The frequent presence of police in military uniforms, standing on sidewalks and guarding nondescript buildings with assault rifles, hints at his regime's history of repression. An Economic Drought From an economic standpoint, a more apt image of Iraq would be the Dust Bowl on America's Great Plains in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. Baghdad is not just experiencing its worst meteorological drought in a century. Its economy has been largely bone-dry for much of the past decade. Nothing dramatizes the transformation more vividly than the decline of the basic Iraqi monetary unit, the dinar.
Some currency exchanges offer small plastic trash bags to carry dinars.
Most Iraqis can only dream of such a casual bounty. Their great social safety net is the monthly food ration basket that virtually every family gets. And even that does not yet meet minimal nutrition requirements or carry most families through the last 10 days of the month in the center and south, where most Iraqis live. However, as is often the case in the Middle East, there are layers of complexity and exceptions to the rule. Governmental palaces, new restaurants and other structures have been built.