What to think of this Interview?

Boots on the Ground interview, Iraqi Dinar

Hello Dinar Readers!
I’m
very pleased to present an exclusive interview done by one of our
awesome forum moderators, Ward Welch. He was able to correspond with
foreign correspondent Raber Aziz and get the answers below. Enjoy!

Interview with Raber Aziz: By Ward Welch April 12, 2012
“Removing of the three zeros from the Iraqi Dinar and its effects”

Ward Welch: Mr. Aziz, thank you very much for taking my questions today.
For
years now we’ve been hearing about the CBI’s plan to “remove the
zeros” from the Iraqi Dinar and equalize the value of the IQD with the
other major currencies of the world, including the American Dollar.

With
the success of the recent Arab summit in Baghdad, and the imminent
release of Iraq from the United Nations sanctions (Chapter 7), what are
your thoughts concerning this subject?

Raber Aziz: I think the removing
of the zeros will have its own benefits and consequences for the
country alike. It will be good for Iraq to remove the zeros because this
address; when the Iraqi dinar is strong in the face of US dollars it
will help keep inflation down as much as possible.

It will also
facilitate, for Iraq, economic cooperation with the international banks
as it will increase the international confidence and credibility of it
the new Iraqi Dinar.

Also, it will reduce the size of the bank notes in circulation and will simplify Iraq’s payment system.
But
the having a new and strong Dinar is expected to have consequences as
well. one of the consequences will be money laundering.

The CBI
has said the zero-removing process, which is expected to take place in
September as it has announced, will see the bank re-print 30tr dinars
($26bn) and the process of switching currency will last a full year
where both the old and new currencies will be dealt in the market.

This is too long a period and could witness lots of money laundering, as well as fraud.


With Iraq taking its place in the world as a completely sovereign
nation and a major power in the Arab world, how can Iraq continue to
trade with the world using a highly undervalued currency?

Certainly
the impetus of the GOI and the CBI must be to rectify this condition
very soon or risk losing billions of dollars (trillions of IQD) in
foreign investments in Iraq.

Raber Aziz:
Iraq cannot continue to trade with the world using the current
undervalued currency. Iraq’s current money, printed after the 2003
US-led war, is 150 times bigger in quantity than the Swiss edition of
the Iraqi Dinar used in the country.

Iraq’s smallest bill used
in the markets is the 250 Dinar bill (approximately US$0.2) and this is
definitely not a good currency for the country that sells over 2 million
bpd of oil (over 6 billion US Dollar per day).

Besides, Iraq is
planning to increase its oil production to reach at least 6 million bpd
in the next few years and ultimately 12 million bpd. That’s even three
times and six times the size of Iraq’s current revenues.

This
will mean Iraq’s annual revenues will hit US$210 in the coming days and
over US$400 billion ultimately. And for this, Iraq requires a currency
with strong value in the world market.

Ward Welch: With this new economic power in hand, will this increase the desire of Kurdistan to gain complete independence and sovereignty?

Raber Aziz:
The desire of the Kurds to become independent is, and has always been,
there with or without the economic power in hand. Every single Kurd
dreams of an independent Kurdistan state.

Though economic boom
is a factor for any nation to proclaim independence, in the case of
Kurdistan there are other factors that determine whether the Kurds want
to be independent from Iraq or not.

The first of these factors
will be an international recognition of a Kurdish state. Who is ready to
recognize a Kurdish state in north of Iraq?

Kurds first need
guarantees that if they proclaim independence their state will be
recognized on an international level and be protected by some of the
world’s super powers, among them the US. Another factor will be the
Kurds’ relations with the regional nations.

Kurdistan,
I mean the greater Kurdistan that spans Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran,
and the Kurdish part of Iraq as well, is a landlocked country. Kurdistan
cannot survive without strong friendly relations with these countries
in case they wanted to become independent.

Ward Welch:
How will this rebirth of economic power in Iraq effect the relationship
between the political blocks? (Will the new wealth encourage them to
put religious, secular, and tribal differences aside and truly work
together?)

Raber Aziz: I
don’t think that it will result in the political blocs putting their
differences aside. Iraq’s Prime Minister Mr Nouri al-Maliki who has been
controlling power over the past few years has unfortunately been
playing on a very sensitive cord, namely sectarianism.

He has
appointed many of his Shiite Dawa Party officials as ministers or
high-ranking officials in the government and has been running many other
ministerial and senior positions like the ministries of interior,
defense, national security as acting minister despite him being the PM.

He
has been rejecting candidates of the rival al-Iraqiya list, the main
Sunni bloc in Iraq, for the empty ministries each time with a different
excuse since the end of 2010 when the political blocs finally, after an
8-month impasse came to a power-sharing deal, in Erbil, to form the new
cabinet.

And, last year, his Shiite dominated government started
removing Sunni academics on charges of belonging to the former Baath
Party. They detained about 600 former Iraqi army officials on charges of
planning a coup by the end of 2011 when the last US troop left Iraq,
and also started hunting down other top Sunni leaders in the country on
terror charges, among them VP Tariq al-Hashimi for involvement in 150
armed attacks.

Therefore, it is not easy to undo these, and thus
the sectarian disputes which are in fact the core of the political
disputes as well, will remain.
Ward Welch: Thank you very much for your valuable time sir.

Raber
Y. Aziz is a Kurdish journalist and blogger from Erbil, the capital of
the semi-autonomous Kurdish Region. He works for AKnews as English News
Editor and is formerly their Managing Editor. You can follow his blog at
http://kurdishobserver.blogspot.com/

Read more: http://dinarspeculation.com/2012/04/12/boots-on-the-ground-interview-iraqi-dinar/#ixzz1rvwydM4u

I especially like the part where it states that Iraq produces 2 million BPD of oil, generating a revenue of over 6 Billion.

Which is a great profit. However, in order to do that the price per barrel would have to be $3,000.

Forget the dinar I want my own oil well.

I think TRB put it best in another thread, a man's opinion,

OOPS this was posted in another thread? Sorry my bad.

Middle of the third page of ths thread

http://dinardaily.forumotion.com/t20656p50-council-of-ministers-postponed-the-process-of-removing-the-zeros-from-the-national#142239

there is still good info there. take what resonates with you and leave what doesn't... we're all still learning.