Iraqi Money Bears Burden and Likeness of Old Regime

The signs, statues, banners and calendars of Saddam Hussein have almost all been destroyed, painted over, toppled or crushed in the destructive spree that ushered out the old Iraqi order.

One of the strongman’s lingering ghosts, however, is his omnipresent figure on Iraq’s currency, the dinar. Not surprisingly, Hussein is the equivalent of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant and Ben Franklin combined. His image is on every Iraqi bill of every denomination.

Although Hussein’s whereabouts are still a mystery, the dinars remain a powerful reminder of the economic shambles that he left and the emotional scars from his long rule on the lives of ordinary citizens.

“He had the disease of kings,” said Majid Hassani, 33, a businessman. “He wanted to see himself everywhere, on every billboard, picture and speck of currency.”

Hassani and others now must contend with an Iraqi currency that is rapidly turning into a speck of its former self. From an official level of 2,000 dinars to the U.S. dollar before the war, the rate on the street has fallen to 5,000 or 6,000 dinars at times, amid sharp fluctuations. When the looting of banks in Basra last week sent a flood of bills into the streets, people here were exchanging 9,000 dinars for $1.

There also isn’t much to buy, amid fears people will soon need wheelbarrows filled with dinars to do their shopping. The economy, not much to start with, has been devastated by the war and subsequent looting.

There’s almost no gasoline in a country that boasts the world’s second-largest oil reserves. Many shops have remained shuttered for fear of further looting, with those open often selling little more than bread, tomatoes, soap and sodas.

Relatively few people have jobs and even physical security is in short supply.

In short, the national currency has little underpinning.

Many ordinary Iraqis would just as well see the end of the Hussein dinars. In the first days after the Baath Party regime fell, citizens tried to make a connection with allied soldiers by pulling out Iraqi bills and spitting on Hussein’s face or stomping on his image. “Saddam, donkey, no good,” said one, as members of a British tank unit outside Basra looked on.

“We need to cancel this currency right away,” said Hikmat Ibrahim Omar, a 39-year-old teacher. “We just don’t want to see him. Those bills become a psychological barrier preventing us from moving on.”

But experts say a new currency is at least six months to a year away, and probably will need to follow the naming of a new government.

Meanwhile, in southern cities such as Safwan and Umm al Qasr, the Saddam Hussein bills have a newfound value of a different sort.

Capitalizing on the growing number of border crossers on day trips from Kuwait -- many of whom are looking for souvenirs -- herds of enterprising ragamuffins now hold up 250-dinar bills along the roadside, offering to exchange these notes, worth no more than a few cents each, for $1 or $5 bills.

“These kids are future entrepreneurs,” said Francis Brooke, political advisor to Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress and one of the contenders for leadership of the new government. “This may well be the beginning of a market economy,” he added. “After all, given Iraq’s long history, the market economy was probably invented here thousands of years ago.”

That’s still cheaper than EBay, where a crisp 250-dinar note is listed at $19.05 and a 10,000-dinar note at $152.

“I want to get a bill or two to take home,” said Cpl. Robert Jamieson with Britain’s Royal Irish Rangers, wiping his brow as he patrolled the Kuwait-Iraq border one day this week. “It’s something you can put up at home to remember your time here, a bit of a novelty.”

Desperation, though, has bred varied sales tactics among street urchins here, who lack access not only to the Internet but often even food or water.

Some of the children, many only 8 or 9 years old themselves, drag along little brothers and sisters in the hopes of eliciting sympathy. Others rely on a modified game of chicken, standing in front of oncoming traffic in a bid to stop potential customers. Still others employ bait-and-grab tactics, hurling open any unlocked doors as soon as cars slow down, then grabbing anything of value and dashing off.

This emerging and aggressive beggar mentality is an unfortunate outgrowth of the chaotic aid distribution system seen since the Hussein regime fell, said Antonia Paradela, an official with the United Nations’ World Food Program. And it underscores the need for greater order and fairness -- and economic reforms.

Yet the transformation to a new Iraqi currency alone will be a formidable challenge. It will involve not only figuring out whom to print on the note’s face but also finessing the politically and economically difficult issue of how to work out an equitable exchange of old bills for new ones -- especially given that many ordinary Iraqis have their life’s savings stashed away in cupboards and under carpets in old currency that is becoming worthless.

“The currency in Iraq is very, very down,” said Mohamed Ali, a 40-year-old unemployed man. “No one can buy anything. It’s losing all its value.”

Indeed, many people still bemoan the currency change that the Baath regime made after the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the painful U.N. economic sanctions. As foreign trade slowed and inflation picked up, Hussein summarily ordered the creation of new bills worth less but featuring even more pictures of himself.

“In the old days, 25 dinars was a month’s salary,” said Hassani, the businessman. “Now, it will get you about four cigarettes. A teacher’s or soldier’s pay is now the equivalent of around $1.50 a month.”

As if that wasn’t enough, Hussein replaced the old bills, which had been printed in Switzerland on high-quality paper, with new ones printed in Iraq on the equivalent of photocopy paper. These bills tear and deteriorate easily.

“He prints the bills on ordinary paper for us and kept the real money in the bank for himself,” said Omar, the teacher.