Contrack International Inc., an Arlington, Virginia based contractor has pulled out of Iraq citing high security costs. Said company president Karim Camel-Toueg in an LA Times Interview, 'We reached a point where our costs were getting to be prohibitive'. Contrack pulled out of a 325-million-dollar project to rebuild Iraq's decimated transportation system to include roads, bridges and transportation terminals.
Contrack's website as yet has no information regarding the pullout. Their news section still has this reference to the award of the contract:
The Joint Venture lead by Contrack including American International Contractors, Inc. (AICI), Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) and Archirodon were awarded a $325M IDIQ to perform various tasks in the Transportation sector throughout Iraq including roads, bridges, highways, sea and air ports and other related miscellaneous projects.
Most observers see this pullout as bad news for the coalition and rebuilding efforts. Michael O'Hanlon, a scholar at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington said 'It's a very bad sign. If this is how other private companies are thinking, it's a very bad potential warning.' A pentagon spokesman tried to put a good spin on the situation and dismissed the news as 'not a terrible loss', but, from a pure business perspective, a company abandoning a $325 Million Dollar Project in Iraq because the cost of providing its operation adequate security is prohibitive, it speaks volumes on how the situation in Iraq is deteriorating to the point of becoming untenable. Our military cannot stabilize the country enough for legitimate elections to take place and civilian contractors cannot operate to rebuild needed infrastructure.
For its part, the Bush administration continues putting out little but positive news concerning Iraq. The closest the President has come to showing concern was in his Monday interview when he said the recent spate of insurgent attacks and bombings were 'Having an effect.' It will be interesting to see if other civilian contractors follow suit. Halliburton lost four employees in yesterday's bombing of the military base and will need to beef up security or face civil litigation from any employees that are harmed from now on.
