Libya sanctions: Three days to freeze $32 billion
March 23rd, 2011 | Treasury | Posted by Stephen Losey
"They took WHAT?" (Photo by Mahmud Turkia/Getty Images)
The Washington Post just posted a great story looking inside the Treasury Department’s mad dash to freeze $32 billion in assets held by Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi. Treasury employees worked nearly nonstop to quickly target Libyan assets in 72 hours — a process that would have taken weeks or months in previous years.
Several things were on Treasury’s side: Valuable lessons learned from previous economic sanctions, the discovery that the $100 million in assets they believed Gaddafi held was actually 300 times greater, and the rise of electronic banking networks that made it easier to track and crack down on the funds.
But Treasury also had dedicated public servants who seized their chance to make history, as this quote from Office of Foreign Asset Control Director Adam Szubin shows:
Szubin said the effort was “incredibly intense, but in the best way.”
“This is what we’re here to do, is for moments like this when there is a crisis. I don’t know what more you could ask as a career civil servant than the White House turning to you and saying, ‘We need you. We need you to move incredibly fast. How quickly can you deliver?’ ”
These are the kind of stories that can make it easier for agencies to recruit new employees. After all, you can’t do that in the private sector.
Tags: Libya, noteable feds, recruitment
Comments
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fedemp Says:
March 24th, 2011 at 11:46 amWe always rise to the occassion!!
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baron boxer Says:
March 24th, 2011 at 5:50 pmYou mean that we may finally be in a war that will pay for itself?
How much of it can we claim?