Terrorist Financing is Boring

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The New York Times gets wind of a soon-to-be-released GAO report on the Bush administration’s efforts to crack down on terrorist financing:

More than four years after the Sept. 11 attacks, “the U.S. government lacks an integrated strategy” to train foreign countries and provide them with technical assistance to shore up their financial and law enforcement systems against terrorist financing, according to the report prepared by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress.

That’s comforting. Most of the problems seem to stem from infighting among the State and Treasury departments, who can’t even agree on who’s in charge. But Douglas Farah suggests there’s a larger problem here:

While the report focuses on the U.S. efforts to train other countries in ways to combat terror finance, it confirms a larger problem within the administration, as described to me by people in government and those who served there for many years. There is simply little interest on following up on issues raised on terror finance, and almost no leadership provided by those who sit in the principals’ meeting in funding, attacking or seriously focusing on the issue. The CIA, according to one source, still has noone dedicated to tracing terror finance issues, never mind a special unit.

And the Bush administration isn’t the only one getting bored by the issue:

This lack of interest in the administration is dangerously coupled with a steep drop in the quality and quantity of the work of the UN committee tasked with following the finances of al Qaeda and the Taliban. The panel has been downgraded, the staff cut and the quality of the work is considerably diminished, as is the importance it is given within the UN Secretary General’s office.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2022 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate