Reply #1: Does anyone know anything about the contractor?

[AZCat]

From the article:
<snip>
The two Americans killed were engineers for ABB-Lummus, the Houston-based energy arm of multinational engineering company ABB. A British ABB employee, a British contractor and an Australian employee also were killed, spokesman Bjorn Edlund said from Zurich, Switzerland.
<snip>

Here is the ABB site: www.abb.com (strange sense of irony)

Here's a fact sheet: http://www.hoovers.com/abb-lummus-global/--ID__105795--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml

They are also one of the companies named in the suit by Gulf War Veterans suffering from chemical related illnesses.
link: http://www.envirosagainstwar.org/edit/index.php?op=view&itemid=540

Other than that, I can't find much.