Treasury: Exec. Order “Filling in the Cracks” of Insurgent FinancingTuesday’s broad executive order on freezing Iraq-related financial assets is solely intended to target supporters of the Iraqi insurgency, Treasury Department spokeswoman Molly Millerwise tells TPMmuckraker. If U.S. residents and citizens have their assets frozen by the department, it will be because they’re actively abetting a panoply of insurgent and militia groups.
Previously, Treasury hasn’t had the authority to target the finances of insurgent groups in Iraq aside from al-Qaeda affiliates and former Saddam Hussein regime elements. The order now provides what Millerwise calls “seamless coverage.” The department is in the process of compiling a list of organizations, entities and individuals covered by the executive order, and it will include “Shia militia groups linked with Iran, Sunni insurgent groups with sanctuary in Syria and some of the indigenous Iraqi insurgent groups.” Millerwise would not specify precisely which groups will find their way onto Treasury’s list, but stated unequivocally that the organizations will be made public.
While some civil libertarians have raised questions about the broadness of the executive order, Millerwise says it lists a “perfectly legitimate” set of criteria for asset seizure, and that U.S. persons shouldn’t fear designation by the order if they aren’t supporting insurgent organizations. “Be assured that the individuals and entities we add to this list are in full faith acting in an aggressive, violent and reckless way in financing the insurgency,” she says “These things are strongly vetted, going layers and layers back. (A group) donating money to orphans getting swept up in this doesn’t seem to be a valid concern.”
Millerwise adds that the language of the executive order was an “interagency effort,” and that it “falls in line with the language found in these types of executive orders” — a point disputed by the University of Wisconsin’s Ken Meyer, an executive-order expert, who says that “this has the kind of things that jump out” in terms of broad executive discretion.
There’s no timetable on when Treasury will publicize which insurgent groups fall under the order; and it will be an ongoing process, with groups added as necessary, Millerwise says. An added benefit of the publicity, she adds, is that foreign financial institutions often voluntarily comply with blocking assets of organizations banned in the U.S., and so insurgent-linked finance wouldn’t just be frozen within the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department.