FWD: U.S. ignored money trail 1

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U.S. ignored money trail
Bush is doomed to fail if he doesn't cut off financing of terrorists

By Rachel Ehrenfeld / Special to The Detroit News


   In the welter of events following the bombing of the World Trade Center in 
Feb. 26, 1993, few noticed that the first man arrested, Mohammed Salameh -- 
the poor, unemployed illegal immigrant -- offered $5 million for bail. Where 
could he get this kind of money? 
   The judge refused bail. But was the source of Salameh's offer the same as 
the one that funded the eight men -- arrested shortly afterward -- who 
planned to blow up Manhattan's tunnels and bridges and to assassinate public 
officials? 
   Were the same money sources behind the final attack on the World Trade 
Center on Sept. 11? 
   Now, a frantic search to identify funds belonging to radical Muslim 
terrorist organizations is on. Osama bin Laden has been accused of being the 
source for both attacks on the World Trade Center, as well as the Pentagon. 
President George W. Bush has declared that "Al Qaeda is to terror what the 
Mafia is to organized crime." But it is more than that. Al-Qaeda, Osama bin 
Laden's terrorist network, is an elaborate international criminal 
organization and a much bigger threat than the Mafia. 
   "We have tougher laws against organized crime and drug trafficking than 
terrorism," Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft told the House Judiciary Committee, on 
Sept. 24th. And he went on to outline the Bush administration's proposals for 
changes in U.S. laws dealing with terrorism, incorporating some of the same 
legislation that has been used against organized crime and drug trafficking 
organizations for decades. 
   The Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon were another 
wake-up call to the West about terrorism and its elaborate financing. For a 
long time, there has been evidence that terrorist, international drug 
trafficking and criminal organizations use the same fund-raising methods to 
enrich themselves. 
   Yet no one seemed to connect the dots. And no one seriously tried to crack 
down on their financing. 
   Bin Laden's is only one among many hostile international criminal 
organizations, often state-sponsored, that will do whatever they can to 
diminish the status of the United States as the only superpower. 
   According to a State Department report, the Taliban, who are at bin 
Laden's service, has the advantage of controlling the world's largest heroin 
production and distribution in the world. 
   Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the heroin production soared to 
hundreds of tons each year. In 1999 alone, the world production of heroin was 
estimated at 500 metric tons; 400 were produced by the Taliban and available 
to fund bin Laden and his associates worldwide. 
   
First warning 
   The writing was on the wall on July 5, 1991, when the Bank of England shut 
down what was the most important Islamic bank in the world, the Bank of 
Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). This criminal entity was created by 
the Pakistani Aaga Hassan Abedi "to fight the evil influence of the West"; to 
help with the creation of the "Islamic Bomb"; to finance all Muslim terrorist 
organizations; and to launder the money that was generated mostly by illicit 
drug trafficking and other illegal activities, including arms trafficking. 
   When BCCI went belly up, we learned from thousands of documents that Abu 
Nidal -- the notorious Palestinian terrorist organization that now enjoys the 
hospitality of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, the Palestine Liberation Organization 
(PLO), Hezbollah and bin Laden -- had accounts in the bank. By the end of the 
1980s, the "special services" provided by BCCI included access to Western 
humanitarian and international development funds, as well as drug money 
laundering, secret transfers of cash and bribes. 
   A "Black Network," a special enforcement unit supported by Abu Nidal and 
other terrorist organizations, operated from Pakistan. The same Pakistan that 
harbored bin Laden for many years while its officials told the United States 
that they didn't know his whereabouts. And the same Pakistan that for 
decades, even according to the State Department's annual report, had been a 
major drug trafficking and money laundering center. 
   
Western blindness 
   Yet, now more importantly, we also discovered that the American and 
British governments knew and kept the bank open for a long time. The bank 
"that would bribe God" was able to get away with its criminal activities for 
decades due to Abedi's clever portrayal of the Muslim nations as victims of 
Western -- and particularly U.S. -- "imperialism." And when the bank was 
shuttered, the accusation in the Muslim/Arab and Third World countries was 
that the U.S. and the United Kingdom governments closed the bank to curtail 
the growing fiscal power of Muslim countries. 
   Like Abedi, anti-American, anti-Western terrorist and radical Muslim 
states and organizations, such as the Taliban, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, 
the PLO, Iraq and Iran, use Western democratic rhetoric to their advantage. 
But it is the willful blindness, mainly toward the growing volume of drug 
money laundering, exercised by Western bankers on the one hand and Western 
politicians on the other, that makes money laundering possible, despite the 
many laws and international conventions to control this phenomenon. 
   The BCCI was the first warning to the West. The second warning about the 
abuse of European and American financial markets by terrorist organizations, 
as well as their involvement in the illicit arms and drug trade, was made in 
February 1994 by the British National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS). 
   The Organized Crime Unit of the NCIS warned that Middle East terrorist 
groups and states were targeting the financial centers of London, Frankfurt 
and other Western countries, and that they favor illegal drug trafficking, 
money laundering and fraud. 
   
America reacts 
   The reaction in the United States and other Western countries was a 
barrage of anti-money-laundering regulations and allegedly better banking 
supervision. A new anti-money laundering industry sprung up, and billions 
were spent on the development of new technologies and many instruments to 
monitor these illegal activities. 
   But the ease with which bin Laden Inc. was able to prosper and bilk the 
markets just before their attack on America is strong evidence that the 
anti-money-laundering measures and insider trading laws are largely 
ineffective. It also proves that technology alone is not the answer, that 
human intelligence is necessary to fight this, like other wars. 
   It also brought home the realization that laws and regulations are not 
worth the paper they are written on without the political will to implement 
them. 
   Testifying on money laundering and terrorism before the Senate Committee 
on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs on Sept. 26, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., 
warned that "the evidence is clear that terrorists are using our own 
financial institutions against us." 
   This is not surprising, since the terrorists have been using our 
democratic system to undermine it and destroy our way of life all along. The 
naive U.S. attitude that our successful capitalistic democracy, combined with 
financial and technical aid negotiations, would bring around the radical 
Muslims failed miserably. 
   
Kurt-Werner Pörtner