"HELP THE NEEDY" PROSECUTIONS:

The three central New York men who have been accused of violating sanctions against Iraq by collecting money for Iraqi children have begun to suffer serious repercussions even though they have only been charged with crimes. Fox news out of Albany reports that Osameh Al Wahaidy has been suspended from his job as a prison chaplain. Read also the Syracuse Post Standard article here, and the Austin-American Statesman's article here. Findlaw's story based on the wire reports is available here. SUNY-Oswego's newspaper, the Oswegonian, has an article here. Two of the men have been denied bail, and one was (I believe) released on bail after surrendering his passport and putting up his house as collateral. Read the Post Standard article from Friday here.

Ashcroft's announcement of the arrests last week, as reported in the Statesman article, was as follows:

``As President Bush leads an international coalition to end Saddam Hussein's tyranny and support for terror, the Justice Department will see that individuals within our borders cannot undermine these efforts. [. . .] Those who covertly seek to channel money into Iraq under the guise of charitable work will be caught and prosecuted.''

You can see Ashcroft's strategy here: link these kinds of prosecutions to the attempt to wage war against Iraq and the war on terrorism. The indictment gives no indication of the ultimate source for the funds that the government says were illegally sent to Iraq through a Jordanian bank. You can read the indictment here. The indictment makes no claim that Help the Needy was any way involved in terrorism, and the government has consistently denied that there is an explicit connection. But the initial announcements seem to create the presumption that there is some link. The Findlaw story quotes U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby below:

The indictments contained no allegations of terrorism. And U.S. Attorney Glenn Suddaby said he does not know where the money went or what it was intended for.

"That's one of the questions we are unable to answer," Suddaby said at a news conference. "As money makes its way into Iraq, it becomes exceedingly difficult to say where it ends up."

All the protestations that these men are "innocent until proven guilty" will look cynical, at best, in the current environment. This case illustrates one of the main dangers of the war on terrorism, namely, that it will draw other prosecutions into its wake and lead to extraordinary difficulties for those charged -- and presumed innocent -- of crimes. Meanwhile, the private difficulties involved in being charged -- and presumed innocent -- commence for these men.

Let's just say [or assume for the moment] that all these men did was send money to Iraq for charitable causes without the requisite paperwork and approval. For an administration that says that it does not "use food as a weapon," the charges seem harsh indeed (and somewhat in tension with the theory of sanctions, at the margins).