24 September 2001

Bush Executive Order Freezes Assets of Terrorists

By Wendy S. Ross
Washington File White House Correspondent

Washington -- In response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, President Bush has signed an executive order freezing the financial assets of 27 terrorist organizations and individuals, including Usama bin Laden and the al Qaeda organization.

"We will starve the terrorists of funding," Bush announced at a September 24 event in the Rose Garden of the White House, flanked by Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

The order, Bush said, applies to "terrorist organizations, individuals, terrorist leaders, a corporation that serves as a front for terrorism and several nonprofit organizations."

The White House released a fact sheet explaining that the executive order strengthens one put in place by President Clinton by expanding the class of affected groups to all those who are "associated with" designated terrorist groups, and authorizes U.S. officials "to block the U.S. assets of, and deny access to U.S. markets, those foreign banks that refuse to freeze terrorist assets."

"What is so different about the executive order the president signed last night is now the United States is prepared to take action against nations that don't take action themselves," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters.

"What this does is allow the United States government to go well beyond anything that was previously done. And the principal way it does that is by sending a message to foreign banks that they need to take action, and we're going to work with foreign governments so they can take action against ... any terrorist organizations or front groups that have assets in foreign countries that are beyond the immediate reach of the United States government," Fleischer said.

Asked when the administration would release publicly evidence that bin Laden and his network engineered the September 11 attacks on the United States, Fleischer said it would not be released immediately because some of the information "is going to end up in the form of grand jury information, subject to secrecy laws." Information from intelligence services "is by definition going to be classified, and will be treated as such," he said.

But he said he expects "over the course of time" there will be changes to that. "That has historically been the pattern," and that was what Secretary of State Colin Powell was referring to in his statements over the weekend, Fleischer said.

"I think as Secretary Powell said, there is hope to do that [release information], and to do so in a timely fashion, over some course of time. That's always important in a democracy. In a democracy it's always important to provide the maximum amount of information possible. But I think the American people also understand that there are going to be times when that information cannot immediately be forthcoming. And the American people seem to be accepting of that."

In other developments, Fleischer said that President Bush early in the morning phoned Thai Prime Minister Chinnawat Thaksin "to discuss ways the United States and Thailand can cooperate in the war against terrorism."

Then, following a meeting with his national security team, he met in the Oval Office with Canada's Prime Minister Jean Chretien after which they continued their discussions over a working luncheon.

On September 27, Bush will meet at the White House with the President of the European Council, Guy Verhofstadt and on September 28 he will welcome King Abdullah of Jordan to the White House for a working visit, Fleischer announced.

The President and Secretary of State Powell are receiving "very strong" support from foreign leaders for the anti-terrorist campaign, Fleischer said.

He pointed out that "it's not just the United States that collects information and knows that all roads lead to the al Qaeda organization. Other nations have similar means of collecting information," Fleischer said.

"Many of these nations know what we know. And they are working with us, because they know a lot of the things that we know. There are many conversations that take place between the United States at the state level, at the presidential level, with foreign leaders, that if there were to be a transcript of that conversation, for example, it would be classified, because they discuss secrets. There is a sharing of information" in private, Fleischer said, but "that's not the type of information that can always be publicly shared."

"They are working with us, because they believe us. They're working with us because of things they know, and because of the trust they hold in the United States government."

Bush September 24 also met privately at the White House with the families of passengers and the flight crew of Flight 93, which crashed September 11 in southwestern Pennsylvania, one of the four planes hijacked by terrorists.