Fidel Castro has this funny feeling that someone is watching him (Photo AFP)
I don’t like Fidel Castro or his beard, but this is a ridculous way to allocate resources.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Treasury Department agency entrusted with blocking the financial resources of terrorists has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden’s and Saddam Hussein’s money, documents show.
Fortunately legislators on both sides of the aisle agree.
Sen. Max Baucus, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, requested the figures, which showed that at the end of 2003, OFAC had 21 full-time agents working Cuba violations and just four full-time workers hunting bin Laden’s and Saddam’s riches.
“Rather than spending precious resources to prevent Americans from exercising their right to travel, OFAC must realign its priorities and instead work harder to keep very real terrorist threats out of our country,” said Baucus, D-Mont.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the tax-writing Senate panel, agreed.
“OFAC obviously needs to enforce the law with regard to U.S. policy on Cuba, but the United States is at war against terrorism, and al-Qaida is the biggest threat to our national security,” Grassley said. “Cutting off the blood money that has financed Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden must be a priority when it comes to resources.”