Who gets the cash when America pulls out?
It is 5.30pm and the lobby of the Diafa Hotel in central Basra is buzzing as a team from UK consulting engineer Halcrow hold their daily meeting with local contractors working on an $8 million programme to renovate Basra’s hospitals, universities and libraries. Outside there is intermittent gunfire. The deaths of three people in last week’s suicide car bomb outside a hotel used for briefings by British forces has thrown security issues into sharp relief, but outside the Diafa makeshift barriers offer only limited protection. Dick Trimble, Halcrow’s contract manager in Iraq, says his team of 14 people had originally been based at the Coalition Provisional Authority’s secure compound, but he moved them into the Diafa to give access to the contractors. ‘It is important that they can see us easily for practical reasons, but also to build up trust,’ he says. Trust is the most vital resource in Iraq now – fundamental to retaining the consent of Iraqis for the reconstruction effort. The disba
