Kathleen Ridolfo
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Report
December 8, 2003

A former Iraqi minister has said that deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 1972 began depositing 5 percent of Iraq’s oil revenues in overseas accounts, and has likely accumulated tens of billions of dollars outside Iraq, AP reported on 3 December. Jawad Hashim, former planning minister in the late 1960s and early 1970s, said Hussein began depositing money overseas when Iraq nationalized its oil industry the same year. Hussein reportedly told Hashim and other ministers, “The Ba’ath Party has come to rule for 300 years and to continue ruling or to come back to rule if toppled by a coup, [and therefore] the party must have a huge amount of money outside Iraq,” AP quoted Hashim from his autobiography excerpted in London’s “Al-Sharq al-Awsat” on 3 December. The former minister said he believes that 5 percent of revenues from 1972 to 1990, the year in which UN sanctions prevented Iraq from transferring funds abroad, amounts to some $31 billion.