Where Guarding a Life Hinders Doing the Job

They learned how to stop the bleeding from a bullet wound. They got tips on avoiding abduction. They struggled to fit bulletproof vests over middle-age paunches.

Their task: Help rebuild Iraq.

"Security is the most important thing there," said the grim-faced instructor, a former Army Ranger. "If you don't have security, nothing else happens."

It is a lesson learned and relearned in Iraq. The U.S. has awarded billions of dollars' worth of work to American firms in the most ambitious rebuilding project since the Marshall Plan in Europe five decades ago. But nearly two years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the U.S. is still struggling to deliver electricity, clean water, healthcare and other services.

Caught in the crossfire are private companies such as Parsons Corp. of Pasadena. A leading international engineering and construction company, Parsons is well acquainted with mega-projects in foreign lands. It has built airports, bridges, tunnels and dams in the Middle East, China and elsewhere.

Iraq has been different, and the struggle to provide security and overcome bureaucracy helps explain why reconstruction costs so much and takes so long. Here, Parsons weighs its need for profit against the imperative to keep its employees from getting killed. Everyday tasks require courage, and the bizarre is commonplace.

Corporate executives struggle with decisions that risk employees' lives. Mortar rounds crash into the company's compound. Iraqi employees duck car bombs on their daily commutes.

Rebuilding has also been hampered by a fragmented U.S. leadership. Company officials juggle demands from as many as five agencies. Government contracting officers serve for as little as two months before moving on. Auditors swarm the projects, insisting on elaborate documentation in a place where deals are often sealed with a handshake. Iraqi officials intervene, sometimes for dubious reasons.

The company has also had to deal with quirks of Iraqi history and culture.

Parsons had to retrain some Iraqi architects, who were accustomed to using Hussein's height (6 feet 2 inches) as a unit of measure. Their particular talent -- building the octagonal structures favored by the dictator, whose name contains eight letters in Arabic -- was no longer in demand.