A fast-growing military facility, known for now as Logistical Supply Area (LSA) Anaconda, is rising on the bones of a former Iraqi air base near Balad, about 70 km north of Baghdad. It has two 3,600-meter runways and is to become the main logistical distribution center for American troops in Iraq.

Anaconda's 25-sq-km compound is one big construction site, with a mix of troop labor, Iraqi contractors and KBR subcontractors diving into the work. Coalition Joint Task Force funding authorized in the supplemental appropriation for major construction on the base has grown from $8.9 million in fiscal year 2003 to $44 million in 2004. The list includes $6.72 million for a theater postal distribution center; $9.7 million for a water treatment facility; $11.7 for wastewater treatment facility and $15.87 for a power plant distribution system.

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Capt. Leigh Ford, the master planner for the base from FET-21, a facility engineer team under the 416th Enginering Command, says there are many other, smaller projects funded through other mechanisms as well. "I could go on forever if I named it all," she said.

LSA Anaconda is, for planning and development purposes, an "enduring presence" facility, on a matrix that ranges from 90-day contingency base camps, which are entitled to limited development funding and resources, to "enduring presence" bases that are expected to last more than two years. Other major enduring facilities are being built at and near Tallil Air Base in southern Iraq near An Nasiriyah; at a convoy support center near Al Hillah, called Scandia, and at the Abu Ghurayb Prison complex just west of Baghdad. A total of 14 enduring facilities are being built in all, with planned housing for 140,000 soldiers. There are an additional 90 temporary facilities in Iraq today. But by all appearances, Anaconda is the biggest show, and planners are setting the stage for the long haul with a mix of Air Force and Army uses in mind.

The target population is 15,500 troops in long-term residence, with accommodations for another 4,000 passing through. KBR is doing a lot of the set-up for troop accommodations. Tent villages are giving way to climate controlled, modular housing.

COMBAT ZONE Base takes sporadic mortar and rocket fire so perimeter is being tightened.

Anaconda is in a bad neighborhood, though. It is still in a combat zone and takes mortar and rocket fire on a sporadic basis, including a few rounds last week. It is surrounded by dangerous territory whose roads are plagued by ambushes and roadside bombs improvised from artillery shells and other munitions. The base perimeter is being tightened by the erection of 40, 40-ft tall steel guard towers equipped with sensitive surveillance equipment. Surrounding fields have been brushed to open the view, but the terrain is rough and provides a lot of cover.

The risks go well beyond rifle and mortar range. Gunmen harass Iraqi drivers hauling gravel, sand and consumables into the base by accosting them on the feeder roads in. Three drivers were killed hauling loads into the camp in last half of January, bringing concrete production and graveling operations to a halt while security adjustments are made. But the work is good, the contracts plentiful, and for the moment, Iraqi construction firms have the advantage over their western counterparts because they are here, have equipment, have people who want to work, and are under-bidding the competition.

The biggest job to fall to an Iraqi firm so far is the CDC, or Corps Distribution Center, which will be the logistical staging area for U.S. Army units in Iraq. The local Al Khaffaf Co. has the fixed-price, $5.5 million contract to improve the 70-acre site. The closest bid from an American firm was almost three times higher, according to Corps officials. They say the Iraqis have advantages over foreign firms on low-tech jobs, even if the jobs are large, because they have a workforces in place, can pay relatively low wages, and can mobilize quickly. By contrast, foreign firms gain advantages when projects call for technological sophistication currently out of reach of Iraqi firms.

FAIR AND FLEXIBLE Col. Eddie Chestnut says Army is considering currency fluctuation issue.

Fifty acres of the CDC site are to be paved with an 8-in asphalt pad and 20 acres will be graveled. Construction began Jan. 1 and is scheduled to be complete by April 30. But U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials, as owner's representative, acknowledge that extreme currency fluctuations between the dollar and the Iraqi dinar may cause problems for the contractor. "Our lawyers are looking at everything we can do to be fair and flexible," said Col. Eddie Chestnut, deputy commander of the 420th Engineer Brigade during a recent tour of projects on the base. The 420 is a reserve unit under command of Brig. Gen. Robert Pullmann, headquartered in Bryan/College Station, Texas. It is now in Iraq and in the process of relieving the 130th engineer Brigade, Hanau, Germany, as the chief corps-level engineer unit in Iraq.

Immediately adjacent to the CDC will be a $3 million medical storage facility and the army postal processing center. Both are MILCON projects. The medical storage center project has not been funded, but officials are expecting it will be and that construction can begin in August and finish in January of next year. The postal center is funded and is in design. The schedule calls for it to go to contract in May, with construction starting in July and finishing in November.

The postal and medical supply centers are to be built near another big paved pad identified as a strategic air ramp--a parking facility for fighter planes. It is an $18 million MILCON project scheduled for a May start. The ramp is at the core of a cluster of facilities for marshalling cargo and for processing incoming and exiting personnel. The first phase of the passenger handling facility calls for temporary billets for 1,000 soldiers, with transient housing there for an additional 2,850 in later plans.

But transient housing is only a small part of the overall housing plan. KBR subcontractors are already at work at numerous sites scattered around the base replacing large tents on wood and concrete platforms with thousands of six-bunk, modular housing units on block piers set up in vast fields of gravel. One of the more difficult parts of the housing initiative is site preparation, as the base has little relief and the soil has poor absorption and drainage. To create well-drained expanses for housing, grading requires fine control. Troop labor is being used for the site prep, as the army is the only entity at hand with sufficient equipment to take on the large-scale, fine control, fast-pace job.

Theater wide, coalition planners have orders in for about 24,000 modular, climate controlled bunkhouse trailers of varying description for troop accommodations. Units are flowing in from Syria, Jordan and Kuwait and are piling up at docks and collection points faster than they can be set up, wired in and installed.

(Photos by Tom Sawyer for ENR)