The Builder Who Bombed in Iraq

"I don't know how much they understood what they were getting into," Fallon said.

McNulty contends the company was misled. Parsons had worked in Bosnia, Kosovo and Kuwait, and it was prepared for a similar security situation in postwar Iraq. The firm won eight reconstruction contracts, worth $1.7 billion, with a hope that those contracts would serve as a bridge to more work as the country blossomed under new leadership. "All the contractors were told to assume, and this is a quote, a 'permissive security environment.' That means to me you're going to be able to move around the country," he said.

Instead, the company's expatriate employees were virtual prisoners of the heavily fortified, U.S.-run Green Zone. At most sites, it was too dangerous for Parsons's expatriates. The company had to train Iraqis to oversee construction carried out by Iraqi subcontractors. Many were inexperienced firms that found themselves targeted by insurgents. Parsons subcontractors were kidnapped, killed by roadside bombs and assassinated in their offices. McNulty declined to answer questions about violence against expatriate Parsons employees until after they are all out of Iraq.

"You would have 500 workers on the site, and then one kidnapping or one bombing later, you would have no people out there for a week or two," McNulty said.

Meanwhile, McNulty said the company was not getting the help it needed from the government. U.S. officials initially gave the company coordinates for building clinics that turned out to be locations at the bottom of a lake or on top of a mosque. As U.S. officials rotated in and out of Baghdad, priorities shifted. "We couldn't get anybody to really make any decisions," he said.

Those factors took a toll on the company's timelines. But Jon C. Bowersox, who oversaw health care projects for the U.S. Embassy from late 2005 until mid-2006, said the company was not transparent about its problems. "They were giving [the government] very optimistic completion dates," Bowersox said. Clinics that were supposedly 90 percent complete proved to be far from it, he said, although added that he does not blame Parsons entirely.

"The real take-home message is you can't do construction in the midst of a civil war," he said.

McNulty said he would like to see the government rethink how it handles reconstruction in a combat zone. In Iraq, the government oversees the work, but contractors handle both the construction and security at work sites. In future conflicts, he said, he would like to see the U.S. military or an international force at least take over security, and perhaps the construction work itself.

Parsons, meanwhile, is not through with Iraq just yet. The company boasts it has completed more than a thousand projects there, and is still wrapping up others.

McNulty said the criticism Parsons received has been "a huge morale problem" for employees who served in Iraq. He has personally been under intense pressure to explain the company's performance to potential clients and to the public. But he said the firm continues to rack up contracts even as it comes under assault.

"We've lost no business over it," McNulty said. "In fact, the very people who are criticizing us are giving us more work."