Reply #11: This article is pretty significant. A summary of the main points.

[oblivious]

1. offering Iraq government forces training, equipment and advisers for...“the security fight.”

2. military assistance to Iraq...included increased border patrols and a proposed new “joint security committee.”

3. ready to assume major responsibility for Iraq reconstruction

4. If Iran is allowed to undertake reconstruction activities in Iraq, he said, all international construction companies would be welcome. “Urge the American companies to come here,” he said.

5. He ridiculed the evidence that the American military has said it collected (from kidnapped Iranians) ... Mr. Qumi said the maps were so common and easily obtainable that they proved nothing.

6. he said that the Iranians were in Iraq because “the two countries agreed to solve the security problems.” The Iranians “went to meet with the Iraqi side,” he said.

7. he said Iran would soon open a national bank in Iraq, in effect creating a new Iranian financial institution right under the Americans’ noses. A senior Iraqi banking official, Hussein al-Uzri, confirmed that Iran had received a license to open the bank, which he said would apparently be the first “wholly owned subsidiary bank” of a foreign country in Iraq.

8. Mr. Qumi said the bank was just the first of what he said would be several in Iraq — an agricultural bank and three private banks also intend to open branches. Other elements of new economic cooperation, he said, include plans for Iranian shipments of kerosene and electricity to Iraq and a new agricultural cooperative involving both countries.