Delivery Under Fire

Within months of the end of the ground war in Iraq the British Private Military Corporation, or PMC, Global Risk Strategies, has been contracted by the Coalition Provisional Authority to deliver some 3.5 billion U.S. dollars worth of new Iraqi currency throughout the country and collect in the region of 10,000 tons of the old redundant banknotes for destruction. Between September of 2003 and April of 2004, over 1,000 road journeys were undertaken throughout Iraq to deliver the new specie. 375,000 posters were displayed nationwide and 4.5 million handbills were circulated. In the end, the cost of printing the new money, which was backed by hard currencies and securities and constituted a semi-hard currency itself, was calculated at U.S. $130 million, and operational costs would exceed $70 million. In October of 2003, the single fiercest firefight since the end of formal hostilities erupted around one of the Global convoys... This is John Smith’s story of his own small role in the biggest movement of money anywhere in the world, ever, against the backdrop of what was still effectively a war zone.