Message to Iraq : So long and thanks for all the fish

Iraqi Contracts With Iran and China Concern U.S.

By JAMES GLANZ NYTimes

BAGHDAD, Oct. 17 — 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.

And then the money line:

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.

Is there any point to all this? Create fortified bases in northern Iraq. MAYBE there is a chance for a democracy there. The Sunnis now depend on us for protection from the revenging Shia militias (they need us, not the reverse), dominated by people like Sadr who will NEVER be democratic allies of the USA, and certainly not of a polyglot, multi-religion American people.

We got rid of Saddam. We helped them to vote, and they did so several times. Al Qaeda has been decimated. These elected people in the govt are not even TRYING to be allies against our enemies. They are not allies.

Fine. We respect that vote. C-YA later.

Oh, and a slim reminder ...

Don't make us come back again. We'll be really angry with YOU ALL for the obvious reasons which will make us do something like that. You won't like us if we are angry that way.

Of the two new projects Iraq has agreed to finance, Mr. Wahid said, the largest is a $940 million power plant in Wasit to be built by a Chinese company, which he said was named Shanghai Heavy Industry. That project would pump some 1,300 megawatts of electricity into the Iraqi grid. For comparison, all of the plants currently connected to Iraq’s grid produce a total of roughly 5,000 megawatts.

And we'll be providing security for this? Or since the 'Iraqi Shia IRGC' is responsible will there even be a need?

What a farce !

Continue reading Message to Iraq : So long and thanks for all the fish.