Iraq: The Rebuilding

Though a much expected U.S. war with Iraq has not even started, rebuilding has already begun. Sources tell TIME that the U.S. government has taken initial steps toward awarding $900 million in contracts to repair and rebuild the country, contracts that will go exclusively to U.S. companies and to subcontractors from nations officially designated as friendly. Sources also tell TIME that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) recently held a restricted briefing for security-cleared bidders and sent out confidential requests for construction proposals. USAID had no comment.

The $900 million is just a beginning, meant to cover surface infrastructure, such as bridges, roads and overpasses, ports, hospitals and schools. It does not include likely additional Iraq contracts to be tendered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or others to repair and upgrade the country's oil industry. Anticipating potentially rich rewards, U.S. companies are assembling detailed information, like the precise measurements of bridges spanning Iraq's Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in the event the structures need to be replaced following U.S. bombing, and the number and type of cranes that could be damaged in Iraq's Persian Gulf cargo ports.

Winners in the first round of the postwar sweepstakes are likely to include many of the same companies that competed to rebuild Afghanistan: Fluor Daniel, Kellogg Brown & Root, Perini, Parsons, the Louis Berger Group and Bechtel. Costs are expected to be lower than in Afghanistan because Iraq has a functioning technocracy that should make design, engineering and construction much faster. "Given all the Iraqis have done to hide their weapons systems and to build palaces and bunkers for Saddam [Hussein]," says a major U.S. contractor, "they'll be able to provide a trained construction work force and sophisticated materials like high-strength concrete."