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CIAO DATE: 04/05/07
The Silent Struggle Against Terrorist Financing
by Joseph M. Myers
In the more than three years since the 9/11 attacks, the “war on terrorism” has been fought on many fronts. Much attention has been paid to military action in Afghanistan and Iraq and to prosecutions and preventive measures taken by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security in the United States. Meanwhile, a somewhat quieter, complex campaign against terrorist financing has shown that financial intelligence, investigations, prosecutions, sanctions, and diplomacy, when carefully coordinated among national authorities and with the private sector, can make a meaningful contribution to the security of the United States against the threat of Islamist terrorism.
Going forward, U.S. policymakers should invest in building infrastructure, both in the United States and around the world, to deepen and broaden the role of financial intelli gence investigators and analysts. Contrary to the occasional claims of politicians, following and interdicting money will never “eliminate” terrorism or even “cut off” financial sup port to particular terrorist groups; so long as people are motivated to commit acts of terrorism, funds will flow to support them. Indeed, the level of financial support provided to a par ticular terrorist group may be a useful indicator of the depth of its political support, and vice versa. Unfortunately, unprecedented levels of anger and resentment in the Arab and Muslim worlds over U.S. foreign policy threaten to undermine efforts to control terrorist financing, and perhaps the “war on ter rorism” more broadly. Policymakers need to take a longer view, develop metrics to evaluate whether we are winning or losing the hearts and minds of potential Islamist terrorists, and act accordingly.
Following the Money. Efforts to combat financing of Islamist terrorism prior to 9/11 have been well documented by the so-called “9/11 Commission” and by insider accounts of former National Security Council officials Richard A. Clarke, William Wechsler, Daniel Benjamin, and Steven Simon.1 Despite the best efforts of these and other officials, the problem was and remains a difficult one. In short, efforts to address terrorist financing were sporadic and largely ineffective. As the 9/11 Commission staff concluded, “[t]error ist financing was not a priority for either domestic or foreign intelligence collection. As a result, intelligence reporting on the issue was episodic, insufficient, and often inaccurate.”2 The lack of actionable intelligence fundamentally limited the ability of the government to take effective steps to limit funding streams directed toward Islamist extremist groups, and government policymakers never made the development of such intelligence a priority.
It has become cliché to report that everything changed after 9/11, but with respect to efforts to combat terrorist financing, much did, indeed, change. For the first time, the U.S. government focused on the issue and devoted resources to address it. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, financial inves tigators and analysts descended on the FBI’s Secure Intelligence and Operations Center (SIOC) to assist in unraveling the financial trail of the al- Qaeda hijackers. This effort proved its value quickly, persuading FBI Director Robert Mueller to incorporate financial investigators into the FBI’s Counter-ter rorism Division and its joint terrorism task forces across the country.
Joseph M. Myers is an attorney at the law firm of Katten Muchin Zavis Rosenman. He served as Director of International Financial Affairs in the Office of Combating Terrorism at the National Security Council.