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Sept 2001
The Central Intelligence Agency says Saddam Hussein has joined the world's Top One Hundred Billionaires.

The foundation for Saddam Hussein's fortune was laid in a secret deal Iraq made with the late Shah of Iran. The details are in a CIA secret report that has been sent to the World Bank and leading financi institutions. The report places Saddam's current personal fortune as close to 1.7 billion US dollars. The CIA reports says that the exact whereabouts of the money is not known - but suggests that some could be in Chinese banks in Hong Kong.

More certain is that the story of how Saddam came to join the world's top 100 billionaires has all the hallmarks of his ruthless style.

In 1978 the Shah knew that his rule was about to end and that the gilded Peacock Throne from which he had ruled with such brutality was about to go into meltdown. Entire cities in Iran had become closed citadels controlled by the clergy of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Beyond the expanding borders of Islamic Fundamentalism, teams of the Ayatollah's accountants, trained by Wall Street and the Swiss banking system, were combing the world to try and confiscate the Shah's huge fortune. Over the years he had built up portfolios in every financial market. His investments on Wall Street alone were estimated at over 200 million US dollars.

Anticipating Khomeini's determination to confiscate the money in the name of the Islamic revolution, the Shah had made an incredible move to protect his wealth.

For months in 1978 his most trusted aides had held secret meetings in Paris and Geneva with representatives of Iran's sworn enemy - Iraq.

The Shah had reasoned that even the most diligent of the Ayatollah's accountants would be unable to gain access to Iraq's banks.

"The deal they were proposing was bizarre even by the old adage that money knows no barriers," confirmed Yoel Ben Porat, an acknowledged expert on Saddam's financial affairs.

Stripped to its essential the deal the Shah's men were proposing was breathtaking simple. The Shah would transfer a substantial portion of his personal fortune that had not been frozen by the Ayatollah's accountants into accounts to be managed by the Shah's surrogates. They would place the funds in Iraqi banks.

The bankers in Baghdad would receive a "handling fee" of 1.5 per cent for arranging this unique facility.

"It was a deal that could only have made Saddam believe that Allah was smiling on him," said David Jensen, a Hong Kong-based financial analyst.

"Until he came to power in July 1979, Saddam had been relatively impoverished. Raised in almost abject poverty, he had never had sufficient money to finance his grandiose schemes.

"And the war with Iran was biting ever deeper into the Iraqi economy. Loans from the United States, Britain and Europe were all tightly controlled. There was little opportunity for him to get his hands on ready cash," said Jensen.

The deal with the Shah changed all that. In a matter of days after the arrangements had been agreed, some one billion US dollars were withdrawn from US banks and transferred into accounts held by Iraq in Swiss banks.

From there the money was transferred to the numbered accounts Saddam Hussein held in Geneva, Paris, the Cayman Islands and the City of London.

The Shah was unaware of what had happened until he fled to the West in 1979. There he learned where his money had gone.

"His appeals to Washington to intervene fell on deaf ears," Ben Porat would recall. "The United States realised they had made a bad move in not backing the Ayatollah. The only card they could play was to support Saddam. There was no way Washington was going to ask him to pay back the Shah. The Shah was yesterday's man."

With his first billion safely stashed away, Saddam then turned to another unlikely source to advise him on how to enhance his easy-won fortune.

Financier Roland Rowland was invited to Baghdad by an Egyptian lawyer, Soubi Roushdi, a legal adviser to one of the Iraqi banks involved in ripping off the Shah.

For Saddm it was a perfect choice. Rowland had a deserved reputation as a financial terrorist, a manipulative conspirator. In the City of London he had become a detested figure. But in personality and ruthlessness, he matched Saddam.

Rowland, known as "Tiny" to his friends, had been born in India, the son of a German businessman and an Englishwoman. In his youth he had become a supporter of Hitler, a liking he shared with Saddam. The other attraction they shared was anti-Semitism.

Impressively rich and powerful, Rowland dazzled Saddam with his tales of financial acumen. Soon Saddam moved in exalted circles. From London came figures like Edward du Cann, a senior member of the Conservative Party, and Duncan Sandys, who had been Winston Churchill's son-in-law.

From them and others, Saddam learned the lessons of making his money work. His portfolios began to grow. Ten years after he had acquired the Shah's money, Saddam Hussein had doubled his fortune.

He arranged for the world's leading financial journals to be flown in from New York and London on the day of publication. Later, when the newspapers established web-sites, Saddam would pore over them.

The Gulf War proved to be a mere blip on his race to join the world's leading billionaires.

Mossad monitored a meeting between Saddam and the late King Hussein of Jordan in which the Iraqi leader threatened to bomb Amman - unless the king made "a contribution to the poor people of Iraq". The king refused.

After the Gulf War, Saddam turned the business of building his fortune over to his son, Uday. Reports that this centered on stealing money from the limited oil exports Iraq is allowed --to pay for essential medical supplies - have come from Western intelligence sources.

One way that Saddam and his son have been able to manipulate money is through the Internet. "There is no way to check on their activities on the Internet. By the time any investigation can get close, Saddam and his people will have moved on. Patrolling the Internet financial world is something that has yet to be effected. You can hide anybody and anything behind a web site," said David Jensen.

One thing for sure is that Saddam will have invested part of his billionaire's fortune in the most advanced computer system to roam the Internet.

This material is Copyright Gordon Thomas © 2000 Gordon Thomas

For publishing rights, contact the author at gordon@gordonthomas.ie