Iraqi Currency Exchange Comes Up Millions Short

[bicentennial_baby]

BAGHDAD -- For the past month, Nadhima Hussein and 12 other women have been locked inside a dark, fly-infested room at a police station here. The Iraqi Finance Ministry says Hussein, a bank manager, owes them millions of dollars to compensate for counterfeit or missing money her branch accepted during the currency exchange that ended in mid-January. She says she did nothing wrong.

The cash swap, designed to erase the image of former president Saddam Hussein from Iraqi bills, was among the most visible projects of the U.S.-led reconstruction, and, on the surface, things appeared to go smoothly. The transport trucks were not hijacked, the banks were not held up. The exchange, which took place between Oct. 15 and Jan. 15, was credited with helping to stabilize the economy.

But a Finance Ministry audit that began a few weeks ago turned up a surprise: The amount of new money given out exceeded the old money taken in by more than $22 million. The ministry has accused bank employees, almost all of whom are women who work as cashiers for state-owned banks, of stealing the money for themselves or for organized crime groups. It has sent out notices to hundreds of them, demanding that they repay the money or be put in jail.

The accused say others had access to the money after it had been counted and that the new government, in a rush to judgment, is acting just like the old government, putting the blame for its own mistakes or corruption on rank-and-file workers. In demonstrations this month, hundreds of people have called for the release of the cashiers, who are believed to be the largest group of women to be detained since Hussein was toppled in a U.S.-led invasion last year.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47994-2004Mar10.html

[rpannier]

1. Blame Someone Else

Once again the Bush-Installed, anti-Democratic Iraq coalition blames others for their failures and ineptitude. You can tell they were hand-picked by this administration.

[Kagemusha]

3. Generally victims of theft blame the thiefs, yes,

not the enablers that allow the thieving by doing their jobs as competently or incompetently as they can.

If there's more to that story, fine. But that reply just looks a little silly.

[whatelseisnew]

6. Does not look that silly to me, take into account WaPo's complicity

the Post reports whatever the bushistas want them to re Iraq.

Where is the evidence?

Until I see some I will assume an ongoing pattern of corruption at

the highest levels along with a policy of blaming the 'little guy'

[whistle]

2. They could check Halliburton's Swiss bank accounts...

:evilgrin:

[Oilwellian]

4. Or.....

They could check Chalabi's secret accounts. I'm sure Jordan would love to know what happened to that $300 million.

[Sinistrous]

5. How perfectly republican of them !

Just like the Republican nursery rhyme says:

I don't blame you.
I don't blame me.
I blame that lady behind the tree!

[54anickel]

7. This story stinks. Cashiers here are not expected to repay

counterfiet money they receive unknowingly. Aside from the 2 that admitted to "cheating", there is no evidence against them. They are being used as examples and scapegoats.

From the article:
"In the past, employees did not have any respect for laws. We want to teach people this respect," said Sabah Nouri, head of the Finance Ministry's bank audit committee.

One cashier has confessed to accepting counterfeit old dinars and exchanging them for new ones because she pitied the old man who brought them to the bank. Another said she inserted some white papers in place of old bills and paid herself in new Iraqi dinars. But the rest of the accused say they are innocent and that either someone else tampered with the money, they made an honest mistake in counting it or they unknowingly accepted counterfeit currency.

snip>
The currency exchange followed months of planning by experts from the U.S. Treasury Department and other foreign government agencies. Occupation officials hoped to get rid of dinars with Hussein's portrait and replace them with bills carrying images from Iraq's history.

snip>
At each bank, a cashier counted and inspected old money, then dipped it in red ink so it couldn't be used again. With a rubber band, the cashier attached to the brick of money a credit card-sized piece of paper with her name on it. The money was sewn up in a bag and taken to be burned. But between the point where the cashiers signed off on their work and the time the money was destroyed, several other people handled the money, according to a description of the process by occupation officials.

snip>
...the ink used to mark the obsolete bills could be washed away with special chemicals...