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.
FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION: The UK would continue to reinforce ties with Taiwan ‘in a wide range of areas’ as a part of a ‘strong unofficial relationship,’ a paper said The UK plans to conduct more freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. British Member of Parliament Desmond Swayne said that the Royal Navy’s HMS Spey had passed through the Taiwan Strait “in pursuit of vital international freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” Swayne asked Lammy whether he agreed that it was “proper and lawful” to do so, and if the UK would continue to carry out similar operations. Lammy replied “yes” to both questions. The
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese
RSS