Posted on 05/16/2005 3:07:48 AM PDT by snowsislander
The government would like to start construction this summer and get the plant up and running by summer 2007, they said.
Samawah is where the Self-Defense Forces have been conducting their humanitarian activities.
The project is expected to be a turning point in Japan's reconstruction assistance policy toward Iraq. Assistance will be shifted from deploying troops to using official development assistance.
Japan has already conveyed its readiness for the project to the provincial government of Al-Muthanna, of which Samawah is the capital, they said.
The government has concluded that the construction is feasible, even taking local security into consideration, after dispatching research teams twice to the area since late last year, the sources said.
Al-Muthanna is the only province in Iraq that has no power plant. The electricity supply is so bad that Samawah has a 10-hour blackout every day, and local authorities have been calling for a large-scale power plant as part of the international effort to rebuild the country.
Tokyo hopes that the power plant would help alleviate local dissatisfaction with Japanese aid and contribute to improving the security environment for the SDF.
More than 500 Ground Self-Defense Force troops have been deployed in Samawah since January 2004. They have mostly been engaged in supplying clean water and repairing roads.
However, there has been growing dissatisfaction among local authorities that the aid has failed to resolve more pressing needs such as serious unemployment and the power shortage.
Japan usually conducts major aid projects with low-interest yen loans, but the envisioned thermal power plant would be built with grants because it is likely to be some time before Tokyo resumes yen loans to Iraq, the sources said.
The government plans to make a final decision after it finishes calculating the costs of the project -- including those for security, which are expected to be substantial.
The official go-ahead may also be delayed while Japanese authorities struggle to find out what happened to a Japanese security guard, Akihiko Saito, who was shot and badly injured during an ambush by a militant group in western Iraq on May 8, the sources said.
It is part of the sixth troop rotation since operations began in Samawah. The new personnel are drawn mostly from the GSDF 3rd Division, the first unit sent to Iraq from western Japan.
ping
Ping!
60MW for $100M? Should be more like 60MW for $75M.
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