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Reuters News Service
Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
http://www.chron.com/
Thu May 22, 2003

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WASHINGTON -- Companies hoping to rebuild Iraq swamped the first event in a three-continent roadshow held Wednesday by prime U.S. contractor Bechtel for potential subcontractors.

Several thousand contractors lined up outside the hall in Washington where the roadshow was taking place, and Bechtel had to reorganize the event into two compressed sessions of 1 1/2 hours each instead of one three-hour session.

"There are so many people, we have decided to hold two sessions now," a Bechtel spokeswoman said.

The San Francisco-based construction company was chosen by the U.S. Agency for International Development, called USAID, as the lead contractor to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure after the war in a deal that could be worth $680 million over 18 months.

The Iraqi reconstruction project is the largest in scale since the Marshall Plan in the late 1940s after World War II. Nine requests for work in Iraq have been issued by USAID and eight, including Bechtel's, have been awarded.

Bechtel is responsible for a broad range of jobs, from rebuilding a port and airports to getting the shattered road and rail system running and upgrading water and sanitation.

The privately owned company has been inundated with tens of thousands of requests from subcontractors hoping to cash in on rebuilding Iraq, with most firms registering their interest on its Web site, www.bechtel.com.

On Friday, an identical subcontractor conference will be held in southwest London, followed on May 28 by a meeting in Kuwait City.

USAID has come under a lot of criticism for its process of awarding contracts in Iraq and especially for its exclusion of a wider array of local bidders and foreign firms.

Congress asked for greater oversight in the process. Last week the Republican head of the House International Relations Committee, Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, said he was concerned about the lack of transparency and wrote to the General Accounting Office to review the process.

Most of the work Bechtel has awarded has gone to U.S. and British companies. They include Olive Security, a British company that was awarded three subcontracts for security, and ArmorGroup Land Mines, a British affiliate of a U.S. company, for land mine clearing.

Bechtel has also awarded subcontracts to Saudi Arabian companies National Catering and Tamini, as well as Kuwait's Al-Bahar & Bardawil, at the pioneer camp at Umm Qasr.

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Direct Link:
--http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/1920241

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