[A-List] The March 20, 2008 US Declaration of War on Iran

["Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

Washington is now making the most ruthless use of its dollar hegemony
against Iran.  (Make no mistake: this economic war is a strategy
pursued by both Democrats and Republicans, realists and adventurists
alike: Daniel Dombey, "Senators Urge Formal Sanctions," 6 March 2008
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/868cdae8-eb1e-11dc-a5f4-0000779fd2ac.html>.)
 The dollar hegemony is declining (Jeffrey Frankel, "The Euro Could
Surpass the Dollar within Ten Years,"
<http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/989>, 18 March 2008; Wolfgang
Münchau, "This Crisis Could Bring the Euro Centre-stage,"
<http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5fe5773a-f8eb-11dc-bcf3-000077b07658.html>,
23 March 2008), but will it decline fast enough for the Iranians?  The
ruling clerics of Iran are able leaders who have run their country
with a surer hand than leftists would have, but this presents them
with the greatest challenge since Saddam Hussein, backed by the West,
invaded Iran -- perhaps even a greater challenge, since at least the
richest 30% of Iranians are not made of the same stuff as the
generation who made the revolution and defended Iran's sovereignty in
the eight-year-long war. -- Yoshie

<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/mcglynn240308.html>
The March 20, 2008 US Declaration of War on Iran
by John McGlynn

March 20, 2008, destined to be another day of infamy.  On this date
the US officially declared war on Iran.  But it's not going to be the
kind of war many have been expecting.

No, there was no dramatic televised announcement by President George
W. Bush from the White House oval office.  In fact on this day,
reports the Washington Post, Bush spent some time communicating
directly with Iranians, telling them via Radio Farda (the US-financed
broadcaster that transmits to Iran in Farsi, Iran's native language)
that their government has "declared they want to have a nuclear weapon
to destroy people."  But not to worry, he told his listeners in
Farsi-translated Bushspeak: Tehran would not get the bomb because the
US would be "firm."

Over at the US Congress, no war resolution was passed, no debate
transpired, no last-minute hearing on the Iran "threat" was held.  The
Pentagon did not put its forces on red alert and cancel all leave.
The top story on the Pentagon's website (on March 20) was: "Bush Lauds
Military's Performance in Terror War," a feel-good piece about the
president's appearance on the US military's TV channel to praise "the
performance and courage of U.S. troops engaged in the global war on
terrorism."  Bush discussed Iraq, Afghanistan, and Africa but not
Iran.

But make no mistake.  As of Thursday, March 20 the US is at war with Iran.

So who made it official?

A unit within the US Treasury Department, the Financial Crimes
Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which issued a March 20 advisory to the
world's financial institutions under the title: "Guidance to Financial
Institutions on the Continuing Money Laundering Threat Involving
Illicit Iranian Activity."

FinCEN, though part of the chain of command, is better known to
bankers and lawyers than to students of US foreign policy.
Nevertheless, when the history of this newly declared war is someday
written (assuming the war is allowed to proceed) FinCEN's role will be
as important as that played by US Central Command (Centcom) in
directing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In its March 20 advisory FinCEN reminds the global banking community
that United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 1803 (passed on
March 3, 2008) "calls on member states to exercise vigilance over the
activities of financial institutions in their territories with all
banks domiciled in Iran, and their branches and subsidiaries abroad."

UNSC 1803 specifically mentions two Iranian state-owned banks: Bank
Melli and Bank Saderat.   These two banks (plus their overseas
branches and certain subsidiaries), along with a third state-owned
bank, Bank Sepah, were also unilaterally sanctioned by the US in 2007
under anti-proliferation and anti-terrorism presidential executive
orders 13382 and 13224.

As of March 20, however, the US, speaking through FinCEN, is now
telling all banks around the world "to take into account the risk
arising from the deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT [anti-money laundering
and combating the financing of terrorism] regime, as well as all
applicable U.S. and international sanctions programs, with regard to
any possible transactions" with -- and this is important -- not just
the above three banks but every remaining state-owned, private and
special government bank in Iran.  In other words, FinCEN charges, all
of Iran's banks -- including the central bank (also on FinCEN's list)
-- represent a risk to the international financial system, no
exceptions.  Confirmation is possible by comparing FinCEN's list of
risky Iranian banks with the listing of Iranian banks provided by
Iran's central bank.

The "deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT" is important because it provides
the rationale FinCEN will now use to deliver the ultimate death blow
to Iran's ability to participate in the international banking system.
The language is borrowed from Paris-based Financial Action Task Force
(FATF), a group of 32 countries and two territories set up by the G-7
in 1989 to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.  As the
FinCEN advisory describes, in October 2007 the FATF stated "that
Iran's lack of a comprehensive anti-money laundering and combating the
financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime represents a significant
vulnerability in the international financial system.  In response to
the FATF statement, Iran passed its first AML law in February 2008.
The FATF, however, reiterated its concern about continuing
deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT system in a statement on February 28,
2008."

Actually, the February 28 FATF statement does not comment on Iran's
new anti-money laundering law.  The statement does say, however, that
the FATF has been working with Iran since the October 2007 FATF
statement was issued and "welcomes the commitment made by Iran to
improve its AML/CFT regime."  Moreover, the February 28 statement, for
whatever reason, drops the "significant vulnerability" wording, opting
instead to reaffirm that financial authorities around the world should
"advise" their domestic banks to exercise "enhanced due diligence"
concerning Iran's AML/CFT "deficiencies."  In linking its March 20
advisory to the recent FATF statements, apparently FinCEN cannot wait
for FATF or anyone else to evaluate the effectiveness of Iran's
brand-new anti-financial crime laws.

Anyway, the "deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT" is probably the main
wording FinCEN will use to justify application of one its most
powerful sanctions tools, a USA Patriot Act Section 311 designation
(see below).

Hammering away at Iran's state-owned banks is central to US efforts to
raise an international hue and cry.  Through its state-owned banks,
FinCEN states, "the Government of Iran disguises its involvement in
proliferation and terrorism activities through an array of deceptive
practices specifically designed to evade detection."  By managing to
get inserted the names of two state-owned banks in the most recent UN
Security Council resolution on Iran, the US can now portray the cream
of Iran's financial establishment (Bank Melli and Bank Saderat are
Iran's two largest banks) as directly integrated into alleged regime
involvement in a secret nuclear weaponization program and acts of
terrorism.

To inject further alarm, FinCEN accuses Iran's central bank of
"facilitating transactions for sanctioned Iranian banks" based on
evidence (which for various reasons appears true) gathered by Treasury
and other US agencies that the central bank has facilitated erasure of
the names of Iranian banks "from global transactions in order to make
it more difficult for intermediary financial institutions to determine
the true parties in the transaction."  The central bank is also
charged with continuing to "provide financial services to Iranian
entities" (government agencies, business firms and individuals) named
in two earlier UN Security Council resolutions, 1737 and 1747.  In
defense, Iran's central bank governor recently said: "The central bank
assists Iranian private and state-owned banks to do their commitments
regardless of the pressure on them" and charged the US with "financial
terrorism."

So what does all this bureaucratic financial rigmarole mean?

What it really means is that the US, again through FinCEN, has
declared two acts of war: one against Iran's banks and one against any
financial institution anywhere in the world that tries to do business
with an Iranian bank.

To understand how this works requires understanding what FinCEN does.
This means going back in history to September 2005, when the US
Treasury Department, based on the investigatory work of FinCEN,
sanctioned a small bank in Macau, which in turn got North Korea really
upset.

FinCEN's mission "is to safeguard the financial system from the abuses
of financial crime, including terrorist financing, money laundering,
and other illicit activity" (FinCEN website).

Under Section 311 of the USA Patriot Act, the US Treasury Department,
acting through FinCEN, has been provided with "a range of options that
can be adapted to target specific money laundering and terrorist
financing concerns."  Specifically, Section 311 contains six "special
measures" to significantly increase the powers of the Treasury (and
other US government agencies) to block alleged terrorist financing
activities.  As explained by a Treasury official during April 2006
testimony before Congress, the most punitive measure requires:

     U.S. financial institutions to terminate correspondent relationships
     with the designated entity.  Such a defensive measure effectively
     cuts that entity off from the U.S. financial system.  It has a profound
     effect, not only in insulating the U.S. financial system from abuse,
     but also in notifying financial institutions and jurisdictions globally
     of an illicit finance risk.

On September 20, 2005, FinCEN issued a finding under Section 311 that
Banco Delta Asia (BDA), a small bank in the Chinese territory of
Macau, was a "primary money laundering concern."  BDA was alleged to
have knowingly allowed its North Korean clients to use the bank to
engage in deceptive financial practices and a variety of financial
crimes (such as money laundering of profits from drug trafficking and
counterfeit US $100 "supernotes").

By publicizing its allegations, FinCEN let the world know that BDA was
now at risk of having all "correspondent relationships" with US banks
severed, a disaster for any bank wanting to remain networked to the
largest financial market in the world.  Frightened BDA customers
reacted by staging a run on the bank's assets.

In the interest of self-preservation, BDA was forced to act.  After a
quick conference with Macau financial authorities the bank decided to
freeze North Korean funds on deposit.

It just so happened that the day before the FinCEN finding was made
public the US and North Korea, working through the Six-Party talks
process (also involving host China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan),
had formally agreed on a new diplomatic roadmap that promised to lead
to a denuclearized and permanently peaceful Northeast Asia.  But
because of Treasury's BDA sanctions, North Korea was now labeled an
international financial outlaw and the Six-Party process stalled.

Other banks began severing their business ties with North Korea,
leaving the country more isolated than ever from global commerce and
finance.  These other banks had no choice.  Treasury repeatedly made
clear that any bank that continued to do business with North Korea was
another potential Patriot Act Section 311 target.

In anger, North Korea withdrew from the Six-Party process.  It
required 18 months of negotiations before a diplomatic and financial
approach was devised that left BDA blacklisted but allowed North Korea
to regain access to its frozen funds and rejoin Six-Party
negotiations.

Neither FinCEN nor anyone else at Treasury has ever publicly produced
any evidence in support of the financial crime allegations against BDA
and North Korea (articles by this author on BDA, North Korea, and
Treasury's lack of proof can be found at the Japan Focus website).

If Treasury was eventually forced to back off in the BDA case
(apparently because the Bush administration changed its policy
priorities), it had discovered that Patriot Act Section 311 could
really shake things up.

The "real impact" of the BDA-North Korea sanctions, as Treasury
undersecretary Stuart Levey told members of the American Bar
Association in early March 2008, was that "many private financial
institutions worldwide responded by terminating their business
relationships not only with [BDA], but with North Korean clients
altogether."  Levey and his Treasury colleagues had come up with a way
to go beyond governments to use the global banking sector to privatize
banking sector sanctions against an entire country (this, by the way,
is presidential candidate John McCain's proposed strategy for dealing
with Iran as described in the Nov/Dec 2007 issue of the journal
Foreign Affairs).  This "key difference" in the "reaction by the
private sector" was an exciting revelation.  Through a little
extraterritorial legal arm-twisting of the international banking
community the US was able to put "enormous pressure on the [North
Korean] regime -- even the most reclusive government depends on access
to the international financial system," said Levey.  Washington now
had "a great deal of leverage in its diplomacy over the nuclear issue
with North Korea."  Turning to the present, Levey informed the
gathering of US lawyers that "we are currently in the midst of an
effort to apply these same lessons to the very real threat posed by
Iran."  However, "Iran presents a more complex challenge than North
Korea because of its greater integration into the international
financial community."

Over the past two years Levey and other Treasury officials have been
crisscrossing the globe to make it abundantly clear in meetings
(described by Treasury as opportunities to "share information") with
banking and government officials in the world's key financial centers
that dealing with Iran is risky business.  Levey frequently claims
that major European and Asia banks, once they hear the US pitch,
freely decided to cooperate with anti-Iran banking sanctions for
reasons of "good corporate citizenship" and a "desire to protect their
institutions' reputations."

But these meetings include quite a bit of browbeating.  This can be
deduced from some of Levey's public statements, such as his testimony
to Congress.  On March 21, 2007 Levey told the Senate Committee on
Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs that unilateral US financial
sanctions "warn people and businesses not to deal with the designated
target.  And those who might still be tempted to work with targeted
high risk actors get the message loud and clear: if they do so, they
may be next."  Also, the possibility of becoming a Patriot Act Section
311 sanctions victim (which means exclusion from the US market)
probably comes up at the meetings, as this part of his testimony
indirectly suggests: "Our list of targeted proliferators is
incorporated into the compliance systems at major financial
institutions worldwide, who have little appetite for the business of
proliferation firms and who also need to be mindful of U.S. measures
given their ties to the U.S. financial system."

Reportedly, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has also been involved in
high-level meetings around the world concerning Iran, which presumably
includes presentations on the arsenal of US financial sanctions.  The
message he imparts is unknown, but hints of the likely content can be
found in public statements.  Among Treasury officials Paulson has used
the most dramatic language by making the argument that not only is
Iran a danger to the international community but that this danger
permeates virtually all of Iranian society.  In a June 14, 2007 speech
to the Council on Foreign Relations he first makes the point that
Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is a "paramilitary"
organization "directly involved in the planning and support of
terrorist acts, as well as funding and training other terrorist
groups."  Then he offers the alarming revelation that the IRGC "is so
deeply entrenched in Iran's economy and commercial enterprises, it is
increasingly likely that if you are doing business with Iran, you are
somehow doing business with the IRGC."  With such language, Treasury
lays the groundwork for applying financial sanctions against the
entirety of Iran.  All this makes clear that the growing coalition of
bankers against Iran the US likes to trumpet may not be such a willing
group.

Some indication of how unwilling can be found in the pages of Der
Spiegel (English edition).  In July 2007 the German news magazine
reported that "anyone wishing to do business in the United States or
hoping to attract US investors had best tread softly when it comes to
Iran.  Germany's Commerzbank stopped financing trade with Iran in US
dollars in January, after the Americans piled on the pressure."  One
German banker interviewed said: "German financial institutions feel
the United States government has been engaging in 'downright
blackmail'."  The magazine goes on to report: "Anti-terror officials
from the US Treasury are constantly showing up to demand they cut
their traditionally good relations with Iran.  The underlying threat
from the men from Washington is that they wouldn't want to support
terrorism, would they?"

Also, an April 2007 report from the UK's House of Lords Economic
Affairs Committee states that the Confederation of British Industry
indicated "strong concern" about Patriot Act provisions and other US
extra-territorial sanctions.  The Committee recognized the need for
"vigorous action" in response to terrorist threats but also
"endorse[d] the condemnation by the EU of the extra-territorial
application of US sanctions legislation as a violation of
international law."

Thus the US will need help from European government leaders to
overcome resistance among major European financial institutions to
US-led financial sanctions.  Such help has already come from German
Chancellor Angela Merkel.   During her recent state visit to Israel,
Merkel told the Knesset that Iran was global enemy number one.  "What
do we do when a majority says the greatest threat to the world comes
from Israel and not from Iran?" she asked.  "Do we bow our heads?  Do
we give up our efforts to combat the Iranian threat?  However
inconvenient and uncomfortable the alternative is, we do not do that."
 Iran is public enemy #1 in the world, and everyone -- including the
European banking establishment it would seem -- has to accept that.

To summarize to this point: (1) the March 20 advisory represents a US
declaration of war by sanctions on Iran and a sanctions threat to the
international banking community, (2) the US has various unilateral
financial sanctions measures at its command in the form of executive
orders and Patriot Act Section 311 and (3) the BDA-North Korea
sanctions were, at least in retrospect, a test run for Iran.

If the US succeeds, an international quarantine on Iran's banks would
disrupt Iran's financial linkages with the world by blocking its
ability to process cross-border payments for goods and services
exported and imported.  Without those linkages Iran is unlikely to be
able to engage in global trade and commerce.  As 30% of Iran's GDP in
2005 was imports of goods and services and 20% was non-oil exports
(World Bank and other data), a large chunk of Iran's economy would
shrivel up. The repercussions will be painful and extend well beyond
lost business and profits.  For example, treating curable illnesses
will become difficult.  According to an Iranian health ministry
official, Iran produces 95% of its own medicines but most
pharmaceutical-related raw materials are imported.

With a financial sanctions war declared, what happens next?  There
have been some hints.

On February 25 the Wall Street Journal reported that Treasury was
considering sanctioning Iran's central bank (known as Bank Markazi).
"The central bank is the keystone of Iran's financial system and its
principal remaining lifeline to the international banking system,"
explains the Journal.  "U.S. sanctions against it could have a severe
impact on Iranian trade if other nations in Europe and Asia choose to
go along with them."  In anticipation of future events, the Journal
notes: "U.S. officials have begun trying to lay the groundwork for a
move against the central bank in public statements and meetings with
key allies."

So look for the following to happen in the coming weeks: FinCEN will
probably issue a Patriot Act Section 311 finding that Iran's central
bank is a "primary laundering concern."  The "deficiencies in Iran's
AML/CFT" wording lifted from the FATF statement will be a key reason
for that finding.  The finding may be accompanied by a formal decision
to cut off Iran's central bank from the US financial market, or such a
decision could come later.  Of course, an actual or threatened cut-off
has no immediate financial implications for Iran since no
Iranian-flagged bank is doing business in the US, except possibly to
allow shipments from the US of humanitarian provisions of food and
medicine, which, if they exist, probably terminate with the March 20
FinCEN announcement.

But a Section 311 designation of Iran's central bank would have a
powerful coercive effect on the world's banks.  For any bank in
Europe, Asia, or anywhere else that goes near the central bank once
the 311 blacklist is on, it would be the kiss of death for that bank's
participation in the international banking community, as it was (and
remains today) for BDA.  Not only would that bank be barred from the
US financial market, it would also be shunned by European and Japanese
financial markets, as government and private banking officials in
those markets are likely to cooperate with Washington's intensifying
sanctions campaign.

What about China, now one of the world's major financial centers (two
Chinese banks ranked among the top 25 in The Banker's 2007 survey of
world banks) and a major trading partner for Iran?

China and Japan "were the top two recipients of exports from Iran,
together accounting for more than one-quarter of Iran's exports in
2006," according to an analysis of International Monetary Fund (IMF)
trading statistics contained in a December 2007 US Government
Accountability Office (GAO) report on Washington's anti-Iran sanctions
regime.  On the import side, the GAO found that in 2006 "Germany and
China were Iran's largest providers of imports, accounting for 23
percent of Iran's imports."  Airtight global banking sanctions imposed
on Iran would presumably make the financial administration of this
trade next to impossible.

Will China bend to US sanctions wishes?  Early signs suggest the answer is yes.

In December 2007, ArabianBusiness.com reported that Chinese banks were
starting to decline to open letters of credit for Iranian traders.
Asadollah Asgaroladi, head of the Iran-China chamber of commerce, was
quoted as saying that China's banks did not explain the refusal but
"if this trend continues it will harm the two countries' economic
cooperation and trade exchange."  In February, ArabianBusiness.com
found that China's cutbacks in its banking business with Iran was
affecting a joint automobile production arrangement.

Such disruptions in the Chinese-Iranian banking relationship are
minor.  Meanwhile, Beijing keeps insisting that peaceful diplomacy
with Iran is the best policy and that the only sanctions needed are
those mandated under the three UN Security Council resolutions already
on the books.  Thus, to make China cooperate with Washington's
unilateral banking sanctions, the US and the EU, reports the Financial
Times, are apparently using a tag-team strategy.

On February 12, the FT told readers that "the US believes that tighter
EU sanctions will put pressure on other nations that do more business
with Iran -- China for example -- to curb their activities."
Therefore, explained an anonymous diplomat apparently from the US: "We
will be pushing the EU to go further than the Security Council," a
move intended, the diplomat said, to "gold plate" Security Council
requirements.

To explain this move the FT provided an example of "gold plating" from
2007, when the EU implemented UN Security Council resolutions 1737 and
1747 on Iran.

In similar language to the current text on Banks Saderat and Melli,
the UN had called for "vigilance and restraint" concerning the
movements of individuals linked to Iran's nuclear and missile
programmes and members of its Revolutionary Guard.  But in
implementing the resolutions, the EU subjected all the named
individuals to a travel ban -- a much tougher measure.

Reading between the lines, the intention behind "gold plating"
Security Council resolutions is to put pressure on China to bow to a
more aggressive US-EU sanctions program.  In the case of the most
recent Security Council resolution on Iran, 1803, which put sanctions
on two Iranian banks, FinCEN rolled two "gold plating" actions into
one.  It combined the Security Council's naming of the two banks with
the October and February FATF statements to justify its March 20
warning to the world that Iran's entire banking system is a danger.
Whether the EU will follow FinCEN's action, and how China will respond
to any of this, remains to be seen.

In short, the US has in effect declared war on Iran.  No bombs need
fall as long as the US strategy relies solely on financial sanctions.
But if the US Section 311 designates Iran's central bank as a
financial criminal, the impact will be the financial equivalent to the
first bombs falling on Baghdad at the start of the US-UK invasion of
Iraq in March 2003.

In a 1996 publication written for the National Defense University,
Harlan Ullman and James Wade introduced a military doctrine for
"affecting the adversary's will to resist through imposing a regime of
Shock and Awe to achieve strategic aims and military objectives."

Former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld made Shock and Awe famous
by invoking it as the US strategy in the attack on Iraq in March 2003
(though weeks later Ullman was claiming Rumsfeld was misapplying the
doctrine).

But Shock and Awe's authors (apparently with something like Vietnam or
the 1993-1994 Somalia fiasco in mind) also envisioned that "[i]n
certain circumstances, the costs of having to resort to lethal force
may be too politically expensive in terms of local support as well as
support in the U.S. and internationally."  Consequently, they wrote:

     Economic sanctions are likely to continue to be a preferable political
     alternative or a necessary political prelude to an offensive military
     step. . .   In a world in which nonlethal sanctions are a political
     imperative, we will continue to need the ability to shut down all
     commerce into and out of any country from shipping, air, rail, and
     roads.  We ought to be able to do this in a much more thorough,
     decisive, and shocking way than we have in the past . . .
     Weapons that shock and awe, stun and paralyze, but do not kill in
     significant numbers may be the only ones that are politically
     acceptable in the future.

It was only a matter of finding a sanctions strategy systematic enough
to make this more obscure portion of the Shock and Awe doctrine
operational.  What Ullman and Wade could not have imagined was that
Washington's global planners would use extraterritorial legal powers
and its financial clout to coerce the global banking industry into
accepting US foreign policy diktat.  North Korea was a test-run for
the new strategy of Shock and Awe financial sanctions.  As Washington
Post columnist David Ignatius put it in February 2007, "[t]he new
sanctions are toxic because they effectively limit a country's access
to the global ATM.  In that sense, they impose -- at last -- a real
price on countries such as North Korea and Iran."

What then will the impact be of this US-Iran banking standoff?  For
the US, almost no impact at all.  Treasury bureaucrats will spend some
time and a little taxpayer money making phone calls, checking computer
screens and paper trails to monitor global banking compliance with
sanctions.  The cost of financially ostracizing Iran will be a bargain
for US taxpayers compared with the eventual $3 trillion cost of the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars estimated by Nobel prize-winning economist
Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard financial expert Linda Bilmes.

Iran, however, will become another Gaza or Iraq under the economic
sanctions of the 1990s, with devastating impact on economy and
society.  That Iran's complete financial and economic destruction is
the goal of US policy was spelled out by the State Department the day
before the FinCEN announcement.

During a daily press meeting with reporters on March 19, the State
Department's spokesperson was asked about a deal recently signed
between Switzerland and Iran to supply Iranian natural gas to Europe.
After condemning the deal, the spokesperson explained that the US is
opposed to any "investing in Iran, not only in its petroleum or
natural gas area but in any sector of its economy" and questioned
rhetorically the wisdom of doing business with Iranian "financial
institutions that are under UN sanctions or could become under
sanctions if it's found that they are assisting or aiding or abetting
Iran's nuclear program in any way."   A clearer expression of US
desires is hardly possible.

John McGlynn is an independent Tokyo-based economic and financial
analyst.  His three reports on the US use of financial sanctions
against North Korea in the Banco Delta case are available at Japan
Focus: "North Korean Criminality Examined: The US Case, Part I" (18
May 2007); "Financial Sanctions and North Korea: In Search of the
Evidence of Currency Counterfeiting and Money Laundering, Part II" (7
July 2007); and "Banco Delta Asia, North Korea's Frozen Funds and US
Undermining of the Six-Party Talks: Obstacles to a Solution, Part III"
(9 June 2007).  Email: jmcgtokyo@xxxxxxxxxx  This article was written
for Japan Focus and posted on 22 March 2008.  It is reproduced here
for educational purposes.

-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>