UK contractors queue for Iraq work
BRITISH companies eager to secure a slice of reconstruction work in Iraq are inundating Bechtel, the main US project manager, with statements of interest.
A London-based spokesman for Bechtel said: 'We are having four or five approaches an hour.'
Engineering and construction companies Costain, Balfour Beattie and Amey are hopeful they can win some of the more sophisticated subcontracts.
San Francisco-based Bechtel was awarded a $680m (£425m) contract by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for the preliminary reconstruction work. The programme will cover Iraqi seaports and airports, road and rail systems, irrigation works and public buildings.
The share-out of contracts has prompted criticism that the US administration will reward companies from allies such as Britain with work while shunning those whose governments acted against the war, notably France and Germany.
Sources familiar with the bid process said Chinese companies were set to be surprise winners.
'American business and government know they should cut the Chinese in if they want to win a much bigger slice of any future bilateral trade with China itself,' a source said.
A lead contender is China International Trust and Investment Corp (Citic), a powerful State=linked Chinese company that is advised by George Shultz, who was Secretary of State to former US President Ronald Reagan. Shultz is also a Bechtel board member.
During Schultz's time in office, he overlapped with Paul Bremer - America's latest choice as top civil administrator in Iraq - who in the mid-1980s was US roving ambassador for counter-terrorism.
'There is no concern on our part [about Shultz's role],' the Bechtel spokesman said. Citic was welcome to bid along with other parties, he added.
He expected its own shortlist of preferred bidders to be accepted by USAID but the US government's word would be final. 'They are the funder of this whole exercise, so they have the right and the duty to have the final say,' he said.
Bechtel is to hold conferences to explain the tendering process in Washington on Wednesday, London on Friday and Kuwait on 28 May.
