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HOME> "AN ASSESSMENT OF THE TOOLS NEEDED TO FIGHT THE
HEARINGS > FINANCING OF TERRORISM "

Testimony of
Mr. Jonathan M. Winer
Member
Council on Foreign Relations
Alston & Bird, LLP
i November 20, 2002
PRINTABLE
VERSION

Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Members of this Committee:

I am grateful for the opportunity to testify before you on the

Administration's use of the tools provided them to fight terrorism
over the past year, and to discuss the findings of the Report of the
Independent Task Force on Terrorist Financing sponsored by the
Council on Foreign Relations and chaired by Maurice Greenberg.

Over the past year, the Administration has undertaken a Herculean

task: transforming the tools provided to the Administration by the
Congress in the USA Patriot Act into practical realities. That task has
included massive regulatory rulemaking, new investigations and
intensification of existing investigations, domestic and international,
and the integration of separate databases. The Administration has had
to shift existing resources to carry out massive new tasks. The
Administration has also had to coordinate this work with counterparts
in other governments - counterpart investigators, counterpart
regulators, counterpart prosecutors, counterpart intelligence agencies
and counterpart policymakers. The sheer scope of the work is
immense.

hi carrying out that work, the Administration has made excellent use
of the relatively small number of career people in the Departments of
Justice and Treasury and the regulatory agencies with competence in
this field derived from previous Administrations. People have been
asked to work hard and they met their responsibilities at what has
often been a superlative level. The Administration has also, in my
judgment, made excellent use of its political appointees, some of
whom did not have much previous experience in this field, but
learned fast. Those of us on the outside who in previous
Administrations learned how hard it is to effectuate change can -

http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=519&wit_id=1424 4/30/2003