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

PARIS Nov 30, 2006 (AP)— A U.S. pullout from Iraq would prompt a civil war with global repercussions, the emir of neighboring Kuwait warned in an interview published Thursday.

Sheik Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah urged U.S. forces to pull out of Iraqi cities and occupy their periphery instead, a proposal he said he has frequently discussed with President Bush. The tiny Persian Gulf emirate of about 1 million people is a strong U.S. ally.

"In the current circumstances, an American withdrawal would in no way help bring back stability," Sheik Sabah, who is on a state visit to France on his first trip to Europe as ruler, told the daily Le Figaro.

"On the contrary, the situation would get worse, and we would experience a civil war of great intensity that the whole world would pay the price for," he said. His country would be among those to suffer from such a civil war, he added.

Sheikh Sabah, who became leader of Kuwait in January, was meeting with French President Jacques Chirac on Thursday as part of a visit expected to focus on economic ties and renewed tensions in the Middle East.

French officials said the two nations were expected to update a bilateral defense pact in place since 1993, two years after the Gulf War, which liberated Kuwait from a seven-month Iraqi occupation. France was a key ally in the U.S.-led coalition that fought the war but Paris strongly opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Economic ties were also on the emir's agenda. French firms are looking for increased business in the aerospace, infrastructure, oil and public works sectors in Kuwait.


Copyright 2006 The Associated Pr

Travelers use codes to stay safe E-mail this
Print this
Report, IRIN, 29 November 2006

BAGHDAD - Businessman Abdallah Kammal, 52, arrived safely to his Baghdad home after a working trip abroad, but only after following strict security precautions.

While he was in the Jordanian capital, Amman, Kammal telephoned his driver giving him the date and time of his arrival at Baghdad's international airport. The details, however, were passed in code to guarantee his safety.

"Pick me up at 10am at the airport on Sunday and drive me to my cousin's house at Kadhmiyah district please," Kammal had told him.

In reality, Kammal was asking to be picked up on Monday at 2pm and to be driven to his parents' home at Dora district some 8km from Kadhmiyah.

"That is what I do to stay safe from kidnappers and insurgents who often know when you are going to arrive. Using codes is the best way to avoid being targeted," he said.

Kammal said he started using codes after his brother, also a businessman, and his business partner were killed on the same road after arriving from Syria.

We should be really careful. Insurgents usually prepare rockets and grenades around the road waiting for US convoys to pass through so they can attack them. If we are not lucky enough to be far away from their targets, we too could end up victims of the attack.

An Iraqi driver

"He telephoned his driver and we do not know how the insurgents knew but on his way back he was kidnapped and his decapitated body was found after three days on the outskirts of the capital," he said.

Kammal changes the codes he uses every month to keep one step ahead of kidnappers or insurgents.

"Weeks before they discover what we do to protect ourselves, we would already have started using new tactics," he said.

The method used by the businessman is also used by local and foreign journalists, government employees and NGO workers.

"Rather than giving the right dates by phone, some of them send us emails with their arrival details but, of course, also in code so that even if the driver is seized and forced to open his emails, they [kidnappers or insurgents] will not get the correct information," said Kammal's driver, who wanted to remain anonymous for security reasons.

People traveling to and from Baghdad's airport are often the most vulnerable, the driver said. This is because they may be perceived to be working for US-led coalition forces, he said. Hundreds of employees working at the airport and the adjacent US base, as well as travelers, use this road daily. The road to the airport is the most dangerous in the capital. At least one violent incident happens on the road every day.

"We should be really careful. Insurgents usually prepare rockets and grenades around the road waiting for US convoys to pass through so they can attack them. If we are not lucky enough to be far away from their targets, we too could end up victims of the attack," said the driver.

Hundreds of Iraqis have been kidnapped over the past 10 months, especially in Baghdad, according to the local Iraqi police. Many of them have been tortured and than killed as a result of the sectarian violence in Iraq. Others have been held for ransom and many were killed even after ransom was paid, the local police added.

"If the government is unable to protect us, we are doing it ourselves. Nothing has changed in the past months to make Iraq a safer place. The situation is just getting worse," Kammal said.

This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Originally Posted by elgordo

Has Anyone Checked To See If The Royal Bank Of Scotland Is Selling Dinar? I Believe They Have A New York City Branch.

They do in the UK, they're in cahoots with the Halifax....

Fighting swords with pens E-mail this
Print this
Report, IRIN, 27 November 2006

BAGHDAD - Freelance journalist Samir Khairallah, 31, walks a tight line between reporting the news and not becoming the news. With ongoing insurgent attacks and brutal sectarian violence plaguing the country, he must be careful about what he writes and whose 'side' he is perceived to be on.

"Iraqi journalists are in constant danger. Different groups are targeting us without any real explanation. Sometimes it is just because we have written a story that portrays different ideas to what they have," Khairallah said.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 86 journalists (65 Iraqis and 21 foreigners) have been killed in Iraq since the US-led occupation of Iraq began in 2003. CPJ said another 36 media workers have been killed and dozens others kidnapped.

After five threats, Khairallah still works as a journalist but has moved house a number of times to stay out of the firing line of militia fighters and insurgents who have accused him of being a traitor because he works with foreign media at times.

"Foreign journalists depend on us to deliver stories to their newspapers because they cannot go out on the streets, we are ones who go under fire. I get money for it but in the mean time they do not offer us security equipment or insurance that could support our families [if we are killed]," Khairallah said.

"Many of my colleagues have been killed in Iraq for working with foreign media or working as translators for the US army. We are considered betrayers and are given death as our sentence," he added.

Khairallah works long hours to earn enough money to support his wife and two children. With a notebook and pen in hand, he leaves his house very early in the morning to avoid Baghdad's traffic and get to his appointments on time. For five years he has been writing for local and international media outlets.

Before the war, Khairallah was getting paid as little as $5 per story and today he gets around $10 from local newspapers and $20 from international publications, but he did not want to disclose their names for security reasons.

The work is often dangerous and he must be quick on his feet to avoid any trouble.

"Sometimes I give a fake name in interviews so that I am secure [when the article is published]. Before I submit my articles to a newspaper, I read them carefully and check whether they are likely to cause a bad reaction from any group in Iraq - because if they do, it could mean my death," Khairallah said, adding that he prefers not to have his name alongside any story he was written.

Because of the fear factor, Khairallah said that there is no press freedom in Iraq. Journalists are often forced to take one side of a story just to be sure they will not be killed.

Khairallah said he is trying to please all sides in his reporting, but said there is increasing pressure on him to choose which side he is on. He fears that he may have to change profession if he has to compromise his neutrality.

"What we really need is an understanding in Iraq that journalists are neutral people who are simply transmitting the news to the world and not promoting more fighting and sectarian differences," he said.

Khairallah feels that he lives in the shadows of foreign journalists, who often get accolades for articles that he really gathered the bulk of the information for. He feels unappreciated. He dreams of being a famous journalist one day, and of receiving prizes for his work.

"I hope one day my name will be recognised, maybe when Iraq gets true democracy and press freedom becomes a reality and not a theory," he said.

This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Business Becomes a Big Casualty E-mail this
Print this
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily, Electronic Iraq, 30 November 2006

BAGHDAD (IPS) - Most Iraqi businesses have collapsed under the weight of U.S.-backed economic laws, the breakdown of security, lack of electricity and fuel, and the shooting inflation.

"Iraq got the foreign investment rules long sought by U.S. corporations," Antonia Juhasz, a visiting scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, and author of 'The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time' told IPS earlier.

Juhasz said the new laws, which were a part of the 100 'Bremer Orders' instituted by former U.S. administrator Paul Bremer when he headed the Coalition Provisional Authority during the first year of the occupation, provided a flood of benefits for U.S. companies.

These included "100 percent repatriation of profits earned in Iraq by foreign companies; 100 percent foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses, including banks; privatisation of Iraq's state owned enterprises; 100 percent immunity for U.S. contractors and soldiers from Iraq's laws; and 'national treatment' which allowed for Iraqis to be all but excluded from the reconstruction for years while the U.S. government paid 50 billion dollars to some 150 U.S. corporations for work in Iraq."

What followed was "a U.S. corporate invasion of Iraq," Juhasz said. "Many companies had their sights set on privatisation in Iraq, also made possible by Bremer, which helps explain their interest in 'major overhauls' rather than getting the systems up and running."

In contrast, there was much state support for businesses under the previous regime, which followed a socialist system under which the government allowed Iraqis to establish their own factories and workshops, and supported them in many ways.

Businesses were granted low interest loans and permission to transfer foreign currency. They could get state-owned land to build on. Administrative laws facilitated enterprise, and so small industry business bloomed during the 1970s and 1980s.

Major industries in Iraq for oil products, phosphates and cement, along with the military industry, were mostly state-run under the previous regime. Foreign companies were allowed, under state supervision, to build factories as Iraq moved towards increasing industrialisation.

This growth was reversed during the 1990's under the U.S-backed UN economic sanctions. The sanctions crippled the Iraqi dinar and people's ability to purchase goods and services.

The business situation worsened further during the U.S.-led invasion when most factories ceased to function. Many were bombed, and for other factories employees stayed at home. Following the invasion several were looted, and were never able to start again..

Some private businesses held out, but eventually security problems, lack of electricity and fuel, a staggering inflation rate (70 percent) and lack of safe transportation led many of these too to close down. Unemployment now stands at more than 50 percent - but most people believe the real situation is far worse.

Thousands of business and factory owners sold what they could and fled to neighbouring countries. Those who did not now wish they had.

"I used to employ more than 30 workers in my plastic products factory, and business was good before the occupation," Abbas Ali told IPS in Baghdad. "It is impossible to work now, and I had to go back to my old job as school teacher. I was offered 200,000 dollars for the business, but now it is not worth anything. I blame myself for not selling it to flee, like some of my colleagues who live safely in Syria now."

And still, there are steel, textile, and other factories that continue to produce what they can.

Kais al-Nazzal built a set of steel factories about 60km west of Baghdad near Fallujah, and is fighting to keep them going. "We imported the best quality steel manufacturing equipment and spent millions of dollars on modern buildings to meet international standards," Kais al-Nazzal told IPS.

"We have been able to work through the occupation period, but we must admit there are hardships under the recent domestic disturbances that are causing us considerable losses."

Local studies have found 85 percent unemployment in the industry sector. Many of the 15 percent who remain employed are registered at a few state factories that pay their employees even if they produce nothing.

"We are trying to do some work here, but the whole situation is not encouraging, so it seems that we will wait until a miracle takes place," a manager at a state-owned cement factory on the outskirts of Baghdad told IPS.

The business and economic morass Iraq finds itself in today is evident in the market places across the capital city.

About 80 percent of domestically manufactured goods were distributed prior to the invasion and occupation through the Shorja market in the centre of Baghdad. The wholesale market is a bazaar along narrow roads where hundreds of small shop-owners display their merchandise.

"There is no Iraqi brand any more," plastic products distributor Johar Aziz told IPS. "Iraqi products flourished during the quarter century before occupation, but now we only sell imported products of the lowest quality, and people have to buy them because there is no alternative."

Other markets in Baghdad are suffering a similar crisis, like the Samarraii compound where tyres are sold, the Jamila market for fruits and vegetables, and the Sinaa market for computers.

The main shopping centres like Saadoon Street and Rasheed Street, and the once upmarket Mansour area and the Karrada district are now like ghosts of what they once were.

"We used to open our shops for at least 16 hours a day, but now we only open for a few hours because of the security threats," Duraid Abdullah, an electrical appliances shop owner in Karrada told IPS. "We are facing all kinds of threats starting from being abducted for money or sectarian reasons, as well as being evicted from our shops by gangs supported by government forces."

A businessman who once owned a small textile factory that has gone bankrupt said he had not expected the coming in of a U.S. administration to be bad for business.

"The picture of Japan after World War II dominated the minds of businessmen in Iraq after occupation," he said. "Most of us thought the American invasion of Iraq was bad for many things, but it must be good for business in general and industry in particular. We were terribly wrong. The Iraqi economy was meant to be destroyed for political reasons."

All rights reserved, IPS - Inter Press Service (2006). Total or partial publication, retransmission or sale forbidden.

By Christine Spolar

Chicago Tribune

(MCT)

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran reached out to Iraq and the American public in separate gestures Wednesday, giving the Baghdad government a $1 billion line of credit while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a personal letter to "noble Americans" calling for a military withdrawal from Iraq.

The financial arrangements were revealed on the third and final day of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's meetings here with Iran's political elite. Ahmadinejad made clear for the first time that Iran would support Iraq's government in setting a timetable for U.S. troops to leave the country.

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that in addition to the line of credit, Ahmadinejad and Talabani had signed "hundreds of millions of dollars" worth of no-bid contracts and trade pacts for Iraqi reconstruction. Under the agreements, Iran will help rebuild schools, hospitals, pipelines and power plants.

Iran's gestures underscored its deep religious bond with its Shiite-majority neighbor but also what some believe is its desire to displace the U.S. as a powerbroker in Iraq. They were announced as possible tensions surfaced in the U.S.-Iraq relationship when a summit between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Bush in Amman was postponed by a day.

Ahmadinejad's "letter to the American people," released by Iran's UN mission in New York, made special note of the financial cost of the Iraq war to the U.S.

"I consider it extremely unlikely that you, the American people, consent to the billions of dollars of annual expenditure from your treasury for this military misadventure," he wrote.

He noted other possible uses for the money, pointing out that "many victims of Katrina continue to suffer, and countless Americans continue to live in poverty and homelessness."

While such jibes at U.S. policy are common for Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president used highly diplomatic language Wednesday in Tehran to wrap up Talabani's visit. Discussing a possible timetable for withdrawal of foreign troops, he said too much time had passed for "those who came to help the Iraqi nation."

Concerning the U.S.-led invasion that overthrew Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Ahmadinejad said: "When Saddam was toppled everyone was happy." But the Iranian leader's message to the U.S. was direct: "I strongly advise you to leave Iraq to restore your respect and reputation. Based on an agreed timetable with the Iraqi government, trying to handle the affair eventually, you should let the Iraqi government run the country."

Ahmadinejad had invited Talabani to Tehran this week to explore possible ways to bring calm to Iraq, but neither man explained what, if any, security agreement they had reached.

At no time during the three days of talks was there any public mention of the militias blamed for much of the bloodletting in Iraq - notably Shiite militias that could be influenced by leaders of the Islamic Republic.

Both Ahmadinejad and Talabani delivered prepared statements to the news media Wednesday and neither took questions.

Talabani said the two countries "had complete agreement" in three days of talks. Talabani, who has had good relations over the years with both Iranian and U.S. leaders, has been portrayed as pivotal in finding support for Iraq from Iran, a longtime U.S. adversary.

Some analysts had suggested that Talabani could possibly open some avenues of communication between Iran and the United States, but there was no hint of a broader agenda from the Iraqi leader's comments Wednesday.

"We can clearly say that the trip has been 100 percent successful," Talabani said. "And I would like to give the Iraqi nation the good news that the fruitful result of this trip will soon be seen by them."

Talabani met with top ministers in the government and the Islamic Republic's supreme leader and he indicated that the Iranian elite understood the threat that the violence posed for the region. U.S. officials, however, believe Iran has been involved in backing some of the militias linked to the unrest in Iraq, and the Bush administration has expressed skepticism about Iran's interest.

Ahmadinejad was specific in his statement about how he regarded the daily car bombs and mortar attacks that have nearly paralyzed Iraq and have been blamed largely on feuding Shiite and Sunni Muslim factions.

"Terrorist acts are the most shameful acts you can do," Ahmadinejad said. "This is not a help to the Iraqi nation."

Foreign Minister Mottaki, in an hourlong interview in his office after the leaders' briefing, elaborated on how Iran and Iraq had "found common ground" this week.

Iran is intent on supporting the president, prime minister and government of Iraq, he said. Asked what security measure Iran could provide, he said "anything that is asked of us. They have to ask and they have to announce it."

Asked whether the leaders discussed Iran's continuing dispute with the U.S. and the UN over its nuclear enrichment program, Mottaki said no one raised the issue. "We had no communication with Mr. Talabani on the nuclear issue," he said.

"I think it is time for the United States to take a hard look at their failings in the region," Mottaki said. He added that Iran was looking for some changes on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan where American forces are positioned.

"It's an attitude, not the number of forces," he said about the Iranian leadership's ire toward U.S. policy.

Ahmadinejad's letter to the American public was released just after Wednesday's press briefing, and it was unclear whether Talabani knew of the letter befo*****d. It was also unclear why the Iranian leader wanted the letter to emerge after upbeat talks with Talabani, who was expected to consult with the Bush administration.

The letter, another unorthodox move by the Iranian leader who just a few months ago sent a rambling personal letter to President Bush that questioned his judgment and vision, asked the American public to "play an instrumental role" in reforming U.S. policy.

It was also antagonistic and deeply critical of Israel, a staunch U.S. ally.

"What have the Zionists done for the American people that the U.S. administration considers itself obliged to blindly support these infamous aggressors?" Ahmadinejad wrote. "Is it not because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors?"

U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey called Ahmadinejad's letter "something of a public-relations stunt."

Originally Posted by Trapper t

Adster, Do you no of anyone that is holding any of the 50,250,500 dinar notes? I seen them on the CBI website they need even lower denoms before the reval don't you think?

I've been holding 1 mil. in $50.00 For 2 months

Originally Posted by railroad

I for the sake of me cannot believe that the entire re-value is waithing on small denoms. As bad as it sounds, I think that a low re-value in the .04 range will come out first to obtain as much out of country dinar as possible. As that dries then up the value again will rise and the lower denoms will appear

It will surely take what I have and will make me a MILLIONAIRE at the same time WOOOOOOOT!!!!

Have relaxed the Rules of the Thread. I agree with Adster and it takes to much of my time. Just have a peak at the relaxation of these when permitted. Now I can can go back in research Mode. Look out.

Stevo elsewhere just reported xe.com showing dinar at 1427, down from 1436 yesterday. Lowest he's seen.