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July 28, 2004

BAGHDAD – Billions remain in the international coffers for rebuilding; most earmarked for employing Iraqis to rebuild the war-torn nation’s schools, hospitals and infrastructure.

            Language barriers and foreign processes have prevented some of the nation’s private and state-owned businesses from landing reconstruction contracts, but U.S. officials are working to bridge the gap and teach Iraqi business men and women how to get involved in what has been called the largest civil reconstruction effort in history.

Contracting officers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division spoke Tuesday to an assembly of Iraqi Ministry of Construction and Housing officials and director generals of the nation’s state-owned construction companies, to familiarize the group with the U.S. contracting process.

“This is about communicating our knowledge and processes to the Iraqi people and helping to further the overall objective of peace and democracy here,” said Leo Hickman, the Corps’ top contracting officer in Iraq .  “They have a vested interest in rebuilding this country themselves and by landing these contracts, they will have that opportunity and be able to reinvest in their own economy.”

            U.S.-based prime contractors have already hired thousands of local Iraqi laborers, as have Iraqi private and state-owned enterprises.  However, Hickman and other U.S. officials want to see the number of Iraqis employed increase.

            “This is critically important because the key nuts and bolts issue is to get the Iraqis in the position to understand how to bid for and secure construction contracts,” said Roliff Purrington, a senior U.S. State Department consultant charged with serving as the primary contact between the U.S. government and the Ministry of Construction and Housing.  “If they can go to work that solves a lot of their problems and helps us execute the $18 billion supplemental budget.” 

The only way that gap will be closed and the execution of those projects will go forward is if the Iraqi side understands how to bid in the context of what we consider modern bidding and proposal process, he said.

Instantaneous email solicitations common in the tech-savvy states, are foreign to the Iraqi private and state-owned enterprises, as are the voluminous two- to three-inch thick U.S. proposal packages required for bidding. 

“These people are used to getting two or three pages with a list of quantities and specifications,” said Purrington.  “The time for bidding is shorter in the U.S. context than it is in this context, and the language and cultural barrier add to the difficulty for the Iraqis to do business with the U.S. ” 

Flanked by an Iraqi interpreter and a presentation screen, Hickman explained the Corps’ mission in the Iraqi reconstruction efforts and walked the business owners and ministry officials through the contracting process from statement of work to contract award.

“This was helpful,” said an Iraqi engineer who withheld his name for fear of becoming a target of anti-Iraqi forces.  “We still have a long way to go and learning needs to continue on both sides to make this successful.”

Security for Iraqi engineers and members of the ministry working to rebuild the nation is a concern that continues to make headlines.  At least six ranking Iraqi government officials have been slain this year.

            “It’s not glamorous or high-profile in a media sense to see people going to training sessions and talking about how to rebuild the country,” Purrington said. “There is a lot of courage associated with this.  There are a lot of quietly inspirational things going on in these training sessions that are helping the people of Iraq .”

The ministry officials who attended the session oversee the construction and maintenance of the country’s 4,500 km of roads, expressways and 1,250 bridges; public buildings and public housing.

All were quick to ask how they could bid on work associated with the more than 2,000 infrastructure construction and rehabilitation projects remaining to be finished in the country.

The questions, most of which were translated from Arabic, focused on the gap between U.S. business processes and the preferred way of doing business in the Middle Eastern country. 

The work available for the Iraqi businesses runs the gamut from intense manual labor to high tech engineering, a spectrum common in the country that remains heavily rooted in relationships fueled by state-owned enterprises.

The nearly 200 state-owned enterprises in Iraq associated with the nation’s ministries knew little of competition and free market prior to the introduction of the concept by the Coalition Provisional Authority shortly after the end of major hostilities last year.

Iraqi business owners and director generals of the nation’s state-owned enterprises were then forced to leave behind the notion of awarding contracts based upon friendships and handshakes, and were required to compete for business in a fair and open process.

“We are not trying to force our system upon them,” said Chris Tew, Hickman’s deputy contracting officer in Iraq .  “We are being responsible to the American tax payer and ensuring the U.S. tax dollars spent over here are awarded through a legal process that is fair and is compliant with the laws that govern the use of the money.”

Although the Corps had met with business leaders in Baghdad earlier in the year, the meeting Tuesday marked the first time the agency met with ministry officials in an effort to bolster the number Iraqi contractors for reconstruction work. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Photos of the meeting are available.  Requests for photos should be made to Mitch Frazier at (540) 665-5339. 

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