Transcripts For CSPAN3 Terrorism Financing 20170706

Okay, good afternoon, everyone. My name is marcel womba, im president of the gulf states institute. I would like to welcome all of you to our talk on financing terrorism. One of the many attempts to prevent terrorism, cutting off the financial flow is the most crucial. It allows them to recruit, control territory, plan and carry out violent operations on a global level. There are emains a top priority for the u. S. As we seek to defeat Islamic State and other terrorist groups, the u. S. And its gulf arab partners have taken significant steps to stem the flow of funds to terrorist groups over the past 15 years. Really a very robust effort since 9 11. However, despite the various measures and regulations put in place, terrorist organizations continue to generate and come from the region to finance their activities. What more can be done, regionally and globally to stem the flow of money to violent extremists. We have a very distinguished panel with us today to answer that question and explore all the issues related to it. Im pleased to welcome our guest speakers, as well as our very own executive Vice President , who will introduce the panel and also moderate todays program. Again welcome and look forward to a good discussion today. Thank you. Great thank you so much marcel, and good afternoon and welcome, everyone. Im very pleased to be able to mod late this discussion and happy to have my colleagues with me. My introductions will be short, you can look for greater detail in these handy little programs that were on your chair when you walked in. But allow me to please just briefly introduce kate bower, whos a fellto her right is dav cohen, the former Deputy Director of the Intelligence Agency and better known to me in his role at treasury, before he joined the cia when he was under director for the committees on terrorism. And the cofounder of the Financial Integrity Network and i knew juan for some time as he worked as Deputy National security advisor for combatting terrorism from 2005 to 2009. Again, further details available here, but for the sake of time at our disposal, well get on with the conversation. And what i would like to be able to do is perhaps give each of our guests a chance to look at what the issue, maybe in a larger sense, larger framing sense may be here. And ill ask them a question and they can respond to it on whatever issues and whatever angles they see as most productive in our conversation. I hope we can get at this from a bunch of different angles and get a clearer picture of whats happening in the gulf. We decided to give juan a chance to go first, which he never got when he was in grade school. So the question is, what is the extent of u. S. Counter terrorism and Counter Terrorism finance in cooperation with the arab and gulf states, collectively and bilaterally and is the cooperation now at risk because of the deep fissures we see developing in the deep state at the moment . I want to thank you and marcel and the Arab Gulf States Institute for the opportunity to be here. I count myself as incredibly fortunate to have learned and be in government when both of you were serving and to have learned at your feet was a great honor. Im probably the least of the experts here, but im happy to contribute as i can. I think theres been a kind of a National Evolution to the Counter Terrorist financing between the u. S. And our gulf allies, and it obviously started post9 11 with a dramatic focus on a much more preventative fla frame work for dealing with illicit funds and illicit support to many of our terrorist operations. One of the problems was remedying or dealing with the pre9 11 frame work for how those that were tied to al qaeda and those supporting them. And this has been the subject of lots of conferences and reports as to how we dealt with saudi arabia in those early days, dealing with the reality of deep pocket donors that are supportive of al qaeda or related groups prior to 9 11, charities and nonprofit organizations that became a major subject for our gulf allies and then putting in place the tools and strategies to actually allow us to prevent groups like vooid from gaining support and financing from the gulf. That has been a story with many chapters to it. But the bottom line, the u. S. Has relied very heavily on that cooperation over time, one is how we deal with Financial Intelligence, which david can speak to, better than anybody, what we have done in preventative terms to actually create systems that dont allow rogue capital to enter the system. Dealing with state son sponsorship questions, that theres states that should not find or create mechanisms to support terrorist groups and then trying to find ways of jointly acting against targets that we have found to be supporting terrorist groups and so in the early days post9 11, we had a number of these joint designations with the kingdom of saudi arabia, that has followed in course, we have had continuous efforts in that same vain, including with qatar in recent years, thanks to the work of the u. S. Treasury. And so, there has been an evolution to actually focus on this in a fundamental way. The one thing i would say and this goes to marcels point at the introduction, these issues actually are more fundamental and more important now than ever before not because they form part of this political rift, but because the issues of how groups like al qaeda, groups like daesh, other successor groups are actually raising funds, developing war equipments and developing networks is now more critical than ever before. Theres been much in the literature of the folly of following the money or trying to deal with terrorist funding. I think its more fundamental now to think through how these groups gain support, are able to sustain themselves and are actually able to build their networks and global ambitions because of the financing they have. Thats why these issues are so important in the gulf today. And in terms of the rift, its clear to me that from an american standpoint, the rift is a burden and a barrier to cooperation. We have built our Counter Terrorist financing and Counter Terrorism playbook around the idea that we need strong cooperative allies on the ground, not just in a bilateral context, but in a regional context. And when we have had the most success, steve, in this regard, and you know this well from your work, in particular in yemen and elsewhere, where we have had the most success has been when like minded allies are working together to gather intelligence and information, gather around a common strategy admission and then figuring out where theres a division of labor around the kinds of actions that need to be taken to deter, disrupt and dismantle terrorist financing networks, to the extent this rift downtown allow that to happen, to the extent that it creates levels of distrust, that is all not good from an american perspective, and i think anything we can do to try to repair the relationship, to try to focus on the method of terrorism financing. What we mean by terrorist financing, what we mean by state sponsorship, all of those are indicated by the riff. But from an american fundamental perspective, we need to have a global, regional and in the case of the gulf states gcc level cooperation to deal with what is still a Critical National and interNational Security issue. You have raised a couple of really interesting points well get back to, one is certainly the evolving Financial Model that some organizations are pursuing now, and sort of a collective gcc versus a bilateral organization. David, what is your view on this . Thank you, steve, thank you, marcel for inviting me to be here, as two former ambassadors who have done great work, i think its worth at the outset knowing how important it is in all of what we do in terrorist financing in particular, that we have a strong and fully functioning and fully staffed state department. Although this is an advertisement from the Treasury Department, were all former treasury fiofficials and the wo we have been able to do in terrorist financing and other areas is enormously dependent upon a state department thats out there, fully powered and fully functioning. So just a couple of quick thoughts. The effort to combat terrorist financing, i came to the Treasury Department in 2009, i had a point where juan and his team with stewart levy and others at the state department have made an enormous amount of principal problem was the funding coming out of saudi arabia. Stewart said if he could snap his fingers and terrorist financing in saudi arabia, that would make all the difference, or something along those lines, that didnt make him very popular with the ambassador in saudi arabia at the time. But by the time i got there in 2009, the saudis had shifted by significantly on their perspective and their willingness and ability to work with the u. S. I then had the opportunity to try to build on those efforts. What we did in my tenure at treasury, which spanned from 09 to 15. Was principally to work bilaterally. And thats on the question of how important it is to present a unified gcc, by and large with some very minor exceptions, all of the efforts that we undertook were bilateral, with the saudis, with with the bahrainis and the qataris. The sharing of Financial Information to try to identify who the terrorist financers, theyre exclusively bilateral. The only exception in my recollection is we made some efforts to enlist the saudis to work with us in sort of a trilateral fashion, on a couple of occasions where we would be in saudi, speaking with the folks who were most important in the interior ministry there, on the terrorist financing issue, to try to get them to essentially to put pressure with us on the qataris and the kuwaitis. That did not work so well, not to put too fine a point on it. And i think it was for a variety of reasons, but working in a trilateral fashion and working in the gcc more broadly was not something that we really tried to pursue. So i so the Current Situation in the gulf right now where you see i think a real potential for the gcc to splinter and for qatar to go its way and the saudiings and the emirates going their way with the other states sort of falling in line. I think that itself isnt the problem, i think the bigger problem is that you have qatar, which had been making some progress in recent years in prosecuting terrorist financiers, and be a little bit more forward leaning in its efforts, no longer feeling that its in the club, inside the tent and we lose a little bit of the, sort of the moral persuasion that comes from are a combined effort in the gulf. The progress that we have seen in the qataris in the last couple of years have been hard won from state and treasury and others to move the qataris along that will move to concede. The other thing that you all know happened recently in the gulf that i think has significant implications for the future of qatars financing is the switch of the crown prince in saudi arabia. So Mohammad Ben Salman is now the crown prince. He was was a stalwart partner of the United States in combatting terrorist financing and really bringing saudi arabia to a point where it was doing a quite good job sort of across the board in combatting terrorist financing. With him no longer in position of the interior ministry and really no longer a position in the government. We have laws, the United States has laws that keep partner in this effort. That is something that we want to watch very closely. It was obviously not him by himself, but his position in that family, in that government was very important. Mohammad salman doesnt have much but does promise some modernization in saudi arabia, both economic and, you know, potentially the role of the clerical establishment and sort of the hard core approach that youre all familiar with and that saudi has been promulgating around the world. If he is successful in moderating that to some extent, that could have a beneficial impact in terrorist financing, not just in saudi, but more broadly around the arab world. So why dont i stop there and turn it back. Thank you david and we will get back to this question of dynamics between states and maybe even within states as our conversation proceeds. So kate over to you and you can assess the risks that you see and the opportunities if any are recognized. First thank you to the ambassador for hosting this panel and inviting me to join, im really honored to be up here with david and juan who have been great friends and mentors over many years. And i have to say, speaking after the two of them, i have to agree with a lot of what they said. But i think im going to find a couple of points to push on a little bit. I think that i agree with david that saudi arabia and the uae have sought for years to kind of galvanize qatari action over the years that were operating and continue to operate in qatar, and they felt that theres a sense that the qataris dont share the same threat perception as saudi and the uae, in a way this desire to pursue at different times what were multilateral attempts, whether the trilateral attempt that david mentioned or in other iterations, gcc joined efforts to designate his followers esoteric organization and following along with that, commitments that were made at camp david summits under the Obama Administration to and iranian activity in the region. These desires to bring the gulf states together to try to get a more Common Threat perception associated with this activity, the repeated kind of inability to do that is reflected in the current rift i think, so thats how its a part of this current rift as well. I think that its important to note that qatar has taken some action against terrorist financing as david said as well. That they have taken action both against individuals, they have said u. N. Listed individuals that their assetings have been frozen, that theres travel bans in place, and that there have been prosecutions and also systematically, they have passed legislation to try to better regulate charities, to better regulate cyber activity to criminalize some types of fundraising or expense on social media. But that there are a few signs of what specific actions they have taken under this legislation or really a lot of details about what prosecutions or other Law Enforcement efforts there have been, and i think thats wherein lies an opportunity out of this rift and the role that saudi and the uae, partially through the list they published a couple of weeks ago, i these it was 49 individuals and a number of entities, herein i think lies an opportunity to continue to press qatar to act against first of all the u. N. Designated individuals, to act to make sure theyre no longer able to actively finance or facilitate in qatar, i think one option, one good thing would be that qatar implemented or adopted a National Antiterrorism Committee a number of years ago and its placed within the ministry of the interior, although its an interagency body from various representatives within the qatari government that this committee actually has the ability to designate terrorist financierings beyond the u. N. And this could help clarify some of the actionings or some of the unclear signals that you see when you really dig into what for example the state department has said on one hand that qatar shut down a charity linked to al qaeda in syria in 2015, but just this march, in a designation release, designation of actually a kuwaiti individual that was identified as a financier and a person who ran that charity. Despite the fact that that charity has been shut down, that individual continues to finance terrorist activities. So this is an opportunity to get some clarity on that. Let me for a moment, let me open the aperture a little bit more broadly and actually bring in what at least one other regional player thats on our minds as well. And marcel noted in her introductory remarks, the readout that President Trump read out to regional leaders, there were five leaders mentioned and two it was clearly on his mind. My question is, we see the rhetoric, we hear the rhetoric, do we detect any change in focus or policies on the ground that will distinguish this white house approach to Counter Terrorist financing from, say, his predecessor or others, and to what extent do we see this targeting iran, since iran is largely on the president s mind, when he looks out at the arab gulf, or the persian gulf region, what about that . And do we see any shifts that we can detect at the moment . Or is it still too early to know . Juan, well start with you on that. I started back before 9 11 at the treasury where it was hard to get a seat at the table when talking about these issues and to see both through the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration and now the trump administration, the centrality of terrorist financing, and those of us who are true believers into the importance of this issue is very heartening, and the president s recent visit to saudi arabia, again a testament to the importance of these themes and issues. I think first and foremost, the fact that this is such a principal issue from a regional perspective. Thats perhaps not altogether different from the Obama Administration and the Bush Administration, but the fact that they came out so strong and full throated around the issues of terrorist financing is significant because it does put a marker down that this is going to be an issue that the administration, even if they dont have an articulated strategy yet, will have to contend with and grapple with over time and in some complicated ways. The other thing that i think is interesting is that and i have argued this for a long time. The focus on terrorist financing and illicit finance emerges very important, often thorny, strategic and diplomatic issues, often things that have been happening but are forced to the surface because of the focus on terrorist financing, so how do we think of the Muslim Brotherhood . This is something we grappled with right after 9 11, something i mentioned in my book, by the way, do we designate the the decision at the time with the Bush Administration was we were can going to look at the Muslim Brotherhood through a variety of lenses to see where it was that they were actually supporting militant and terrorist causes and where that occurred we werent going to turn a blind eye, we were going to go after it. The same goes with the question of wojabi funding outside 2 borders of the kingdom. And in southeast asia, those are questions that emerged not because we wanted to create tension with saudi arabia but because we were looking through the landscape of terrorist financing. How do you we know terrorist groups have exploited those flows of funds, but where we also know we need charity to hit the ground and to help people in dire need. Thats a fundamental question, its a fundamental question now for how we think about gulf support, how do we think about state sponsorship, what does that mean, and what does it mean from an iranian perspective. So my hope, steve is that what you see emerging out of this, sort of the tension from the administration is, not just dealing with the tactical fall of the money dimensions of whos a terrorist financier, how do you arrest them, thats all very important, but how do you deal with these more fundamental issues, and again, the serious people we have on the inside, like h. R. Mcmaster. And susan powell, we worked with her on some of these issues when she was at the state department. I hope that means theres going to be a more serious focus on these fundamental issues that are tied to this terrorist financing. David, any change in the white house approach that you see shaping up at all . No obligation. I think that theres a signal in the rollout of this threat finance targeting center that was one of the key deliverables of the summit in riyadh, that that is something that its a signal both of the importance to the gulf states, but also to this administration, and i think along with that, you have seen a pretty smooth transition in terms of the leadership of tfi, terrorism financial institution, but david alluded to previously, so you have a team in the Treasury Building thats ready to use these sorts of tools, but on a lot of fronts, you know, where sanctions more broadly, not just Counter Terrorism financing sanctions can be used, its important to have the policy framer as well. These are tactical measures that need to be enacted in support of a broader policy. So i think when you look at how they might be applied in the context of iran or syria or other issue ins, there needs to a focus on the policy frame work as well. Thank you. And ill be somewhat less optimistic on this score, i think what we have seen is an embrace a little bit of a victim of our own success, that the administration came in, they saw terrorist financing, they saw sanctions as a broadly successful, easy to use tool. And they have embraced it, they understand it. They have the terrorist Financing Tracking Center that was established with a lot of fanfare with the orb in riyadh was a big move, but i think it is i think theres reason to be concerned that what we have seen thus far with the administration is a embrace without the policy thought that goes behind it. And so i actually not surprising, agree with kate and juan, with the idea of having a policy frame work is critically important and addressing terrorist financing issues should force you to address things like the role of wohabiism around the world. I think what we have seen is the administration give an extraordinarily strong embrace of the saudis, without a lot of nuance to how that embrace may implicate issues that are potentially under mining of our broader efforts. So i think it very much remains to be seen whether the administrations embrace of the terrorist financing issue is one that speaks to a sort of broader policy framework thats going to be effective or is just grabbing on to something that was sort of low hanging fruit. And can i just feed off of that . David raises a really important point. Theres real dangerous in this rift obviously and if its persistent, if the cars are deep, if trust is sort of destroyed is a real problem. There is a Silver Lining, though, and it relates to how washington relates to this issue, because to the extent that the gulf countries are grappling with these questions on their own, or at least in this context, now this is messy and problematic, but to the extent that they are setting out sort of demands for themselves, because in putting out demands for the qataris, and theyre pushing back, and thats questions not only for the qata qataris, kuwait, kuwaiti charities. Questions for oman about its trade with iran is put in play. So theres a dimension of Silver Lining here, in that the owner ship of these issues, really for the first time, one of the critiques we have consistently had. Most of the time, if its not a tactical terrorist attack or immediate issue, on these themes, our gulf allies have largely been reactive. They have waited for the u. S. To come with information, they have waited for an indictment to be sort of put out and the information shared. They have waited for the u. N. Action. And their request has been show us the information, then we will act. This may be a moment that we have all hoped for, which is at some point, countries around the world have to take ownership and have to try to not only discover these issues on their own, but deal with them locally and maybe even regionally in a pro active way. And i think the reflection back is really going to be a serious issue for all of the gcc countries, which is how are saudi arabia, uae, kuwait, bahrain, all dealing with the reality that they have challenges still, with respect to terrorist financing, illicit financing, their structures, their Financial Intelligence, that is going to be a serious question. They have now set the bar, not just for qatar, but for themselves as well. Could i just add to that . I was hoping you would. You make my job really easy if you just keep going. This is an evolution i saw during the time i spent in the gulf 2013 to 2015. Im going to speak more broadly than just terrorist financing, there were so many dynamicings that came into play at the same time. There was on the one hand a recognition of the value of the sanctions tools by the arab states that took action against syr syria. There was also the kind of the tail end of the Global Finance crisis and the impact that that had on the uae, where you had a kind of consolatioidation of fon policy in the abu dhabi, agent of inflows after the financial crisis, some as a result of the arab spring that got its economy back running, but the security mindedness and the amount of money flowing through the uae was an awareness that, you know, it was great to have it, but if you didnt know where it was coming from, it could be procedes of narcotic trafficking or it could be hezbollah Companies Working on procurement. More broadly in the region, the other dynamic that was really important and is somewhat related is derisking, which is the idea that global banks, for a number of reasons after the financial crisis, because of large Enforcement Actions against them, were pulling back from line perceived to be higher risk. You saw this in the gulf hit, smes are small, Medium Enterprises and Exchange Houses that are an important aspect of many Financial Systems because of remittance flows that flow through them. You saw the Financial Centers, its a very banked region, and theres competition between doha and dubai to be the Global Financial center. They were putting upward pressure on regulators, at the same time, the security mindedness of a number of governments were coming around to the value of this as well. So i think you do see, as one said, that there was a period, theres been a real kind of ownership of illicit finance and the need to deal with it by these countries. Thank you, kate. Im going to try to draw on one other thread and thats the Financial Task force. David, you have had a lot of experience at treasury, and i would like for you to ask you to describe for us if you can, the extent of cooperation that has been in your engagement with the gulf states, is that something that could be taken advantage of . How does it shape up and what does it look like . For those of you who arent deep in the weeds of terrorist financing. The Financial Action task force is not actually an organization, its a collection of countries that have come together to establish principles of how governments ought to regulate the Financial Sector and how Financial Institutions ought to behave, in order to combat both Money Laundering and terrorist financing and it works through a mutual valuation process. So members of the Organization Get together and say, you know, next year, were going to evaluate the uaes or saudis or the u. S. Actually went through a mutual valuation really, their financial structure, their enforcement structure, their political structure against these recommendations. It works essentially through embarrassment. The evaluation gets a score on how well you do, if you havent done very well, the committee will make recommendations on what you can do better and in extreme casings recommend that Counter Measures be enacted by countries afternoon the world to protect themselves from illicit finance from that jurisdiction. It has been an enormously effective tool for raising around the world the quality of the effort against illicit finance, both Money Laundering and terrorist financing. In the gulf, there are these regional fatif organizations, including the south african fatif, they do mutual valuations within the gulf region and north africa. It has the saudis, i dont know if you were in the gulf at the time of the saudi at the time that the saudi mutual evaluation was done. The saudis were done recently, and it has the effect of spotlighting the weaknesses and encouraging improvements. The one of the things that we have ftried to do outside of th mutual valuation of these episodes is to go inside these countries and say here is where your deficiencies are, and heres where you need to do better. Part of kuwait and in particular part of what we used to do in treasury, and im sure theyre still doing it is to go to these registryings and say heres where youre deficient and heres where you need to up your game. It has had middling success in requiring the kuwaitis to get it together. In 2014, after a lot of internal debate, i gave a speech on terrorist financing, where we called out the qataris and the for terrorist financing. That was done in part out of a judgment that our private engagement with those countries and private engagement including saying heres how youre not measuring up against the fatis numbers, this is what we were trying to achieve and calling them out publicly, south of outside the mutual valuation process, but calling them out publicly in more of a bilateral fashion, but a public fashion would spur them to act because doing it privately had sort of not achieved what we were trying to achieve. Hard to know exactly what that exactly accomplished other than me not being welcome there. The but they would welcome me, it was always a little frosty, though, after that. But thats another way that we use the fatf recommendations as a way to try to encourage better better efforts. Great. Juan, please. Steve, can i add to that . I was fortunate enough to lead our delegation at the inauguration of the mena fatf, the regional body that david mentioned. It may have been one of the last times we had talked to the syrians directly, actually, there in bahrain. But i think fatf has been enormously successful because you have had a group of likeminded jurisdictions whether its in fatf proper or in these regional bodies that have been committed to at least in theory applying these laws and regulations and recommendations and then being willing to be submitted to these evaluations which foreign experts. Countries big and small, u. S. All the way to macaw, right, are being evaluated. To davids point with enormous impact its the shaming dimension but its also the market effects, to kates point about derisking, the private sector very much looks at these evaluations and assessments to understand the level of integrity within these injuries ticks. How good are they at dealing with Money Laundering . How serious are they dealing with terrorist financing . Do they have institutions in place to actually handle these issues and these risks . Its a process thats actually been enormously effective and it gets the attention of governments which is to davids point as to why its been a tool of choice for the u. S. Government to be able to push governments to improve, its also why fatf has looked at countries like north korea and iran and put them on kind of in essence a black list for deficiencies in their aml, antiMoney Laundering and terrorist financing systems and its why those countries and iran in particular is so dead set on getting off that list and dealing with what are the both marketbased and jurisdictional Counter Measures against the country and against their reintegration into the Financial System until they take these steps. A final note on fatf because i think its going to grow more important, not less in the future and its important for the audience to understand, fatf has started a new process of evaluations, of assessments, around this question of effectiveness. So the assessments in the past have largely been around can you show me that you have a Financial Intelligence unit in place . Do you have a law against terrorist financing . Can you show me that the banks know how to file suspicious activity reports . These kinds of fundamentals of the system. Weve graduated to a point where the fatf is asking a core question of, thats good, you have to have those things in place but is your system actually working . Is it actually preventing illicit capital from entering the system . Do your institutions work . Thats leading to a lot of soul searching in countries, its leading to a lot of improvements in a rapid way for those countries that are now being subject to this assessment and its also leading to more Enforcement Actions. So youre seeing more countries on their own, not prompted by the u. S. , but on their own begin to find banks, hold Financial Institutions accountable, bring prosecutions precisely to demonstrate to the International Community that their system can work, it does work and here is the evidence. So thats a very important process that i think is worth keeping in mind and again, the gulf countries have submitted to these principles and these rules that are global principles both through the mena fatf and through the fatf process itself. Thank you, juan. More than you ever wanted to know about fatf. I think thats a terrible acronym. I want to turn to kate because i want to take advantage of your experience in the field as a financial attache. Were talking about u. S. Cooperation in the gulf with the gulf states and you were there on the ground. Can you describe for us how extensive is the network of u. S. Engagement, how many countries are you covering when you were out there are you all over the gulf . Are you a onewoman band who has to move country to country and figure out these individuals what theyre going to be doing . Yeah, thank you for the question. Its a great question because i think what we do at the treasury not just as an attache but when, you know as juan and david as senior officials the kind of sanctions diplomacy and engagement on a technical level with our counterparts and ministries of finance and Central Banks is kind of unknown, but publicized by juans wonderful book that focused on that issue. So as the Treasury Department has a small core of attaches, i think its usually 10 to 12 in the world, so its very small and where the attaches are placed is usually determined by what the priorities are, you know, they are not necessarily seen as permanent positions. So as priorities shift resources will be shifted because its so small and zero sum, but the Attache Program in the gulf was set up, i believe, in 2008, the first attache was sent out and was in abu dhabi with a deputy in riyadh shortly after. It was then augmented, i think, around 2010, the position in riyadh was made as a full attache and the position in abu dhabi took on covering kuwait and qatar as well. Then in 2013, which was when i arrived, i was responsible for the gcc minus saudi and with the deputy in an bu dhabi there wasn attache placed in qatar and kuwait which was something i pushed for. The value of having someone deployed is to be able to have the ability to follow up. It was a lot of travel over a couple of years, even though those are short flights. The one to dohi i always liked because you land technically before you take off coming from abu dhabi since its a 45minute flight. Nonetheless the value in having someone there a lot of times is the ability to be available and to develop, you know, rapport with the counterparts and to concentrate on technical issues. I would say throughout the gulf we have had good relationships with our counterparts in finance ministries and in Central Banks and can really connect on those technical levels. The attaches work on policy matters, sanctions implementation, promoting best practices and standards such as the fatf standards. In the gulf there is a little bit of Technical Assistance involved as well, although thats done more so elsewhere where you have lower resource countries would be where the treasury would really commit more resources to Technical Assistance. The idea being higher resource countries can find Technical Assistance through commercial means or on their own. But its an important job, i think, in terms of having that ongoing engagement and being able to facilitate the higher level visits as well. I saw david a lot when i was out in the gulf and needed to know who he should meet with and prepare all the sides. I think its been something thats facilitated as was mentioned before the number of joint designations that have been done over the years which i think is a very clear demonstration when they happen of where interests, you know, are. Its a very good public demonstration of how we can find where our interests coincide and work together, but there is a lot more examples that are never made public because i think one thing is you cant necessarily judge the effect ifbs of counterterrorist financing by designations. There is a lot of reasons designations dont happen and one of those is because were able to work quietly or the Treasury Department, the government is able to work quietly with counterparts to have counterparts take actions that would disrupt whatever activity it is that we want to see disrupted. One of the reasons i asked the question is there was at one point in this conversation at the gcc has revealed itself that i think the state Department Might have suggested that treasury embed officials within the Qatari Central Bank or finance ministry to ensure great transparency into Financial Transactions. Is there any fly in the ointment that would seem to suggest its not workable or something we should really not consider . I think that, you know, as i said, first of all, theres already a treasury presence on the ground there and i guess i would say im not sure its necessary to have someone in the central bank of qatar. I think that one of the important things is that countering terrorist financing or illicit finance is an all of government effort because the vulnerabilities arent exclusively in the Financial Sector. In fact, the state department has said in their reports that qatar that one of the problematic things is the ability of individuals to bypass the Financial Sector. So it involves working with ministry of interior customs often, border control, various elements to identify i a the love times one of the big challenges and kind of operationalizing counterterrorist financing is taking what is an intelligence lead and making it susceptible especially if its in you know, if its a domestic issue into a Law Enforcement action. And so that is not, you know, exclusively or primarily a central bank responsibility, but what the central bank does when it houses the Financial Intelligence unit as it does in qatar is that is a very important element of it because its getting the Financial Intelligence unit gets information from banks about suspicious activities and that can be very important lead information in that whole process. So there is a role, but i dont think its the most important place and perhaps in qatar not, you know, where that person needs to be, but there is already a person on the ground. I want to go back now to something that juan alluded to earlier on and thats kind of the evolving Financial Model that some of the terrorist organizations around the world, certainly in the middle east and syria with daesh and isil have been using. Theyve been self financing and using smuggling of oil and oil products and antiquities and ran some from kidnapping as a way to generate their own money. They no longer hold territory, this is more complicated and theyre looking externally i suspect for more financing. How big a threat is that to arab gulf states to becoming the conduit where they will look to most usefully . Steve, its a great question because one of the dangers in particular of the syrian conflict is that you have a resurrection of the external sources of funding for internal causes and proxy wars and the use of charities which, you know, was such a focus post 9 11 was largely kind of managed and handled has now been resurrected. The idea of deep pocket donors willing to support different causes because they are more effective, for example, fighting forces against assad, thats a problem, but youre absolutely right, the terrorist and militant groups that we worry about, the ones that have regional and global aspirations have accordion like financial options. They will take whatever opportunities theyre given and in the 90s you had a much more hierarchical donorbased, externallybased driven financing model for al qaeda. It then used that to help build franchises and to support them. What youve had in the post 9 11 era, given the pressure put on these organizations, given the fracturing and metastasizing of the movement has been a much more localized set of economies and industries that the terrorist groups have taken manage of. Al qaeda has made a fortune in an industry out of kidnap for ransom, something david talked a lot about when he was at treasury. Al shabaab in east africa has run a whole economy out of exporting charcoal and importing sugar. Thats why the u. N. Sanctions are there are sanctions on the export of coal out of east africa. Thats why. Theyve always used the remittences and taxes off of their check points and other things to their advantage. Of course daesh has used its access to oil, antiquities, massive populations, urban environments to tax, extort, actually run economies, not to mention the whole oil industry from production to delivery. So these organizations will take whatever opportunities we give them in terms of resources and space and i think one of the dangers to your point, steve, is as that space shrinks theyre going to need and want other sources. And so that will look a lot like things that weve seen in the past. Theres going to be elements of criminality attached to it, theres going to be smuggling still of oil in the case of middle eastbased organizations, theyre going to use resources that are at their command, you know, youve seen this with other terrorist groups, nonislamic extremist groups like in india, they use mining interests to their advantage, youve seen this with the farq using the drug trade in the past. These are groups that are innovative, theyve grown more global, nor sophisticated. To the extent they have sophisticated support networks theyre able to adapt. Thats why constricting their support Networks Becomes so important, constricting their ability to reach across borders, cutting off their access to capital and to resources is critical and, again, as i said at the start, its why these issues are even more important now than ever because as we try to constrict daesh you dont want the son of daesh to have access to new resources, whether its from external donors or local sources. Thats why you need the gulf countries to be focused on these issues, we need our allies around the world to be on side in terms of disrupting terrorist financing. Again, i agree with juan. Just in isis in particular it grew out of aqi, aqi its financing model was the traditional al qaeda financing model of raising money from donors when isis, isil grew, took over territory, it had an easier way of raising funds which was to extort the population that it had taken over and to sell oil through smuggling routes that had been in existence previously. But as their territory is shrinking, their control of the population is being lost, they have every reason to expect that its going to return to what had worked in the past which is a dono donorfinance add approach, particularly when its no longer governing vast amount of territory it needs less money in order to fund its particular terrorist activity. I mean, the one the one other point i would make is that when people talk about terrorist financing they often focus in on a very sort of narrow understanding of what terrorist financing is, which is there is a traditional donor model where you raise money, you put it into the bank and then you move it. Weve done, you know, working with partners around the world a pretty good job at some timying that approach and this gets back a little bit to the fatf discussion. Regardless of the means by which money is raised, whether its from donors, whether its from state sponsors, whether its from extortion, so selling ivory, whatever it is, there are Common Elements in a terrorist organizations use of money that we need to keep focus on and continue to attack and thats that they need to move that money, store that money and spend that money in order to be effective. And so it sort of does not matter a heck of a lot how the money is raised. Those sort of three elements are common across the across the landscape. And making sure they cant use the formal Financial System makes a difference regardless of how the money is raised, making sure that they cant move money from a bank to bank transfer, and forcing them to to think about using virtual currencies, forcing them out of what the modern world has developed as a super efficient way to store and move money is going to be effective regardless of the model that the terrorist Organization Uses to raise its funds. I think at this point im going to open up the conversation to folks out here who have been very patient. As i do let me please ask you to identify yourself if you would and also to keep your questions and comments as succinct as possible so we can accommodate as many people as possible. We have microphones, clair has done, i will go to barbara and i will go to david. Thank you very much, barbara slaten from the athletic council. Very interesting conversation. I wanted to ask all three of you, is qatars record on these issues that much worse than others in the gcc . David, you mentioned kuwait as having been a problem in the past and do you think that is really the main reason that were seeing this rift in the gcc . Thank you. I think the answer is no and no. Its not qatar is not that much worse than kuwait, i think its markedly worse than others in the gulf, but the distinction between qatar and kuwait is i think real but not that great and i think that the the broader issue that is currently embroiling the gulf is not fundamentally about terrorist financing, i think its much more about the support and thats why the focus is on qatar and not kuwait, its the its the support coming out of the qataris for groups and individuals that challenge the stability of the governing entities in the uae and saudi and bahrain and in egypt. There is to be sure a legitimate concern with terrorist financing in qatar, im not saying its protect, but it is the full text of whats going on in the gulf right now. David, raise your hand, we will get a microphone to you. David wine berg, foundation for drive democracies. So i wanted to ask about another dimension of gulf states and the terror finance issue which is kidnapping for ransom, something that i think all of you have worked on but david you have been very public about. My understanding is that there is a report under the state authorization act of 2017 that this administration is late on producing for congress which would be a public report on which countries in the last year the u. S. Government knows provided ransom to terrorist groups. There have been a number of press reports citing either government officials or private sources alleging that qatar has paid numerous ransoms to terrorist groups, qatar of course denies doing so. I was wondering if any of you are in a position, a, to either give qatar a clean bill of health or to speak at all about whether there is any substance to these allegations. So i will be happy to have you answer that question, but so i cant give them a clean bill of health but thats only because im not up on the that would be probably something i couldnt talk about if i was up on it. But, you know, to go your broader question, there is no question that there are countries that have paid ransoms to free their citizens who have been kidnapped. It is the long standing policy of the United States not to pay ransom, the u. S. Government will not pay ransom to free hostages. We went through in the Obama Administration a very detailed, careful and frankly heart rending process of trying to reconcile that policy, which is a policy that long predated the Obama Administration with the fact that there are americans who are held around the world who we want to get out, and at the end of the day, you know, its more nuance than this, but the resolution was that we were going to do everything in our power to assist in freeing hostages, short of paying ransom, on the theory that you pay ransom its just going to encourage the terrorist organizations to take more hostages and demand more ransoms than it is, you know, ultimately to the detriment of americans everywhere. The second piece of that is that we work with other countries around the world to adopt a similar policy and its pretty much right now just the uk that has a similar policy. There was a ga communique from a couple years ago trying to spur others to adopt a similar approach. Its a terribly difficult issue, but, you know, i think the policy is sound and the report that apparently is due calling out countries that pay ransom i think is a worthwhile step. Weve got a question here in the second row. I guess you are up again, clair. Hi, im from bloomberg news. A couple of you talked about how keeping this rift going is not in the interest of the u. S. Longterm when it comes to terror financing. Im just wondering broadly right now what youve been hearing about what role secretary tillerson or secretary mattis have been having in washington with gulf diplomats, maybe any dialogue between saudis and others, and also if you think military escalation is just would be too you know, would be too far if that would even be on the table still you think from the perspective of these gcc countries . Maybe i can take this one. I dont see certainly the rhetoric seems to suggest that all the parties involved dont want to escalate this to the point where were talking about military action. You know, i think thats obviously in everyones best interest and i think if there were any suggestions that we were seeing signals of that or moving toward that you would have a much heavier u. S. Hand to calm the waters i think just by necessi necessity. Frankly by virtue of the fact that weve got troops on both sides and interests militarily on all sides of this. So i dont see it going that way and i dont think its in anybodys interests including the parties who feel so aggrieved on both sides of this equation to move toward military escalation. In terms of the u. S. Line, you know, one of the criticisms youve heard is there have been mixed messages coming out of washington. You have had the state department calling for a calming of the waters, resolution calmly, what seems to be from the white house a firmer embrace of the saudis and that side and a bit more of a tougher stance. So i think there has been a danger of mixed signals coming out of washington and i think it behooves us to have not only a common voice on this, but the role of peace maker not because we want to be the moral giants here, although i think we do, but because weve got real fundamental interests at play short and longterm. That means having the countries resolve these issues. Frankly if were smart about it as i said earlier making this about ownership of these issues longterm by these countries. If the countries in the region are serious about dealing with terrorist financing there are a number of things they should be doing. If theyre serious about curtailing trade with iran and enabling of the irgc then there are things they need to be doing. If were worried about payment of ransom to terrorist groups that continues to fuel their operations there is a lot that can be done with all the countries. If we were smart about this we would not only be speaking with a unified voice but we would be taking proactive measures to look forward to how does this improve things that are inherent in our own National Security interest. Thats what i hope is happening. I dont know if thats happening but certainly there is a lot of discussions here in washington around these issues, lots of attention by all the Gulf Partners and certainly im sure marcell and the institute here is sort of a fulcrum of a lot of these discussions precisely because theres so much question and interest as to what washington will do and say. Thank you. I have a question right here then we will go to joyce and go over here to you, sir. When someone says, for example, qatar finances terrorism there is no distinction made between the governments and individuals doing this financing activity. How can such organizations make this distinction and how can you hold governments accountable or responsible for the actions of individuals or its citizens in that sense . David, do you want to yeah, so at one level the distinction is important to make between state sponsorship and private sponsorship of terrorist activity. Those are two different problems and its important to draw the distinction between them. That being said its a set aside state sponsorship for the time being, i think governments have a responsibility to govern their population, their citizens and those who reside in their country and that doesnt mean that the government is responsible for everybody at every moment of the day, but at the same time if there is a conscious decision taken by a government to be lax in the application of existing laws or not to enact laws that criminalize or prohibit behavior that is contrary to International Norms that i think is fairly the criticism is fairly put at the feet of the government in that situation as being enabling and permitting terrorist financing from occurring even if the government itself isnt the source of the money. They are allowing that activity to occur. That has historically been the problem in qatar, its historically been the problem in kuwait. I think as weve mentioned there has been progress in both jurisdictions, both in enacting laws and enforcing laws so that they are better than they had been historically, but at the same time i think theres no question that theres more progress that could be made. Steve, please, can i just touch on this because i think its a critical question and theres two dimensions to it. One is how do you define the terrorist group itself. This is where the question of Muslim Brotherhood is injected into the current debate and its an important question, but then to davids point its a whole second drum of support and the challenge here is weve often had a binary to say there either is state sponsorship and there isnt. There is quite a bit of gradations. On one end there are individuals doing things on their own and the government is trying to prosecute it. The u. S. Has had cases of individuals supporting terrorism. We prosecute them. The other end of the spectrum is states that have in their budget the support of terrorist groups like iran, its a line item in their budget. So there is no question about it, they declare it, the receiving entities talk about it, so theres that. Then theres everything in between. Theres everything from incompetence to willful blindness to benign neglect to soft support. So i think weve got to be careful in the debate to not create sort of a binary and not allow actors to kind of fall behind the shield of sort of the vag vagueries of these definitions and the spectrum. Its important to have clear discussions of what were talking about. Who is it were talking about that is a terrorist, why are we doing this and to what extent can the government actually effect this . Again, this issue of spectrum is really important because its often seen as a binary question to the point of your question, but its often more complicated than that. David. Can i just of course. Just to follow on that thought, part of the spectrum here as juan alluded to is who is a terrorist organization. So to get a little bit to the question that barbara was asking earlier about whats motivating, whats happening in the gulf right now, clearly the qataris view, the Muslim Brotherhood as a lake effect mat political actor in the gulf and elsewhere, the amaratis do not. And i think the amaratis would say that the distance between Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist is vanishingly thin. The qataris clearly dont take that view. If you have state sponsorship of the Muslim Brotherhood you could understand the state saying, well, yeah, were supporting a Political Organization, were not supporting a terrorist group. Others may disagree. So as you as we look at whats happening in the gulf right now another one of the dimensions thats really important to bear in mind is that this is, i think, fundamentally a question about sort of the role of political islam and how you define, you know, what is a legitimate Political Organization from what is a you know, a you know, a wolf in sheeps clothing terrorist organization portraying itself as a Political Organization but not. Clair, we have somebody in the front row, please. Yes. Hi. Thanks, steve. Great panel. I actually have two questions, the first on the list that catherine brought up, the 49 individuals and entities that were designated by the four arab states, do you see it overlapping with lists that you might have seen or names that you might have seen while you were at treasury . And then, you know, some say actually that its better for the u. S. For designated terrorists, for example, like [ inaudible ] or others to be in doha, to be playing pingpong rather than making trouble in beirut or somewhere else. How do you respond to that argument . I will take the first one. So i think on the list, joyce, to answer that question first, there are there is some overlap, a fair amount of overlap with u. S. Designated individuals and u. N. Designated. I think that there is at least six u. N. Designated individuals on that list and there are however many individuals on that list who are not designated by the u. S. Or the u. N. The uae and saudi both have their separate list as well and theres organizations on those list that is arent designated by the u. S. I think that countries have the ability and if not the requirement under the fatf standards to develop the capability to have these sorts of lists so they can identify and send clear messages to their domestic population about who it is off limits to deal with in terms of Financial Transactions and things of the sort. So i think as ive said earlier thats something that qatar can do, they could develop their own list to provide some clarity on who they see as fitting, you know, that definition within their own jurisdiction and one of the things that these lists do in a domestic sense is, you know, it could also facilitate further action from a Law Enforcement perspective because you can say, you know, we said this was prohibited and you did it. The u. N. Level designations Member States have obligations to implement travel pans and freeze Funds Associated with those. So i think im sorry, what was the second question . Playground. Im happy to help with that. Yeah. Its a really important question because the challenge for qatar is its not only [ inaudible ] its the taliban office, its u. N. Designated individuals so doha through that lens begins to look like a playground for international scoff laws and terrorists, right . But it raises an interesting question. Is it better to have individuals in a place where you can perhaps control them, monitor them, communicate with them, have a channel to those organizations if you do desire to have that communication. Thats a really important question, you know, something i thought about is if the qataris are doing this and theyre doing this in a way that is advantageous to the International Community, there is an understanding that, look, we want a place where maybe there is a negotiation happening with the taliban, we want it to happen in a safe place like doha, maybe thats okay but maybe that shouldnt be just a qatari decision or maybe it should be a much more open decision made with its neighbors as well as other key partners like the afghan government. So i think its an important question but one that qatar shouldnt be necessarily trying to resolve on its own. This is actually a regional and international set of issues as to how we want to deal with these groups and frankly how you want to deal with things like funding for humanitarian purposes into places like gaza, which we want. We want people not to starve, we want people to have homes, we want people to have medical treatment. Okay. If thats the case what does that mean . Then i think maybe one of the constructive things that comes out of this rift is a more collective sense of how do we solve some of these hard problems and maybe doha ultimately looks a whole lot like it does now, but its with International Approval and with other checks and balances it makes it a much more comfortable for its neighbors. Maybe not, but im always searching for a constructive way forward and i think thats one way of looking at it. Right. If they were just playing pingpong in doha it would be fine. The qataris portray themselves as sort of the switzerland of the gulf, thats what they want to be, which is an interesting model particularly in the illicit finance world because for, you know, a long time switzerland was the playground for you know, for all manner of people who had illicit funds and Bank Accounts there, i mean, sort of to juans point, the International Community got together and said, you know, enough. We are not going to let you have numbered accounts, we are not going to let you have you have an important role, switzerland of being neutral, being a place, you know, being a Financial Center but not to the expense of the rest of the worlds efforts to combat illicit finance. I think that exact same model could be applied in a slightly different context but same model with doha. The gentleman has a question for you. Im not affiliated with any organization. I have a question for most for mr. Cohen. You talked earlier about the Bush Administration looking at the Muslim Brotherhood through different lenses. Was that or was there any lens among these that it is a Worldwide Consortium of businesses and companies and organizations channeling money everywhere including qatar and turkey, and for mr. Cohen the question about you said earlier that in the last two years there has been good work done with qatar in combating financing terrorism. Could you expand on this . Given the fact that qatar is only arab country that never ever suffered a terrorist attack . Its a great question. [ inaudible ] you begin to see ties and networks that you wouldnt otherwise see in relationships. I think in looking at the Muslim Brotherhood [ inaudible ] with the business, financial and even political ties of the entire organization and the networks that are attached to it and key nodes and manifestations of the group as a result, so we very much were focused on that and in fact a couple of the designations which were controversial post 9 11 included individuals who were supporting al qaeda who were designated who were also Muslim Brotherhood members who sat in switzerland and who were subject to International Sanctions as a result. So the answer to your question was, yes, we worried about it, the approach was to not try to isolate the entirety of the organization with all its manifestations but to identify where there were problematic connections and a nexus to Material Support to terrorism. Not to attack the group for ideological reasons and not to designate all of their members under under terrorist provisions. That was a decision of the Bush Administration, i think it followed in the Obama Administration and it takes the premise is not all elements of the Muslim Brotherhood are alike, not all should be handled in the same way with the same tools and i think that creates both nuance and complication in the current debate. There was a question on qatars perform i guess was the issue. I will start off and ask kate to add on here. So my understanding is in the last several years qatar has prosecuted a few individuals for terrorist financing and, you know, sort of to juans effectiveness point become more effective in implementing the laws and regulations they have in place to combat terrorist financing. There is still a way to go. I think there are still people in doha who are there with the awareness of the qatari government, just to do a brief digression here after the march 2014 speech they gave calling out qatar and kuwait for being per missive jurisdictions for terrorist financing i did travel to qatar and kuwait and met with the Security Services and others and to encourage them to improve their their performance. It was abundantly clear to me that they knew exactly who was raising funds in their jurisdictions, where they were, what they were doing, how they were doing it, how the money was being moved and nonetheless we are not by and large prepared to do anything about it. So although there has been progress and so that predates the last two years, ive been gone from treasury for longer than that, so there has been some progress that was made in the last two years in going after the sort of lowhanging fruit that was available to them in qatar, in kuwait as well. I think there remains more progress, more fruit that has been harvested. So i can just add a little bit on the specifics even though theres not that many specifics. I think this is one of the things what we what we know about what qatar has done in the last couple of years has come primarily from u. S. Government reports of it. So qatar itself hasnt the prosecutions that various u. S. Officials have said have been pursued using squishy language that leaves it not quite so clear, even though there has been clarity in recent weeks. The qataris arent publicizing those in any way. Thats been one of the problems sths not clear if this is a reflection of an inn complete commitment to doing it i think or if there is, you know, just concerns given small associates, thats what ive heard before about publicizing this or security concerns because there is information thats used thats sensitive, things like that. But there has not been a lot of Public Information and what weve learned in the last couple of weeks is that there are five individuals that have been prosecuted, one of them was prosecuted not in qatar but in bahrain, that was and then there were four other individuals. None of them two were convicted or one was convicted essentially there were a couple of convictions, a couple acquit tals but ultimately none of them are imprisoned. The concern that although qatar says theyre under extensive supervision that weve seen before that there has been recidivism amongst these individuals. Its been an ongoing issue. But i think that the kind of take away is that these actions have come under significant pressure from the u. S. And what the signal i think has been an emerging theme here is ownership of these issues rather than responding to significant pressure from the u. S. That what i think is in the u. S. Interest is to see qatar act in a way that sends a clear message that this is theyre acting of their own volition to take care of what the u. S. Has seen as something that is problematic. We are approaching the end of our a lllotted time to i will invite the guests if you have closing thought or thoughts youre welcome to do so. Again, no obligation, we can move on from here. First of all, let me thank our hosts again. This is a great conversation, ive learned a lot. I hope you all did as well. I will just come back to a theme that i started with, which is the issues of terrorist financing i think are will continue to be strategically relevant. Its going to play play out in the context of the rift in the gulf but its going to continue to be a fundamental issue when you look at u. S. Policy in the middle east, how we think about definition of terrorism and terrorist groups, how we deal with the underlying ideologies that animate terrorist organizations, what happens post daesh because i think we are going to see the defeat of daesh on the battlefield, but thats not the end of the story and who you this then gets resolved and the context of this rift becomes critical. But i think the u. S. Has a role to play, obviously a leading role to play in not only resolving these issues currently but setting a strategy and a course for the International Community as to how to deal with more and more complicated issues as terrorism evolves over time. Thats the end ring challenge for the Counterterrorism Community and certainly for this administration. Thank you for your time. I will just also echo juans thanks for organizing this and for a really useful conversation. I will just pull the lens way back just for a second and away from terrorist financing which is a hugely important issue, one that we continue to need to work on, but i think we need to recognize two fundamental facts, one is that what is the underlying causes of instability in terrorist activity is something that we need to address, not just the terrorist financing issue which fuels it, but there is there are issues in the middle east and elsewhere that require longterm serious strategy. We cant ignore that part of the world, we cant cut it off, we cant bomb it into submission, we need to figure out a way to address those issues, and the second is that there is, i think, in some respects an increasingly weakening link between terrorist financing and terrorist acts and i think we need to be cognizant of the fact that even as we do a better job and hopefully we will continue to do a better job in cutting off financing, there is a tale to terrorist organizations capacity to conduct terrorist attacks and there is also i think an increasing Movement Towards not the centralized direct attack but to the inspired attack and we as a country need to recognize that and be resilient in the face of what is as everybody who has been in this business has said time and again, the virtual certainty that we are going to face additional attacks of some form. We need to be strong as a country, we need to not overreact, we need to be we need to be sensible in how we address this problem. But as we think about terrorism i think those two polls that were both theres work to be done in the longterm and theres theres sort of resilience and and strength and sobriety in how we address what is going to be a problem for us Going Forward for a long time is critically important. Kate. I think david just introduced ideas that we could spend another hour and a half discussing and some very interesting and important things, but i think i would echo what david and juan said and just say that i think that the need to follow the money is kind of more acute than ever because of the instability that david mentioned and the adaptability we see of terrorist organizations to exploit weak and ungoverned areas, to fund themselves, but also because of the role of Financial Intelligence can play when youre talking about even attacks that arent expensive, even attacks that are small cells or, you know, directed at least in any way, you know, mapping out relationships between actors can be very important, but i think getting back to the question of instability and post isis it makes me think that, you know, its a question of governance and that i think where something that weve come to understand better and since 9 11 is how an important part of that is regulation of the Financial Sector and partnering between those regulators and Law Enforcement and Intelligence Services to be able to have when you have a especially postconflict areas have them that they can attract the investments and to help with development, but also keep the bad actors out of that realm. And i think thats going to be if we can try to look beyond this you know, the trend right now of exploitation of these ungoverned spaces, thats where we need to be thinking in the future. So and thank you again to the arab gulf states for hosting this panel. Now its turn to thank you and we really do. Kate, david and juan, thank you so very much. We hope you will come back. [ applause ] thats where we need to be