In Ron Suskind's book,
The One Percent Doctrine, Suskind describes the acute difference between the public perception and the reality behind the use of the
White House Situation Room:“The Situation Room – that rectangle of wood paneling and dropdown screens in the White House basement – has recently matched the Oval Office as most storied chamber of the US government. In an odd turn of the media age, this tiny square of carpeted real estate has seized the public’s imagination. … On balance though, little actually get done there….For problem solving and action plans, anxious public servants will, time and again, by pass the Situation Room for its small adjacent conference room – a place where real work gets done." Beginning in October 2001, a half dozen or so key officials met each Wednesday morning in the Situation Room's conference room. Aufhauser managed the group. Suskind writes, “David Aufhauser, an elegant Washington lawyer . . . coordinated the government’s overall ‘financial war.’” Officials from the National Security Council,
Central Intelligence Agency, and
National Security Agency (NSA) met under Aufhauser’s command. The group’s mission was to figure out how money flowed around the globe to
Al-Qaeda, and how to stop that flow. In his testimony, Aufhauser pushed hard for what he believed was the best strategy to fight terrorism: stop the funding of terrorism in order to “scale back the violence [and] to deplete the resources made available to kill innocent people.” During the hearing (which was held in 2004), he declared that Al Qaeda was more lethal than it was on 9/11.
Terrorism’s three currencies As an official at the Treasury Department, Aufhauser coined a phrase that represented the root causes of terrorism – terrorism's “three currencies.” The three currencies are hate, counterfeit religion, and money. He believed that a hopeless environment in many areas within the Middle East created hate and counterfeit religion that fueled terrorist zealousness. However, one of the primary purposes of his role in the war on terrorism was to go after terror financing. Aufhauser believed that a cash-rich terrorist cell would be difficult to stop. However, if forces could prevent the cell from obtaining finances in the first place, it would greatly diminish the threat.
Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had a little more than one hundred employees after 9/11. The office was not well understood by the public, but was powerful. One of OFAC's responsibilities was to administer the United States' economic sanctions programs. In 1986, OFAC issued its first list of "Specially Designated Nationals." People on the list were generally barred from participating in America's banking system. After 9/11, OFAC used its legal sanctions powers to freeze and seize Al Qaeda's finances. However, before OFAC could do so, it needed authority from the President of the United States. Aufhauser and a small group of attorneys from Treasury and OFAC drafted the executive order they needed to go after Al Qaeda. Prior to 9/11, OFAC was legally restricted to pursue terrorist financing; it had to go after very specifically designated terrorist organizations. Aufhauser and his colleagues drafted the executive order to give OFAC broad authority to go after terrorism at large. People and organizations subject to the new authority included financial supporters of terrorist organizations, the businesses owned by them, and anyone associated with them. == Elections law ==