Baghdad, June 12: The US-controlled Iraq central bank has decided to begrudge Saddam Hussein one last honour - by printing bank notes bearing his mustachioed face. Iraq's US-led government of occupation is issuing millions of crisp new 250 dinar bills - currently worth less than 20 US cents each - because of a shortage of the notes that is causing a growing liquidity crisis in the country.

Compounding the shortage, a new 10,000 dinar note issued just before the war by Saddam's government never won the public's confidence because it was prone to counterfeiting, according to US officials and Iraqi media reports on Wednesday.
Printing new 250-dinar bills ``seems to be the best solution even though it does involve printing a currency with Saddam's face on it,'' L. Paul Bremer said Tuesday. ``It's not a joy.''

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Last month, Bremer banned the posting of any images or likenesses of the Iraqi leader, a fact he acknowledged Tuesday.

The irony of Americans printing Saddam-emblazoned cash was not lost on Iraqis.

``The Americans got rid of the old regime, so why are they printing the same currency?'' Mudafar Mahdi, a local businessman, said Wednesday.

By infusing so many notes into the economy, the value of the dinar could slip against the dollar and trigger inflation, Mahdi predicted.
Bremer, who heads the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, said the central bank would begin removing 10,000 dinar notes from circulation by allowing Iraqis to exchange them for 250 dinar notes at face value. The city's ubiquitous money changers, who line Baghdad's streets waving bricks of the notes at passer-by, generally exchange the 10,000 dinar notes at a less favorable rate against the dollar.

Bremer also announced a new project that would help Iraqis start businesses by connecting would-be foreign investors with local entrepreneurs.

Job creation, said Bremer, is a crucial priority.

``We're facing an unemployment problem that is probably without precedent in my lifetime,'' Bremer said at a news conference in Baghdad's convention center.

Bremer said the future ``business support and information center'' would be a joint project of the US-led occupation government, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the UN Development Programme.
``Our challenge is to turn around a moribund economy damaged by decades of centralization and state control,'' he said. He also announced a new $100 million construction fund - created with seized Iraqi government money - that will be used to repair Baghdad's damaged government ministries and other buildings, pounded by US bombs and ravaged by looters.

Other projects will include repairs and upgrades to Baghdad hospitals and the completion of the final 100 kms of the Baghdad-Basra highway, Bremer said.

Iraqi construction companies will handle the work, creating thousands of new jobs, Bremer said.

One key piece of infrastructure - Iraq's international airport in Baghdad - remains closed to commercial flights. Bremer said his administration was sorting through security, customs and immigration issues with an eye toward reopening the airport as well as that in Basra.

The former Saddam International Airport outside Baghdad has been converted into a US military base, but the authorities say it will be ready to handle civilian flights by mid-July.
Bureau Report