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

Originally Posted by michael16

It seems to me we are going to see the dinar reval similar to a company that has a great product with a low stock price. It will rise in value then sell off some then rise again until it reaches its true value. Is this the case or will it get to a value and or predicted quantity in circulation and then the central bank will increase the value to lets say a dollar. Any opinions on these two ways of a dinar revalue.

This makes sense in a free market economy however the Dinar was devalued to an arbitrary rate and it was maintained by the CBI for around 3 years. It will be interesting to see if the Dinar rises to its "actual" free market rate or if it gets revalued and pegged. My opinion sees a RV to a previous rate and then a partial peg to a basket of currencies to prevent wild flucuations.

Originally Posted by Precocious

Wouldn't this only apply if the rate was going up organicly as a result of free trade supply and demand, rather than a closed bank policy. The other concern is, does the CBI have the US dollars to cover the exchange of possibly a TRILLION US DOLLARS from existing holdings.

They don't need a trillion dollars. The have 12+ billion usd and tons of black gold. Countries that have dinar (see ICI) will probably exchange their dinar, not for usd or euro, but for oil. It's us small fries want to exchange dinar for another currency.

Look at it this way guys. You have shares in a commodity that will always be needed and is the richest of all commodities, even beating gold. Dinars = oil = loadsa disney dollars.

Translated version of http://www.newsabah.com/paper.php?name=News&file=categories&op=newindex&ca tid=20

financial" There will be an expanded meeting to discuss ways to develop audit work and achievements
Baghdad : Al-Sabah Al-Jadeed
The Ministry of Finance held a lengthy meeting attended by Mr. Jabr Al-Zubaydi statement to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Kamal visual undersecretary of the ministry and gentlemen Directors-General and advisers and a number of officials and workers in the ministry, during the meeting discussed ways to enhance the work of the Ministry of Finance, particularly with regard to the new financial year 2007.
He called Zubaidi During the meeting, all to make further efforts and raise the level of the work of the ministry and adoption of modern methods of administration and management away from the red tape and to facilitate the provision of services to citizens of all the forums and agencies of the Ministry.

The following Directors-General a detailed explanation of the constituencies in the work and achievements during 2006 and the plan approved for the 2007 budget, which will witness great on modern Iraq, which requires the convergence efforts of workers to give the ideal image for the rest of the ministries in the performance of career services and provided with the means of ARC e weapons and trained new elements and coordination between the Ministry of Interior and Defense to secure the roads leading to the ministry.
The Minister stressed the importance of archiving information on the districts of the ministry on CD and kept at places Hasina emphasized the importance of updating information.
The minister instructed Mr. Bervdha Balmlakat specialized engineering graduates from universities in addition to the provision of modern communication devices and has been discussing the work of circles, insurance and advancement in order to achieve the resources to the state treasury.
On the other hand, denied official source at the Ministry of Finance that the tax policy of the newly introduced in the ministry cancels the work of the general taxation.
The source added that the new policy on taxes is a key factor in attracting investment and activate the structural tax system to guarantee payment of voluntary covered without following the methods of collection and appreciation.
He pointed out that the section which had been developed in the economic status of the ministry came to the policy of tax according to the targets set in order to ensure the application of balancing work in 2007.

Originally Posted by Adster

If it revalues at $3.22 I will run naked around the village we live in with a wad of 5k notes in my hands.

I would too, but it would probably terrify the locals. Not to mention it's about 4 below zero. Poor Bronco fans! We not only lost, they all froze their behinds off. Ein Prosit to this being the week to save my poor impoverished behind!

Originally Posted by webinvestor

They don't need a trillion dollars. The have 12+ billion usd and tons of black gold. Countries that have dinar (see ICI) will probably exchange their dinar, not for usd or euro, but for oil. It's us small fries want to exchange dinar for another currency.

Add to that today's clarification and further information to those interested, as has been frozen Iraqi assets or funds have also been freezing all Iraqi property abroad (embassies and consulates and the headquarters of Iraqi diplomatic missions and houses, which had bought the Iraqi government in the countries of the world and all of Ka Net belonging to the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and the freezing of Iraqi gold subject secretariat in Switzerland, which is estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars, Here I note that the gold is to cover the value of the Iraqi currency in circulation, Remember also that most if not all countries in the world have gold reserves insured in Switzerland to cover their currencies in circulation, So when gold was freezing Iraqi landed value of the Iraqi currency in circulation and has become what is known in Iraq at the time the "Swiss dinar," which was circulated in northern Iraq in the Autonomous Region "Kurdistan" and "the Iraqi dinar," which was circulated in other parts of Iraq,

Translated version of http://al-moharer.net/moh198/fouad198a.htm

Originally Posted by webinvestor

They don't need a trillion dollars. The have 12+ billion usd and tons of black gold. Countries that have dinar (see ICI) will probably exchange their dinar, not for usd or euro, but for oil. It's us small fries want to exchange dinar for another currency.

A very good statement! In addition we recently heard that they have 500 fields of oil and plan to lease 20 of them. My friends in the energy field tell me once a field like those in iraq have been surveyed (by Japex), based on the survey, there is a professional statement as to how much oil is in the field. That the energy professional relies on these surveys and they are held in such high regard that they can be "taken to the bank". Depending on how large these fields are, then someone knows how much oil is there. And the leases will be sold based on these surveys. Oil in the ground or gold in the vault is referred to as "stored value" in economics. So when we make estimates about how money Iraqi has the oil fields have to be taken into account as to how much wealth a country (iraq) has. Their oil means a lot more to national wealth than just "Oil in the ground" once there is a professional survey completed. And since they reported 500 fields, their weath is in the upper atmoshere. Thanks

Honors Convocation
Newberry College
9 November 2006

Mitchell Zais

Many of our faculty and staff have asked me my views about the current situation in Iraq . A few students have also asked. So I thought I would take this opportunity, two days before Veterans' Day, to provide you with some insights as seen from the perspective of a combat veteran who served as the Commanding General of US and allied forces in Iraq . I also served as Chief of War Plans in the Pentagon and have spent considerable time studying national security affairs, including a fellowship at the National Defense University . So while it's true that everyone has opinions about Iraq , I would argue that not all of those opinions are equally well-informed.

This talk will address our strategy in Iraq . I won't talk about what the next steps should be, what the long-term prospects for peace in Iraq are, or how we can best get out of the quagmire we are in.
Those might be other talks. For today I'm going to focus on strategy.

Let me begin by saying that most of our problems in Iraq stem from a flawed strategy that has been in place since the beginning of the war.

It's important that you understand what strategy is. In military terminology there is a distinction between strategy, operations, tactics, and techniques.

Strategy pertains to national decision-making at the highest level. For example, our strategy in World War II was to mobilize the nation, then defeat the Nazi regime while conducting a holding action in the Pacific, then shift our forces to destroy the Japanese Empire. Afterwards, our strategy was to rebuild both defeated nations into capitalistic democracies in order to make them future allies.

An example of an operational decision from World War II would be the decision to invade North Africa and then Italy and Southern France before moving directly for the heart of Germany by coming ashore in Northern France or Belgium .

Tactics characterize a scheme of maneuver that integrates the different capabilities of, for example, infantry, armor, and artillery.

A technique might describe a way of employing machine guns with overlapping fields of fire or of setting up a roadblock.

Our strategy in Iraq has been:

1. fight the war on the cheap;

2. ask the ground forces to perform missions that are more suitably performed by other branches of the American government;

3. inconvenience the American people as little as possible, and

4. continue to fund the Air Force and Navy at the same levels that they have been funded at for the last 30 years while shortchanging the Army and Marines who are doing all of the fighting.

No wonder the war is not going well.

Let me explain how the war is being fought on the cheap.

>From the very beginning, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who thankfully announced his departure yesterday, has striven to minimize the number of soldiers and Marines in Iraq . Instead of employing the Colin Powell doctrine of "use massive force at the beginning to achieve a quick and decisive victory," his goal has been "use no more troops than absolutely necessary so we can spend defense dollars on new technology."

Before hostilities began, the Army Chief of Staff, Eric Shinseki, testified before Congress that an occupation of Iraq would require hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Shinseki made his estimate based on his extensive experience in the former Yugoslavia where he worked to disengage the warring factions of Orthodox Serbians, Catholic Croatians, and Muslim Kosovars.

Shinseki also had available the results of a wargame conducted in 1999 that involved 70 military, diplomatic, and intelligence officials. This recently declassified study concluded that 400,000 troops on the ground were needed to keep order, seal borders, and take care of other security needs. And even then stability would not be guaranteed.

Because of his testimony before Congress, Rumsfeld moved Shinseki aside. In a nearly unprecedented move, to replace Shinseki, Rumsfeld recalled from active duty a retired general who was more likely to accept his theory that we could win a war in Iraq and establish a stable government with a small number of troops.

The Defense Department has fought the war on the cheap because, despite overwhelming evidence that the Army and Marine Corps need a significant increase in their size in order to accomplished their assigned missions, the civilian officials who run the Pentagon have refused to request authorization from Congress to do so. Two Democratic representatives, Mark Udall from Colorado and Ellen Tauscher of California , have introduced a bill into Congress that would add 80,000 troops to the end-strength of the active Army. Currently, this bill has no support from the Defense Department.

When I was commissioned in 1969 the Army was one and a half million. Despite the fact that we're engaged in combat in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in the Philippines, and committed to peacekeeping missions in Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Sinai, and on operational deployments in over 70 countries, our Army is now less than one third that size. We had more soldiers in Saudi Arabia in the first Gulf war than we have in the entire Army today. In fact, Wal-Mart has three times as many employees as the American Army has soldiers.
As late as 1990, Army end-strength was approximately 770,000. With fewer than a half-million today, defense analysts have argued that we need to add nearly 200,000 soldiers to the active ranks.

Today, the Army is so bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq that fewer than 10,000 soldiers are ready and able to deal with any new crisis elsewhere in the world. And because the Army is so small, after only a year at home units are returning to Iraq for a second and even a third 12-month tour of duty.

Let me add a parenthetical note here explaining a difference between our services. Army tours of duty in Iraq are for 12 or 13 months. For Marines it's normally six months. For Air Force personnel it's typically four months. So when a soldier says he's going back to Iraq for his third tour, it means something totally different than when an airman says the same thing.

Because the active force is too small, the mission of our National Guard and reserve forces has been changed. Their original purpose was to save the nation in time of peril. Today they serve as fillers for an inadequately sized active force. This change in mission has occurred with no national debate and no input from Congress.

We have fought the war on the cheap because we have never adequately funded the rebuilding of the Iraqi military or the training and equipping of the Iraqi police forces. The e-mails I receive from soldiers and Marines assigned to train Iraqi forces all complain of their inadequate resources because they are at the very bottom of the supply chain and the lowest priority.
>
We have fought the war on the cheap because we have failed to purchase necessary equipment for our troops or repair that which has been broken or a worn out in combat. You've all read the stories about soldiers having to purchase their own bulletproof vests and other equipment. And the Army Chief of Staff has testified that he needs an extra $17 billion to fix equipment. For example, nearly 1500 war-fighting vehicles await repair in Texas with 500 tanks sitting in Alabama .

Finally, we are fighting this war on the cheap because our defense budget of 3.8% of gross domestic product is too small. In the Kennedy administration it averaged 9% of GDP. The average defense budget in the post Vietnam era, from 1974 to 1994, was about 5.8% of GDP. If we are in a global war against radical Islam, and we are, then we need a defense budget that reflects wartime requirements.

A second part of our strategy is to ask the military to perform missions that are more appropriate for other branches of government.

Our Army and Marine Corps are taking the lead in such projects as building roads and sewage treatment plants, establishing schools, training a neutral judiciary, and developing a modern banking system. The press refers to these activities as nation-building. Our soldiers and Marines are neither equipped nor trained to do these things. They attempt them, and in general they succeed, because they are so committed and so obedient. But it is not what they do well and what only they alone can do.

But I would ask, where are our Department of Energy and Department of Transportation in restoring Iraqi infrastructure? What's the role of our Department of Education in rebuilding an Iraqi educational system? What does our Department of Justice do to help stand up an impartial judicial system? Where is the US Information Agency in establishing a modern equivalent of Radio Free Europe? And why did it take a year after the end of the active fighting for the State Department to assume responsibility from the Department of Defense in setting up an Iraqi government? These other US government
agencies are only peripherally and secondarily involved in Iraq .

This is not exactly news but I think it helps us understand the situation. There is no link, I received it via email.

Micheal Bolton resigns.

Thank God, I hated that "when a man loves a woman" song.

Originally Posted by webinvestor

They don't need a trillion dollars. The have 12+ billion usd and tons of black gold. Countries that have dinar (see ICI) will probably exchange their dinar, not for usd or euro, but for oil. It's us small fries want to exchange dinar for another currency.

Also it is my understanding that countries that have the Iraqi dinar have an agreement to HOLD ONTO their dinars for 5 YEARS, probably in exchange for oil.