WASHINGTON – A Senate panel Thursday challenged the Bush administration to explain why it had not imposed economic or other sanctions against charitable organizations with Saudi Arabian connections that have been identified as helping to finance terrorist activities.

The hearing before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which was co-chaired by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., drew repeated evasive answers from government officials.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control apparently has identified a group of suspect organizations but the Governmental Affairs Committee has been unable to obtain the list.

On Thursday morning, the New York Times reported that four of the charitable groups were Al Haramain Charitable Foundation, International Islamic Relief Organization, Muslim World League, and World Assembly of Muslim Youth.

Collins, afterward, pinned the blame on the State Department and the Bush administration.

“I found the amount of evidence linking the Saudi government to the charities astounding,” Collins said. “I was surprised that the Treasury official [Richard Newcomb] was not more forthcoming. Treasury has repeatedly recommended that certain Saudi entities that he listed on the terrorists financing list be sanctioned. He told us he has actually been frustrated that his recommendations have been rejected by the State Department.”

Collins acknowledges that the Bush administration and the State Department are “trying to balance a very difficult diplomatic situation in the Middle East.” But, she added, “We have been too patient too long in waiting for the Saudis to take a more aggressive approach toward charitable organizations that are largely fronts.”

In some instances, Newcomb said, putting an organization in the political bull’s-eye might jeopardize investigations or clandestine activities designed to get to the root of terrorist operations.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the senior Democrat participating in the hearing, pressed Newcomb to admit the names of the entities that have been recommended were not classified and should be offered formally to the committee. The government official said he did not have those names at hand, and was instructed – first by Levin, and then by Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark. – to turn that information over to the committee within 24 hours.

“That was just a bit of theater, I think,” Collins said afterward, expressing her skepticism that the committee would be given any list of names.

The tone of the senatorial inquiries was focused on whether the Bush administration was in some way protecting challenges to Saudi activities for foreign policy reasons.

Private sector witnesses testified that many of the terrorist organizations were known to have been directly funded through Saudi charitable groups that purport to be nongovernmental, but actually are headed by Saudi government officials supposedly acting outside official capacity.