Four American soldiers have been arrested for trying to steal nearly US$1 million found hidden in former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's Baghdad palaces, it was reported Wednesday.
Three are accused of taking US$600,000 in US$100 bills and hiding them in a tree, while the fourth allegedly took US$300,000 and stashed it in several places, including the glove compartment of his truck.
Jonathan Foreman, a New York Post reporter with the 4th Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment, in Baghdad, quoted Major Kent Rideout saying that the men would be court martialled.
The arrests were made after troops found US$656 million hidden behind breeze blocks in a district near the Tigris river last week. A further US$112 million was found this week.
Brigadier General Vincent Brooks said at central command in Qatar that efforts would be made to discover whether the cash was genuine.
If it was, it would be returned to the Iraqi people. The cash, thought to have been abandoned by Baath party officials and Republican Guard officers when they fled the capital, has been moved to the international airport for safe keeping.
Officers discovered that some had been stolen after realizing that one of the 37 strongboxes they found -- each containing US$4 million -- had been opened without authorization.
"You can understand how the greed took over, when just one wad of this cash can pay off your mortgage, send your kids to school, etc," the Post quoted an officer as saying.
The parallel with the David Russell film Three Kings, in which three US soldiers try to steal suitcases full of gold bullion taken by Iraq from Kuwait at the end of the 1991 Gulf War, did not go unremarked.
The Pentagon and the military authorities in Qatar and Kuwait said they were trying to confirm the arrests.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
TRAGEDY STRIKES TAIPEI: The suspect died after falling off a building after he threw smoke grenades into Taipei Main Station and went on a killing spree in Zhongshan A 27-year-old suspect allegedly threw smoke grenades in Taipei Main Station and then proceeded to Zhongshan MRT Station in a random killing spree that resulted in the death of the suspect and two other civilians, and seven injured, including one in critical condition, as of press time last night. The suspect, identified as a man surnamed Chang Wen (張文), allegedly began the attack at Taipei Main Station, the Taipei Fire Department said, adding that it received a report at 5:24pm that smoke grenades had been thrown in the station. One man in his 50s was rushed to hospital after a cardiac arrest
ON ALERT: Taiwan’s partners would issue warnings if China attempted to use Interpol to target Taiwanese, and the global body has mechanisms to prevent it, an official said China has stationed two to four people specializing in Taiwan affairs at its embassies in several democratic countries to monitor and harass Taiwanese, actions that the host nations would not tolerate, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, which asked him and Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) to report on potential conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and military preparedness. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) expressed concern that Beijing has posted personnel from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to its
RSS