Iraq Terrorists Apparently Well-Funded
Frustrating…
BAGHDAD, Nov. 25 — The insurgency in Iraq is now self-sustaining financially, raising tens of millions of dollars a year from oil smuggling, kidnapping, counterfeiting, connivance by corrupt Islamic charities and other crimes that the Iraqi government and its American patrons have been largely unable to prevent, a classified United States government report has concluded.
Even more frustrating given that a large chunk of that funding is easily preventable.
As much as $36 million a year comes from ransoms paid for hundreds of kidnap victims, the report says. It estimates that unnamed foreign governments — previously identified by American officials as including France and Italy — paid $30 million in ransom last year.
Paying terrorists for the release of hostages is one of the dumbest, most self-defeating things we could do. Not only does it provide material support for the terrorists in terms of funds, it also encourages the terrorists to take more hostages so that they can make more money. Yet everyone from Fox News to Italy has paid the terrorists to release hostages.
That sort of foolishness, which is apparently providing the terrorists with about 1/3rd or more of their yearly funding, has got to stop.
