Rantingprofs: What Everyone Knew

July 03, 2006

What Everyone Knew

Just found something interesting while working on something else.

Here's what everyone -- including one of the authors of the current banking story -- knew last year, according to the Times.

We knew that administration efforts to track terror money weren't working. Unless someone can show me a more recent Times article than this revealing that administration efforts were bearing fruit, than I think this puts things in a completely different light.

It suggests that not only was Swift secret -- because without Swift the perception was that the tracking efforts weren't working well -- it also suggests that the argument "everyone knew" because the administration kept talking about the fact that it was going after the money is somewhat disingenuous. It now seems to me that prior to this point, those claims on the part of the administration were probably being heard as yet more empty administration spin, rhetoric, boasts -- if the Times wasn't buying it, why would the terrorists, who knew their money was getting through, have believed it? (They may not have understood the critical distinction: Swift was about tracking not freezing.)

The administration has made cutting off money to terrorists one of the main prongs in its attack against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. It has seized tens of millions of dollars in American accounts and assets linked to terrorist groups, prodded other countries to do the same, and is now developing a program to gain access to and track potentially hundreds of millions of international bank transfers into the United States.

But experts in the field say the results have been spotty, with few clear dents in Al Qaeda's ability to move money and finance terrorist attacks. The Congressional report-- a follow-up to a 2003 report that offered a similarly bleak assessment -- buttresses those concerns.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who leads the Senate Finance Committee and was one of the lawmakers who requested the study, said he was disappointed to learn that in an area as critical as countering terrorist financing, ''they haven't gotten very far yet.''

In an interview, Mr. Grassley said: ''It's as simple as learning to stop the infighting and turf protection and get on with the job. What's happening is just inexplicable in light of the war on terrorism.''

It also makes clear how irrelevant is the Times argument that governments seek to stop publication of stories that might embarrass them. The Times was beating up on the administration for being ineffective in this area because the Times didn't know about Swift: Swift is the answer to earlier stories that made the administration look bad and yet they still didn't want the story out.

Posted on July 03, 2006 at 10:39 AM | Permalink

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July 03, 2006

What Everyone Knew

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