Remotely Disturbing News About Saddam

[Swaggs]

Geez...that title sounds a little too much like one of mrskippy's.

This is cut from the urban legends website (great website for those unfamiliar with it, btw): http://www.snopes2.com/

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Saddam Hussein's personal fortune is estimated to number in the billions of dollars, and some financial analysts guess it to be between 10 and 20 billion. His secret financial network is made up mostly of shell companies registered in tax havens by lawyers purportedly representing someone else. The hunt for Saddam's money has gone on for years, but his trove has proved to be well hidden and has defied the efforts of those who have searched for it.

Investigators have long believed that much of Saddam's fortune is in Switzerland, squirreled away in a maze of secret accounts, dummy corporations, and front companies which are shielded from public scrutiny by Swiss banking laws. The architect of this secret financial network, Barzan al-Tikriti, Saddam's half brother, lived in Geneva from 1989 to 1998 as the Iraqi ambassador to the European headquarters of the United Nations.

Montana Management is one such deceptive repository. It has been registered in Panama since 1984, and in 1989, when Montana first declared its stake in Lagardere, it claimed to be a holding company representing a group of several non-European investors from various Persian Gulf countries. In 1991, detectives working for the Kuwaiti government said Montana had been set up by Barzan al-Tikriti, to channel secret Iraqi funds abroad. Contrary to Montana's claims about its ownership, the Panamanian government announced in 1991 that Montana was managed by three Iraqis living in Baghdad.

Hachette reacted to the 1991 news of Montana's true ownership by freezing the block of its shares owned by that holding company, so neither Saddam Hussein nor anyone else involved with Montana Management has profited from sales of Hachette-published magazines for well over a decade. (Spokespeople for Hachette also said at the time that Saddam Hussein has no editorial control over their publications.) Hachette has talked of their buying out Saddam's interests ever since the Persian Gulf war in 1991, but that hasn't happened.
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Hatchette is the publisher of Elle, Car & Driver, and Women's Day.

[Easy Mac]

Hmmm, those 3 magazines are in our school's bookstore each week... Fucking Saddam sneaking into our colleges.

[mrskippy]

Actually nobody knows for sure exactly how much Saddam is worth. But the belief is that he has enough to go into exile and support terrorism. Hence the reason why the United States was his unconditional surrender and not just some exile deal.

It's also the reason why officials are working to freeze his assets. Those billions could be just about any WMD Saddam or the terrorist organizations wanted.

[Easy Mac]

Originally posted by mrskippy
Hence the reason why the United States was his unconditional surrender and not just some exile deal.

Actually from CNN:
January 31, 2003
Warning that the timetable for diplomacy was now "weeks not months" Bush said, "for the sake of peace, this issue must be resolved."
Speaking before meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the White House, "Hopefully, it can be done peacefully. Hopefully, the pressure of the free world will convince Mr. Saddam Hussein to relinquish power.
"And should he choose to leave the country along with a lot of the other henchmen who have tortured the Iraqi people, we would welcome that, of course."
Bush's comments marked the first time he has endorsed the prospect of exile for Saddam. But, he added, "The goal of disarming Iraq remains the same, no matter who is in charge of the government."

[mrskippy]

Well the exile thing ... belief was that almost any nation he exiled to would have killed him or turned him over.

What the United States doesn't want is for him to go into hiding in another country, like Syria. I heard that he may have tunnels between Iraq adn Syria.

[Fritz]

Originally posted by mrskippy
What the United States doesn't want is for him to go into hiding in another country, like Syria. I heard that he may have tunnels between Iraq adn Syria.

If the tunnel starts in Baghdad then it is one of the wonders of the world.

[mrskippy]

Syrian Ambassador on TV this morning called Baghdad the "historic Arab capital"