Where Guarding a Life Hinders Doing the Job (Parsons Corp in Iraq)

[Rose Siding]

Sorry for the heavy snipping but this company appears to have had heavy involvment in Iraq and we haven't seen much written about them

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...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....
...
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.
...
In the 1950s, {Parsons} surveyed groundwater sites throughout the country. In the 1980s, it had a contract to help design a subway system for Baghdad. Although the subway was never built, U.S. officials came knocking before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, wondering if the blueprints might guide them to Hussein's bunkers.
...
Parsons became one of the biggest players in March 2004, when it won half a dozen U.S.-funded contracts worth more than $2 billion. The biggest were to help restore Iraq's northern oil fields and to rebuild its health, security and justice systems and its government buildings......

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-parsons24mar24,0,7418579.story?coll=la-home-headlines