Posted on 10/12/2003 6:38:33 PM PDT by mdittmar
Iraq's central bank fired up its furnace yesterday and consigned thousands of banknotes bearing the smiling face of Saddam Hussein to the flames ahead of a massive currency swap to start next week.
Deputy Central Bank Governor Ahmed Salman Mohammed said the bank had already absorbed a "good portion" of Saddam banknotes still in circulation and would carry on with the systematic destruction in coming weeks.
Iraqis have three months from October 15 to swap the estimated four trillion dinars of Saddam banknotes in circulation for new bills bearing pictures of an ancient Babylonian ruler and a 10th century Iraqi mathematician.
The Iraqi dinar is worth about 2,000 to the dollar.
"I am optimistic it will go well," said Mohammed in the lobby of the bank where tellers counted tall dinar stacks.
"Most of it (the currency swap) could be over in one month."
The USled administration in Iraq has ordered all images of Saddam to be removed from monuments, murals and school textbooks.
But in the months following the war it was forced to print billions of dinars of banknotes bearing the face of Saddam to ease a shortage of low-denomination banknotes.
Several floors below the bank lobby in a furnace room opposite the vast doors of one of the vaults, workers threw bundles of Saddam bills into the fire and raked the flaming notes deeper into the inferno.
Adnan Chalabi, manager of the furnaces, said about half a billion to one billion dinars could be in the furnace.
Boxes of the new currency stood in the street outside the central bank building where several machinegun mounted US military Humvees stood in the heavily guarded banking quarter.
As part of the changeover, a convoy delivered several tonnes of bills yesterday to Tikrit, Saddam's hometown about 175km north of Baghdad.
The new notes are printed by the same firm that made Iraq's pre-Saddam banknotes - Britain's De La Rue.
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Iraq's central bank fired up its furnace yesterday and consigned thousands of banknotes bearing the smiling face of Saddam Hussein to the flames ahead of a massive currency swap to start next week.
This will be a very good week for the good guys in Iraq. No more Saddam: on TV, in the town square, in textbooks, on billboards, or on the money.
Next: no more Saddam!
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Just damn.
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It also reinforces negative perceptions of Saddam Hussein among the local Iraqis. "Oh, your money has Saddam on it...well, it's no good here." Pretty soon it's a big insult to have money with Saddam on it. "He doesn't have any money, just pictures of Saddam."
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