New State Department Official on Bioterrorism, Threats from S.E. Asia & Latin America, and on Saudis (updated)
By Andrew Cochran
The new State Department Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Henry Crumpton, testified today before the terrorism subcommittee of the House International Relations Committee, chaired by Rep. Ed Royce. Mr. Crumpton has a long career in counterterrorism at the CIA and recently assumed the position held by Cofer Black until late last year. Mr. Crumpton made some news in response to Congressmen's questions: (1) When asked about current but underplayed threats, he specifically mentioned bioterrorism, more so than nuclear WMD; (2) he is "frightened" by Southeast Asian terrorist groups' efforts to obtain and use WMDs; (3) he is very concerned with Hamas and Hezbollah efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially Hezbollah's long-term presence in the tri-border region, and called Hezbollah "truly a global terrorist network;" (4) Wahabbist propaganda exported from Saudi Arabia remains a serious problem, a subject addressed on this blog often; and (5) he became, to the best of my knowledge, the first U.S. senior CT official to state that the Saudi government has finally opened a long-promised financial intelligence unit to track financial transactions (he reiterated its existence to me after the hearing). At a Senate Banking Committee hearing on July 13, another senior State Department official said (quoting the unofficial transcript), "They are also continuing to work to create a fully operational financial intelligence unit, and Saudi officials say this unit could be up and running in the next two to three months." The Saudis promised to open a FIU in 2002, and their lack of action has been a sore point between the governments and on Capitol Hill. (UPDATE: Treasury Department informs me that the Saudis officially opened it on Sept. 10.) Mr. Crumpton expressed "disppointment" that the Saudis still haven't created the proper oversight commission for its charities (see Victor Comras's post).
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