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Time - Man of the Year
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Time_Man_of_the_Year_Compact_Publishing_3YX-Disc-1_Compact_Publishing_1993.iso
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1992-09-22
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U.S. POLICY, Page 42Paper Tiger?
Is the U.S. leading a second invasion of Iraq? Some Iraqis
think so. But this time, they say, the invading force is a flood
of counterfeit bank notes -- Iraqi dinars, as well as bogus
American $100 bills. In a letter last month to United Nations
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Baghdad accused the
U.S. of making a bid to undermine Iraq's economy by directing
efforts to smuggle in counterfeit money from several neighboring
countries, including Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. At
home, Iraqis also joke about being able to pick out "Israeli"
and "Kurdish" dinars, according to where the notes are presumed
to have been printed. For its part, the cia denies having
anything to do with the funny money.
Iraq's government has ordered its citizens to exchange all
100 dinar notes at local banks and instructed courts to hand
down heavy sentences for circulating or importing fake
currency. The plague of counterfeits is worsening the nation's
already severe inflation, which has put food and other basic
necessities beyond the reach of many Iraqis. Though the official
exchange rate is U.S.$3 to the dinar, black-market money
changers offer a more realistic 19 dinars to the dollar.
Rising prices are also being fueled by Baghdad's own
overheated production of bank notes. To cover government
salaries and the cost of postwar reconstruction, Iraq has been
printing money at a rapid clip, on cheaper paper, which makes
counterfeiting easier. Currency dealers in New York City say
that some genuine Iraqi dinars are now so sloppily printed that
on first inspection they appear to be inept forgeries.
What gold Iraq possesses is being sold to obtain hard
currency needed to pay for essential imports. Gold Fields
Minerals Services, a London-based consulting firm, reported last
week that in the past six months Iraq may have secretly sold off
up to 50 tons of its bullion reserve, which was last reported,
in 1977, to stand at 129 tons. That could explain how Saddam
came up with enough hard cash to thumb his nose at a United
Nations offer to let him sell $1.6 billion in oil to buy much
needed food and medical products abroad.