Firas Matti Y. Baloula, Al Khalid Group plant manager (left), discuss risks at Balad construction work with U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jerry Ballard. Insurgents attack drivers enroute to the huge U.S. Army base north of Balad. Three have been killed in January. (Photo by Tom Sawyer for ENR)

The concrete plant at a burgeoning U.S. military base near Balad, Iraq, shut down production Jan. 21, after deliveries of sand and gravel to the plant dwindled to nothing in response to recent attacks on drivers making deliveries to the base, which is approximately 70 kilometers north of Baghdad in the Tigris River plain.

Gunmen killed a Halliburton KBR driver en route to the base on Jan. 19. Insurgents killed two other drivers hauling sand and gravel to the concrete plant the previous week. In the case of the concrete plant, the independent haulers were shot on a 14-km-long road connecting the base to the main highway between Baghdad and Tikrit.

“It hit the fan, basically, last week,” says Staff Sergeant Jerry Ballard, the army’s contracting officer’s representative who manages relations with the plant. He and other members of the base's construction management team are pushing for better security arrangements on inbound roads so the drivers will feel that it is safe to resume driving.

“The drivers are afraid,” says Firas Matti Y. Baloula, plant manager. “The last 14 kilometers is most dangerous,” he says. Once the trucks hit that turnoff on their 35-km runs, it is clear the loads are bound for the American base. Waiting masked gunmen ambush passing cement trucks. Security measures taken by the Fourth Infantry Division, which has authority in the area, have so-far failed to convince the Iraqi drivers that the route is safe. Baloula blames the attacks on remnants of Saddam Hussein’s old gang and thugs who are accustomed to taking a cut of everyone’s business.

The batch plant is owned by Baloula’s family concern, the Al Khalid Group, which has businesses in contracting, asphalt, ready-mix concrete, glass-reinforced pipe and irrigation and agricultural products. It has worked strictly in Iraq since it was formed by Baloula’s father, Matti, who still runs the company. By 1990 it had grown to be the second largest construction company in the Mideast, after the Bin Ladens', the younger Baloula says. It fell into disfavor with the Hussein regime however, was unable to collect on debts and effectively mothballed operations for a decade. Last spring, U.S. Army engineers from the 130th Engineer Brigade were searching for construction materials and supplies in the wake of the fighting.They spotted an idle batch plant and made contact with Baghdad-based firm. Within days it was hauling dry mix in its trucks from Baghdad and cranking up the business in Balad.

Today the Al Khalid Group has 8 batch plants operating and millions of dollars in contracts with the U.S. Army. It is also working with private sector firms including Houston-based KBR and Fluor International on projects from one end of Iraq to the other. At the Balad base alone it has a $2-million contract to supply readi-mix to the military, another $1.5 million contract to make several varieties of concrete barrier, and another $250,000 contract to supply concrete to a KBR sub-contractor, Prime Projects International, which is building dining facilities and doing other work on the base.

The Balad plant, which the Army has allowed Al Khalid to erect inside the heavily guarded perimeter of the base, can produce up to 300 meters of concrete a day, but Baloula says it needs 10 deliveries of sand and 20 of gravel to keep up the pace. Even inside the fence, the plant is still exposed. “He’s been hit in the plant here by mortar fire a few times,” Ballard says. “This has it been a pretty wild place to work.”

The plant is making standard mix concrete that tests at 3,625 psi Baloula says. An Army lab conducts break tests on the base. “They haven’t had any problem with the strength,” says Ballard. “They usually pour at night in the summer in Iraq because of the heat, but they have had to do it in the day because of security and curfews— the latest truck is at 4 p.m. But his mix is pretty user-friendly, pretty forgiving. We’ve had a few cracks, but not a lot.”

The plant’s 100 employees commute by vanload. The mixing trucks are used only on the base to deliver concrete to worksites for the Army and the Air Force. When that demand slows, Baloula turns to pouring standard-sized Jersey barriers, and 2- and 2.5-meter-tall barriers T-barriers dubbed, Texas barriers and Alaska barriers, respectively. The Army uses them for force protection. Baloula is currently working on an order for 3,000 barriers for the Balad base.