Fortunes in Iraqi Bills Gone Overnight (Published 1993) (2024)

Walid Abu Bakir still goes to work, although he isn't sure why.

All the usual things are in place -- the two telephones on his desk, the calculator he uses to tally figures and the neatly stacked piles of green Iraqi dinars that sit on the shelf in front of him.

But while 10 days ago the stacks of bills, which constituted his entire financial holdings, were worth $50,000, today they are little more than scraps of paper.

In an effort to fight runaway inflation, Iraq decided last week to invalidate its 25-dinar note. Mr. Abu Bakir, a black-market currency trader, has been wiped out, along with tens of thousands of other Jordanians.

"The Jordanian people supported Iraq during the gulf war," Mr. Abu Bakir said, "and this is how we are repaid." A Dubious Investment

To many outside the Arab world a pile of banknotes, each with an engraving of Saddam Hussein in a military uniform, might not seem like a sound investment. But many Jordanians, sure that the United Nations embargo against Iraq would one day be lifted, believed that the hard currency of their neighbor would regain its old value once Baghdad resumes oil sales.

Jordanian businessmen accepted Iraqi currency for payment, often in deals with the Iraqi Government, and squirreled it away. Shepherds sold their flocks, people traded in their gold jewelry and families mortgaged their homes, or withdrew their savings, to buy the Iraqi bills.