Central Bank of Iraq

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The Central Bank of Iraq (Arabic: البنك المركزي العراقي ) was established as Iraq's central bank by Central Bank of Iraq Law 2004 with authorised capital of 100 billion dinars.[1] The current Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq is Sinan Al-Shibibi.

The bank is in charge of:

• maintaining inflation stability
• implementing monetary policy (including exchange rate policies)
• managing the state's reserves
• issuing and managing the Iraqi dinar
• regulating private banks.

As of December 2006, the bank reported total assets valued at over 33 trillion dinars (of which 59 per cent were Treasury Bills)[2]. The bank’s head office is located in Baghdad with four branches in Basrah, Mosul, Sulaimaniyah and Erbil. However, currently the bank does not control the financial and administrative affairs of Erbil and Sulaimaniyah branches, as these branches are technically reporting to the bank and for all other issues they are reporting to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and they are financed by KRG.

Contents 1 The robbery 2 See also 3 References 4 External links

[edit] The robbery

In March 2003, on several occasions beginning on March 18, the day before the United States began bombing Baghdad, nearly US$1 billion was stolen from the Central Bank of Iraq. This is considered the largest bank heist in history.

Approximately $650 million was later found hidden in walls in Saddam Hussein's palace by US troops. It is believed that this was the bulk of the stolen money. The remaining money is currently unaccounted for. Diyaa Habib al-Khayoun, general manager of the state-owned al-Rafidain Bank, claims that $250 million and 18 billion now worthless Iraqi dinars were also stolen, but by professional robbers unconnected to Saddam.

In March 2003, a hand-written note surfaced, signed by Saddam, ordering $920 million to be withdrawn and given to his son Qusay. Bank officials state that Qusay and another unidentified man oversaw the cash, boxes of $100 bills, being loaded into trucks during a five hour operation. Qusay was later killed by US troops in a firefight.

[edit] See also

• Iraqi dinar

[edit] References

This article or section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations.

[edit] External links

• The Central Bank of Iraq official site
• The Great Bank Robbery
• UK troops foil Iraq bank robbery
• Papers show Saddam snatched $1bn from bank a day before invasion

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