Repairs. Seabees clear Fallujah streets in advance of assessment and rebuilding. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy/Phillip Forrest)

Iraq reconstruction is hitting a decisive phase as the Baghdad-based Project and Contracting Office drives for 1,000 project starts by year’s end. The PCO wants to establish a tone of success before elections Jan. 31 by giving local Iraqi contractors fast-start projects, especially in hot spots like Fallujah.

The surge in starts–873 as of Nov. 1 and up 24% from Oct. 7–is being achieved in part because months of preparations are hitting the construction phase. But it also is happening because the PCO has rejiggered the schedule to push small, fast projects up the calendar and award local firms the work.

Hess

"It’s mostly Iraqis," said Charles Hess, director of the PCO, in a telephone interview Nov. 18 from Baghdad. "We had to do that in response to the security situation to avoid having a large expatriate presence on the ground. We use U.S. design-build contractors to shape the more complicated issues we brought them here to help us with....They don't need to be worrying about a $50,000 school when they should be working on a $500-million gas combustion generator in an undeveloped oilfield."

The strategy takes work that U.S. firms once counted on off the table. Brian Harris, vice president of Los Angeles-based AECOM, lead program management contractor for the PMO, says there are complaints–"Nobody likes to lose work"– but it has generally been accepted. "As far as AECOM is concerned, we believe we have to be flexible and responsive to the client. Changing needs dictate different strategies," he says.

The strategy has been evolving since last summer when negotiations ended major fighting in Najaf, Samarra and Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood. Fastpaced reconstruction drives there have become the model for the effort going forward. "Knowing what we know about the campaign plan and U.S. Ambassador [John] Negroponte’s intentions of using reconstruction as one of the lines of operation as a city is stabilized, we have modified our tactics," Hess says.

In Najaf, 25 projects were completed in two months, including rehabilitation of the main market, sewer and waterline repair, health clinic upgrades, as well as local clean-ups and road repairs.

The storming of Fallujah now has opened another front for planners who are preparing a reconstruction assault on the city of 300,000, about 32 miles west of Baghdad. Although projects have always been planned there, and some even begun, the insurgency had brought the work to a standstill.

Ambassador William Taylor, head of the U.S. Mission’s Iraq Reconstruction Management Office, says he has been meeting with Iraqi Minster of Industry and Minerals Hajim Al-Hassani, designated by the Iraqi prime minister to oversee work of all of the Iraqi ministries in Fallujah. Taylor and the minister co-chair a coordinating group of various senior ministry representatives, and Americans from the PCO, U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Marines.

The team moved into Fallujah as fighting ebbed to assess damage and revise priorities. The old list had 87 projects, including $8.4 million for water system improvements, $4 million for new school buildings, $60,000 for rehabilitation of the railway station, as well as funds for 17 health clinic upgrades. Post-battle assessments indicate repairs also will be needed for municipal buildings and the city’s water and electrical utilities, streets and perhaps two bridges.

The State Dept. has about $90 million set aside for rebuilding, $65.2 million of which is to be administered by the PCO. The Iraqi government has an additional $50 million for housing and relief.