U.S. Concerned as Iraq Awards Power Contracts to Iran and China

Source: NYTimes

Iraq has agreed to award $1.1 billion in contracts to Iranian and Chinese companies to build a pair of enormous power plants, the Iraqi electricity minister said Tuesday. Word of the project prompted serious concerns among American military officials, who fear that Iranian commercial investments can mask military activities at a time of heightened tension with Iran.

The Iraqi electricity minister, Karim Wahid, said that the Iranian project would be built in Sadr City, a Shiite enclave in Baghdad that is controlled by followers of the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr. He added that Iran had also agreed to provide cheap electricity from its own grid to southern Iraq, and to build a large power plant essentially free of charge in an area between the two southern Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.

The expansion of ties between Iraq and Iran comes as the United States and Iran clash on nuclear issues and about what American officials have repeatedly said is Iranian support for armed groups in Iraq. American officials have charged that Iranians, through the international military wing known as the Quds Force, are particularly active in support of elite elements of the Mahdi Army, a militia largely controlled by Mr. Sadr.

An American military official in Baghdad said that while he had no specific knowledge of the power plant contracts, any expansion of Iranian interests was a concern for the military here.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/world/middleeast/18grid.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Got no oil for the blood shed

QUARTERLY PROFIT... THEY NEVER THINK AHEAD.

them so they could be FREE...

Looks like they LIED?

Because, now they're NOT FREE to do bizness with customers of their own chosin'?

Is that what the military is sayin'?? :crazy:

A message from the Bushies. I'll tell you one thing you DON'T do, and that's betray your Mafia Protection Gang and go with the other Mafia Protection Gangs.

Oh, someone or many someones are going to pay. It will be interesting if the Bushies go for the strict "mafia-style payback" hich can they easilt be blamed on insurgents, whomthe Black Ops Boys will dress up like those British did, back when we first started the Iraqi Right-Wing Death Squads under Negroponte.

Or will the Busies go more with the kinder and gentler tactics reserved for American enemies, as in character assassination or atacks on the ecomonkic wellbeing of their children or something nonviolent like that.

But payback is coming, and with all the anger of Hitler-types denied what they want. And we will see how violent the retribution will be. Somehow I think it will be a bloody and violent, because the Bushies can hardly resist from using these tactics against Loyal Americans, like Wellstone.

But I digress. Payback is coming for the Iraqis that dared defy their Bushie Masters. Wait for it.

We apparently haven't been able to for 4 years

it will be a huge gain for them and a huge loss of US credibility and influence, which is already low. And China would be successful in extending their sphere of influence toward the middle east.

Then do a shitty job.

may have a silver lining, I tend to agree with this paragraph and should the Iraqis perceive progress in their daily lives or standard of living, this may alleviate frustrations that feed the insurgency.

"At the same time, it is possible to view Iranian and Chinese investment as giving those countries a stake in Iraqi stability. The power plants could also boost a troubled reconstruction effort in Iraq. An American Embassy spokesman said, “We welcome any efforts to help develop Iraq’s energy infrastructure.”

it wouldn't be democracy if we tried to tell them what to do...would it.