[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 80 (Tuesday, June 10, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5463-S5464]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. ASHCROFT:
  S. 873. A bill to amend the prohibition of title 18, United States 
Code, against financial transactions with state sponsors of 
international terrorism; to the Committee on the Judiciary.


  the prohibition on financial transactions with countries supporting 
                         terrorism act of 1997

  Mr. ASHCROFT. Mr. President, I would like to introduce The 
Prohibition on Financial Transactions with Countries Supporting 
Terrorism Act of 1997. This legislation will further isolate state 
sponsors of international terrorism from the community of responsible 
nations. By prohibiting financial transactions between U.S. persons and 
such criminal regimes, this bill will also reduce the financial 
resources available to terrorist states.
  Unfortunately, this is the second time the Senate has had to consider 
legislation to prohibit financial transactions with state sponsors of 
terrorism. The Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, passed 
by Congress and signed into law by the President on April 24, 1996, 
contained a similar provision--section 321--which prohibited financial 
transactions with state sponsors of terrorism. Unfortunately, the 
manner in which the State Department implemented section 321 
effectively exempted at least two terrorist States, Sudan and Syria, 
from the ban on financial transactions with United States citizens.
  The Clinton administration seemingly misinterpreted the clear 
language of section 321 which states that:

     . . . whoever, being a United States person, knowing or 
     having reasonable cause to know that a country is designated 
     . . . as a country supporting international terrorism, 
     engages in a financial transaction with the government of 
     that country, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned for 
     not more than 10 years, or both.

  Somehow, our Government read such plain language to permit--not 
prohibit--almost all financial transactions with terrorist states. The 
only transactions the lawyers down at Foggy Bottom saw fit to prohibit 
were financial transactions which might further terrorism within the 
United States. The bureaucrats at the State Department evidently feel 
that transactions which further terrorism against citizens of foreign 
countries or Americans abroad--such as Pan Am flight 103--should not be 
targeted by this law.
  Mr. President, the Congress of the United States has worked 
extensively in a bipartisan manner to provide the legislative tools 
needed to defend America and our allies against the rising threat of 
international terrorism, and I am sorry that the Senate must now 
revisit this antiterrorism legislation to correct the misguided efforts 
of this administration to confront and isolate terrorist-supporting 
nations in an effective manner.
  We no longer live in a cold war world where the threats to our 
national security are easily identifiable. The fluid and complex 
international environment we face today demands the highest national 
security vigilance, the kind of vigilance that appears to be lacking in 
the Clinton administration. The administration's abysmal performance in 
enforcing United States laws against the proliferation of weapons of 
mass destruction by China is now mirrored by the administration's 
evisceration of Congress' antiterrorism sanctions. This administration 
finds no inconsistency between President Clinton's claim in an August 
1996 speech at George Washington University that America ``cannot do 
business with * * * terrorists who kill * * * innocent civilians,'' and 
the State Department issuing regulations for the Anti-terrorism Act 
that same month that permit most business transactions with terrorist 
states to continue.
  Mr. President, terrorism is no longer a far away phenomenon that 
American only risk when traveling abroad. Terrorist violence that 
primarily targeted U.S. citizens overseas is now finding its way to 
American shores, and the most stringent U.S. antiterrorism policy will 
be essential to protect our citizens. State sponsors of terrorism 
possess a hatred of global dimensions, and America is one of their 
primary targets. Our policies must reflect this understanding.
  Mr. President, in the Africa Subcommittee, I have followed closely 
the global efforts of one particular country on the list of terrorist 
nations. Since democracy was overthrown by a radical Islamic military 
coup in 1989, Sudan has quickly joined Iran as the worst of the world's 
state sponsors of terrorism. Sudan's Government harbors elements of the 
most violent terrorist organizations in the world: Jihad, the Armed 
Islamic Group, Hamas, Abu Nidal, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, 
and the Islamic Group all run terrorist training camps in Sudan.
  Those groups are responsible for hundreds of terrorist attacks around 
the world that have killed thousands of innocent people. Abu Nidal 
alone has been responsible for 90 terrorist attacks in 20 countries 
which have killed or injured almost 900 people. Jihad is responsible 
for the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Jihad's 
leader, Sheikh Omar abdel Rahman, is the ideological ringleader of the 
terrorists that attacked the World Trade Center and plotted to bomb the 
United Nations in New York. Another terrorist organization, the Islamic 
Group, regularly targets westerners in Egypt for attack and claims 
responsibility for the failed assassination attempt on Egyptian 
President Hosni Mubarak during his visit to Ethiopia in 1995. In 
addition to harboring such terrorist organizations, Sudan has also 
given refuge to some of the

[[Page S5464]]

most notorious individual terrorists in the world, including Imad 
Moughniyeh who is believed to be responsible for the 1983 bombing of 
the United States Marine barracks in Beirut which killed 241 American 
soldiers.
  Sudan is not simply a favorite training camp for terrorists, Mr. 
President. The Sudanese Government actively supports this terrorist 
activity. For instance, Sudan reportedly provided the weapons and 
travel documentation for the assassins who attacked President Mubarak 
during his Ethiopia visit. Two Sudanese diplomats at the United Nations 
in New York conspired to help Jihad terrorists gain access to the U.N. 
complex in order to bomb the building.
  The conspiracy to bomb the United Nations was just one in a series of 
terrorist plots to bomb numerous locations around New York, including 
the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, the George Washington Bridge, and 
various U.S. military installations. Five of the twelve defendants 
convicted in this series of terrorist plots were Sudanese nationals. 
Thankfully, law enforcement authorities thwarted most of these 
tragedies before they occurred, but the earlier terrorist attack 
against the World Trade Center was carried out by the same broader 
terrorism network in New York and killed six people. Those who bombed 
the World Trade Center only expressed regret that the twin towers were 
not toppled as they had planned, a catastrophe that in an instant could 
have resulted in more American casualties than the entire Vietnam war.
  Sudan's involvement in the conspiracy to wage an urban war of 
terrorism in New York makes it patently clear why our Government has 
justifiably designated some nations as state sponsors of terrorism and 
has imposed upon them the most severe penalties and sanctions provided 
by United States law. I am grateful that America has been relatively 
isolated from most of the world's terrorist violence, but just as 
terrorists have targeted Americans abroad in the past, they are now 
targeting Americans here at home. International terrorism is one of the 
great threats to our national security, but unfortunately yet another 
example of a national security threat this administration is failing to 
forcefully address. By cutting off the flow of financial resources to 
these rogue regimes, it will become more difficult for them to seed the 
globe with their acts of violent cowardice.
  Mr. President, the legislation I am introducing today will 
effectively prohibit financial transactions with state sponsors of 
terrorism--regardless of whether the terrorist attack occurs within the 
United States or abroad. This prohibition is one step in the fight 
against international terrorism the administration is evidently 
unwilling to take.
  An analysis of Sudan's involvement in international terrorism gives 
us an idea of the global designs of terrorist states. Business as usual 
should not proceed with such regimes, and President Clinton should not 
have to be coaxed into aggressively enforcing U.S. antiterrorism law to 
isolate these countries. This legislation will diminish the financial 
resources available to terrorist states for their campaign of violence 
and hatred, and I urge the Senate's prompt consideration and passage of 
this bill.
                                 ______