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Bush Is Freezing My Assets Off!
Posted by ueberbill
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 When it comes to actions taken by this administration, timing is everything. From making appointments when the Congress is away on vacation to releasing bad news when it will be least noticed by the mainstream media, they're pretty clever about it. For instance, if George W. had issued his last executive order before we invaded Iraq in 2003 then the Secretary of the Treasury would be forced to freeze all of his assets. |
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Last week Pres. Bush issued an executive order entitled "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq." The order can be found right here. The purpose of this order is to allow the president to block the property (in other words it "may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in") of those pesky people who just won't let Iraq blossom into the paragon of democracy that GW just KNOWS it'll become as soon as we freeze the assets of said pesky people. Or shoot them. A big problem, of course, is that many of the "certain persons" mentioned in the order (we'll get to it in a second) are Iraqis in Iraq, and we don't let many of them INTO the country (163 have come in as of 7/9).
Some highlights of the executive order:
Those affected by this order are people or entities who "pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of"
- "threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq" (the Government of Iraq is so stable that they have met not one of the benchmarks laid out for them recently)
- "undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people" (because that's the job of the Government of Iraq)
In addition, if you make "any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked" then you yourself will have your property blocked.
Because of the nature of fund transfers, the president declares that "prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective [...] there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made". The end of the order says that the president is giving the power of enforcement to the Secretary of the Treasury (so if you see this guy at your door, don't answer!) in consultation with the Secretaries of State and Defense. So whoever the Secretaries of the Treasury, State, and Defense or the President determines to be mucking up his valiant and successful efforts in Iraq (hell, that may have just become BSAlert.com--run, Pile!) is going to have a hard time making the mortgage payment soon. |
The Order |
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