BAGHDAD -- Two Army sergeants ... stumbled across a sealed-up cottage that aroused their curiosity — and ultimately led to the discovery of an estimated $650 million in cash.
... in an exclusive Tigris River neighborhood where senior Baath Party and Republican Guard officials had lived, the sergeants found another 40 aluminum boxes assumed to contain another $160 million in currency. In a matter of minutes, they had uncovered $320 million in cash.
... soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division had found two more cottages containing at least 84 more boxes presumed to hold $336 million in cash, for a total of $656 million.
The loot apparently was hidden by fleeing Baath Party members and senior Republican Guard commanders who had lived in the wooded neighborhood just east of Saddam Hussein's Presidential Palace.
The staggering sums illustrate the fabulous wealth accumulated by Hussein and his ruling elite. Searches of their luxurious homes in the two-mile-long palace complex over the previous week had found flashy automobiles, private zoos, expensive liquor, a cabin cruiser, huge weapons caches and gilded furniture
it appears that Hussein's top echelon and perhaps Hussein himself were unable to carry out all of the regime's money when they fled the U.S. attack, and instead sealed the currency in the cottages near their homes.
