."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060130/ts_usatoday/usfreezesfewerterrorassets&printer=1;_ylt=AvQHVBgiiRY6kj._oPs5.IjfB2YD;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-
U.S. freezes fewer terror assets

By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY2 hours, 17 minutes ago

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.

[rodeodance]

1. Bush is always touting outcomes--yet how meansure?--

..........."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."

[rodeodance]

2. they are coming out of the wordwork- a former Bush administration official

a little late.

but. i suspose they need a job also before they do any criticism of Bush.
i am glad they are coming out.

[Tempest]

3. The Plame outing contributed to this

Plame was working on tracking terrorist funding.

Ever since she was outed, and the false front she was using was disbanded, the anti-terrorist campaign has been non-existent.

[central scrutinizer]

4. Bushco Pioneers use the same funding strategy

Shutting down the off shore accounts in the Cayman Islands and the like was a top priority of Clinton's anti-terror measures. But many Bushco supporters use exactly the same accounts to launder money and hide profits to avoid paying taxes. One of Bushco's first acts was to shut down this project.

[gratuitous]

5. "Treasury officials reject his criticism"

Uh huh. And what is the Treasury doing to cut off the funding supply to terrorists if not freezing assets? Or don't they know where the terrorists are getting their money from? Or they do know, but they don't want to offend their good business friends and trading partners?

Instead, we spend untold millions (and probably billions) snooping through internet usage, when pinching the money flow might just be a lot more efficacious. And cheaper.

[Betsy Ross]

6. Wouldn't want to hurt the bin Laden family. n/t

[leveymg]

7. There has been next to no progress since the period immediately after 9/11

in publicly exposing and shutting down al-Qaeda funding networks. The White House and GOP have stalled, strangled, and stopped nearly every major investigation.

The reason for this is that the same Saudi and Islamic funding networks have been feeding Grover Norquist, Abramoff, the GOP and the Bush family tens of millions in bribes and illegal foreign campaign contributions.

One of the major reasons 9/11 happened was that Dubya refused to roll up these networks during 2001 in order gave these donors, who also had funded A.Q. Khan's WMD program, time to cover their tracks. Even after 9/11, the White House obstructed the FBI investigation of Norquist's associates at the Islamic Institute for more than a year, allowing the Saudi Directors plenty of time to clean up the books and flee the country before the Bureau was allowed to served warrants to search the group's offices in Virginia. See, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/3/10145/56290

Beyond scandal - High Treason.

[rodeodance]

8. kerry has always pushed the this--yet the Repugs demeaned him--now

the truth comes out----there is no enthusiam for this push--as the barrel of a gun works better (so they say).