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Financing Terror an Analysis and Simulation for Affecting Al Qaeda's Financial Infrastructure CHILD POLICY This PDF document was made available from www.rand.org as a public CIVIL JUSTICE service of the RAND Corporation. EDUCATION ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT Jump down to document HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE 6 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS NATIONAL SECURITY The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research POPULATION AND AGING PUBLIC SAFETY organization providing objective analysis and effective SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY solutions that address the challenges facing the public SUBSTANCE ABUSE and private sectors around the world. TERRORISM AND HOMELAND SECURITY TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE Support RAND Purchase this document Browse Books & Publications Make a charitable contribution For More Information Visit RAND at www.rand.org Explore Pardee RAND Graduate School View document details Limited Electronic Distribution Rights This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law as indicated in a notice appearing later in this work. This electronic representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for non-commercial use only. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of our research documents for commercial use. This product is part of the Pardee RAND Graduate School (PRGS) dissertation series. PRGS dissertations are produced by graduate fellows of the Pardee RAND Graduate School, the world’s leading producer of Ph.D.’s in policy analysis. The dissertation has been supervised, reviewed, and approved by the graduate fellow’s faculty committee. Financing Terror An Analysis and Simulation for Affecting Al Qaeda's Financial Infrastructure Steve Kiser This document was submitted as a dissertation in September 2004 in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the doctoral degree in public policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. The faculty committee that supervised and approved the dissertation consisted of Charles Wolf, Jr. (Chair), James Quinlivan, and Peter Chalk. Dedicated to those who wish to make the world a less violent place. The Pardee RAND Graduate School dissertation series reproduces dissertations that have been approved by the student’s dissertation committee. The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. R® is a registered trademark. © Copyright 2005 RAND Corporation All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from RAND. Published 2005 by the RAND Corporation 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138 1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-5050 201 North Craig Street, Suite 202, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-1516 RAND URL: http://www.rand.org/ To order RAND documents or to obtain additional information, contact Distribution Services: Telephone: (310) 451-7002; Fax: (310) 451-6915; Email: [email protected] Introduction “Good morning. At 12:01 a.m. this morning, a major thrust of our war on terrorism began with the stroke of a pen. Today, we have launched a strike on the financial foundation of the global terror network…We will starve the terrorists of funding, turn them against each other, rout them out of their safe hiding places and bring them to justice.” President George W. Bush, 24 September 20011 Following the tragedies of September 11th, 2001, the United States’ first financial strike in the global war on terror (GWOT) came in the form of Executive Order (EO) 13224, which targeted the financial bases of 27 different terrorist-related entities,2 to include organizations and individuals closely associated with the Al Qaeda organization.3 Following that EO, both domestic and international policy-making bodies crafted nearly a dozen major initiatives and created nearly as many new organizations, all with the purpose of attacking terrorist financial networks. Subsequently, the international community designated 315 entities as terrorist organizations or groups/entities related to them, and seized over $136 million in money and other assets in over 1,400 accounts worldwide,4 making the financial dimension one of the most active fronts in the global war on terror. However, despite the centrality and level of activity in the financial war on terrorism, precious little data, analysis or other serious inquiry into the effectiveness of such a policy exists. Indeed, the Government Accounting Office (GAO) highlighted this need in December 2003, pointing out that despite national strategy guidance, no 1 President George W. Bush. “President Freezes Terrorists' Assets” Remarks by the President, Secretary of the Treasury O'Neill and Secretary of State Powell on Executive Order on Terrorist Financing (EO 13224). The Rose Garden. 24 September 2001. Available on-line at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010924-4.html as of 21 September 2004. 2 Executive Order 13224 blocks the assets of organizations and individuals linked to terrorism. While the original EO listed only 27 such entities, it is updated regularly. As of March 2004, well over 2,000 such groups, entities, and individuals are covered by the Executive Order. See the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control brochure explaining EO 13224 and what entities are targeted by it at http://www.treas.gov/offices/eotffc/ofac/sanctions/t11ter.pdf, available on-line as of 22 September 2004. 3 Comments of President Bush, Delivered at the Department of Treasury, 7 Nov 2001. Available on-line at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011107-4.html as of 21 September 2004. 4 2003 National Money Laundering Strategy. Departments of the Treasury and Justice. July 2003. Available on-line at www.ustreas.gov/offices/eotffc/publications/ml2003.pdf as of 21 September 2004. p. 1. 1 governmental agency has conducted an in-depth analysis of creative terrorist financing.5 Further, the Departments of Treasury and Justice both lamented the lack of a guiding framework and appropriate metrics to measure the effectiveness of targeting terrorist funding.6 Without a framework of analysis, accurate and usable measures of success, or conceptual understanding of how targeting money affects a terrorist organization’s operations—including access to replacement funding—implementing such a policy is unlikely to be effective. Furthermore, not fully exploring what the financial strategy can contribute—and just as importantly what it cannot contribute—to the overall global war on terrorism may create unrealistically high expectations among policymakers and taxpayers alike. The goal of this dissertation is to develop a model that enables policymakers and analysts to understand how terrorist financial networks work, how current policies targeting those networks will affect them, how terrorist organizations are likely to react to those policies, and what more can be done. Given the centrality of Al Qaeda and its affiliates in the global war on terror, this dissertation specifically explores the questions of how US and international counter-terrorism policies affects those organizations’ financial support networks, and how Al Qaeda and its affiliates are likely to react to those initiatives? I will then derive a series of recommendations based on the model developed in the dissertation. Motivating the Problem A vigorous inquiry into the policy-related effects of targeting terrorist financing is required and overdue. At least four distinct phenomena motivate the need for this study: -- the longevity and (more recently) breadth of financially-focused counter- terrorism policies in the United States’ and international community’s strategy to fight terrorism; -- the perceived importance of money to a terrorist organization’s ability to 5 United States General Accounting Office. “Terrorist Financing: U.S. Agencies Should Systematically Assess Terrorists’ Use of Alternative Financing Mechanisms.” GAO-04-163. November 2003, p. 3. Available on-line at www.gao.gov as of 22 September 2004. 6 2002 National Money Laundering Strategy. Departments of the Treasury and Justice. July 2002. Available on-line at www.ustreas.gov/offices/eotffc/publications/ml2002.pdf as of 21 September 2004. p. 8. 2 operate, and the specific importance of money to a global organization like Al Qaeda; -- the centrality of financially-focused counter-terrorism policies in the overall strategy to combat terrorism; -- the lack of any such rigorous study to date. Longevity and Breadth The United States government began attacking terrorist financial networks actually began with President Ronald Reagan in 1986—fifteen years before 9/11—when he sought to use the powers of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act (IEEPA) to freeze the assets of states suspected of supporting terrorists and terrorist organizations.7 Subsequently, President William Clinton expanded the financially centered counter-terrorist policies available to law enforcement and intelligence organizations through a variety of legal mechanisms, to include IEEPA, various money- laundering statutes, and most significantly, the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. The number of and power of policy tools available to US law enforcement and intelligence personnel mushroomed after 9/11; the most significant of these include EO 13224, various elements of the
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