Iraq has agreed to award $1.1 billion in contracts to Iranian and Chinese companies to build two enormous power plants, the Iraqi electricity minister said Tuesday. Word of the project prompted concerns among American military officials, who fear that Iranian commercial investments can mask military activities at a time of heightened tension with Iran.
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The Iraqi electricity minister, Karim Hasan, said the Iranian project would be built in Sadr City, a Shiite enclave in Baghdad that is controlled by followers of the anti-American cleric Moqtada 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 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 is a concern for the military here.
“We are of course carefully watching Iran’s overall presence here in Iraq,” the military official said. “As you know, it’s not always as it appears. Their Quds Force routinely uses the cover of a business to mask their real purpose as an intelligence operative.”
“This is a free marketplace, so there’s not much we can do about it,” the official said.
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. A U.S. Embassy spokesman said, “We welcome any efforts to help develop Iraq’s energy infrastructure.”
“These proposals reflect the ongoing business opportunities that are arising in Iraq that American firms should be competing for,” said the spokesman, who asked not to be named because of standard protocol at the embassy.
It was unclear whether any U.S. companies had tried to win the work, although Hasan said the projects had been submitted for bids. The embassy spokesman said, “We are unaware of any violations of principles of open and fair bidding.”
The agreements between Iraq and Iran come after the American-led reconstruction effort, which relied heavily on large American contractors, has spent nearly $5 billion of U.S. taxpayer money on Iraq’s electricity grid. Aside from a few isolated bright spots, there was little clear effect in a nation where in many places electricity is still available for only a few hours each day. Because the power plants are in largely Shiite-controlled areas, it is possible they may not face the same sectarian violence that crippled so many American reconstruction projects.
Hasan did not say how much the plant between Karbala and Najaf would cost, but at standard international prices a plant of the scale he described would be worth roughly $200 million to $300 million.
Of the two new projects Iraq has agreed to finance, Hasan 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 produce 1,300 megawatts of electricity into the Iraqi grid. All the plants currently connected to Iraq’s grid produce roughly 5,000 megawatts.
The Sadr City project will cost $150 million and be built by an Iranian company, Sunir, Hasan said. That plant is expected to produce about 160 megawatts of electricity.