As Lew Rockwell notes, the US’s printing of Saddam’s money is poignant symbol of the failure of the occupation. Now we learn from the Washington Times that:
- The administration’s head, L. Paul Bremer, acknowledged yesterday that the decision [to print Saddam dinars] was embarrassing for him, but said there had been no alternative to maintain confidence in the money supply as the coalition strives to get the economy going again.
- Mr. Bremer said his administration was eager to remedy the problem to give the economy a lift and was printing the extra 250-dinar notes to offer at face value against the larger bills so that confidence could be restored.
- in reality, far fewer images were torn down than will now be printed by the U.S.-led administration.
- Iraqi newspapers said that in all, 6 billion worth of dinars was expected to be printed, or about 1.5 million notes.
