I'm not sure if the American adminstration deliberately chose this day , October 15th, to start circulating the new Dinar or if it was purely coincidental. Nevertheless the timing is wonderful and so symbolic. Iraqis know this day to be 'thikra al-zahf al-kabir' or the anniversary of The Great March, it can also be translated as The Great Crawl which is more accurate. Saddam's version of elections. It was in October 15th 1995 that Saddam decided to show the world how Iraqis want him and only him to be president 'for life'. So he set up voting centers all over Iraq, so that the people would vote for their 'beloved leader'. Of course it was absurd, there were no other candidates, no political parties, no nothing. Mukhabarat and security agents had already started spreading rumours on the street that the paper you would submit had some kind of watermark that you could be traced by. Of course there was nothing like that, but it was a message to Iraqis that no one could even dream of saying no. The paper ran something like this (I don't recall the exact wording): 'Do you vote for president Saddam Hussein (Allah preserve him), Yes, or No'. It was actually a poll. And it was creepy enough for everyone to say Yes. Of course the voting procedure was carried out in a democratic fashion, armed Baath members hanging around the centers, and sometimes even voting for you, nobody simply could secretly write no and fold the paper and submit it. It was all scrutinized by party members. But some people somehow DID write no, but it didn't change anything. It was all prearranged. It was just a farce. The next day Izzat Ibrahim AlDori (revolutionary council vice president) announced the results proudly to the world: %99.9. And that was it. Each following year after 1995, October 15th was a day for celebration. Last year Saddam pathetically realized the need for another show, seeing how things looked bad for him. It was pretty much the same thing, but this time the results were %100! I clearly remember it because I was almost killed that day...