This is what we get when our “war on terrorism” is run by a guy too lazy to “shake the trees” :

The Treasury Department agency entrusted with blocking the financial resources of terrorists has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden’s and Saddam Hussein’s money, documents show.

In addition, the Office of Foreign Assets Control said that between 1990 and 2003 it opened just 93 enforcement investigations related to terrorism. Since 1994 it has collected just $9,425 in fines for terrorism financing violations.

In contrast, OFAC opened 10,683 enforcement investigations since 1990 for possible violations of the long-standing economic embargo against Fidel Castro’s regime, and collected more than $8 million in fines since 1994, mostly from people who sent money to, did business with or traveled to Cuba without permission.
. . .
Sen. Max Baucus, the top Democrat on the senate Finance Committee, requested the figures, which showed that at the end of 2003, OFAC had 21 full-time agents working Cuba violations and just four full-time workers hunting bin Laden’s and Saddam’s riches.

“Rather than spending precious resources to prevent Americans from exercising their right to travel, OFAC must realign its priorities and instead work harder to keep very real terrorist threats out of our country,” said Baucus, D-Mont.

Yeah, yeah choking off the funding to terrorist groups is a big priority, but there are people within our midst smoking cigars from Cuba!! The first thing we need to do is seize the sales records of every bookstore in the country and find out who’s been reading Cigar Aficionado then we’ll be able to “smoke” these evildoers out of their penthouses…