Race to Get Lights On In Iraq Shows Perils Of Reconstruction tells how much of the reconstruction work in Iraq has passed from Bechtel to the military:
The U.S. originally tapped the engineering giant Bechtel Group Inc. to restore electricity in Iraq at a time when the military expected a swift victory and the administration foresaw a smooth reconstruction effort funded in large part by Iraqi oil revenue. Bechtel, like others, so misjudged the dangers of postwar Iraq that it set aside just $500,000 to hire six security guards, compared with the 169 it has today.
Six security guards. Here’s how the Army Corps of Engineers handles it:
When Col. Todd Semonite arrived here last fall to direct a massive push to restore Iraq’s electricity grid, his orders were simple: Stress speed over all else.Hauling in some key generators from overseas proved too slow on ships, so he flew them on cargo planes at several times the cost. He riled Pentagon auditors by allowing his contractors to buy millions of dollars in parts without competitive bids. His haste extended to his armed drivers, who careened along Iraq’s clogged highways in sport-utility vehicles at extreme speeds — both to get around the country faster and to avoid danger.
“The point is to always keep moving,” Col. Semonite said on a recent trip north of Baghdad, as he chewed on a grape Tootsie-Pop, his typical lunch. “It is hard to trigger a bomb accurately to hit a Suburban going 100 miles an hour.”
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Attacks so far have killed 27 of the Army Corps’ subcontractors and security guards, most in roadside ambushes similar to the one that killed the four American security guards in Fallujah on Wednesday. The Corps’ work is costing about $900,000 per megawatt of production capacity, while Bechtel’s more-deliberate power projects are costing about 30% less. Total spending on the power grid is expected to exceed $5 billion.
I can just imagine what it’s like to work with Iraqi bureaucrats:
Bechtel’s first two months were devoted to compiling a detailed survey of Iraq’s infrastructure, amid tussles with the country’s barely functional ministries. Early lists of “vital needs” from the Electricity Ministry included demands for hundreds of Mercedes trucks with compact-disc players. “It was laughable,” said Mike Robinson, head of the Bechtel electricity project in Iraq, who arrived in Baghdad May 15.