Posted on 05/16/2003 3:31:29 AM PDT by kattracks
Most Looted Cash Is Recovered in Iraq
By SLOBODAN LEKIC .c The Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - U.S. officials believe they recovered most of the $1 billion taken from Iraq's central bank by one of Saddam Hussein's sons before the regime's collapse.
A total of $950 million - $850 million in U.S. currency and another $100 million in euros - were found by U.S.-led coalition troops in 191 boxes hidden in government palaces throughout Baghdad, U.S. Treasury officials said Thursday.
On March 18 - before coalition aerial strikes began - Saddam's youngest son Qusai ordered a central bank official to give him $1 billion in cash from Iraq's foreign exchange reserves. The 236 boxes were loaded onto three tractor-trailers. Identification certificates slipped into each box were still there when the money was found, Treasury officials said in Washington. They are still searching for 45 missing boxes.
``We are making good progress in finding funds,'' Treasury Undersecretary John Taylor said, adding that the money, along with other seized Iraqi government assets, will likely be devoted to the reconstruction effort.
Treasury officials announced earlier that a separate $495 million in Iraqi assets had been located in secret bank accounts in Lebanon.
Iraq's reconstruction will top the agenda when U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow meets in Deauville, France, this weekend with his counterparts from the world's seven richest industrial countries and Russia.
Washington wants to use those talks to resolve differences with France, Germany and Russia - three countries that opposed the U.S.-led war - over how reconstruction will proceed.
President Bush's administration also has been stepping up the pressure to obtain a U.N. Security Council resolution to immediately lift sanctions against Iraq.
Russia and France want sanctions suspended - not lifted - because Security Council resolutions call for U.N. inspectors to certify that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have been eliminated. Since the end of the war, the United States has barred U.N. inspectors.
The U.S. wants an immediate lift to sanctions - imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait - and a gradual phase out of the U.N. oil-for-food program.
``We think we've moved significantly,'' said Richard Grenell, spokesman for U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte.
The revised U.S. draft resolution does not significantly change two key concerns of many council members - the limited U.N. role and powerful position of the United States and Britain as occupying powers.
It would also end U.N. control over the country's vast oil wealth and allow the United States to use the money for the country's reconstruction.
``There are some things that are positive,'' said Fayssal Mekdad, the deputy U.N. ambassador of Syria, also a Security Council member. ``But the most sensitive issues are still here.''
L. Paul Bremer, the top American administrator in Iraq, said Thursday that U.S. authorities would improve security by rounding up thousands of criminals turned loose in March by the old regime. He reported 300 arrests in the previous 48 hours.
Bremer, a State Department aide, takes over from retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, whose administration was criticized for failing to stem the breakdown in law and order and to restore basic public services in Baghdad and other cities.
Bremer's team includes former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who said he has accepted a position as a senior policy adviser to Iraq's Interior Ministry.
A former undercover narcotics detective, Kerik led the New York police force through the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and was credited for a role in reducing crime.
05/16/03 05:42 EDT
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