Agence France Presse

Baghdad, March 12:

Two US firms have won $1.1 billion in contracts to help rebuild Iraq, and Washington will award a final eight major deals to companies from countries that supported the war effort in the coming days, a spokesman said today.

“The announcement for the other primary contracts — worth some $3.8 billion — is expected soon,” said Steven Susens, a spokesman for the Baghdad-based office that is managing US reconstruction funds in Iraq. The US defence department yesterday awarded one contract with a ceiling of $500 million to FluorAMEC to work on Iraq’s patchy electricity sector. The firm will “provide services for construction, rehabilitation, operation, and maintenance of power generation facilities,” the US Programme Management Office said today.

A second contract for public works with a ceiling of $600 million was given to Washington International/Black and Veatch Joint Venture. The company will help repair Iraq’s water infrastructure, which has suffered due to a combination of war-damage and 13 years of international sanctions.

The two contracts were the biggest to-date from a five billion dollar package earmarked specifically for construction projects in the war-battered country.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon awarded seven contracts worth more than $120 million to US and British companies to manage the reconstruction projects in six sectors — electricity, public works, security and justice, transportation and communication, health and education and oil. Congress has pledged $18.4 billion for reconstruction in Iraq, more than a third of the $55 billion the World Bank estimates will be necessary to get the country back on its feet. The $18.4 billion US Iraq fund is destined for 2,363 projects.