The E-Sylum:  Volume 6, Number 7, February 16, 2003, Article 10

IRAQI CURRENCY CHANGES MULLED

  A February 13th article in The Wall Street Journal discussed
  several scenarios for a post-Saddam Iraq, including changes
  to the currency.

  "In closed-door meetings around the capital, Rubar Sandi and
  his colleagues are way beyond debating whether Baghdad has
  chemical weapons.

  "Our job is to envision what will happen on Day Two," says
  Mr. Sandi, a Washington-based financier who fled the Kurdish
  north of Iraq 28 years ago. "And, of course, there are a lot of
  different opinions."

  Mr. Sandi has his cure. He wants to peg the dinar to a blend
  of the dollar and the euro, then introduce new bank notes as
  swiftly as possible. How the two dinars will merge isn't yet
  clear, and the group is skimpy on details for fear of feeding
  the speculators.

  But Mr. Sandi goes on. "I suggest that the image of the great
  Babylonian lawgiver-king Hammurabi be imprinted on the
  most widely used denomination of the new dinar," he proposes
  in one of his papers. And then, he says aloud, "we should
  burn all the Saddam dinars in one final act of celebration."

  This last pitch draws howls from Mr. Sandi's colleagues,
  who favor a more gradual approach. "We should try not to
  be emotional about this," says Mr. Al-Shabibi, sipping his
  coffee. He suggests keeping the Saddam dinar for as long
  as necessary, but with the president's face systematically
  crossed out. "At least in some ways," he says, "we may
  have to keep living with Saddam."

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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