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News Releases
July 30, 2003 9-11 Report
The 9-11 Report prepared by the Senate and House Intelligence Committees on
intelligence community activities before and after the terrorist attacks on
September 11, 2001, currently receiving much attention in the press (in part
because of redacted findings regarding Saudi cooperation), discusses Treasury's
involvement in counterterrorism efforts.
The Report states that prior to the attacks, "no single U.S. Government
agency was responsible for tracking terrorist funds, prioritizing and coordinating
government-wide efforts, and seeking international collaboration in that effort.
Some tracking of terrorist funds was undertaken before September 11. For the
most part, however, these efforts were unorganized and ad-hoc, and there was
a reluctance to take actions such as seizures of assets and bank accounts and
arrests of those involved in the funding. A U.S. Government official testified
before the Joint Inquiry, for example, that this reluctance hindered counterterrorist
efforts against Bin Ladin: 'Treasury was concerned about any activity that could
adversely affect the international financial system . . . ].' "
Treasury, in turn, pointed the finger back at the intelligence community, stating
that the Central Intelligence Agency had never asked Treasury to perform an
analysis of Osama bin Ladin, or of associated terrorist financing.
FinCEN's capabilities are discussed in the Report: "FinCEN started doing
linkage analysis of terrorist financing in April 1999 and first identified an
account with a direct link to Bin Ladin in February 2001. FinCEN has the advantage
of being able to work with law enforcement and intelligence information, which
it combines with Bank Secrecy Act information and commercial data to produce
a product useful to the Department of Treasury and others in seizing, blocking,
and freezing terrorist assets. These capabilities and databases at FinCEN, the
Drug Information Center, and across the Intelligence Community enabled the FBI
and FinCEN to connect almost all 19 hijackers within days after September 11
by linking their bank accounts, credit cards, debit cards, addresses, and telephone
numbers."