Reports show Qusai Hussein took the cash from the Central Bank in the middle of the night.

COMBINED DISPATCHES
Roughly $900 million in U.S. currency was taken from Iraq's Central Bank shortly before the United States began bombing Baghdad, U.S. government officials confirmed today.
Treasury Department officials said they didn't know where the money was taken and were still checking out details of the case, including the denomination of the missing U.S. currency.
The New York Times reported that Saddam Hussein ordered that the money be taken from the Central Bank and sent his son Qusai to grab the cash in the middle of the night.
The amount of money -- $900 million in U.S. $100 bills and $100 million in euros -- was so large it had to be taken from the bank in three tractor-trailers, The New York Times reported. U.S. Treasury officials couldn't confirm the information on the euros taken from the Central Bank.
Organized removal
Qusai, Saddam's younger son, and Abid al-Haimd Mahmood, Saddam's personal assistant, organized the removal of the cash, the Times report said, quoting an Iraqi banking official who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from Saddam's Baath Party.
The Iraqi official said the funds removal took place at 4 a.m. on March 18. U.S. Treasury official George Mullinax, who is assigned to help rebuild Iraq's banking system, told the Times that about $900 million was taken by "Saddam Hussein's people."
The Iraqi official said the money taken amounted to a quarter of the Central Bank's hard currency reserves.
A U.S. Army Special Forces officer, Col. Ted Seel, said intelligence indicated that a convoy of tractor-trailers crossed the border into Syria, but that the contents of the trucks was unknown, the Times report said.
Mullinax told the newspaper it was possible that much of the money had already been recovered. He said the roughly $650 million found by U.S. forces in one of Saddam's palaces last month might have been from the Central Bank.
The Iraqi official, however, thinks the money found in the palace did not come from that Central Bank raid but belonged to Saddam's older son, Odai, whom he said was known for hoarding large sums of cash.
The newspaper said the nearly billion dollars taken by Saddam was nearly twice the amount looted by Iraqis from the bank after the April 9 collapse of Saddam's regime.
Organized crime
Meanwhile, organized crime was involved in the looting of Iraq's national museum and the United States will fully back international efforts to retrieve the stolen artifacts, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft told an Interpol meeting today.
The comments came at a conference of art experts and law enforcement officials in Lyon, France, aimed at creating a database listing items looted in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
"From the evidence that has emerged, there is a strong case to be made that the looting and theft of the artifacts were perpetrated by organized criminal groups -- criminals who knew precisely what they were looking for," Ashcroft said.
"Although the criminals who committed the theft may have transported the objects beyond Iraq's borders, they should know that they have not escaped the reach of justice," he added, praising Interpol's efforts so far.
Ashcroft did not say whether he suspected that international organized crime -- such as the Mafia -- was involved in the looting, but other experts at the conference said they did not have any evidence of such involvement so far.
"We are waiting for more information," said Jean-Pierre Jouanny, an Interpol specialist in theft of cultural objects.
Franks says opposite
Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of coalition forces in Iraq, has said the opposite -- that the Baghdad looting did not appear to be carried out by organized thieves
Interpol Secretary-General Ronald Noble said one of the group's top tasks was to collect and distribute descriptions of missing objects so they can be tracked down. He said such information was still sorely lacking.
"Right now we are operating only on rumors and anecdotal evidence," Noble said, adding that after the 1991 Gulf War, Interpol was able to log only one looted item into its database.
The two-day conference in southeastern France began Monday with presentations by officials from the U.N. Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Interpol, the State Department and university experts.
Iraq's museums held millennia-old artworks from the Assyrian, Sumerian and Babylonian cultures. Ancient Mesopotamia -- modern-day Iraq -- was the cradle of urban civilization. Some experts fear thousands of pieces of art, including priceless antiquities, may be missing.
In other developments:
UAmerican forces freed 250 more Iraqi war prisoners today in southern Iraq, continuing to empty U.S.-run detention camps that once housed 7,000 men. In the past two weeks, more than 5,000 POWs and civilian detainees have been released from Camp Bucca after a military tribunal determined they posed no threat, said Sgt. Maj. Ambrose Michelino, a U.S. military policeman.
ULt. Gen. William Wallace, who drew anger from Pentagon officials after suggesting that U.S. forces had met greater resistance than expected early in the Iraq war, is to be replaced as V Corps commander in what the military said was a normal rotation. Pending congressional approval, Wallace will be succeeded by Maj. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, now commander of the 1st Armored Division. Both took over their commands in July 2001.
U After more than 100 days at sea, the launching of more than 5,300 sorties and the loss of one pilot, the USS Kitty Hawk and a pair of ships from its battle group returned home to a boisterous welcome at Yokosuka, Japan.
UAustralian special forces who fought alongside U.S. and British troops to topple Saddam Hussein have left Iraq and will be home within weeks, the defense minister said today. Apart from a small security group still in Iraq, most of the 150 Special Air Service troops are readying their equipment in Kuwait before returning home, Defense Minister Robert Hill said.
U Iraq's third-largest city, Mosul, named a cross-section of residents to run the city alongside the American military until elections can be held.
UThe European Union's top humanitarian aid official arrived in Baghdad, proposing that the United Nations act as the cornerstone for coordinating aid.
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