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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (97508)	5/6/2003 12:31:23 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 281500

NYT~ Hussein's Son Took $1 Billion Just Before War, Bank Aide Says (Page 2 of 2) Mr. Hussein held near-absolute power in his government, and so, in a sense, it is unclear what laws might have been violated by the cash seizure. But the Iraqi bank official said the country's banks had been largely left alone during Mr. Hussein's years in power. He said the president and his family would sometimes demand cash from Iraqi banks but not in the amounts said to have been taken on March 18. Advertisement "Sometimes they would come in for small amounts, maybe $5 million," the official said. In the case of the $1 billion, the official said Qusay Hussein and Mr. Mahmood had brought five Iraqi officials with them to the bank: the director of the Central Bank, the Iraqi finance minister and the director of the Iraqi treasury. The only others present, he said, were workers to load the money and the drivers of the trucks. The Iraqi official, as well as others in Baghdad, said the former Iraqi finance minister, identified as Hekmet al-Azawi, was in American custody. George Mullinax, an official with the Treasury Department, said the money had been taken by "Saddam Hussein's people." He put the figure taken at about $900 million. "If you had $900 million dollars, you would need two or three flatbed trucks to carry it all away," he said. Mr. Mullinax said it was possible that a large chunk of the money had already been recovered. He said the roughly $650 million in American $100 bills discovered by an American sergeant in one of Mr. Hussein's palaces last month might be from the Central Bank. He said that had not been determined for certain. The Iraqi official, however, said the $650 million certainly belonged to Mr. Hussein's eldest son, Uday, who, he said, was known for hoarding vast stores of personal cash. "That was Uday's money," he said. American and Iraqi officials have recovered other large sums of cash since the fall of the Hussein government. Last month, Iraqi bank officials, with the help of American soldiers, recovered an armored car loaded with about $250 million in American currency. Dhia Habib al-Khyoun, chairman of Rafidain Bank, one of Iraq's largest, said the $250 million had been gathered into the armored car from branch banks around the country. While it was unclear for what purpose the $1 billion was taken, it seems clear that Mr. Hussein took steps in the dying days of his government to safeguard at least some of its money. In early March, Mr. Khyoun said, he was ordered to disburse the Rafidain's Bank hard currency deposits to branches around Baghdad. He said the goal was to safeguard some hard currency in case the headquarters of the bank was bombed. Mr. Mullinax, the Treasury official, said he believed that the Central Bank's vaults had not been opened since the beginning of the war. But the Iraqi official said some 18 billion Iraqi dinars, or about $9 million, had been taken by looters from the bank. American troops have since sealed off the area around the Central Bank and have barred entry to all but its employees. nytimes.com