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| Iraq |
| U.S. Believes Syrian Banks Hold $3 Billion in Iraqi Funds |
| 2003-10-21 |
| By DOUGLAS JEHL NY Times October 21, 2003 WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 — American 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. SOP A United Nations resolution passed after the American-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 said the $3 billion, most of it in Syria, was by far the largest American discovery to date of Iraqi money outside Iraq. |
| Posted by:mojo |