Who is financing the jihad?

Terror's financiers

[...] So far, no U.S. official at any level, including presidential candidates from both parties, has publicly addressed how radical Muslim groups and Islamic terror organizations raise major sums to facilitate the murder of Americans in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, among other things. Two years ago, President Bush denounced "the murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals [which] is the great challenge of our century." But U.S. dependency on Middle East oil made the Saudis and their Gulf neighbors rich beyond their wildest dreams. Saudi funding propagates global Islamist extremism that former CIA Director James Woolsey describes as "the soil in which al Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are flourishing." The September 11 commission awarded the government an A- for its "vigorous efforts against terror financing," both in 2003, and again in its October 2005 progress report. In fact, government efforts thus far have apparently targeted the wrong funding sources. The vast Middle East sums feeding the global spread of radical Islam and jihad have not diminished. Yet, our government tells us, the Saudis and their neighbors are U.S. allies. Such disinformation, combined with outdated monitoring technologies and systems, contributes to continuing government failure to secure U.S. financial institutions, economic stability and national security. Government agencies have long warned of the federal failure to properly monitor and impede funds flowing to terrorist organizations. These include several GAO reports and a May 21 IRS report criticizing government ability to identify charities favored by radical Muslims to fund terrorism. "The IRS provides only minimal assurance that tax-exempt organizations potentially involved in terrorist activities are being identified," it says. Furthermore, the report recommends that the IRS and other agencies "develop and implement a long-term strategy to automate the process... to identify potential terrorist activities related to tax-exempt organizations." Another major issue slipping under the radar concerns the growing influence of petrodollars on U.S. economic institutions, banks, markets and government agencies....

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