George Bush weighed in on the controversial story published this weekend on the Swift project that exposed the covert tactics used to track terrorist financing. Speaking at a briefing in the White House, Bush called the Times disclosure "disgraceful":

President Bush on Monday sharply condemned the disclosure of a secret anti-terrorism program that taps into an immense international database of confidential financial records. "The disclosure of this program is disgraceful," he said.

"For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America," Bush said. He said the disclosure of the program "makes it harder to win this war on terror." ... "Congress was briefed and what we did was fully authorized under the law," Bush said, talking with reporters in the Roosevelt Room after meeting with groups that support U.S. troops in
Iraq.

"We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America," the president said. "What we were doing was the right thing."

The president appeared animated and visibly angered at the mention of the story published by the Times. He reminded everyone that the 9/11 Commission recommended that the government follow terrorist financing "robustly", and reminded everyone that no laws had been broken in the effort. When asked why the administration did not allow Congress to conduct oversight on the program, he visibly bristled at the suggestion. "Congress was briefed," he replied immediately.

Here's what the 9/11 Commission recommended (page 382):

Recommendation: Vigorous efforts to track terrorist financing must remain front and center in U.S. counterterrorism efforts.The government has recognized that information about terrorist money helps us to understand their networks, search them out, and disrupt their operations. Intelligence and law enforcement have targeted the relatively small number of financial facilitators—individuals al Qaeda relied on for their ability to raise and deliver money—at the core of al Qaeda’s revenue stream. These efforts have worked. The death or capture of several important facilitators has decreased the amount of money available to al Qaeda and has increased its costs and difficulty in raising and moving that money. Captures have additionally provided a windfall of intelligence that can be used to continue the cycle of disruption.

That sounds pretty clear. The 9/11 Commission, over which the Times has endlessly fawned, demanded that the US implement "vigorous efforts" to track terrorist financing in order to prevent another attack. As Bush points out, the Swift project did just that, without breaking laws or endangering civil liberties, according to the Times' own reporting. Bill Keller blew the program and tipped the terrorists anyway, in order to improve the finances of the Times.

New Yorkers who complained about DHS funding and demanded recognition as the #1 terrorist target in the US should ask themselves why their newspaper is assisting the terrorists instead of the nation's defense. If Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton do not condemn Keller and the Times for leaving us all just a little more vulnerable. If they stay silent, we know that, just like Bill Keller, all they care about is their own grasp of money rather than that of the terrorists.

UPDATE: Allahpundit has the video at Hot Air.

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