Baghdad Bill Update

The latest first-hand account from the liberated nation of Iraq.

Before I go any further, I did some reading up on line to make sure I am not telling you any classified material. what I might write you can largely be read on line at the Iraq Development Program website.

I have been here three weeks now and working each day until I get R&R just after the election. I am occasionally bored as working for the Pentagon is often slow going compared to the private sector… kind of like watching grass grow in the desert… not much happens. But there is a certain pace to the work and the content is getting better.

In any case, I have been tasked to as an engineer to specify, procure and supervise the installation of a hot-dip galvanizing plant in a steel fabrication shop in Fallujah, about 50 miles west of here.. Should be complete in about 12 months. But Fallujah is still an Al-Qeada hang-out of sorts (although getting better) so it will be long distance project management. This plant used to make artillery pieces over the last 25 years and now it is making steel for bridges, general construction, power transmission towers to expand the national grid and also cell phone towers. We are going to add galvanizing process to help them grow the business. Their first 2 customers are the US Army and also IRAQNA cell phone service, which we use here on the blackberries.

I located a German firm (Die KOPF Gruppe) on the web who has a hot-dip plant in the UAE for all the new construction work for Dubai, doing re-bar, safety railings, floor grates, etc for all the oil related stuff. their home office near Stuttgart says they also design and build their ow Hot-dip plants around the world and the one in UAE is the newest, just opened in May….So we may get a field trip down there to meet with the German staff and do some design work.

I don’t know if you have ever been on vacation to Mexico, etc..or ever heard people say how there is a slower pace in the South and we Southerners are all lazy folks, etc… but if you think Mexicans are slow and lazy, you need to come here and see the REAL DEAL…. I don’t know if it is the weather or the 40 years of socialism or some combination.. but these folks here just do not hustle. Hard to blame them in some respects.

I just got word after lunch hour that I am being sent on a road trip for two weeks to explore 4 factory sites in the Basrah province. These are factories that will be making basic materials in construction to support the re-birth of the oil business in the region, a cement plant, a plastics plant, and iron/steel works and pipe casting plant, and a fertilizer plant also. If the terror attacks are stopped and the enemy is defeated, the country can be the next Dubai…. there is really enormous wealth here underground. If you wanted to help a rural village and maybe drill a well for municipal water or irrigation, you would most likely strike oil before you struck water… So this country can be a wealthy place one day.

We study the needs of the plant for capital equipment and award a cash grant for $0.5 to maybe $5.0 Million based on each plant’s needs. We write the scope of work and source the equipment on the world market for those who wish to sell here. We can use an Iraqi or Jordanian middle man as a broker to arrange the import and local trucking to the job site and the vendor sends in their leadership team to supervise the installation. We have a more “hands off” position because the enemy is watching all these plants (to some degree) so when field trips are made, they don’t last too long. An chief engineer and 2 other employees were murdered 2 weeks ago at the Abu Ghriab diary on the outside of Baghdad…. (near the prison). the Asst. plant manager had gone into hiding for a month and returned to work. On the day he returned, guards let the bad guys in through the back wall and killed him and his secretary and 1 more guy for doing business with the Americans. The dairy work was being sub-contracted out to a Lebanese firm who was making great progress on re-building the dairy… and installing new equipment. Now it has almost stopped… the main customers of the dairy were the public schools and hospitals in the country and if they got production really high they could sell more in the general free market. But now we have more delays.

So that is it in a nutshell. And by the way my daughter turned 16 on Monday and I missed it but I will see her soon one day…

c’est la vie…

Bill from Baghdad

Unitl next tiime….