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

In my opinion the 1260 rate in the next 3 months is bogus information. The CBI is not our friend. They are in business to make money, so they are going to keep what is really going on to themselves and keep speculators in the dark and feed us crap. They know that in order for Iraq to get on its' feet fast they are going to have to revalue the currency. They need purchasing power to import food, electronics, and machinery. They are business men. They know that the world is waiting to get at their oil. They know the financial future they are looking at, but they are playing dumb to throw off speculators and business investors until they are ready. It's a poker game and they aren't quite ready to show us their cards yet. Again, this is only my opinion.

Hey Mike..Is this it?
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTE...1110~theSitePK

Originally Posted by Mike5200

Sorry about the links not working....I don't know how to fix that!

Najaf Teaching Hospital Nears Completion
December 22, 2006 - 5:31 AM


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NAJAF, Iraq, Dec. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Najaf Teaching Hospital, a project worth more than $10 million, will open in early 2007 featuring a seven-story building capable of housing 420 patients and containing 13 operating rooms.


(Photo: NewsCom Search )


The hospital development, which has survived gun battles, the termination of its primary contractor and serious security issues, first came to the attention of the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office (IRMO) in September 2004.


During that month, the flooded basement, containing debris and human remains, was cleaned and repaired, as were outpatient emergency services areas. After assessing the damage, IRMO decided to refurbish the entire hospital in December 2004.


Parsons Corp., the design-build contractor for the project completed the emergency repairs in February 2005, but pulled out of the project soon thereafter. A local contractor finished the outpatient facilities and completed all the immediate emergency repairs by April 2005.


"We awarded the final 370-day design build contract to a local Najaf contractor in July 2005," said Jim Lockard, health care project manager for the Gulf Region South District (GRS). "Renovation features that were included in this phase of the renovation were to renovate the industrial kitchen, laundry and mechanical rooms; repair the second through the seventh floors; refurbish the doctors' residences, the morgue, the sewer treatment plant and several other buildings on the hospital campus."


Bids were taken for the work that remained from the original contract, the hospital director was consulted and the award was made to a local company, Lockard said.


"We selected an Iraqi engineer Kal (not identified for security concerns) to be the project manager and he has been a great motivating force on the project for the past 18 months," Lockard added.


Najaf is a holy city to Shiite Muslims, not only because of the shrine of Al Iman Ali, son-in-law to the prophet Mohammed, who was killed while praying in Al Kufa Mosque, but also because of the Valley of Peace, a gargantuan graveyard in which the Shiite prefer to be buried.


Many Islamic religious institutions, called the Al Hawza Al Ilmia or scientific schools for clerical candidates, are also located in Najaf, adding to the mystique of the city. Because of its importance to the Shiite faith, millions of people visit the city, placing extra demand on the hospital, Kal said. He added that the facility also serves the entire Najaf Province, as well as adjacent provinces for certain medical specialties, such as oncology and kidney dialysis.


"Many physicians who worked at the hospital, but left when it closed, are now returning to work," he said. "Sixty-five specialists and 145 general physicians work here now."


The hospital will employ about 1,250 people, Kal said. About 100 physicians will reside on the hospital grounds and 200 medical and 50 pharmaceutical students will train at the facility, he said.


The Gulf Region Division, IRMO and the Japanese government are supplying equipment to the campus. GRD and IRMO will provide beds, room accessories and enough equipment for three of the operating rooms.


"Getting the equipment here - that has had security challenges," Kal said. "A lot of times, the roads were closed or there was a curfew because it was unsafe. But we faced the same problems with some of our technicians, so we told the contractor he had to house some of these people until the job was complete. And he did that."


Kal emphasized the fact that hospitals construction requires technical people capable of building complicated systems and these people were not easy to find. This put an extra strain on the contractor, as well as on the laborers doing the actual building, he said. Systems such as the mechanical, electrical and plumbing - all demanded that the team work closely with the construction company to ensure quality work.


"In the medical field, it is necessary to always have back-up systems because the hospital cannot adequately treat people if these systems fail," Kal said. "So we spent extra time with the contractor to make sure he understood the scope of work."


Security issues in Najaf itself cost the project five months time, but were overcome by the dedication of the team and the tenacity of the Iraqi engineers who worked the project.


"The GRS team could not always make it out to the site because of the danger," he said. "And sometimes the hospital staff tried to direct the contractor to perform their agenda. But after many meetings with them, we were able to convince the staff to work with us as a team to finish the job."


At one point, Kal said, the hospital was sending "disappointing reports to the health ministry, but now they come with us every day to inspect the systems and accept them. And because of this big change, the end production is good and the project is running smoothly."


But the project experienced a severe loss when the hospital director, Dr. Safaah Al Ameed, was murdered in September 2006.


"It was a very sad day," Kal said. "But the only impact his assassination had on the project itself was the coordination between GRS and the hospital's engineers. It took us two weeks, but we got back on schedule. And he would have wanted that."


Note: Betsy Weiner is a public affairs specialist for the Gulf Region South District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Iraq. For more information, contact James Bullinger, public affairs officer at (540) 665-2656. Email requests can be sent to [email protected]. For more information on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq, visit Gulf Region Division.

Originally Posted by pogo

Hey Mike..Is this it?
World Bank Group - System Maintenance

No, see Bluesguy's post #206 on page 21 Thanks

Hightide3016, I couldn't have said it better myself. They are a bunch of liars. They don't care about us. To bad though. It's going to happen.


Rocky....

A Marine source: high oil stocks of Iraqi in the port of Ceyhan

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22 December 2006 (Iraq Directory)
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A marine source said on Wednesday that Iraq's stocks of Kirkuk crude in the Turkish port of Ceyhan rose to 3.5 million barrels after the resumption of exports through the northern pipeline for a short period.

The source added that pumping crude from Kirkuk, "started on 17 and stopped again on 18 at 2345, local time". He continued: "We do not know the reason".

He went on to say that about 350 thousand barrels of Kirkuk crude was pumped to Ceyhan during the operation of the line, that the stock hit 3.5 million barrels.

The pumping through the pipeline stopped before on November 21; one day after it was operated. Earlier in November an attack with mortar set fire to storage depots in the northern city of Kirkuk.

The pipeline is out f work most of the time since the invasion led by the United States to the country in March 2003 due to sabotage attacks.

Originally Posted by hightide3016

In my opinion the 1260 rate in the next 3 months is bogus information. The CBI is not our friend. They are in business to make money, so they are going to keep what is really going on to themselves and keep speculators in the dark and feed us crap. They know that in order for Iraq to get on its' feet fast they are going to have to revalue the currency. They need purchasing power to import food, electronics, and machinery. They are business men. They know that the world is waiting to get at their oil. They know the financial future they are looking at, but they are playing dumb to throw off speculators and business investors until they are ready. It's a poker game and they aren't quite ready to show us their cards yet. Again, this is only my opinion.

Very well said. And another point I want to add...doesn't the demand really controls the rise of dinar??? I would think that this recent rise of dinar would increase the demand for it and would raise it's value automatically. Am I wrong?

A taste of Baghdad, without bombs
By Aamer Madhani

Chicago Tribune

(MCT)

AMMAN, Jordan - The Iraqi exiles who frequent Yasser al-Khadiree's hole-in-the-wall restaurant here come to taste his specialty dish of red beans and eggs, seasoned with heavy dashes of nostalgia and homesickness.

Until last year, it was in Baghdad that al-Khadiree's customers poured through the doors to dine at his Al Qadouri restaurant on bustling Abu Nawas Street, a 12-hour drive from here over the border to the east. There, both wealthy businessmen and street cops would pack the grease-stained tables to fill themselves up with Al Qadouri's home-style cooking.

But that ended Nov. 10, 2005, when a suicide attacker walked into the restaurant and detonated a bomb strapped to his body, killing 56 people - including al-Khadiree's brother - and leaving the restaurant in ruins.

Al-Khadiree soon became one of as many as 1.8 million Iraqis who have fled their homeland since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, settling in Jordan and other neighboring countries, where they are caught between their yearnings to return and growing resentment that the exiles are driving up housing prices and taxing government resources.

Since May, thanks to al-Khadiree, the forlorn exiles have found at least one place of respite and a taste of home in the Jordanian capital, where he has resurrected the Al Qadouri to serve up an old culinary favorite to customers trying desperately to keep alive their dreams of going back.

"My customers feel for a little while as if they are back in Iraq during a safer time," said al-Khadiree, who reopened in Amman a month after starting another Al Qadouri restaurant in Damascus, Syria, in April. "Many of my customers sit here and they talk of how they hope they'll soon go back. For me ... I have suffered terribly psychologically. I know I can't go back."

The diners are among 500,000 to 700,000 exiles in Jordan, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The U.N. says 3,000 Iraqis cross the borders every day to escape the sectarian violence that has surged since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra last February ignited sectarian fighting throughout the country.

Refugees International, a non-governmental group based in Washington, calls the migration "the fastest-growing humanitarian crisis in the world" and criticized the U.S. and its allies for doing little to help house and feed the exiles. In Amman, Iraqi exiles complain that, while they appreciate being welcomed by the Jordanian government, they feel isolated and resented by the Jordanian people.

Those concerns are whispered among the nostalgic talk of home at the new Al Qadouri in Amman.

Tucked into an empty lot in a residential neighborhood, the restaurant sits in an out-of-the-way corner of Amman. But it has been bringing in brisk business as word of its opening has spread through the exile community. Back in Baghdad, Al Qadouri had a spot on Abu Nawas Street, a stretch where most businesses have shuttered over the past year as security has deteriorated.

Al Qadouri, which is named after a famous Baghdad chef, was especially popular with Iraqi police who came for the hearty fare they could afford on their small salaries. Most of the victims in the bombing were police.

On a recent afternoon, the newly opened restaurant in Amman was half full, with a few tables of young men eating the soupy bean specialty, called bigalla, with fried eggs. At the front of the house, a noisy table of middle-aged men took their bowls of bigalla with heaping plates of lamb while catching up with one another and discussing Iraqi politics.

The six wealthy Sunni businessmen, who had known one another from their childhood in the western Iraqi city of Fallujah, sat at the noisy table and lamented what the Shiite-led government and U.S. military were doing to their country.

All the men had been traveling between Amman and Baghdad to do business many years before the war started. But by the beginning of 2005, they had all abandoned homes in Baghdad and Fallujah and moved their families to Amman.

Khalid Abdullah, 42, said he came to understand that his life in Iraq was untenable only after Shiite gunmen kidnapped his 13-year-old son as he was playing near the family's home in Baghdad. The kidnappers held his son for five days but finally agreed to release him after Abdullah paid a $100,000 ransom. Abdullah moved his family to Amman days later.

"These devils have no soul," Abdullah said of his son's abductors.

After Abdullah retold his son's ordeal, Khaled Hassen, 42, interjected that it was the foreign influence on the Shiite-led government that was to blame for their situation.

"It's the (Iranian) intelligence, Israeli intelligence and the American occupiers that we have to blame," Hassen said. "If the Americans put a stop to these agents, we would all be enjoying our lunch at home where we belong instead of here."

For many of the regulars at Al Qadouri, their visits are as much about tending to their homesickness with something familiar as it is about the food.

Abid Razaaq al-Yassin, 55, said that for the most part he has felt welcome in Jordan and is starting to view the country as a second home. But al-Yassin said it is difficult to ignore that Jordanians have come to resent the Iraqi exiles.

In Amman, housing prices in some of the city's upscale neighborhoods have almost doubled since the start of the war as the market has been filled with wealthy Iraqis.

Al-Yassin said he would like to go home but worries that those who fled will be received poorly when they return.

"I think they will see us being with the collaborators," al-Yassin said.

Still, the men said they long for the familiarity of Baghdad, and their lunches at Al Qadouri help fill some of the void.

Al-Khadiree, 36, tried to make his restaurant in Amman look like the Baghdad Al Qadouri. He searched long and hard for a spot that was similar in dimensions to the storefront he had in Baghdad. He found similar lighting fixtures and posted several pictures of the old restaurant marquee, which features a plump, mustachioed chef.

He also has Iraqi tea, rice and cooking oil sent in bulk to his Amman and Damascus locations. Earlier this month, al-Khadiree brought in the restaurant's namesake, the famous Baghdad chef Qadouri, to train his cooks in Amman.

Still, al-Khadiree said reproducing the tastes that made his Baghdad dive one of the most popular haunts for police has been difficult.

"We try to replicate it as much as we can, but the meat tastes totally different here," al-Khadiree said. "Whenever the chef is homesick, you can taste it in the food."

For al-Khadiree, the transition to life in Jordan has been particularly difficult.

He grieves for his old routine. He would start his day early by checking on his chicken farm in southern Baghdad and then head to the restaurant for a few hours.

By late afternoon, he would set out for his office in Baghdad's Karada district, where he acknowledged that not a lot of work was done. Instead, friends and family would come visit and chat for hours over tea and Arabic coffee. As it got later, the beverages got stronger.

Al-Khadiree said his younger brother, Walid, would regularly visit him at the office, but sometimes would stop by the restaurant to check up on him.

Walid happened to stop by on the day of the bombing just to say hello, but al-Khadiree said he had already left for the day. His brother was standing in front of the restaurant when the suicide bomber detonated his device, and Walid was killed by flying shards of glass, al-Khadiree said.

Al-Khadiree said his three young children have adjusted well and are thriving in a situation where they can play and go to school without the worry of bombings and kidnappings.

For al-Khadiree and his wife, the loss of their old lives, filled with friends and family, can be overwhelming. But al-Khadiree said they have come to realize that they will never have their old lives back.

"I was living like a king but I did not appreciate it then," al-Khadiree said. "You only understand and can fully appreciate what you have when it is gone."

Originally Posted by billknows

There is no question in my mind, that their budget can be maintained at a dinar value of 1260. And it doesn't mean that outside investors will necessarily buy up Iraq for a "song"

What it does mean is that every transaction they make will have to be "dollarized". They will need to determine in USD the value of every transaction so that a fair exchange can occur on every transaction.

Determining the USD value of every transaction will require them to get out their calculators every time a lease or a purchase takes place - although this might not be so difficult.

If their budget is calculated on a dinar rate of 1260 = 1USD. it won't necessarily be difficult to "dollarize" every transaction. I believe they could simply move the decimal place over three places to determine fair market value in USD. In other words, they may be able to calculate fair market value using an under the table dinar value of 1.260=1USD

Personally, I believe that the dinar will be revalued, very likely to 1.26=1USD.
If they do this in the very near future, which I believe they will, then the need to "dollarize" every transaction will be eliminated.

Keep in mind that if Iraq is planning to revalue their dinar - they will not tell us - you will never see it print anywhere - it must be a surprise!

I believe their publicly stated dinar value of 1260=1USD for 2007 - is as much as they can tell us.

The surprise will be when they move the decimals over from 1260 to 1.26=1USD and I think it will happen as I have stated before - midnight Jan 1st, 2007. If for some reason, they choose a later date to revalue, moving the decimals is still very easy - and can be done at any time they choose, to maintain the element of surprise.

I agree

Well over a year ago i put a post at IIF about moving the ( . ) on the 1.47 rate and how if the currency was stable at 1470 it would be at 1.47 also as everything would change at the sametime. what once cost 1000 dinar would then cost 1.00. I think this will still hold true. They are moving from 1470 to 1260 to help with inflation. Once this is corrected i think they could RV the dinar to 1.26 adjust all prices and thing would still be stable and the country has a competitive currency. Just food for thought

Happy Holiday's !

Dec 22, 9:03 AM ET



BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - British troops backed by tanks on Friday seized a leader of a rogue Iraqi police unit suspected of being behind the killing of 17 people in an ambush near the Iraqi city of Basra, the British military said.

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Some 800 troops launched a pre-dawn raid on a house in a southern district of Basra and captured seven people, including a "significant" member of Basra's police Serious Crimes Unit, British military spokesman Major Charlie Burbridge said.

No shots were fired in the operation and there were no casualties, he added.

Burbridge said the officer was suspected of links to an incident in October, when gunmen ambushed a minibus carrying police translators, trainers and cleaning workers from a police academy to Basra on Sunday.

At the time, a police source said the gunmen shot their victims in the head and the chest and dumped the bodies around Basra.

Police in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city and the scene of bloody turf wars between Shi'ite factions competing for control of the city's oil wealth, have been infiltrated by militias accused of killings and kidnappings.2

"The Serious Crimes Unit has been a problem for three years," Burbridge said. He said Friday's raid was part of an on-going operation to disband the unit.

British troops have carried out several operations this year to root out rogue elements of the unit.

Britain has around 7,100 troops in southern Iraq, mostly stationed in and around Basra. The city's oil wealth is the source of most of the Iraqi government's revenues.

Britain hopes to pull out thousands of troops next year and hand over control of Basra to Iraqi authorities in April, although British military officials say that is dependent on security conditions on the ground