Thread: Iraq/Dinar News until April 26, 2007 Midnight cst.

Originally Posted by Adster

WASHINGTON - President Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress lurched toward a veto showdown over Iraq on Wednesday, as the House planned to vote on legislation that would order troops to begin coming home by Oct. 1.

Democrats predicted the bill would pass, albeit narrowly, while Republicans said setting a timetable on the war would hand a victory to terrorists.

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If the dems should prevail, it will be all over as we know it.....


Source:


Democrats predict they can win Iraq vote - Yahoo! News

I don't see this happening. If Bush vetos the measure, which he is sure to do, both the Senate and the House needs a 2/3 majority to override the veto and sign it into law. I don't believe that either the Senate or the House have such a majority (one that equates to 2/3 majority, that is). Stranger things can happen, but I don't see this as being a success. So personally, I don't think there is anything to worry about there.

I could be wrong - Been wrong before, and I'm sure to be wrong many times to come...

Originally Posted by Jola

[COLOR=Blue]Hey guys, I was thinking...

On a serious note, while I did read the articles about the kurds not agreeing to some points of HCL and the other Party ( Iraqi Front or whatever) that says the HCL is not compatible with the Constitution....

It still seems to me that HCL is pretty much done.

Now, you wanna tell me that they talk about this stuff ( which yes, it is important stuff, but they do have a deadline on the HCL that they have to meet, right?) , with the HCL on the table & not taking care of it?? I don't think so.... JMO

I agree with you Jola...I think the HCL is done too.

Originally Posted by shotgunsusie

you get ahold of that fat jamaican tracey?? you musta coz you cant believe that if iraq revalues their currency anyone would give them debt relief. at that point the payback would seem more assured and they would demand their full payment of debt.

Let me see if I understand this thinking correctly. Are we on these forums the only ones that are expecting a ReVal? Hmmm? You mean to tell me that the Governments that forgave debt have no idea that Iraq plans to reval their currency? What?

Originally Posted by Sudden Impact

Let me see if I understand this thinking correctly. Are we on these forums the only ones that are expecting a ReVal? Hmmm? You mean to tell me that the Governments that forgave debt have no idea that Iraq plans to reval their currency? What?

of course they do but it wouldnt be a very smart business move if they just up and agreed and didnt barter to get the most incentives for their countries.

Originally Posted by PaulieThaGreat

If the dems keep messing around and we are forced to pull out because of the Dems. The war in Iraq will be lost because of the Dems and they will go down in history as the dumbest political party to ever serve our country. People start dieing so we pull out? Thats not American. WE NEED TO FIGHT.

And I was thinking this had already been proven...

I got that last article off IIF with the comments from the person left on it mistakenly! Very unlikely to happen. Don't worry.

Global Financial Warriors
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 25, 2007

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is John B. Taylor, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of economics at Stanford. He is known to legions of students as an excellent teacher and has won awards for being the best undergraduate teacher at Stanford. He is also known to central bankers and economists around the world for his research on monetary policy and especially for his famous Taylor Rule which central banks use as a guide for setting interest rates. For four years from 2001 to 2005, Taylor served as Under Secretary of Treasury where, as head of the international division, he played the central role in the financial front of the war on terror. He is the author of the new book Global Financial Warriors: The Untold Story of International Finance in the Post 9/11 World.

In the words of former Secretary of State George Shultz, when introducing Taylor at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club last January, “John Taylor is one of the world’s most distinguished outstanding economists….he is a master of economics in the classroom, but at the Treasury he had to be a master of economics in action.”


FP: John B. Taylor, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Taylor: I really appreciate the invitation. Thank you.



FP: What inspired you to write this book?



Taylor: When I returned to California from Washington in the summer of 2005 and began telling students, faculty, and many others about what went on inside the U.S Treasury after 9/11, I found that they were amazed. They were amazed to hear that so much happened, from freezing terrorists’ blood money to shipping tons of newly-printed currency into Iraq. They were even more amazed that so much went right, from stopping more terrorist attacks to creating financial stability in Iraq. And they were amazed by the heroic acts of the global financial warriors who made it all happen. Some people, of course, showed a great deal of skepticism along with their amazement, which is not surprising given the cavalcade of negative books like Imperial Life in the Emerald City, State of Denial, or Fiasco that have been written about this period in U.S. history. So I wrote the book to tell these amazing stories to more people and to document the key events in detail so historians could learn the truth and future policy officials could learn the lessons. I figured I was in a pretty unique position to tell these stories because I not only attended the meetings where the President made the decisions, I also went to the places around the globe where my teams carried out the decisions.



FP: Tell us a bit about the success on the financial front in the war on terror. How come we don’t hear about it?



Taylor: The financial front is very big. It includes freezing terrorist assets and implementing diplomatic strategies to persuade other countries to join us in the freezes. It includes tracing money through the global financial system to gain intelligence about terrorist networks. It includes setting up new financial systems in war torn-areas like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Liberia. It includes stopping the spread of financial crises that can destroy economies and thereby breed terrorism. It is a third pillar in U.S. foreign policy, along with defense and diplomacy. Within the executive branch, you can think of the Departments of State, Defense, and Treasury as having primary responsibilities for each of these three pillars, and obviously the Treasury gets the financial front.



There are several reasons why you don’t hear more about it. First, it is largely a good news story, and bad news tends to crowd out good news. Unfortunately this is the reality, and even if there were no bias in news reporting it would be a serious impediment to getting these stories out. Second, news reporters who cover foreign policy or defense issues are frequently unfamiliar with the financial issues. They tend to downplay them; this is understandable because financial issues have never played such a big role in U.S foreign policy, and this takes getting used to. Third, people guess that financial issues are uninteresting to read about and tend to tune out. So in writing this book I tried to buck all three communication barriers by telling unusual but true stories about fascinating people who played an essential role in the fight against terror.


FP: There is a widely-held assumption that the U.S. didn’t engage in any planning for a post-Saddam Iraq. It’s a false assumption isn’t it?



Taylor: Yes, it is most certainly a false assumption. I can speak mainly about the financial area, and that is what I document in my book. For example, we began developing a financial plan for post-Saddam Iraq in the late summer and fall of 2002, months before the invasion. At that time we were, of course, hoping that Saddam Hussein would abide by the U.N. resolutions and that there would be no war. But it would be irresponsible not to plan. Our goal was to prevent a financial collapse if Saddam’s government fell, and to lay the foundations for a new financial system and a new currency. We started by getting the best financial intelligence we could. We wrote and debated options papers. We decided on a two-part plan that began by paying Iraqis in dollars and ended with a new currency—a new dinar to replace the Saddam dinar which had Saddam’s face on it. We chose people to go to Baghdad and implement the plan if there was an invasion. The plan was vetted by the National Security Council and approved by President Bush. In the end the plan was carried out with precession. Twenty-seven plane loads of currency were printed in seven different printing plants around the world and flown into Baghdad where millions of Iraqis eagerly received them in exchange for their old Saddam dinars. Financial stability was restored and to this day the new Iraqi dinar remains a strong and stable currency. I believe the advance planning was a main reason for the success.

FP: Can you talk a bit about the unique vantage point that you had and have to write about the financial front in the terror war?



Taylor: I ran Treasury’s international division, which was at the center of the action. You can think of this position as a financial analogue to a combatant commander on the military side—the job held by General Tommy Franks during the start of the Iraq war. I reported to the Secretary of the Treasury much like he reported to the Secretary of Defense. I attended NSC meeting with President Bush, presented plans, and reported on progress. I also went to the countries in which we were operating. So it wasn’t just meetings in the White House, it was also the adventures on the ground that makes the vantage point unique. No one else on the finance front had this top-to-bottom perspective. In addition, I think you could say that this is a unique period in U.S history.



FP: Can you paint a few portraits for us of some global financial warriors?



Taylor: The global financial warriors include the 350 people who worked for me in the U.S. Treasury, not only at the Treasury building but also at the World Bank, the IMF, and in 50 different countries in the world. Brave people like David Nummy, who I sent to Baghdad in the days immediately after Saddam fell to stand up a central bank and finance ministry. Can you imagine how difficult it was to establish contact with Iraqi finance officials in those early days just after Saddam fell when the central bank and the finance ministry were largely destroyed by the looting? David had previous experience working in the former Soviet Union just after it fell—he is a tough, dedicated, experienced professional. Another is Larry Seale who went to Kabul to prepare the first budget of the Karsai government. He did it on his laptop computer. Larry later went to Liberia to do the same thing after the tyrant, Charles Taylor, was thrown out. There was a poster as you went through the main entry to the Treasury. It is one of those posters with Uncle Sam pointing at you. It says “We are at War…Are you Doing all you can?” That sums up the attitude that prevailed for these people. But there are many other financial warriors at other finance ministries and central banks around the world. People like the Ashraf Ghani, the finance minister of Afghanistan, who I call the Alexander Hamilton of his country, because he had to round up revenues from unruly governors (warlords) from the provinces of Iraq, much like Alexander Hamilton did in our country. Another remarkably brave and dedicated person is the central bank governor of Iraq, Sinan Shabibi, who I worked with closely to get monetary policy operating and to obtain a large debt reduction for his country.


FP: So what are some weapons on the financial front that you would recommend the U.S. to use in the terror war as it ensues?



Taylor: I would mention two things. First we should make use of a powerful new source of financial intelligence—the SWIFT system—to obtain information about terrorists. As I describe in my book, SWIFT is a messaging system that has information about international financial transactions. Although details of the system were leaked and published in major newspapers like the New York Times last summer, it remains useful to the United States and our allies. Second, we should expand and tighten the financial sanctions in order to combat nuclear proliferation in places like Iran and North Korea. These new financial weapons have already been responsible for getting North Korea to agree to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear plant and to allow inspectors in, though they have still not followed through with the agreement.



FP: Are you optimistic or pessimistic that the West can prevail against radical Islam?



Taylor: I am convinced that this global war on terror will be a long war. There are lessons from what has gone right and what has gone wrong so far. From my perspective on the financial front, having a clear sense of the mission with dedicated teams of people resolved to carrying out the mission is essential for success. If we apply such lessons learned in the future, if America keeps its resolve, then we will prevail. So yes I am optimistic. But we need to maintain our effort and our resolve. Doing so is more and more difficult as the memories of 9/11 recede further into the past. I hope the stories in my book contribute to the effort.



FP: John B. Taylor, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.



Taylor: I enjoyed this interview. Thanks for your questions and your interest.



Click Here to support Frontpagemag.com.

Originally Posted by PaulieThaGreat

If the dems keep messing around and we are forced to pull out because of the Dems. The war in Iraq will be lost because of the Dems and they will go down in history as the dumbest political party to ever serve our country. People start dieing so we pull out? Thats not American. WE NEED TO FIGHT.

Elections have consequences....most repukes have a pre 11-06 mindset...
over 60% of the American people have spoken...they want us out of Iraq...
I'm not a Dem... but this is what happens when a leader misleads us....

carry on............

Know it's already been posted but have a look at the last paragraph. Never seen this before. Very strange to mention us speculators. Reminds me of the Chinese Yuan back in July 2005 when 2 days before it floated their government stated it would not be allowed to 'float', then 2 days later it did.....

Am not saying it will definitely revalue next week but the play of words/denials when it comes to currency changes from governments is not uncommon......

And it would also tie in just before the IC signing.


Voices of Iraq :-$ (economy)
كتب: dhrgham في يوم الأربعاء, 25 أبريل, 2007 - 02:22 PM BT
Books : dhrgham on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 2:22 PM-BT
انخفاض الطلب على شراء الدولار في مزاد البنك المركزي
The low demand for dollar purchase auction CBE
من ضرغام محمد علي
Dargham of Muhammad Ali
بغداد-( أصوات العراق)
Baghdad - (Voices of Iraq)
انخفض الطلب على شراء الدولار في مزاد البنك المركزي العراقي اليوم الاربعاء مسجلا حجم طلب بلغ 63 مليونا و975 الف دولار مقابل 83 مليونا و140 الف دولار يوم امس الثلاثاء.
Decreased demand for dollar auction Iraqi Central Bank today, Wednesday, recording the volume reached 63 million and 975 thousand dollars compared to 83 million and 140 thousand dollars yesterday Tuesday.
وذكرت النشرة اليومية التي يصدرها البنك المركزي ، وحصلت وكالة أنباء ( أصوات العراق) المستقلة اليوم على نسخة منها ، أنه توزعت طلبات الشراء بواقع 7 ملايين و735 الف دولار نقدا فيما كان المبلغ المتبقي 56 مليونا و240 الف دولار على شكل حوالات خارج القطر غطاها البنك بالكامل بسعر صرف بلغ 1270دينارا.
The daily bulletin issued by the central bank, obtained News Agency (Voices of Iraq) Independent today a copy of it, it spread procurement requests by seven million and 735 thousand dollars in cash while the remaining 56 million and 240 thousand dollars in the form of remittances outside the country covered by the bank fully exchange rate The 1270 dinars.
وأشارت إلى أن المصارف الـ12 تقدمت بعروض لبيع مليوني دولار وهو نفس عرض البيع ليوم امس اشتراها البنك بالكامل بسعر شراء مستقر قدره 1268 دينارا وهو نفس سعر الشراء ليوم امس.
She pointed out that the 12 banks had offered bids for the sale of $ 2 million which is the same offer to sell to the bank yesterday bought full purchase price stable ability 1268 dinars, the same purchase price for yesterday.
وقال السيد علي الياسري احد المتعاملين مع البنك لـ ( أصوات العراق) أن الطلب تراجع على الشقين النقدي والحوالات بسبب تادية معظم التعاملات يوم امس الثلاثاء لدى انخفاض سعر الصرف وان استقراره اليوم من المتوقع ان يستمر حتى منتصف الاسبوع المقبل على الاقل وهو ما يدعو المستثمرين والمضاربين الى التعامل بحرية اكبر.
He said Mr. Ali Yasiri, one dealing with the Bank told (Voices of Iraq) to demand the retreat on track and cash remittances due to perform most dealings day yesterday, Tuesday, the low exchange rate and stability today is expected to continue until the middle of next week at least, which invites investors and speculators to deal more freely.
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I thought that was strange, too, Adster, that they mentioned speculators. I didn't remember seeing that in any other articles before.