The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2019

26 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL macy, including working through differences with European partners. We had learned that a sanction approved by the United Nations Security Council under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter had the force of law in many other countries. We suggested pursuing a U.N. Secu- rity Council resolution focused on sanctioning financial and other sup- port for terrorism as an initial step. With approval from State Department lead- ership and the White House, we partnered with the Bureau of International Organiza- tion Affairs and the U.S. Mission to the U.N. to write and present a draft resolution; within a few days, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1373. It was to become the “go to” international framework for stifling terrorist financing. However, passing that resolution was just the start. We in EB partnered with the National Security Council, Treasury and the intelligence and law enforcement communities to craft a U.S. executive order along the same lines. Then, with partners in other State Department bureaus and in embassies around the world, we set out to build an international coali- tion to implement the U.N. resolution. We worked to persuade governments to change their own laws and practices to outlaw terrorist financing, to freeze assets and to build international partnerships so that even initially hesitant governments were willing to join the United States in “designating” individuals, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), charities and banks who were helping fund terrorism. This was a long, hard process. In Washington, we had to forge interagency agreement on targets and tactics. Then our embassy teams had to persuade host governments to join in the effort. The debates in Washington were often intense, but Foreign Service expertise helped win interagency consensus on how to most effectively build an international coalition and win support in every part of the world. At State, as part of the process, EB hosted weekly inter- agency meetings that included all geographic bureaus to define the way forward and to coordinate work among embassies. In the months and years that followed, the United States rallied many countries to join the effort. They desig- nated scores of entities for sanctions, froze more than a hundred million dollars in funds and assets, and made it much harder for others to fund terrorists. Each freeze was implemented globally within 48 hours. In a December 2005 report, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, an NGO formed by some members of the 9/11 Commission to ensure implementation of the commission’s recom- mendations, identified the EB-led effort against terrorist financing as the most effective anti-terrorist work to date (giving it a grade of A-). Much of that success was fueled and steered by Foreign Service officers. Support for Economic Reform, Reconstruction and Rebuilding Interestingly, the second highest score given by that same 2005 report on 9/11 recommendations was a “B+” for policies supporting economic reform in the regions of concern. In the fall of 2001, as EB began to work on blocking terrorist financing, At a meeting of the Brazil Chamber of Commerce in São Paulo in April 2006, FSO Tony Wayne, third from left, encourages more U.S.-Brazil trade and commerce. Economic officers have worked hard to ensure that the international growth of the internet and high tech supports America’s economic interests, as well as its commitment to the free flow of information. COURTESYOFTONYWAYNE