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For some businesses operating in Iraq, coalition forces cannot get out soon enough.
“The departure of the coalition military would be very welcome, and the sooner it happens the better,” David Horgan, managing director of Petrel Resources, told the BBC World Service’s Business Daily programme.
“In terms of the local security environment, the coalition provides nothing to us in any area that we act in anyway.”
Mr Horgan’s firm, based in Ireland and active in Iraq since 1999, is developing two oilfields for the Iraqi oil ministry, as well as exploring other fields.
Petrel’s operations are in the south and in the centre.
In the south, he said, it relied less on coalition troops than on local Shia militias and on the Iraqi government police “which are often hard to distinguish”; while in the centre security was non-existent.
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Mr Horgan was speaking ahead of the release of the report from the Iraq Study Group (ISG), led by ex-US Secretary of State James Baker.
He is in no doubt that his firm’s operations get little benefit from the coalition presence.
“The biggest single hazard is that we are seen as westerners and thereby contaminated by association with the coalition military,” he said.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence, however, insists that coalition forces - among whom British troops number about 8,000 - are in Iraq because the Iraqi government continues to want them there, for security and training purposes.
Defence Secretary Des Browne said recently that the UK would stay until its job was complete.
“We will make sure that we do not ask a single extra soldier to remain in Iraq longer than is necessary,” he said.
“In the end, of course, it must depend on conditions on the ground including the level of threat and the capacity of the Iraqis to deal with it.”
Long-standing problem
Security problems are nothing new for Western firms operating in Iraq.
Since the invasion by US and other forces in March 2003, and throughout the subsequent operation, there have been a stream of incidents that have highlighted the threat to firms and individual contractors there.
Indeed, according to Economist Intelligence Unit analyst Neil Partrick, the result is that - in some ways - the most prominent presence by Western firms on the ground in Iraq is in the form of private military and security companies such as Blackwater, Armor Group, Aegis and Custer Battles.
There are also the much larger oil and construction firms such as Halliburton’s KBR - which won billions of dollars worth of dating free online site
contracts from the US Department of Defense - and Bechtel.
Different sources
Bechtel has now announced it is pulling out.
Bechtel has been in Iraq since 2003
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It has completed all of its contracts, but said in November that the “heartbreaking” deterioration in the security situation was a key factor in its decision not to seek any more.
No more US money is forthcoming on top of the $18bn or so allotted to date. Much of that, in any case, was spent on security and - it is alleged - billions went to corrupt officials and local power brokers.
Still, according to Neil Partrick, more is still forthcoming - $3,5bn from Japan, as well as sizable contributions from Middle Eastern states and Europe.
‘No difference’
Anyone wanting to bid for it, though, is going to have to contend with the security situation.
“Violence is increasing in scope and lethality,” the ISG report warns.
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marked in the past year, since Sunni militants bombed the iconic golden dome of a Shia shrine in Samarra in February 2006.
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(A withdrawal) won’t reduce the key sources of tension: the contest for power and wealth between, and even within, sectarian and ethnic groups
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And although a sudden withdrawal of coalition forces might make things worse, a medium-term pull-out by coalition forces may not make much difference one way or the other.
“On the timescales suggested, reducing the presence of troops may reduce some of the tensions that encourage insurgents,” Mr Partrick said.
“But it won’t reduce the key sources of tension: the contest for power and wealth between, and even within, sectarian and ethnic groups.
“Whether or not troops are stationed in central Iraq, that will go on.”
On the ground
Whether troops stay or not, it is crucial to rely on local dating ethnic - as almost all foreign firms do, said Mr Partrick - and their local knowledge.
“The three Kurdish provinces in the north are relatively stable,” Mr Partrick said.
“But if you’re talking about operations in some of the most insecure parts of the country, the north and the west, then it’s highly unlikely that even profound local knowledge is going to help you.
Security has been a major issue for contractors in Iraq
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south, there are relatively well-established political structures, Mr Partrick said, but still huge challenges and endemic corruption.
And within Baghdad, the acute sectarian divides mean that up-to-date local knowledge is crucial - “and, frankly, money outside formal contracts”.
Who you know…
What really matters, Mr Horgan said, is who you rely on.
“You have to closely associate yourself with the legitimate government,” he said.
“We only work for the Ministry of Oil. For example, if the ministry says, ‘Don’t work in the Kurdish area’, then you don’t, and you don’t use any contractor who does work in the Kurdish area.”
And the ISG’s call for diplomacy to bring Iran and Syria into the Iraqi situation finds an echo in business terms.
“If it’s useful having close relations with the Iranian authorities it’s a good idea to go to Tehran and introduce yourself to the Iranian Ministry of Energy, and the National Iranian Oil Corporation,” Mr Horgan said.
On the ground, however, it can be difficult for companies to decide how safe it is to be in any given area.
“You have to listen with your middle ear to the local people - not someone who presents himself in London or Paris as an expert - but the people who actually have considerable influence on the ground, and ingratiate yourselves with them,” Mr Horgan said.
But he maintained: “As long as you show proper courtesy and spend a little bit of money in the local area, you shouldn’t have any serious problems.”
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