AFTEREFFECTS: THE ECONOMY; His Face Still Gives Fits As Saddam Dinar Soars (Published 2003) (2024)

Saddam Hussein may be out of power or even dead. But his maligned currency, the so-called Saddam dinar, has abruptly skyrocketed in value.

In a display of what might be called Saddam's revenge, the discredited dinar soared by about one-third against the dollar on Thursday and is now at its highest value since 1996. Its remarkable comeback is likely to cause heartburn for American officials here, and not just because Iraq's currency of choice bears a portrait of the former dictator on every bill.

A potentially bigger problem is that the dinar's surge and the dollar's plunge have wiped out a big part of the purchasing power of the $20 emergency payments American administrators have been handing out to workers in lieu of their unpaid monthly salaries.

Iraqis, from police officers and teachers to government officials, are grumbling that the $20 was a poor substitute for the pay they have not received since March. But now, taking account of the dinar's total rise over the past month, the payment, which used to equal 40,000 dinars, is now worth about half that much.

''Prices in the market have not changed a bit,'' grumbled Sadiq al-Hamoundi, as he contemplated the diminished value of the $10 remaining from his wife's emergency payment. ''This isn't going to last another three days.''

Iraqis have a great deal of experience with exchange rates, despite Mr. Hussein's effort to maintain an official exchange rate at the absurdly overvalued level of $3 per dinar.