THE US OVERTHROW OF BAATHIST SUNNI SADDAM HUSSEIN EFFECTIVELY HANDED THE COUNTRY OVER TO PRO-TEHRAN LEADERSHIP
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) April 22, 2026
Currently the Coordination Framework (CF), which is the largest Iran-aligned parliamentary bloc of Shia parties, is racing to pick a new prime minister for the country – but reportedly neither of the two main candidates are acceptable to Washington.
There’s a huge lasting irony to the Iraq war and the Bush-Cheney legacy.
The US overthrow of Baathist Sunni Saddam Hussein effectively handed the country over to pro-Tehran leadership. And the US has been dealing with the fallout in the region from the ‘Shia axis’ ever since.
(Mnt Goat:; Someone has to clean up this mess in the middle east left by Bush-Cheney and Obama legacies.)
OMAR: We see the Finance Minister talking about how our reserves are reaching the red line level...Everybody in Iraq knows there's no more dollar...
FRANK: The CBI is forced now to tap into your reserves or to make large loans for the GOI...The solution is to release the value of your currency. They know that...The CBI...has no choice but to lift the value of your currency.
Alaq knows he messed up. He knows he's in trouble and Alaq knows his days are numbered...
US BLOCKS REGULAR $500 MILLION CASH PALLETS FLOWN TO IRAQ, OVER PRO-IRAN MILITIAS
by Tyler Durden
Wednesday, Apr 22, 2026 – 08:55 PM
In confirmation of some early reporting we featured at the start of this week, The Wall Street Journal has verified something that Iraqi officials themselves were denying just days ago: the US is blocking Iraq’s regular dollar shipments in order to pressure it’s Iran-backed militias. “The Trump administration has suspended U.S. dollar shipments to Iraq and frozen security cooperation programs with its military, escalating the pressure on Baghdad to dismantle powerful Iranian-backed militias,” said Iraqi and US officials interviewed in the report.
Pallets of cash and the Middle East should ring familiar, stretching from the Bush-Cheney years to even the Obama years (and Iran sanctions relief as part of the original nuclear deal).
In this case, like with the Obama/Iran deal saga before, this is actually Iraq’s own oil revenue money.
Memory lane via CNBC: The New York Federal Reserve shipped billions of dollars in physical cash to Baghdad to pay for the reopening of the government & restoration of basic services. Much of it went missing.
In this latest case, a US military plane carrying a half-billion dollars has been delayed on its regularly scheduled delivery. “A cargo-plane delivery of nearly $500 million in U.S. banknotes, the proceeds from Iraqi oil sales from Federal Reserve Bank of New York accounts, was blocked recently by Treasury Department officials because of U.S. concerns about the militias,” WSJ continues, citing the officials.
The publication details, “It was the second scheduled shipment of dollars to the Central Bank of Iraq delayed by the U.S. since the start of the Iran war in late February, the U.S. and Iraqi officials said.”
During the height of the March fighting between Iran and Israel, several American facilities across Iraq came under attack, even including the US Embassy in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Typically, these were drones, or rocket fire, and Erbil and northern Iraq in particular came under heavy fire.
To review from the back grounder we previously featured: since 2003, a decision issued by Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) head Paul Bremer has required that all Iraqi oil revenues be paid into an account at the US Federal Reserve Bank of New York, giving the US the ability to control how many US dollars are returned to the CBI. From that point until today, the Iraqi Ministry of Finance has had to submit funding requests to the US Treasury, which then approves or denies them based on its own criteria.
This monthly transfer of US dollars, flown into Baghdad in pallets of hard cash, determines Iraq’s ability to pay for basic needs such as salaries, food, and medicine. Whenever Washington believes that Iraq is not aligned with US regional goals, including enforcing economic sanctions on Iran, Baghdad’s major trading partner and a source of natural gas for electricity production, these fund transfers can be delayed or reduced. The US halted $13 billion in annual cash shipments to Iraq to pressure Baghdad to act against Resistance groups, the second such suspension since the start of the war on Iran.
All these banks are waiting...They all want the new exchange rate but this fool won't release it.
And why? It's because of his ties with Iran.
But those ties have come to an end and Trump isn't playing anymore...Everybody knows purchasing power is what is needed to make this country work, but [Alaq] refuses...
Alaq, raise the value and stick around or Alaq get the hell out of the way for the new exchange rate. That's where we're at...
KUJER: SALARIES ARE TEMPORARILY SECURED, AND IRAQ FACES AUSTERITY OR PRINTING MONEY
Former MP Jamal Kojar confirmed that salaries are temporarily secured, while indicating that Iraq may resort to austerity measures or printing currency in the next phase.
During his appearance on the program “On the Ruler” broadcast by Al-Furat satellite channel, Kujer said: “The dollar issue in Iraq is linked to two aspects: technical, administrative, and political.” He explained that “the currently influential aspect is the cessation of dollar shipments due to the war conditions and the disruption of air traffic, and not because of a problem with the US Federal Reserve,” noting that “no official US announcement has been issued to stop the transfer of shipments.”
He added that “the effects of the drop in oil prices will appear after three months, but the cash reserve is still better compared to previous periods,” stressing “conviction in the government’s ability to secure salaries during the next six months, given that oil revenues are received three months after the sale, with options including printing money despite the risks of inflation.”
He pointed out that “the United States is waging a solitary conflict that may have repercussions on the global economy,” indicating that “the rise in fuel prices in the American markets reflects the magnitude of the effects,” and suggesting that “it will be a limited military confrontation.”
Kujer said that “Iraq may be forced to adopt an austerity policy or resort to printing money, which requires a fully empowered government to manage the phase,” criticizing the three-year budget, describing it as “a backbreaker after it turned the planned deficit into an actual deficit that exceeded $133 billion.”
He predicted that “oil prices will continue to rise even if the war stops,” noting that “the 2026 budget may be presented in the form of a law with the possibility of adding a supplementary budget, or resorting to legislation similar to the food security law to cover emergency expenses and secure salaries.”
Regarding the National Service Law, Kujer noted that “the law is unlikely to be passed at the present time due to the lack of political consensus and clarity in its features, despite the importance of introducing it in the long term.”
