Slim pickings for Iraq’s neighbours

WITHIN WEEKS OF the formal declaration that US-led coalition forces had successfully completed the invasion of Iraq, Amman-based financial services company Atlas Investment had opened a representative office in Baghdad. The Jordanian company is one of a small number of Arab firms that are looking to catch some crumbs from the contractual table at which giant US corporations have feasted. These latter are headed by Bechtel, the prime contractor for rebuilding Iraq; and Halliburton, the oil services group whose CEO was once US vice-president Dick Cheney, which has won the contract for oil-field reconstruction.