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

Originally Posted by Dinar Duchess

How does $3.00 relate to the exchange rate to surrounding middle east countries. I would have thought that was too high, although i wont complain if it does reval at this level.

Dinar Duchess,
it very well could r/v that high right off the bat. There has been so much talk about this over the past three years. Especially with all the history
and the bank of baghdad's books at 1 USD to .31 IQD. Looks very probable
though that it would be closer to parity of Jordon's currency to begin with and then escalate from there.
LIT

Originally Posted by cigarman

Why did he say .30 for a reval? I think it will be middle of the road at $1.46 or higher. Remember, their revaling to lower the cost of imports for the people. To do that it at least needs to be equal to $1.00 USD. Then again, it might have to be higher if they import most of their stuff from Jordan or Kawait. Does my theory make sense? It does to me but us rednecks like to simplify everything.lol

I agree with you. Middle of the road is where Iraq wishes as well. middle of the road allows for up and down flucuation as well.

Can you imagine a scenario where the RV is too low and perhaps as people race to cash out the value drops? The "I hate Iraq" crowd in the Media will feast on this and spin it as a currency crash IMO. Middle of the road takes that plot out of the deck....

Originally Posted by Dinar Duchess

How does $3.00 relate to the exchange rate to surrounding middle east countries. I would have thought that was too high, although i wont complain if it does reval at this level.

One of the main ones that comes to my mind is Kawaiti that comes in at somewhere around $3.40 something. I read somewhere even around $3.50 mark.

A sudden rise of the dollar exchange rate in Iraq
27 October 2006 (Asharq Alawsat)

The dollar exchange rate varied between the Iraqi Central Bank and local markets, especially after the official auction to sell currencies stopped convening for ten days because of Eid al-Fitr.

The observers of the currency market confirmed that any occasion interposed by public holidays, specially those that continue for several days, is expected to raise the value of the American dollar against the Iraqi dinar but the difference is limited and does not exceed in the most serious cases 1500 dinars to the dollar, because such increases in the view of some speculators will be temporary, and they fear from the Iraqi Central Bank being a safety valve of the Iraqi dinar and market. If the Bank thought that the market rose, as the case happened a year and a half ago, it would suspend its vacation to begin offering large amounts of hard currency on the market directly and at prices lower than the circulation price; that is why most speculators are afraid to keep large quantities within their bags due to the risk of loss. But, dealing in the market is done on the basis of supply and demand; this means that small speculators, dealing directly with citizens, would achieve very high profits for this reason. And about their expectations of market prices, the observer demonstrated that the dollar exchange rate in the central auction, held in the Iraqi Central Bank, finally began to retreat before the Iraqi dinar, as the Bank started floating huge amounts of dollars because of the government's need for local cash, especially as the volume of government's consumption increased recently and this requires securing these expenses through the auction. The supply has increased lately from $ 35 million to $ 60 million per day.

The Bank started its daily auction with 1470 dinars to the dollar after being 1477. As for the markets, the dealers with citizen were not affected by the sudden decline but they would rush to raise their prices at the same moment with the increase; thus, it is expected for the demand to increase during these ten days, which would not be attended by the Iraqi Central Bank, but not much. About the last formal cession of the Bank, the auction manager there clarified that the sale price at which the auction came to was 1470 dinars to the dollar, accepted by the Bank, according to the buyers' desire and sold $ 43.8 million at the same prices. The quantity sold in cash to the Banks and its clients was $ 18.690 million at the price of 1470 with the addition of 11 points as prices contrast and profitability ratios, while the quantity sold for remittances to out of Iraq was $ 25 million, at 1470 dinars. This means that the amount of remittances surpassed the sale quantities of banks and this is due to the high demand for transfer, especially after the increased need to acquit the companies collaborating with the outside and the start of the reconstruction phase in Iraq.

Translated by IRAQdirectory.com Team

A sudden rise of the dollar exchange rate in Iraq | Iraq Updates

27 October 2006 (Independent)

Fifteen years after the first Gulf War, and three years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, a UN commission is still paying out hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to the victims of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
The latest payments, totalling $417.8m (pounds 220m), were made yesterday to governments and oil companies for losses and damages stemming from the Kuwaiti occupation, bringing the total paid out to more than $21bn (pounds 11bn). The total claims that have been approved run to $52bn (pounds 27.5bn) and will take many more years to complete.
The transfers by the Geneva-based Compensation Commission are not the only hangover from the Sad-dam era to be funded by Iraqi oil revenues. The UN weapons inspectors, now known as UNMOVIC, have never been wound up by the Security Council and still have $114m in their coffers - despite $200m having been shifted from their escrow account in June last year into the Iraq development fund. That was only months after $9bn went missing from the development fund.The 34 arms monitors are still contracted to ensure the disarmament of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Until the 15-member Security Council tells them to stop, or decides to use their expertise in another way, they are continuing to produce a three-monthly disarmament report.
"Every three months we go to the council, and they wring their handsand move on to the next piece of business," said one inspector.
Saddam's forces rolled into Kuwait in August 1990 at the start of a seven-month occupation which ended with the Iraqi soldiers blowing up Kuwait oilfields and pouring 10 million barrels of oil into the sea, causing an environmental disaster.
The final deadline for most compensation claims passed in 1997, but missing persons claims and those stemming from landmine or ordnance explosions were subsequently accepted by the Geneva-based UN Compensation Commission. It has received more than 2.6 million claims since 1991, totalling $368bn, seeking compensation for deaths, damage and losses.
Despite the overthrow of Saddam, the Security Council decided in June 2003 that the fund should not be frozen but would receive 5 per cent of all Iraqi oil and gas and petroleum products export sales.

Initial payments went to individuals and have now all been processed.
Yesterday's pay-outs, which included environmental claims, went to corporations, international organisations and the governments of Bosnia-Herzegovina, India, Kuwait, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the US.
The largest amount - $335.5m - went to Kuwait to pay for 38 claims, while the US was paid $10m for a single claim.The proportion of corporations who have claimed damages from the occupation was not known, but the commission has received $44bn worth of compensation claims from oil companies with operations in the Persian Gulf.

The governments listed for yesterday's transfer had filed claims covering their costs in evacuating nationals from Kuwait, providing relief aid, damage to diplomatic property and harm to the environment.

Other claims include damage to government buildings, loss of equipment as well as estimates of the value of work carried out by contractors before the invasion.

The commission has also received 170 environmental claims stemming from the oil fires and the discharge of oil into the sea, that total $80bn.


Kuwaitis still getting payouts for damage of 1990 Iraqi invasion | Iraq Updates

27 October 2006

Iraqi ex-Minister of Finance alleged, during an interview with an American television station, Sunday that former officials in the Iraqi government seized 800 million USD, intended for purchasing weapons for the Iraqi army in a scandal of weapons corrupt.
The ex-minister, Ali Allawi, said, during an interview on the program "60 Minutes" aired by the station CBS America, that 1.2 billion dollars has been allocated from the Iraqi Treasury for the benefit of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in order to purchase new weapons.
Allawi pointed out, that 400 million dollars was spent on expired weapons, while the remaining funds were seized. He said that the weapons scandal "is one of the major thefts in history" and that the corrupt Iraqi officials tours around the world, according to the Associated Press.
However, Allawi refused to reveal the names of any of those who are said they took the money allocated for the purchase of weapons. But the Iraqi investigators are investigating many of the arms and equipment deals that have been done by the former procurement officer Ziyad Kattan and other officials, including the former Defense Minister, Hazim Al-Shaalan. He alleges that most of the corrupt arms deals were made during the rule of the interim Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, , who took power after the occupation authorities transferred sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 28, 2004.
When new Defense Minister, Saadoun Dulaimi, took responsibility of the Ministry, investigation had been opened in many cases of alleged corruption.
Tapes obtained by the CBS station from a former assistant to Kattan, show conversations about bribing Iraqi officials.
It is noteworthy that Kattan, wanted by the Iraqi authorities, lives in Paris, and the program "60 Minutes" had conducted an interview with him, during which he stressed that he had documents on weapons deals of hundreds of millions of dollars.
He pointed out that those recorded tapes were manipulated and lack credibility.

Originally Posted by Dinar Duchess

How does $3.00 relate to the exchange rate to surrounding middle east countries. I would have thought that was too high, although i wont complain if it does reval at this level.

The only one it relates to is the Kuwaiti Dinar 1 KD = 3.47283 USD the others don't relate
1 Saudi Riyal = .26671 USD
1 Jordain Dinar = 1.42157 USD
1 Iranian Rial = .0001134 USD
1 Afghanistan Afghani = .02023 USD
1 Syrian pound = .02008 USD
1 Egyptian Pound = .17568

[b]Economy, rights, education

.
"In order to develop the economic and investment sectors, the government has succeeded in enacting an investment law, which was approved by the Council of Representatives.

This is the first time I have seen the magic word ENACTED so that really opens up the door for wonderful things to finally start happening. GREAT FIND! thannks

War Every Day (eIraq Blog): Federalism in Iraq: Shi'ite reservations

Two good pieces today on the potential pitfalls of federalism in Iraq. While much of the reporting on the prospect of partitioning Iraq into three semi-autonomous regions (divided along sectarian and ethnic lines: a Kurdish region in the north, a Sunni region in the center and a Shi'ite region in the south) has focused on Sunni resistance to the idea. Today's reports focus on Shi'ite reservations. Reuters reports:

"Dozens of Iraqis are killed every day. Bodies are dumped on streets, disfigured by torture. A climate of fear reigns. But worse may yet be to come.

"U.S.-backed plans to create autonomous regions with varying access to Iraq's oil wealth risk sparking greater conflict between rival factions in the Shi'ite majority that could turn already anarchic violence into the messiest of wars, analysts and sources within various Shi'ite political groups say.

"Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, acknowledging the scale of the threat, said on Thursday he would abort the 'federalism' project altogether if it prompted such violence."

But Maliki may not be around too much longer, and with federalism an option the Bush administration is favoring, federalism may not be an experiment the Iraqi government or the Iraqi people enter into willingly.

More from Reuters:


Fighting in the southern Shi'ite town of Amara last week that killed at least two dozen people was just the latest sign of mounting friction within the United Alliance bloc, which has a near-majority in parliament.

The divisions are rooted in dynastic struggles among Shi'ite Muslim clerics who, as in neighbouring Iran, dominate Iraqi politics.

"The conflict in the regions will be Shi'ite versus Shi'ite and Sunni versus Sunni," Maliki told Reuters in an interview. "If we have federalism and people fought each other in the regions then we will not do it".

Plans for provincial elections next year -- ahead of the possible formation of new federal regions in 2008 -- will bring those power struggles to a head, several officials said.

Until now, much concern has focused on hostility to the plan from Saddam Hussein's once dominant Sunni minority, which fears it will hand Iraq's vast southern oilfields to Shi'ites and Iran and give the northern reserves to the Kurds.

Parliament passed a law allowing for regions to be formed from 2008 last month, despite Sunni opposition.

Though some Shi'ite factions, notably that of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, have echoed Sunni doubts, sources in all main groups said they wanted to see new regions emerge and all factions were now preparing to struggle for control of them.

"The federalism law is a recipe for fighting and more fighting," said political scientist Hazem al-Naimi of Baghdad's Mustansiriya University. "It will create in-fighting among Shi'ites. Every faction will want to control a region."


Reporting on the debate over federaism has often failed to mention the potential of inter-Shi'ite battles over control of oil resources and of the South's reveared religious shrines.


"Not only the political groups but also the religious leadership...will fight now to get some power," Naimi said, highlighting struggles for control of the oilfields of Basra and the clerical institutions of Najaf.

Sadr, a young populist with a mass following that includes thousands of Mehdi Army militiamen, may have an edge over SCIRI and its Badr armed wing if the power struggle comes to street fights of the kind seen in Najaf a year ago, Naimi said.

In Basra, Najaf and elsewhere, Shi'ite militias partly form government security forces, further complicating the picture.

"I can't say there will be no fighting. In some areas it might turn ugly," an official in the Alliance said.

"The leaders of all the factions will try to avoid a battle but in Iraq nothing can be calculated with any accuracy and some rogue element in any party could start it.

"We're talking about taking control, governing the Shi'ites of Iraq," he said. "That's no small thing to fight for, is it?"

The ranking clerical figure in Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, helped bring Shi'ite factions together in the United Alliance in last year's elections. But his age and health could mean a succession struggle before too long.

There is precedent for violence in such disputes. A senior cleric who had just returned from exile was killed in Najaf days after the 2003 U.S. invasion. Sadr denied a charge of murder.


A report today by Nancy Youssef of McClatchy Newspapers quotes several Shi'ite Iraqis in the south voicing reservations over a Shi'ite "super-region."

Youssef writes:

"A plan to divide Iraq into three autonomous regions, trumpeted by some U.S. politicians as one way to end the sectarian violence, is losing support among a key constituency - residents of Iraq's largely Shiite Muslim southern provinces.

"Interviews with Shiites in southern Iraq say they no longer believe a region made up largely of members of their sect will solve the problems that plague their communities. If such perceptions hold, the idea of an Iraq loosely organized along sectarian and ethnic lines would have lost the support of the group expected to benefit most from its imposition.

"The idea has always been opposed by Sunni Muslims, who live largely in areas removed from the oil fields that provide most of Iraq's revenues. Sunnis, who make up about 20 percent of Iraq's population, fear they'd no longer have access to the oil revenue under a loosely organized federal state.

"Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south in general have supported the idea, and the Kurds continue to favor it. With both oil and a long tradition of handling their own affairs, Kurds see the step as just short of their long-sought goal of a separate Kurdish nation.

"But recent developments in Iraq's south, including fighting among rival Shiite militias, have soured many southern Shiites on the prospects an autonomous region would offer them. Their cooling to the idea also reflects the rising level of frustration with the government and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim who previously had wide support in the south.

"...Iraq is currently carved into 18 provinces, and since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, their ethnic and religious differences have become more pronounced. Earlier this month, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution after a controversial vote, agreeing to revisit how to create a federalist state in 18 months. Sunni parliamentarians boycotted the vote, saying it would divide the country, and the measure passed 140-to-0 by the largely Shiite and Kurdish members still present."

Here's what some of the Iraqi Shi'ites interviewed had to say in Youssef's piece:


Ahmed al-Awadi, 33, a government worker in Najaf:

"I want the politicians to prove to us that they are really capable of running this country and fighting corruption and the militias before they think about federalism."


Ali Fakhri, 25, a construction worker in the holy city of Najaf:

"If federalism will provide me security and a job, then I will support it. But if it will serve the corrupted leaders in the Iraqi government and give them more money than they have already stolen, then I will reject the federalism law."


Akram Mohammed, 30, a businessman from Najaf:

"The Iranians are in control. That is why they are trying to make federalism happen, so there will be more corruption and we can be a part of Iran as soon as possible."

Originally Posted by Dinar-Excited

I was just on about Dinar and oldskiier had posted this really neat video piece about the real truth about Iraq that the rest of the media do not want to tell you. I though I would bring it over here. The reporter is Glenn Beck who I personally really like and I enjoy his show.

The Real Story

Dinar-Excited

Awesome! Praise God, and thanks for sharing.