Iraq's botched currency reform

The transitional government in Iraq is faced with enormous challenges. It inherited an economy that had been centrally directed to serve the needs of a totalitarian state. Most prices were controlled, many consumer goods and foodstuffs rationed, and the money and banking system was suited only to extract savings to finance the state apparatus. The Iraqi economy, particularly in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War, has suffered from high inflation, capital consumption and rapidly falling living