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Active Unit News
Johnson: Capture creates a cash crinkle
Iraqis trying to dump useless notes bearing Saddam's faded visage
December 19, 2003
DUJAIL - In America, a banker in such a crisis likely would seek out his or her corporate boss . . . or perhaps make a panicky call to the FDIC.
Here, at Rafidian Bank, the only one in town, banker Saleh Rasheed rushes out the front door, hands fluttering, in search of the nearest U.S. military officer.
It seems his vault, a chamber about the size of the average suburban bedroom, is stuffed to the gills with old Saddam currency. And he has a line of people outside the door, wanting to give him more.
If this country truly is attempting to move toward the American ideal of freedom, democracy and free markets, what we are witnessing here this morning are some very tentative baby steps.
The problem is the old currency, the faded and badly wrinkled notes bearing the visage of Saddam Hussein. They become virtually worthless come Jan. 15.
The Americans, seeking to rid Iraq of every vestige of the former regime, have introduced new currency, notes with bucolic scenes of historical sites and the like.
What the military discovered, though, is very few workers and merchants wanted the new. They want the old. And up until just recently, for an understandable reason.
What if the Americans folded their tents, went home and Saddam came back?
Change, of course, has come. Merchants who once held on to their Saddam notes like gold have flocked to the bank after seeing for themselves Saddam in American custody. The line backs out the door.
"What do I do? What do I do?" Saleh Rasheed pesters Maj. Dan
Olexio, the 4th Combat Engineering Brigade's liason to the village.
'Can't we just burn it?' The major, at Fort Carson barely six months before shipping out, wants to see the vault.
It is stacked floor to ceiling with bundles of old notes. The ends of each have been dipped in bright red ink, effectively putting them out of circulation. The vault also contains the new Iraqi dinar, including the equivalent of $25,000 American, that the military has stashed there for rebuilding projects around town.
Dan Olexio scratches his head. How much is in there? He asks Saleh Rasheed.
About 300 bundles, the director tells him, or about 2 billion Iraqi dinar, somewhat less than a million U.S.
"Can't we just burn it?" the major asks the man. The banker clutches his chest, as if shot.
"No, no, no, sir!" he says, nearly staggering. "It must be accounted for first in Baghdad. And there, they will burn it."
Dan Olexio spits and turns to his aide, Capt. Ian Cromarty, a 43-year-old Manchester, N.H., reservist, who merely shrugs. They stare at the bundles for a long time before Cromarty gets an idea.
"Why don't we just get a truck, drive it over to the air base, dump it in a bunker and put a man on it?"
Dan Olexio considers this, remembers where he is, and smiles. "Ian," he says softly, "That's a decision above my level," he says. "And I won't live long enough to earn enough in the Army to pay this back if we somehow lose it."
The two men smile, nod at each other, turn to Mr. Rasheed and shrug.
Such is the life of a banker in post-Saddam Iraq. Banks were the first establishments hit when looters took to the streets the day the Americans arrived and the regime fell. Millions were lost.
Banks now are easy to spot in any city in this country. They are ringed with coils of razor wire. No less than two men at a time patrol each rooftop, AK-47s at the ready. Only a handful of customers are allowed in at any one time, and they are overseen by more men with rifles.
Saleh Rasheed, director of the Rafidian for two years now, travels with no less than three armed bodyguards - except for when he returns home to Bacuba, some 20 miles away.
Closing no option, either
But he has all of the keys, he is reminded. No bodyguards?
"This," Mr. Rasheed says, pulling back a curtain behind his desk, "is the only bodyguard I need then." Resting there is his very own AK-47 assault rifle, and the permit the Americans gave him to carry it.
Will they please call to Baghdad for trucks and new currency, the director pleads with the officers. They say they will do all they can, and remind Rasheed of the past problems with that.
About three weeks ago, gunmen tried to hijack the last cash shipment to the Rafidian. Injuries were averted when the bandit on the rocket-propelled-grenade launcher blasted not the bank, but a tree standing in front of it.
"Some days the Baghdad trucks show, other days they don't," the major says. "What's for damn certain is they don't publicize here when they're coming."
Mr. Rasheed, melancholy now, looks out of his window at the line of people, some carrying large sacks of old dinar, waiting to get in. Maybe he will close for the day.
The two officers try to talk him out of that, seeing problems now that everyone in town knows who is carrying large sums of money.
Mr. Rasheed, crestfallen, shakes his head. OK, he tells the men, maybe he can hold out one more day.
Bill Johnson and photographer Todd Heisler are on assignment in Iraq.
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