A hush fell over the crowd when a Halliburton Co. official showed a slide of a dented silver belt buckle. The buckle, he said, had saved a company truck driver's life by deflecting a bullet during one of the more than 130 insurgent attacks on Halliburton workers.
Timothy B. Mills, a former Pentagon (news - web sites) lawyer, deepened the gloom when he told how a Baghdad hotel clerk's decision to give him a room in the back of the Palestine Hotel, instead of the room with a view in the front, saved his life in a rocket attack.
"This is part and parcel of doing business in Iraq," Mills, now with the firm Patton Boggs, warned the group.
For businessmen here and abroad, the good news is that the U.S. government is planning to pour more than $18 billion into rebuilding Iraq's antiquated and battered infrastructure. The bad news is that the influx of money is expected to make Iraq more dangerous.
U.S. and corporate officials fear that the thousands of additional workers expected to fan out across Iraq in the coming months to build utilities, ministries, schools and hospitals will prove irresistible targets for insurgents. As it puts the finishing touches on the bidding process, the Pentagon worries that the high security costs and high risks will scare off small firms and entrepreneurs and slow the reconstruction effort.
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