in iraq

Al Jazeera reports in US launches Iraq contract agency that a new agency is being created to facilitate sub-contracting work in Iraq. The new agency was apparently announced at the most recent conference held in London.

Oddly enough, the new agency will be under the Pentagon, not the State Department. The US administration appears to have difficulty with recognizing the necessity of clearly defined boundaries. All subcontractors will now be viewed as working directly as US military contractors. Given the current status of security, that does not appear to be a wise and well thought out strategy.

The US said it plans to create a new agency, under the auspices of the Pentagon, to deal with awarding contracts related to the rebuilding effort in Iraq.

The new agency, which has yet to be named, will start work at the beginning of November under the direction of retired admiral David Nash, according to the US Deputy Under Secretary of Defence for International Technology Security, John Shaw. The unit will be charged with coordinating the distribution of sub-contracting work in Iraq, notably by US groups Bechtel and Halliburton, the main contractors in Iraq's reconstruction.

Shaw agreed there were “divergences” over the process between the US Agency for International Development (USAID) - which awarded the main contracts under the supervision of the State Department - and the Pentagon.

Schools in Iraq are reopening. Washington File provides some numbers and details.

Coalition soldiers and non-governmental organizations partnered to rebuild more than 800 schools in the Ninevah Province, current home of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

The division's Commander's Emergency Relief Program, which draws from Iraqi government funds seized after the first Gulf War, has to date spent $2,040,513 on 330 completed school projects including the recently opened Ninevah Province Education Headquarters in Mosul.

The article includes the following organizations as having assisted:

101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)
101st Airborne Division Commander's Emergency Relief Program (CERP)
Non-Governmental Organizations (bit vague, that)
United Nations Development Program