Brigadier General Hugh Tant, retired, is a career army officer who has extensive experience in financial management. Most recently, he spent five-an-ahalf years in charge of two-thirds ($44 billion) of the Army's budget. He volunteered to lead the currency exchange program in Iraq. He was stationed in Iraq from September 2003 to January 2004. The currency exchange program ran from October 15 2003 to January 15 2003. Currency exchange was necessary for five reasons; (1) two currencies were in circulation, the old Swiss dinar in the north and the Saddam dinar in the rest of the country; (2) inadequate numbers of denominations existed, the Swiss dinar came in 3 denominations and the Saddam came in only two denominations; (3) the currency was poorly made and easily counterfeited; (4) the Saddam dinar had been devalued and the public had little trust in it; (5) the presence of Saddam on the currency was inappropriate.
TANT: You had the Central Bank which answered, of course, to Saddam. And whenever he directed, they had to print more money, which was a negative inflationary monetary policy. That was one of the reasons why the currency had to be replaced.
But, in the great majority of the country, they had the Saddam dinar with Saddam's face on it. There were basically only two denominations of that: there was a 10,000-dinar note, which was worth about $5, and there was a 250-dinar note, which was worth about 12.5 cents, 12 cents. The reason its value had dropped so low was because of Saddam’s inflationary monetary policy. In comparison, back in the '80s, before the Saddam dinar came about, the rate of exchange was about $3 to one dinar. But because of Saddam there was now a total upside-down situation where one dollar was worth about 2,300 dinar.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.