Iran extends $1 billion line of credit to Iraq

I find this ominous. Here are a few lines:

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran reached out to Iraq and the American public in separate gestures Wednesday, giving the Baghdad government a $1 billion line of credit while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a personal letter to "noble Americans" calling for a military withdrawal from Iraq.

The financial arrangements were revealed on the third and final day of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's meetings here with Iran's political elite. Ahmadinejad made clear for the first time that Iran would support Iraq's government in setting a timetable for U.S. troops to leave the country.
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that in addition to the line of credit, Ahmadinejad and Talabani had signed "hundreds of millions of dollars" worth of no-bid contracts and trade pacts for Iraqi reconstruction. Under the agreements, Iran will help rebuild schools, hospitals, pipelines and power plants.
Iran's gestures underscored its deep religious bond with its Shiite-majority neighbor but also what some believe is its desire to displace the U.S. as a powerbroker in Iraq. They were announced as possible tensions surfaced in the U.S.-Iraq relationship when a summit between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Bush in Amman was postponed by a day.

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