White House Says Shutdown Hampers Syrian, Iran Sanctions
Hey, another argument in its favor
The Obama administration's efforts to pressure Iran, Syria and others are inhibited by the government shutdown, White House press secretary Jay Carney suggested Friday.
The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has had to furlough all but 11 of its 175 full-time employees, "meaning that the office is unable to sustain its core functions," Carney said. President Obama will be briefed on the office's shutdown operations later Friday afternoon.
That means its work including issuing new sanctions designations against "those enabling the governments of Iran and Syria, as well as terrorist organizations, WMD proliferators, narcotics cartels and transnational organized crime groups" is impeded. The office also investigates sanctions violations and offers penalties, issuing licenses for humanitarian activities, and issuing new sanctions prohibitions.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
WH claims shutdown causes bad weather!
Obama, STFU.