Iraqi Contractor: 'Hope is Becoming a Reality'

American Forces Press Service ^ | Norris Jones

[SandRat]

BAGHDAD, Nov. 16, 2007 – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing 541 projects valued at $2 billion in a range of areas in Iraq, including renovating hospitals and schools, installing new water and sewer lines, electrical generation, new water and wastewater treatment plants, bridges and road paving.

Namir El Akabi, chief executive officer of an Iraqi contracting company, said he sees progress in his home country. U.S. Army photo  
(Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.

In the past three years, more than 3,700 projects, valued at $5.6 billion, have been completed.

Namir El Akabi, chief executive officer of ALMCO Group, which has 6,500 Iraqis on its payroll, said his firm has been involved with both new construction and refurbishment.

“We’re the largest Iraqi-owned company doing this kind of work. We have completed about 80 projects, both small and large. The U.S.-funded projects have been the main engine for employment within Iraq. This work has allowed Iraq to survive, because without these strategic projects things would have been much worse. It would have been a complete disaster.”

His firm has been working for three years on the $50 million R3 water treatment plant in eastern Baghdad, which will provide 25 million gallons daily of potable water. “Water is the essence of life. We’ll finish that project in January, and its impact on Sadr City’s standard of living will be dramatic,” Akabi said.

Akabi said he is proud to point out that his workers are being paid some of the highest salaries in Iraq. “The secret to our success is honesty in execution, quality production, and looking after our Iraqi employees,” he said. He noted that at the conclusion of every project, 20 percent of the profits are distributed to his Iraqi crew. “That helps with motivation. They know they are part of the company. And that’s why we have been able to execute so many projects in such a short time,” he said. “I look after our Iraqi employees, and they produce.”

Akabi grew up in Iraq and left at age 10. He returned to Baghdad in 2003 and started his company with five employees. “It was a dream of mine to come back,” he said.

He noted that most Middle Eastern countries don’t have the natural resources his homeland possesses. “They don’t have water; they don’t have oil; they don’t have minerals. Iraq has everything.”

He added that he hopes that someday soon, Iraq will become the next Dubai, which is prosperous and secure. He said he’s often asked when Iraq will be secure and safe. He said he answers, “I don’t know. But we have to keep going. We have to keep going down that road to rebuild Iraq, to establish democracy and freedom. Things have improved tremendously.”

He pointed out that last year his company had a terrorist incident every week -- an attack on one of its convoys or at a project site, or the kidnapping of an employee. “For the past two months, I don’t remember one incident where a fatality happened,” he said. “The Iraqi people are fed up with all this blood, all this terrorism, all these people coming from the outside and dictating how we should think, what is right and what is wrong. The Iraqis are an intelligent people by nature, and the minority have been misguided, misguided by other countries and by other ideologies such as al Qaeda, which is wrong by any standard.”

He said that people today, for the most part, can go about their normal life activities. “I’m optimistic. During the last three or four months, I’ve seen changes. In 2006, when things got really bad, we were all very depressed. We couldn’t see hope. But we had to keep telling ourselves there is hope. Now I actually see hope. I can see it with my eyes; I can feel it. Today, hope is becoming a reality.”

(Norris Jones works for the Gulf Region Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.)

[SandRat]

FR WAR NEWS!

WAR News at Home and Abroad You'll Hear Nowhere Else!

All the News the MSM refuses to use!

Or if they do report it, without the anti-War Agenda Spin!

Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.

[astounded]

If this news gets out to the mainstream, I’m thinking Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Osama Obama, and the rest of the democrat party politicians will commit a mass Saipan...we could only hope.

[PROCON]

““For the past two months, I don’t remember one incident where a fatality happened,” he said. “The Iraqi people are fed up with all this blood, all this terrorism, all these people coming from the outside and dictating how we should think, what is right and what is wrong.”

Something the DB/MSM/DemonRats won’t tell you.

The news keeps getting better, thanks for the post, SandRat!

[stylin19a]

Akabi said he is proud to point out that his workers are being paid some of the highest salaries in Iraq. “The secret to our success is honesty in execution, quality production, and looking after our Iraqi employees,” he said. He noted that at the conclusion of every project, 20 percent of the profits are distributed to his Iraqi crew. “That helps with motivation. They know they are part of the company. And that’s why we have been able to execute so many projects in such a short time,” he said. “I look after our Iraqi employees, and they produce.”

If this same guy were in the U.S., the RATS would take his profits; unionize his staff and leave him broke & bankrupt.

[Popocatapetl]

I’ve been very bullish on Iraq for a long time. This is because J. Paul Bremer created for them a framework of an economic system created from the best elements of national economies from around the world. It is idealized, like something that might be seen in an economics textbook, but has never existed as a complete system in real life.

In hundreds of years, every now and then, somebody innovates a new economic subsystem that hits on the sweet spot. But it is never perfect. There are always flaws, errors and mistakes that become part of the system that keep it from soaring as high as it might.

But Iraq doesn’t have all that baggage, it has just the best of the world’s economics systems.

When he put it all together he created an economy that could grow faster than did Japan’s after World War II. Iraq could become the economic powerhouse of the entire Middle East, with a powerful, stable currency; a potent stock market; a banking and insurance industry as good or better than the Swiss; a credit rating like no other.

And underneath it all, an industrial recovery that breaks records. There will be Iraqi billionaires, and many, many multimillionaires, and probably not from oil. Heavy industry, light industry and manufacturing, a strong high tech sector. The Iraqis will need to import a lot of foreign labor for their blue collar and service sectors.

Yep, in less than a decade, all else being equal, if the Iraqis can keep it together, Iraq will be one of the top investment and venture capital centers on Earth.

[plyons76]

Why not ask about the human rights of a Christian Jordanian accountant - being charged as a “terrorist” at the instigation of the CEO of ALMCO.

The victim, Mansour Jubrail Rabadi, had been cleared for an exit visa last Week. He is a Christian - attends an evangelical church in Amman- he is 63 years old - has had heart problems and is a diabetic.

On his way to the airport, Rabadi was forcibly detoured by the security team(kidnapped?)to a police station outside the green zone and charged as a Terrorist level 4. Why was he cleared to leave by the Iraqi government. Why wasn’t he arrested in the GreenZone?

If his CEO, Namir El-Akabi is behind all of this planning and charges, then I pray he is exposed. In news articles it said that he started about 10 years ago with 500 dollars - it also said in a recent interview that he said he generates about 300 million a year. Why doesn’t our military vet these people. Is this the new Iraq that Americans died for and paid for?