Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. 09/05 to 01/14/07

Frustrations are creeping in, the r/v should have happened by now, people wanna get on with their new lives with money in their pockets.

I'll stick with the r/v by end of November. IF, and it is a big IF there is no r/v by Feb/March time then I'll start to get disillusioned. Can't see it going on that long though.....

Economist offers an early calculation of Iraq's war costs

October 21, 2006

By ANNA BERNASEK The New York Times

Here's a basic question: What has been the cost of the Iraq war for Iraq? As it turns out, it's not easy to find an economist who can provide an answer. Although several studies have dealt with the war's cost to Americans, there has been no comparable work addressing the cost to Iraqis.

Of course, the loss of human life has always been evident. Recently, the United Nations estimated that 100 Iraqis were dying each day, on average, as a result of the war. Others have put the number much higher. A recent study in The Lancet, the British medical journal, placed the average daily figure at about 500, amounting to the loss of 2 percent of Iraq's population since the invasion in March 2003.

The economic cost has been less visible. Published information on the subject is very limited, although one economist, Professor Colin Rowat, has made some preliminary calculations using the best sources available. Rowat, a specialist on the Iraqi economy at the University of Birmingham in Britain, relied mainly on data from the International Monetary Fund to estimate the war's overall effect on the Iraqi economy. His calculations are a work in progress, but what he has found so far is sobering: The cost amounts to a cut of at least 40 percent in Iraq's national income.

Rowat looked at the six-year stretch from 2000 to 2005 and divided it into thirds. During the first period, 2000-01, U.N. trade sanctions against Iraq were beginning to crumble; the Security Council lifted the cap on Iraqi oil sales to the rest of the world, and the Iraqi government was becoming adept at getting around the remaining trade restrictions. The second period, 2002-03, covers the buildup to war and the invasion itself. The last period, 2004-05, covers post-invasion years when sanctions were removed.

Rowat made several kinds of calculations. First, he estimated the actual change in the size of Iraq's economy. Then he considered the economic effects of foreign aid in 2005, much of it from the United States. (Because foreign aid is regarded as temporary and is expected to taper off, he said, excluding it reveals Iraq's underlying economic performance.)

Finally, he estimated how the economy might have performed had the war never happened. This last estimate, of course, depends on a host of assumptions, as Rowat would be the first to say. He assumed, for example, that in the absence of war, Iraq's economy would have been driven by the price of oil. Oil prices are, in fact, crucial to Iraq; according to the World Bank, oil revenue represents 60 percent of the total economy. Rowat also assumed that the economy would have grown from 2002 to 2005 as it did from 2000 to 2001 — at a pace equal to 71 percent of the rate of increase in world oil prices. Of course, some of the oil-price increase in recent years must be attributed to the Iraq war itself; Rowat acknowledged this but did not attempt to remove that factor from these rough calculations.

He readily acknowledged the difficulty of coming up with an undisputed set of figures; nevertheless, his analysis is at least a starting point.

Looking first at the actual Iraqi economy, he calculated that it may have grown 3.1 percent a year, on average and after adjusting for inflation, from 2000 through 2005. When he subtracted foreign aid from that total, however, he found that the economy actually contracted 0.2 percent a year over the same period. He said aid was especially crucial in 2005, when it kept the economy afloat.

Finally, based on the steep rise in oil prices, he estimated that without a war and with steady oil production, Iraq would have grown 12 percent a year after adjusting for inflation. That rate would have made Iraq one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, albeit one that was expanding from a very small economic base.

How realistic is this projection? It's hard to say, because so much of it depends on oil economics. Still, the IMF has concluded that the Iraqi economy has the capacity to grow very quickly — under the right conditions. It now forecasts Iraq's real growth over the next five years at an annual rate averaging better than 10 percent.

Using Rowat's calculations, what might the economic cost of the war be for Iraq? If there had been no war, Iraq's economy in 2005 might have amounted to $61 billion in today's dollars, compared with the actual $37 billion, he estimates. That works out to a loss of $24 billion because of the war. Excluding foreign aid from the calculations, the loss estimate is around $30 billion.

Consider the more conservative figure, $24 billion. It amounts to a 40 percent cut in gross domestic product per capita — an average loss of around $900 for each Iraqi in 2005.

Straightforward comparisons with the United States aren't possible, but rough estimates of the war's overall cost to Americans are in the neighborhood of $1 trillion over a 10-year period. That works out to around 1 percent of the nation's income during that period.

For Iraq, there is no doubt that continuing violence and turmoil are hurting the economy. The IMF stated in a report in August that Iraq's growth was coming from the non-oil economy and that oil production was expected to remain flat this year. Iraq's oil production has not yet returned to prewar levels. The IMF attributed the lack of progress in the oil sector to the violence.



While Rowat's calculations represent just one economist's efforts to wrestle with extremely limited data, his work may encourage others to follow. Assessing the war's economic cost for Iraq, of course, doesn't provide an answer to whether the war is worthwhile in the long run. But it does provide a clue.

Rutland Herald: Rutland Vermont News & Information

19 October 2006 (Al-Sabaah)

Transporting ministry specified 20 Billion Iraqi Dinars for establishing developing communication projects between the railway stations and the trains to control its movements in the general transporting lines.

A source at the ministry said that, the ministry specialized 18 Billion Iraqi Dinars for carrying oumoderate lighting cable parallel to the iron line in general state for controlling on the trains movement.He added that, the project would carry out by Iraqi engineering staff belong to the general company of the iron railways station.

20 billion ID for Developing Communications | Iraq Updates

Daily the media tells us about clashes between "insurgents" and Western troops in Iraq. We hear less about the unarmed resistance which is fighting the occupation with strikes and workplace walkouts. The General Union of Oil Employees in Basra (GUOE), or Basra Oil Union as it is commonly referred to, is in many respects leading in that struggle - continuously opposing international corporations that want to take over the national oil industry.

Kamil Mahdi is an Iraqi lecturer in the economics of the Middle East at Exeter University. He saw at first hand how strong labour resistance in Iraq is when he went to the GUOE's second anti-privatisation conference in August: "There is a great deal of commitment to the idea that political issues are not swept under the carpet. The oil workers do not believe that it is in their or the oil industry's interests to be handed over to foreign companies."

The GUOE was set up in the wake of the invasion three years ago and now represents 23,000 workers employed by nine Iraqi oil companies in Amara, Nassriyah, Anbar and Basra provinces. In 2003 they stopped Dick Cheney's company KBR (a subsidiary of Halliburton) from taking over their workplaces, and defied a new wage system instituted by Paul Bremer's administration, with a three-day strike. In late August 2006 GUOE won a number of demands following a walkout by 700 workers in Basra and Nassriyah.

The International Monetary Fund is backing a new oil resources law which would give free rein to foreign corporations over Iraq's oil. Mahdi says that while fighting for workers' rights is important to the GUOE, it is the preservation of the national oil industry that is foremost in their minds: "There is an existing national oil industry and it has continued to work and develop production under very difficult circumstances of war and sanctions. Industries have been attacked, bombed, and received no investment. The efforts of thousands of workers have kept the oil industry going, and their experience of companies brought in by the occupation to take over the management of the industry is completely negative."

Strength on the ground

The workers' efforts also prove that they are perfectly capable of running the oil industry on their own terms, even if technical and economic assistance is needed. According to Madhi, "The workers are able to manage the industry themselves. They can decide what is needed in terms of technical expertise and investment to develop the current and future oilfields - even when this is through service contracts with other companies, both domestic and foreign. But they will not allow production sharing with foreign companies because this would become a new form of the concession system."

Although the Iraqi government formulates social and economic policies behind closed doors, it takes note of GUOE because, in Mahdi's words, "the union has shown that it has strength on the ground in mobilising people for or against policies." Basra oil workers are also raising awareness about labour and economic issues within the wider community. Through their contacts with political groups, other trade unions and the international anti-war movement, GUOE's president Hassan Jumaa spoke both at the Marxism 2006 event this summer and at the International Peace Conference in London last December where he stressed the union's support for the Iraqi resistance's campaign to drive the occupiers out of Iraq. They did this because they believe the future of Iraq is at stake if the military occupation becomes an economic one.

In Basra the British occupation is now more precarious than ever, says Mahdi. The security situation has got worse since the occupation because the British military effectively ignore crime and cannot effect the dynamics of militia politics. Mistrust for the British army is growing in tandem with new revelations of military brutality towards both the civilian population and suspected resistance fighters.

He says, "The British presence in Basra is really isolated now. Of course it is a major military force, but it is isolated politically. The British army is just another militia in Basra - it cannot ever play a positive role in political development. It is an occupation army that is not even in control of the area."

Despite the situation on the ground, workers are showing remarkable solidarity and resilience. The anti-privatisation conference and the union's continuing campaigning are testimony to that. As part of standing up for workers' rights the union is campaigning to ensure that the government implements the better wages and workers' housing they won during the August strike. The union's main task is fighting to keep the Iraqi oil industry under Iraqi control rather than have it stolen by US multinationals under the protection of military occupation.

ZNet |Iraq | Iraq: 'The British army is just another militia'

Veteran says U.S. doing ‘the right thing’ in Iraq

By Jeff Mullin Senior Writer

Since returning from Iraq after being injured earlier this year, Army Maj. Roger Beliele, an Enid native, has read or listened to everything he could pertaining to the war.

Much of what he hears and reads upsets him.

“There’s so much reported about the roadside bombs and atrocities at Haditha,” said Beliele. “They’re not talking about the hospitals that we’ve completely either built from scratch or brought into a modern age, the dozens of schools, the infrastructure that we’ve improved — actually bringing running water for the first time in history to some villages. CNN doesn’t talk about that.”

Beliele has seen both sides of the Iraqi conflict, death and destruction caused by the ongoing insurgency and progress made in helping Iraq stand on its own.

Beliele served with A Company, 445 Civil Affairs Battalion. As economics team leader, he led more than 130 combat missions to encourage economic development in one sector of Iraq.

Civil Affairs is part of a triumvirate within Special Operations Forces, teaming with Psychological Operations and Special Forces.

“They work completely in conjunction with each other,” he said. “It’s like three gears that allow the others to spin.”

Psychological Operations controls the tenor and flow of information to the Iraqi people, Special Forces roots out insurgents and Civil Affairs is “truly the hearts and minds part of it.”

As a Civil Affairs officer, Beliele lived and worked with the Iraqi people, initiating and managing more than 21 projects with a total value of $3 million. Among those projects were a corn processing and storage plant, a slaughter house, a wood craftsman center and wood furniture apprenticeship program, as well as seven farming co-operatives. He also started three urban business centers to provide small or startup businesses with the help they needed to grow.

In addition, Beliele helped establish relationships with local village leaders, relationships that paid off for both parties.

“At some point they begin to trust us, and they can say, ‘Hey, we know where bad guys are living, we know where explosives are buried,’ said Beliele. “And I can say, ‘It looks to me like you need a water well in this village. I’ll put down a water well, you take me to the bad guys.’ My primary role as a team leader wound up being as a negotiator.”

A micro-loan program Beliele developed for eastern Iraq offered loans for anywhere from $25 to $2,500. These were aimed at women, many of whom are widows who have turned to begging to feed themselves and their families, and men hoping to start small businesses.

“If we can set them up in business, and they can bring their teenage boys into it, they’re not taking money from the insurgency to plant roadside bombs,” he said. “We’ve given them an alternative to starving and an alternative to taking money from the bad guys and working against where we’re trying to go with the Iraqi government and what we’re trying to prop up as a new democracy.”

Beliele, a graduate of Chisholm High School and Oklahoma State University, has degrees in both marketing and management. He also has practical business experience with Advance Food Co. and its baking division, Waffle Man Inc. But working with the Iraqi people required him to get back to basics, like teaching the meaning of free enterprise and capitalism, of working hard to get ahead.

“That’s all new to them,” Beliele said. “They’ve got three generations of a welfare state where they didn’t have permission to do anything, they just operated in this dictatorship.”

Beliele and his team often had to fight their way into a village where they were undertaking an economic mission, and fight their way back to their base.

On four occasions Beliele’s patrols were attacked. One of Beliele’s patrols came across a site where three consecutive improvised explosive devices had exploded on a single American unit.

“It was a pretty bad deal,” said Beliele.

Near the Iranian border, an IED buried under the road exploded under a U.S. truck. Two other IEDs were buried off the road on either side. Insurgents knew American forces would pull their vehicles far off the road to either side to avoid further explosions. These IEDs were buried right where the other vehicles parked, said Beliele, and exploded right under the U.S. trucks.

“They obviously had been watching us for some period of time, knowing how we would react,” he said. “There were a lot of guys hurt that day, some worse than others.”

Beliele, who previously had served in an Airborne unit and is a certified combat lifesaver, reacted quickly. He treated several wounded soldiers, including dealing with open wounds, administering IVs and treating them for shock.

“You don’t think about it at the time,” he said. “I was just trying to get these guys stabilized.”

He then directed close air support and medevac helicopters to the site, then helped carry wounded soldiers to the helicopters across about 200 meters of open ground, under enemy fire, in temperatures nearing 135 degrees.

“They all lived,” he said, smiling. “It all turned out really well.”

For his actions that day and throughout his deployment, Beliele has been recommended to receive the Bronze Star, which is pending.

His stint in Iraq ended about a month early when, during a mission to clear the enemy from houses in a hostile area of a village on the Iranian border, Beliele fell from a second-story roof. He suffered multiple injuries to his shoulder and collarbone.

He was sent home for surgery and to recuperate, allowing him to spend time with his wife, Jenny, and 3-year-old son, Hunter. In addition, Jenny is about to give birth to the couple’s second child.

Beliele has been medically cleared to return to duty and is awaiting new orders. He could be released from military service or could be sent by the Army to another duty station, including Iraq.

He’s not ready to leave his family again, but Beliele said he would be willing to go back to Iraq if the Army sends him because he believes in the mission.

“If I have to go back, I’ll go back,” he said, “it’s the right thing.”

The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK - Veteran says U.S. doing ‘the right thing’ in Iraq

Afghanistan was invited to attend meetings of the General Council, and as appropriate, meetings of other WTO bodies as an observer.

Ambassador Assad Omer, Permanent Representative of Afghanistan, in thanking members, said that after two decades of conflict, his government has significantly improved the economic climate.

“The peaceful completion of our first direct presidential elections ... has heralded a new era of political stability”, he said.

Ambassador Omer said that his country hoped to re-establish itself as the land bridge for trans-continental trade.

“We believe that participation in the international trading system will lead to more trade, investment, technology transfer, employment and income growth throughout the economy”, he said.

Iraq was invited to continue attending meetings of the General Council and, as appropriate, meetings of other WTO bodies as an observer.

Trade Minister Mohammed Mustafa Al-Jibouri said his country viewed the decision as “yet another contribution on the part of the WTO to Iraq's efforts to reform its economy”.

He said that since the General Council's decision last February to grant observer status to Iraq, his government has started accession preparations in earnest, including the drafting of its Foreign Trade Regime Memorandum and the creation of a National Committee for WTO Accession.

“The new Iraq looks with great optimism at achieving political stability, economic prosperity and social development ... we believe that our reintegration into the world trading system is an essential element to fulfil those aims,” he said.

Regarding another membership request, that from Iran, the Chairman, Ambassador Shotaro Oshima of Japan, reported on his recent consultations. He said that although it was clear that a large part of the membership continued to be supportive of an early and positive action on this request, there was still no consensus at that stage to accept the request and to set up a working party for this purpose.


link WTO | News - 2004 News items - Accession working parties established for Afghanistan, Iraq

This is one of the things that I beleive is key to our investment. I read or heard somewhere that this is supposed to be completed by November 21st...but when you do a search for documents related to Iraq on the WTO web site from this link (see bottom for document search)WTO | Accession status: Iraq is shows they are not available to the public. IF ANYONE knows more about this please enlighten me because I beleive to gain membership they have to have a internationally tradeable currency

Originally Posted by bluezzguy

Adster,

Certainly agree with all of the above. Also, the waiting can play tricks with the mind, especially if we don't get answers or see action we thought we would.

It seems that attitudes here definitively changed when the CBI site came back up. Yet we still have NO answers on why it was down, why it is not updated, or why phone calls to the CBI went unanswered.

Or, have I missed some news that has caused this thread's atmosphere to turn so drastically, and for the number of visitors to shrink to a precious few?

It seems that we're waiting with no change in actual news, in suspended animation for about 5 days now.

Randy

Randy, like having a winning lotto ticket but now knowing the draw! We know it has to revalue, they can't have a worthless currency on the international markets. Their people want to start importing goods in time, they need buying power! Doesn't come at 1470 to the dollar!

We know that ony 10% of oil has been discovered, we know that only about 25% are in working order and distributing. But still they claim to be banging out 2.86MBD! $57 a barrel!!! Their rate was around $1.60 when they were knocking out less oil at a lower price, figure that!

Countries would not have forgiven debt if they knew they'd not get something back and a whole lot more in return. Banks would not be exchanging dinars for the same reason.

The FIL has now been passed and should be enacted within 3 weeks.....Hydrocarbon, anytime soon. This is will open the doors to the big boys, they have to have a decent exchange rate by then..........

We know the CBI insider, said a 'significant increase in 2006', and the likelihood of the 'return to its former rate or at least similar to neighbouring countries' quoted by Zubaidi himself!

So many pluses. This was never going to happen overnight. Some might be down at this point, best to not base your lives around this forum, get out, have a beer, take your partner out, have a holiday, just don't get obsessed by this investment!

IT WILL HAPPEN ONE DAY SOON.

Originally Posted by day dreamer

Ok somebody break this all down PLEASE

Last week an article was posted saying the HCL was to be voted on this week. plus yesterday in this forum another article said the HCL was being worked on in secret.

I have to conclude that there will be tons of disinformation on this law until they just spring it on us completed, which may already be done. Somehow this law is tied directly to the RV IMO.

What's to prevent the Foreign Investment Law from being enacted any day now? Wasn't it passed unanimously around October 10th, and didn't I read
that a typical lag time between passing and enactment is 7 to 10 days?

Maybe it's because of (i) a delay cause by the implementation committee that was appointed; (ii) Ramadan; (iii) details concerning the 10,000 dinar
gift; (iv) publication in the official Gazette being slow; or (v) pricing logistics surrounding an r/v. But it appears to me that the enactment should take place by October 31st or sooner.

Where am I going wrong?

Originally Posted by Pippyman

(I dont like the sound of this..... )

Millions Stolen From Iraq's Treasury

wcbstv.com - Millions Stolen From Iraq's Treasury


Millions Stolen From Iraq's Treasury


(CBS News) NEW YORK More than half a billion dollars earmarked to fight the insurgency in Iraq was stolen by people the U.S. had entrusted to run the country's Ministry of Defense before the 2005 elections, according to Iraqi investigators.

Iraq's former minister of finance says coalition members like the U.S. and Britain are doing little to help recover the money or catch suspects, most of whom fled the country. The 60 Minutes investigation also turned up audio recordings of a suspect who seems to be discussing the transfer of $45 million to the account of a top political adviser to the interim defense minister.

Correspondent Steve Kroft reports on this mother of all heists this Sunday, Oct. 22, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

"We have not been given any serious, official support from either the United States or the U.K. or any of the surrounding Arab countries," says Ali Allawi, who was confronted with the missing funds when he took over as Iraq's finance minister last year.

He thinks he knows why Iraqi investigators have gotten little help. "The only explanation I can come up with is that too many people in positions of power and authority in the new Iraq have been, in one way or another, found with their hands inside the cookie jar," says Allawi, who left his post when a new Iraqi government was formed earlier this year. "And if they are brought to trial, it will cast a very disparaging light on those people who had supported them and brought them to this position of power and authority," he tells Kroft.

One of the people praised in former U.S. Ambassador L. Paul Bremer's memoirs is a major suspect in the case. Ziad Cattan was in charge of military procurement at a time when the ministry of defense went on a $1.2 billion buying spree. Allawi estimates that $750 to $800 million of that money was stolen. Judge Radhi al-Radhi, head of Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity, which investigates official corruption, tells Kroft that a lot of the money that wasn't stolen was spent on outdated, useless equipment.

"It isn't true," says Cattan, whom 60 Minutes found in Paris and who was recently convicted in absentia in Iraq for squandering public funds. He showed Kroft documents and pictures of equipment that he says is now in Iraq. An official from Jane's, one of the worlds foremost experts in military hardware, says the documents Cattan provided were too vague to prove anything.

Audio recordings obtained by 60 Minutes reveal Cattan talking to an associate in Amman, Jordan, in 2004 about the distribution of Iraqi funds. According to two independent translations, he is discussing payoffs to Iraqi officials.

One possible payoff the recordings allude to is the transfer of $45 million to the account of a top political adviser to the defense minister, a man who is also identified on the recordings as a representative of the president and the prime minister of the interim government. Cattan acknowledged his own voice was on the recordings. Three translators say he specifically mentions "$45 million," but he disputes the translation. "I don't say dollars," he tells Kroft. "I don't remember what the matter was."

Cattan maintains that U.S. and coalition advisors at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense approved everything he did and says the recordings have been doctored. Audio experts consulted by 60 Minutes could not find any evidence of that. Judge Radhi also has a copy of the recordings and says a former employee of the ministry of defense confessed after hearing them.

60 Minutes has learned that Cattan is building himself a villa in Poland. Another suspect, Naer Jumaili, principal in a middle-man company that handled much of the $1.2 billion in Iraqi military contracts, is said to be buying real estate in Amman, Jordan, and building himself a large villa, even though he is wanted by Interpol. Judge Rahdi believes the fugitive suspects are bribing their way to freedom and says countries like Jordan and Poland have been "no help at all" in apprehending the suspects or recovering the money.

The case is one of 2,000 Iraqi government corruption cases the judge's commission is handling that, all told, involve $7.5 billion.

No one in the U.S. government would speak on camera about the case. But U.S. officials say this was Iraqi money spent by a sovereign Iraqi government and therefore is the Iraqis' business.

The timing of this to me at least is just another layer of anti-Iraq spin for this election. It is a CBS report after all and we all know their political bend already. These kind of reports will settle down after the election I think.