Where are the Iraq Oil dollars? Who is spending it? Who is hoarding it? What’s the deal with the Iraq Dinar?

The U.S. Department of the Treasury personnel in Iraq, for all practical purposes designed, engineered, printed, distributed to the Iraqi population and set the value of the Iraqi Dinar in 2004. The American citizens at home may be surprised as to just how little the Iraqis actually had to do with any of it. The answer would be, almost nothing.

Iraq currency is said to be floating, today at 1,246 dinar per one U.S. dollar, but is it? I mean is it actually floating? The Iraqi Dinar has maintained, on average, a value of about 1,300 dinar for one U.S. dollar. It opened in 2004 with an original price of about 1,450 dinar per U.S. dollar. In any case its value has not gone below 1,240 per dollar since its introduction into the Iraq population in late 2004.

I find the stable value of the Iraqi dinar very curious until I consider the political pressures at work to maintain the Iraqi dinar value on the world market, having been done by the United States Treasury and State Department. What work is that; you may ask? Well I only know what I have been told by a treasury official in Baghdad in 2005, but it very definitely involved a lot of trips and meetings with the major countries which could influence the Iraqi dinar value on the world markets. The rest, you would have to ferret out yourself. Speculation, by me further, may cause me some discomfort, or problem down the line and in fact would only be speculation, so those of you who care to, dig in.

What about the money coming into Iraq’s coffers resulting from oil sales on the open market? Those sales are being conducted in U.S. Dollars. How much is actually coming in? Where are those dollars and who is spending them and on what? The answers to those questions may surprise you. Unless things have changed since 2006, this information will be pretty close.

How much oil revenue is actually coming in for Iraq? Between one Billion and Six Billion dollars per month is being deposited into the Iraq account and has been since late 2004. You do the math.

Where are those oil dollars? In a New York Bank account set up by the United States Treasury and owned by the Iraq Government.

Who is spending the money? The Iraqi government is spending the money. It is managed through the Iraqi Minister of Finance, Mr. Bayan Jabr, former Minister of the Interior who, allegedly, is responsible for the establishment of Shia Iraqi Police death Squads throughout Iraq. He is powerful and feared throughout the Iraqi government, which may account for the fact that he was named Minister of Finance instead of put in jail after being forced from the Ministry of Interior.

Jabr lived for over twenty years in Iran as a salesman, or something like that, while Saddam was in power in Iraq. While Jabr was Minister of Interior in 2005, the U.S. Army provided him thousands of new imported vehicles i.e., SUVs, Pickup trucks, Armored Mercedes Limousines etc., which now are unaccounted for, and more weapons than I care to discuss, also unaccounted for. This was done under the authority of then Lt. General Petraeus and Maj. Gen. Fil in 2005.

What is the Iraqi oil money buying? Let me start by saying what the money is NOT buying. None of the Iraqi oil revenue, unless things have changed, is going to directly assist the U.S. Coalition in its efforts to combat violence in Iraq. NONE of the money is going to the provinces in support of “existing” U.S. projects. The U.S. continues, with very few exceptions, to pay for all the construction projects.

Some few hundred million dollars have been obligated by the Iraq government for projects throughout Iraq. Sunni dominated areas receive little, or no support from the Iraqi Minister of Finance. I do believe he would rather die than help any Sunni Iraqis. Although the Iraqi budget may show significant amounts obligated to Sunni areas, any cursory discussion with those Sunni Provincial Council members will show that very little has ever trickled to them.

Minister Jabr, as Interior Minister severely abused the finances and power of his office in 2005 to the degree that even I, then a State Department Official advising the Minister, was writing letters to the State Department legal guys in the Embassy.

You will find considerable Iraqi budget expenditures on those things which make life more comfortable for Iraq’s officials throughout the Green Zone where almost all of the Iraq Government Officials live. Additionally, considerable Iraqi oil money is being spent on foreign travel for the Iraqi officials. They all love those foreign official trips.

Not surprisingly, you will also find almost none of the Iraqi oil money being paid directly to the Iraqi people who are, for the most part, living in abject poverty. For them, life is a day to day hell on earth.

As long as America continues to pour Billions of dollars into Iraq, the Iraqi government has no incentive to use their own considerable assets to relieve the unbelievable levels of suffering among the Iraqi population at large.

Billions of U.S. dollars are flowing into the Iraqi government bank account, from oil sales, faster than they can spend it, but none of it has been used to relieve the burden of expense being shouldered by the American taxpayer.

Why? Iraqi dollars are flowing and the Iraqi parliament is living high. What is the incentive to change the status quo? In Iraq, with the Iraqi elected officials now in office, love of country is an irrelevant issue. Most of them lived in Iran prior to the fall of Saddam. Some of them, like Finance Minister Jabr, in all probability, consider Iran their home. He still holds an Iranian passport.

Since 2003 the Coalition Provincial Authority (Paul Bremer), the U.S. State Department and U.S. Treasury were, and continue to be taken to the cleaners by the Iraqis in power with whom they deal. American taxpayer money continues to flow into Iraq while the Iraqis are awash in U.S. dollars, from oil sales, sitting in a New York bank. That would be the bank the Iraqi officials are laughing all the way to, while our men and women continue to fight and die.

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