The government's efforts to help foreign nations cut off the supply of money to terrorists, a critical goal for the Bush administration, have been stymied by infighting among American agencies, leadership problems and insufficient financing, a new Congressional report says.
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.
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This is at once astounding and, sadly, unsurprising in the least. How can we make so much noise about the war on terror but achieve so little? It seems that increasingly, by shunning alliances, the administration has missed the opportunity to deal with the systemic causes of terror. We haven't done nearly enough to get at the root of the problem. Of course, we also haven't done nearly enough to finish prosecuting the specific crime of the September 11th attacks, with the chief perpetrator still at large. It seems unlikely that without strong alliances we will be able to do much to help or force nations to "shore up their financial and law enforcement systems against terrorist financing."
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