In challenging Center ‘Terrorism Investments’ report, five national associations confirm the problem

Center Calls on Pension Funds, Other Organizations to Join Effort to Prevent Investors’ Unwitting Exposure to ‘Global Security Risk’

(Washington,D.C.): The Center for Security Policy today released a detailed response to a 30 August joint letter sent by five organizations concerned with various aspects of America’s public pension funds’ management and financial operations. The letter to Center President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. was signed by the heads of: the National Association of State Retirement Administrators; the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers; the National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems; the National Conference of State Legislators; and the National Council on Teacher Retirement. As Mr. Gaffney noted in his four-page response (a copy of which is attached), while the signers were critical of a recent Center report entitled, "Terrorism Investments of the 50 States," their organizations and spokesmen have actually affirmed the main thrust of that report.

For example, in a press release accompanying their joint letter, the signatories called attention to an Economic Terrorism Commission they created shortly after the 9/11 attacks at the instigation of Pennsylvania Treasurer Barbara Hafer. Ms. Hafer is quoted as saying "We want nothing more than to ensure we are reinforcing national security policies through our investment positions."

Interestingly, on the occasion of launching the Commission, Ms. Hafer went even further, declaring:

Today, we established a consensus with state governments throughout the country. It was an essential first step to insure states’ pension fund investments do not inadvertently support terrorism. If we [state governments] work collectively in waging the financial war, it could be as effective as the war with bullets and bombs.

When you affect the bottom line, you affect real change. We need to make it expensive for terrorist groups to do business — take away their ability to launder money and to intertwine their activities with legitimate enterprises. [Emphasis added throughout.]

In releasing his response to the joint letter, Mr. Gaffney observed: "We could not agree more with Treasurer Hafer’s recognition of the problem posed by public pension’s investments in companies doing business with terrorist-sponsoring regimes. Now, it is incumbent upon those funds and other American investors to address this problem — and, thereby, to make a real contribution to the war on terror by joining, not resisting, the Center’s DivestTerror.org campaign.