congratulations

To all of the latest winners of Iraq LOTTO for the week of March 11, 2004. The super jackpot winners are:

AECOM (US): $21.6m
Iraq Power Alliance Joint Venture (US/UK): $43.4m
Foster Wheeler (UK): $8.4m
CH2M Hill/Parsons (US): $28.5m
Berger/URS (US): Three contracts worth $27.8m in total

If you didn't win this week, play again! Up to $5 billion in prizes are still waiting to be announced.

Iraq Power Alliance Joint Venture is "a joint venture between Parsons Energy and Chemicals Group of Reading, Pa., and Parson-Brinkerhoff Ltd. of the United Kingdom" according to an article in MENFA, DOD awards $130M in Iraq money

Just because a contract is awarded doesn't mean all is well on the ground. There's a good section in the article we can't pass up on posting:

The commander of the 82nd Airborne Division Wednesday complained of the delay in equipping the nascent Iraqi security forces. He said Wednesday if he had known it would take this long, he would have used military funds at his disposal to equip the police and ICDC in his area of responsibility, the heart of the "Sunni triangle."

"I kept on expecting ... for this equipment to equip the ICDC and the police to arrive in November," said Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack in a press conference from Baghdad Wednesday. "November came around, and I was told this equipment would arrive in January. Now it's postponed till the end of March. And so I've started as of January 1st, procuring -- within the resources I have -- the radios, the body armor and some of the vehicles to provide this equipment to the security forces. I would have started that earlier. I wouldn't have bet on it coming, because it never came on my watch."