Schumer Slams Obama’s Cuts to Anti-Terror Budget

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D – N.Y.) slammed the Obama administration’s proposed cut in funds for counter-terrorism programs nationwide as “ill-advised and ill-timed,” the Associated Press reported Sunday.

Under the White House’s proposed 2017 budget, which was released last week, federal funding to the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) would be reduced from $600 million to $330 million. “These proposed cuts are ill-advised and ill-timed and they must be reversed. End of story,” Schumer told the AP in a statement. “In light of recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and the vow by our extremist enemies to launch more attacks on our shores, it makes no sense to propose cuts to vital terror-prevention programs like UASI,” he added.

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Emanuele Ottolenghi of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told Congress last week that Iran “has long relied on Iranian nationals who are dual passport holders to pursue illegal activities, including terrorism, illicit finance, and procurement of technology for its ballistic-missile and nuclear-weapons programs.” Ottolenghi noted that “virtually all agents of the Iranian regime who over the past decade were involved in conspiracies to commit acts of terrorism, illicit financial activities, nuclear and ballistic procurement, were dual passport holders.” In answer to a question, he specifically named Mansour Arbabsiar, a dual Iranian-American national who was convicted for his involvement in a 2011 Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S.

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