Customer Reviews

Hide and Seek: Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and the Stalled War on Terrorist Finance

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

John Cassara has the credibility to write about what he knows. Although many in Washington want to think the "War on Terror" is over or at least passe, Cassara's book outlines what should be an ongoing concern-- the way to stop terrorism is to dry up their resources. A better way would be to make everyone just "get along" but since that will never happen in our lifetimes, Cassara paints a picture of what must be done if we are going to win the battle against terrorism. This is a must read for any law enforcement or intelligence officer involved today in the battle to prevent acts of terrorism in their community. Great book.

HIDE AND SEEK: INTELLIGENCE, LAW ENFORCEMENT, AND THE STALLED WAR ON TERRORIST FINANCE is a 'must' for any who would understand one of the failures of the U.S. in 9/11. John Cassara is an expert in terrorist financing and money laundering and here surveys the lack of reporting requirements before 9/11, efforts since, and how the failures of law enforcement have helped foster terrorist efforts. HIDE AND SEEK could not have been written without an insider's knowledge of how foreign intelligence, domestic efforts, and international finance works: the fact that John Cassara has such knowledge lends authority and depth to a survey which encourages law to follow the unusual paths of international terrorism's money networks.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

The author provides an insightful and at time intense criticism of inner governmental workings. Depicting through first hand experience the bureaucratic failures that have resulted in the continued operation of many criminal and terrorist financial networks. The removal of these "financial networks" is crucial, to ensure our victory in the "War on Drugs" and "War on Terror". These failures can cost lives, as so dramatically depicted by the author. To someone who seeks to pursue a career in government service, like myself; this book is an invaluable tool. In depicting the failures of previous generations of government employees, it serves as a "wake up" call to both current and future governmental employees. This will help to prevent these errors from continuing to happen in the future. Finally, the authors' career serves as an example of excellence in government service, that the new generation of government service employees should aim for in their career.

I'm sort of a government/spy stories buff, and I really enjoyed this book. The first half is sort of a story, almost like reading a novel, while the second half is almost instructional. The author makes a lot of good recommendations in the last chapter. This guy should go into politics!

John A. Cassara, a former CIA Case Officer and Treasury Special Agent, delivers an autobiography of his career while providing policy prescriptions for more effectively curtailing terrorism finance. Most notably, Cassara illustrates the role of trade-based money laundering in moving funds throughout global criminal networks and the necessity of developing intelligence and enforcement tools to impede trade-based money laundering. As Cassara quickly explains, this book is not a source for professional peers but an overview of Cassara's career and insight on terrorist finance for the layperson. In other words, Cassara has refrained from pursuing a great deal of depth in exchange for accessibility.

Response:

Cassara's book suffers from serious structural flaws. Instead of systematically discussing topics and pointedly critiquing U.S. agencies' responses to terrorist finance. Cassara's writing has a tendency to pursue numerous tangents and suffers from an inability to develop a cohesive argument throughout much of the book. It is evident that Cassara could easily devote an entire chapter to the topics of hawala, gold transfer, and trade based money laundering. Cassara also attempts to examine reasons for how intelligence failures led to September 11. Unfortunately, none of these discussions are given the depth or priority they disserve and are intermingled throughout the book. And as a result, the book falls far short of its potential. Given the subject matter and the numerous points Cassara attempts to make, a chronological structure does not best serve the interests of the book.

Likely as a result of Cassara's unwillingness to pursue a degree of professional rigor within his writing, Cassara discusses several topics briefly and with unsubstantiated claims that greatly weaken his ethos.

For example, Cassara mentions the need to strictly enforce immigration laws as a policy prescription for successfully combating terrorist finance. He claims that the majority of the American people do not want amnesty programs or easier paths to citizenship. The only reason that Congress has not pursued tougher regulation is because of "big-business interests." These claims by Cassara are not backed by evidence of any kind. A brief remark about the importance of immigration policy and how the current status quo is not sustainable within the United States would be understandable but Cassara employs shortsighted analysis without evidence to advocate for a particular interpretation of an extraordinarily complex topic. While most of the book seems to be the result of thorough analysis, trite arguments such as this only weaken Cassara's more pertinent conclusions.

There are few arguments by Cassara that are fully developed and the reader must take the vast majority of his claims on good faith.

Bottom Line:

Cassara may have deliberately chosen to avoid a great deal of depth in order to obtain broad accessibility but fails to succeed in either regard. Writing an engaging book is no small feat and Cassara simply does not have the skills to pull it off. The result is a book that lacks both information and engagement. Undoubtedly, Cassara has the background and insight to present a foundational book in the field of terrorist finance but his choice to write for the layperson has produced a book that is neither valuable for the layperson nor the professional.

For more reviews and a summary of Cassara's main points, find us at Hand of Reason.

This is an exceptional book. Informative, interesting, personal, well written. John Cassara has done a great favor for the intelligence and law enforcement communities, but this book is just as relevant to a layperson with no experience in these fields. I have learned a lot about illicit finance, terrorism, and federal law enforcement operations. Additionally, I learned a lot about the Middle Eastern culture, a subject Mr. Cassara treats with respect and expertise. This book, like his career, deserves credit as a great public service.

This book is not only exquisitely written but extremely informative as well. The utter incompetence of high-level government employees that is exposed by Cassara is enough to make your blood boil. If you thought the government was infallible, think again. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who is concerned with the well-being of our country.

What a great book! My husband somehow was able to get a copy of the book a few days before it came out (he lives for this type of stuff), and I picked it up the other day while he was at work. Four hours later, I was finished. I couldn't put it down. My reading usually consists of romance novels (I'm not ashamed), and to be honest, I only picked up this book out of sheer boredome. Boredom turned to fascination very quickly, and I was hooked after reading just one chapter. While there is a good deal of government jargon, the auther does a great job of explaining everything. Still, what I liked most about the book were his stories. This guy has had an amazing life! So many adventures, I'd love to meet this guy just to hear him tell some stories. Not to diminish the importance of the book, as he does say a lot of things that our government should be paying attention to, but he's a great storyteller. He definitely puts a personal touch on a sticky subject. Anyway, it's a great book, and believe me, I usually stay away from these types of books. My husband and I actually sat down and discussed the book for almost 2 hours last night...he was very impressed with my knowledge. Great book, I hope he writes another one.

I never took much interest in the U.S. government until September 11th, 2001. After that, I read just about every book I could get my hands on that offered some sort of explanation for the terrible tragedy. Out of all of the literature I've read, Cassara's book is thusfar THE BEST post 9/11 work on the subject of terrorism and the inability of the U.S. government to check it. His premise makes perfect sense: if you cut off the money supply to the terrorists, you greatly hamper their ability to operate. Just like any organization or business, terrorists can't function without funding. Now, this isn't a new concept, and there have been other people who have touted the same logic, but no one has presented it as well as Cassara. I feel like an expert in terrorist finance after having read the book, and I'm certainly not a government agent of any kind. Not only that, his anecdotes are as entertaining as they are informative. You'll be left shaking your head at how certain government agencies can be so shortsighted. This book should be required reading material in our schools, so the next generation of law enforcement officials won't make the same mistakes twice. A very strong 5 stars.

I find John Cassara's non-fiction book, "Hide and Seek: Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and the Stalled War on Terrorist Finance" to be an extremely insightful book.

Mr. Cassara is quite correct in that foot intelligence is crucial in
establishing trust with your contacts, whether they be informants
or other agents within your field. It is by this method that the
CIA excel in recruiting agents in foreign countries.

"Hide and Seek: Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and the Stalled War on Terrorist Finance" provided a brilliant birds-eye view of the inner workings of the the CIA; Secret Service (one of my former Criminal Justice professors was also a Secret Service agent); FinCEN; IRS; and State Department. The credibility of the book is derived from
Mr. Cassara's tenure with these agencies as an ethical and
committed patriot whose belief in the country fuels his passion.

Regards,
Kelly Yip
February 27, 2009