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US President George W. Bush on Monday sharply criticized the disclosure of a secret program in which US anti-terrorism officials monitor personal banking transactions.

 

Calling the disclosure "disgraceful," Bush said: "For people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America."

 

He made the remarks when talking with reporters in the White House after meeting with groups that support US troops in Iraq.

 

"Congress was briefed, and what we did was fully authorized under the law," Bush said.

 

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

 

The New York Times reported Friday that under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the September 11 attacks, US counter terrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the US.

 

The program, run by the Central Intelligence Agency and overseen by the Treasury Department, is limited to tracing transactions of people suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda.

 

However, the report said US officials involved in the program never seek court-approved warrants or subpoenas to examine specific transactions, instead relying on broad administrative subpoenas for millions of banking records.

 

The program was then confirmed by US Treasury Secretary John Snow, who defended the secret monitoring as being legal and justified.

 

(Xinhua News Agency June 27, 2006)