Role of financial intelligence

Re “Terrorism money is still flowing,” March 24

The Times oversimplifies our government’s strategy on counter-terrorist financing by ignoring the broader objective. Fighting terrorist financing is about more than sanctioning terrorists and freezing bank accounts; it is an effort to collect and use financial intelligence to understand and disrupt terrorist networks in support of our overall counter-terrorism strategy. Financial intelligence is exceptionally reliable and has proved to be immensely valuable in mapping terrorist networks, thereby enabling a variety of counter-terrorism responses.

In some situations, we choose to act overtly to disrupt the channels that terrorists use to finance their activities and to deter would-be donors. These actions put tremendous strain on terrorist networks. To the extent that terrorists have been pushed out of the formal financial system, this also has advantages for us, as their alternative methods of moving money are more cumbersome and costly, subjecting terrorists to a greater likelihood of detection and disruption. Overall, we have made excellent progress in using financial intelligence while making it much harder for terrorists to raise and move money. Indeed, the 9/11 commission assessed our efforts to combat terrorist financing with an A-minus, the highest grade on the report card it issued.

Stuart A. Levey

Washington

The writer is the U.S. Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.