Hussein's billions found, says U.S. [View All]

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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/10/21/MNGMT2FSGC1.DTL

Douglas Jehl, New York Times

Washington -- U.S. investigators have evidence that $3 billion that belonged to Saddam Hussein's government is being held in Syrian-controlled banks in Syria and Lebanon, Bush administration officials say.

A delegation led by the Treasury Department has spent nearly two weeks in Damascus trying to win access to accounts established by the former Iraqi government or its confederates, the officials said last week. Syria has promised to cooperate but has so far failed to do so, the officials said.

A U.N. resolution passed after the U.S.-led war against Iraq calls on all nations to seize and return to the American-administered Fund for Development in Iraq all assets of the former Baghdad government so they may be used to benefit the Iraqi people.

... The officials acknowledged that their information was not entirely up to date, and they said the American investigators, including a team from the Internal Revenue Service, did not know for sure whether the $3 billion was still in the banks.

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