Bush, Cheney condemn terror financing reports

Meanwhile, the administration said it has informed major allies that the secret program has adequate privacy safeguards and will continue.

Tony Fratto, chief spokesman for the Treasury Department, said the contacts were made following the disclosure. “We have made a point of reaching out to our partners in the international community to make sure they understand our views and the safeguards we have in place,” he said. “We want to make sure it was clear to our partners that we value this program.”

Times editor defends reporting
In advance of Bush’s remarks, the New York Times defended itself against criticism for disclosing the program.

In a note on the paper’s Web site Sunday, Executive Editor Bill Keller said the Times spent weeks discussing with Bush administration officials whether to publish the report.

He said part of the government’s argument was that the anti-terrorism program would no longer be effective if it became known, because international bankers would be unwilling to cooperate and terrorists would find other ways to move money.

“We don’t know what the banking consortium will do, but we found this argument puzzling,” Keller said, pointing out that the banks were under subpoena to provide the information. “The Bush Administration and America itself may be unpopular in Europe these days, but policing the byways of international terror seems to have pretty strong support everywhere.”

The note to readers was published the same day Rep. Peter King urged the Bush administration to prosecute the paper. “We’re at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous,” the New York Republican told The Associated Press.

Keller said the administration also argued “in a halfhearted way” that disclosure of the program “would lead terrorists to change tactics.”

But Keller wrote that the Treasury Department has “trumpeted ... that the U.S. makes every effort to track international financing of terror. Terror financiers know this, which is why they have already moved as much as they can to cruder methods. But they also continue to use the international banking system, because it is immeasurably more efficient than toting suitcases of cash.”

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