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

Originally Posted by neno

1 Ton = 2000lbs X 16 onces = 32,000 X (what $ per once) X 400 Tons = What?

2000 X 16 = 32000 X 400 = 12800000 X $620.05 = $7,936,640,000.00
as of 12/22/06

Gates announces strategic agreement with the Iraqi government

(Voice of Iraq) - 12-23-2006
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Gates announces strategic agreement with the Iraqi government on the security of Baghdad

Baghdad (AFP) - The American Secretary of Defense Robert Gates Friday that the United States and the Iraqi government reached a "broad strategic agreement" on ways to stop the violence in Baghdad, with British forces announced the arrest of the leader of a unit of the Iraqi police and six of his men accused of committing a massacre.

Before leaving the Iraqi capital, said Gates, who is under pressure from within the United States to develop a plan to extricate Iraq from chaos and the American soldiers to their country that President George Bush will immediately impressions and conclusions during the weekend.

He said Gates, who has been sworn in as minister of defense in the new country five days ago that "very difficult situation".

With Gates was speaking to reporters in front of the headquarters of the American military command in Iraq were the voices of machine guns and helicopters audible from a distance. He added, "But I think based on what I saw and heard from the leaders, the Americans and Iraqis that things are moving in a positive direction."

Gates explained that the Iraqi government has drawn up concrete plans to restore security in Baghdad, but he did not mention any details and did not clarify whether the send more American forces to Iraq is contained in these plans or not.

The violence in Baghdad, an unprecedented level for both sectarian or the result of the rebels and now reaps more than one hundred a day.

The American Secretary of Defense, which discussed the security situation with Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was found to have a great understanding of the problems and prepared to deal with them. He said, "We talked with Iraqis on the best way to improve the security situation here in Baghdad". He continued : "I think we have reached a broad strategic agreement between the American military on one hand and the Iraqi military and the Iraqi government on the other hand."

Despite statements Gates, it is no secret to any one, no differences Iraqi-American, especially after the government attempts to re-Maliki movement of Moqtada Sadr against the United States to the cabinet reshuffle Although Washington is seeking to isolate.

The American officials recently said they prefer the restructuring of the government coalition, so that the exclusion of al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army militia, which was accused by the American Department of Defense to contribute to the eruption of sectarian violence that escalated since the attack on the goat Shiite Imams Hadi and the military in Samarra last February.

Al-Sadr began last month, as if the American administration to help achieve the goal when he announced his withdrawal from government and the parliament to protest against the meeting between Bush and al-Maliki in Amman.

However, the Shiite coalition, which enjoys a majority in the Iraqi Parliament began discussions this week with al-Sadr movement in order to return to the government and the House of Representatives.

The head of the parliamentary bloc of the current Sadri Nasser spring Friday that the Shiite coalition "form a committee to discuss the return of the current sternum to the government and Parliament."

In response to a question about whether he had received an undertaking from the government to deal with Shiite militias responsible for killings Gates said he was told that will be addressed outside of the law, without exception, any group.

But Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said after meeting with Gates on Thursday that "Sadamiin and Altkverein" were responsible for the violence in Iraq so unlikely that the Shiite militias key role in the deterioration of the security situation.

It is noteworthy that the level of violence has increased recently in this oil-rich city, which is considered a gate where conflicting economic Iraq Shiite factions on the economic and political influence, which led to the killings of mutual them.

ARAB, FOREIGN BANKS RETURN IRAQI FROZEN ASSETS
Baghdad, As-Sabah , July 21, Page 3
The central bank of Iraq unveiled that a number of Arab and foreign states released Iraqi assets frozen at their own banks, worth more than $ 10 billions . An official source at the bank announced that several legal procedures have been adopted to regain these funds through the official bank channels in according with UNSC Resolution 1483 stipulates regaining all Iraqi assets existed abroad to the Iraqi development fund.The source added that among the states which are keeping these funds are Turkey Lebanon, Syria , Jordan and France.He confirmed the fact of the existence of such funds at these banks coping with the financial evidences connected with Iraqi oil –for-food deal, referring that these funds were registered at these banks under relative names of former regime or in names of some delusive companies.

Al-Sabah newspaper

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I know there was another article that said that Sadam had gold in the Sweedon or German Vaults too.

Originally Posted by cigarman

If you take the 15 billion in foreign reserves and 10+billion in gold you get 25 billion. I was reading the history thread today and I saw an article that the MOF or CBI gave Iraq the OK to back the dinar 95%, so I see that the skies the limit!!!!!! But I'm a yeasayer anyway.

Also old but still important

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"The central bank of Iraq unveiled that a number of Arab and foreign states released Iraqi assets frozen at their own banks, worth more than $ 10 billions.
An official source at the bank announced that several legal procedures have been adopted to regain these funds through the official bank channels in according with UNSC Resolution 1483 stipulates regaining all Iraqi assets existed abroad to the Iraqi development fund."

Al-Sabah newspaper


Is the latter an addition to the 25Bn or is it the same?

Thank you

Originally Posted by adm

Also old but still important

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The central bank of Iraq unveiled that a number of Arab and foreign states released Iraqi assets frozen at their own banks, worth more than $ 10 billions.
An official source at the bank announced that several legal procedures have been adopted to regain these funds through the official bank channels in according with UNSC Resolution 1483 stipulates regaining all Iraqi assets existed abroad to the Iraqi development fund."

Al-Sabah newspaper


Is the latter an addition to the 25Bn or is it the same?

Thank you

Same.

Morning Edition, December 22, 2006 · One group crucial to the future of Iraq is the Kurds. They live mainly in the northern part of the country, known as Iraqi Kurdistan. For decades, Kurds fought for independence from Saddam Hussein's government and paid harshly for it. Under Saddam's rule, a series of military campaigns and ethnic cleansing against the Kurds took place in the 1980s, including the use of chemical weapons on civilian populations.

The two leaders of the Kurds were once fierce rivals. Jalal Talabani is now the president of Iraq, but he is also the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, which represents about half of the Kurdish population. The president of Iraqi Kurdistan is Massoud Barzani, the son of the legendary founder of the Kurdish resistance Mustafa Barzani, who founded the Kurdish Democratic Party, or KDP, in 1946. The PUK wasn't founded until 1975. The KDP, based in the northern city of Sulaymaniyah, represents the other half of the Kurdish population.

For years, Talabani and Barzani were fierce rivals. After the 1991 Gulf War, the United States put in place a "no-fly" zone in Northern Iraq, covering much of Iraqi Kurdistan. As a result, the Kurds were mostly protected from Saddam -- but not from each other. In essence, the PUK and KDP fought a civil war during the 1990s which only ended in 1998, when the United States brokered a peace deal.

The ultimate goal of both men is an independent Kurdistan. But they realize that, for now, they must work within a federal structure under a central Iraqi government. There are Kurdish populations in Turkey, Iran and Syria and all of those governments fear separatist movements of their own if an independent Kurdistan is formed. Turkey has long fought a brutal campaign against Kurdish separatists of the Kurdish Workers Party, known as the PKK. And on occasion, Iranian forces shell Kurdish separatists based near the Iraq-Iran border.

The two men are working for as much autonomy from the central government as they can get, which so far has been considerable. Iraqi Arabs must have passports to travel to Kurdistan; the official language is Kurdish, not Arabic; and the Iraqi flag has been taken down in many places, replaced with the Kurdish flag.

Even as they work within a federal structure, a crisis may emerge in Kirkuk, a city that has historically been an ethnic mix of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen. Saddam attempted to "Arabize" the area during the 1970s and '80s, forcing Kurds from their homes, and importing Arabs. Talabani and Barzani see Kirkuk as the capital of Kurdistan, for historic reasons and because the city sits astride the largest proven oil reserves in Iraq.

The Kurdish government is attempting to reverse Saddam's ethnic program with one of its own, forcing Arabs out and forcing Kurdish families who lived there in the past to abandon their new lives and move to a very dangerous city. Unlike Kurdistan, which is fairly peaceful, Kirkuk has become a hot spot for attacks by various Iraqi factions.

A referendum on the future of Kirkuk is expected in the next year. In a move that enraged both Talabani and Barzani, the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan U.S. panel that made recommendations to the White House and Congress on Iraq strategy, called for the referendum to be delayed. The study group also recommended a stronger central government which would control oil revenue; the Kurds desperately want to retain control over that money.

The Kurds have worked well with both the Shiite-led government and the United States so far. Many Shiites want a similar autonomous region in southern Iraq, where they are the vast majority, and they have supported Kurdish autonomy. The United States has relied on the Kurds to maintain peace in their areas, and to supply the Iraqi army with members of their militia, known as the Peshmerga.

But the future of Kirkuk and control of oil revenues may become serious crises among the Kurds, the United States and the central government. And as Iraqi Kurdistan moves ever farther away from the rest of Iraq, maintaining a federal system may become ever more difficult.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/...storyId=6660672

Originally Posted by neno

Showing results 251 to 275 of 364
Search took 3.14 seconds; generated 8 minute(s) ago. Search: Key Word(s): Gold

I know there was another article that said that Sadam had gold in the Sweedon or German Vaults too.

Neno, don't know if this helps or really what I'm doing, but in the "history thread" 16848 permalink, there's some info

Post #16848 posted by DayDream from the History Thread. Thanks Yardbird.

Old Article but informative:

Billions in Iraqi assets, but where are Saddam's?

(Geneva-AP June 21, 2003 12:30 PM) _ Iraqi assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been found in European and Middle Eastern banks in a global search for Saddam Hussein's riches, but little if anything has his name on it.

Lebanon, Britain and Switzerland have each found about half a billion dollars in Iraqi assets, but it is not clear to whom the money belongs beyond official Iraqi government accounts.

"There's no way Saddam Hussein would have opened an account in his own name," said James Nason of the Swiss Bankers Association, whose members are required to report any suspicious accounts to the government of Switzerland.

The United States, which launched the search for Saddam's wealth the day after the U.S.-led invasion started last March, acknowledges that finding the hidden assets will be very difficult.

"The greatest challenge lies in identifying and tracing the flow of funds that Hussein has stolen and injected into the international financial system," David D. Aufhauser, general counsel of the U.S. Treasury Department, told Congress last month.

Estimates of Saddam's wealth have ranged from $2 billion to $40 billion. The U.S.-funded International Campaign to Indict Iraqi War Criminals, said much of the money was sent out of Iraq through a network of people who were given the money to invest or keep the money until it was needed.

Treasury Undersecretary John B. Taylor told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this month that the total Iraqi assets found and frozen outside the United States since March 20 was $1.2 billion. That comes on top of $1.1 billion frozen outside the United States since 1990.

Iraqi assets found outside the United States _ although it is not clear that all of them have been frozen _ add up to $3 billion.

Aufhauser said the U.S. government, which has dispatched teams of investigators to other countries, had pressed more than 50 governments to join in the search.

"International assistance is needed to track the illicit assets of Hussein, his family, his cronies and the front companies and straw men they used," Aufhauser said.

The United States is treating all assets from Saddam's regime as suspect. Washington has already sent Iraqi assets it has seized in U.S. banks to Iraq to help pay for essential services.

Other countries are awaiting United Nations instructions on exactly whose money to seize.

But the Bush administration says it is pleased with the response of other countries.

"Countries around the world, not just the United States, understand the needs of the Iraqi people and understand that this money is to be returned to the Iraqi people," U.S. Treasury Department spokesman Taylor Griffin told The Associated Press. "Countries understand that, countries are responding, and we are very pleased to see that."

The Security Council resolution on postwar Iraq passed last month requires countries to seize funds from the government as well as from officials of the regime and "immediately cause their transfer to the Development Fund for Iraq," which is to be controlled by Britain and the United States.

However, the Security Council still hasn't released a list of names so that governments can act.

Othmar Wyss, spokesman for the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, said Switzerland already has protectively frozen suspect assets but is awaiting the formal U.N. blacklist.

"We want to avoid giving figures that will subsequently have to be corrected downward because they involve accounts of people who are not on the list of the U.N. sanctions committee," Wyss told the AP.

On Tuesday, the United States will forward a list of more than 50 senior Iraqi officials whose assets should be frozen to a U.N. Security Council committee, council diplomats said Friday in New York. It is similar to the list of the 55 most wanted former members of Saddam's regime, which was given to troops in the form of a card deck, the diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

Security Council members have three days to submit objections, and if they don't the list will be issued to all governments with orders to seize assets of those named.

The Swiss National Bank disclosed Wednesday that as of the end of last year Swiss banks and financial managers were holding $315 million in Iraqi assets. There were no details on who the owners were.

The British Treasury has frozen $650 million of Iraqi assets. Of that, $455 million was Iraqi government money and $195 million belonged to individuals.

The British, too, are following Security Council instructions on what to do with the money, a spokesman said.

Lebanese Central Bank Governor Riyadh Salameh said Lebanon has frozen millions of dollars in Iraqi government funds.

"It is up to the legitimate Iraqi authorities, when they are formed, to dispose of them as they see fit," Salameh said in a statement.

U.S. officials said the amount frozen in Lebanon was $495 million.

Jordan has about $1 billion in Iraqi money, the bulk of it in letters of credit held by Saddam's government to facilitate trade, an official told the AP on condition of anonymity.

But two officials denied that Jordanian banks were holding any assets of Saddam or his family.

Saudi Arabia says its relations with Iraq, which soured over the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, made it unlikely that any of Saddam's funds are there. It claims to have tight financial regulations that would have made it very difficult for Saddam to transfer funds into the kingdom, even under fake names.

The Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, where 130 central banks keep foreign reserves, has been blocking Iraqi assets under U.N. sanctions since 1991, said spokeswoman Margaret Critchlow.

She declined to say how much was involved, but Aufhauser said the bank is holding about $570 million.

Aufhauser said some of the money might have to be paid to legitimate third-party claimants, but that the rest would be sent to Iraq.

Within hours of the start of the U.S. led attack on Iraq, the U.S. government confiscated $1.7 billion in Iraqi assets that had been frozen in the United States since the first Gulf War.

The money was turned over to a special account with the U.S. Federal Reserve in New York. Much of that money has already been flown to Iraq to pay pensions, government salaries and provide funds for Iraqi ministries, officials said.

Taylor said U.S. forces also have seized $900 million in currency in Iraq, as well as $350 million in currency and gold discovered in vaults at the Central Bank of Iraq.

Cheers!
DayDream

I posted this also back in October about Saddams Gold:

I got a little curious about the gold of Saddam and looked around a little bit.

Saddam 'stashed $1.3bn in Switzerland' - War on Iraq - smh.com.au

Saddam 'stashed $1.3bn in Switzerland'
June 21 2003
Deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein stashed a fortune worth more than 1.13 billion Swiss francs ($1.28 billion) in Switzerland, a Swiss newspaper said today.
The business weekly Cash said the hoard included 300 kg (661.4 lbs) of gold bars, which has a market value of Sfr4.5 million ($5.1 million), in an account with the gold refinery Metalor in Neuchatel.The Swiss National Bank also said Sfr386 million ($435 million) were lodged in Swiss accounts in Iraq's name, Cash reported.
The Bank for International Settlements in Basle said it had frozen Sfr750 million ($845 million) belonging to the former Iraqi regime.
The Metalor gold had been paid in by the former Iraqi ambassador in 1991 when the diplomats shut down the Berne embassy at the start of the Gulf War.

The head of Metalor, Hans-Juerg Schaer confirmed to Cash that the gold was circulating in the refinery's workroom. The firm had informed the Swiss economic ministry, the weekly said.
The newspaper said Metalor's operations remained obscure.
Also unanswered was the question of where the gold came from. Gold stolen from Kuwait at the time of the Iraq invasion in August 1990 was still unaccounted for. Estimates claim Saddam Hussein stashed billions of Swiss francs-worth of assets around the world.
According to the UN Security Council resolution 1483 of May 22, Iraq's confiscated wealth is to be immediately transferred to fund the country's reconstruction

Cheers!
DayDream