Efforts to build a national security wireless network in Iraq have always been murky and dangerous. It is still risky business, with blood-thirsty insurgents hell bent on disrupting political and economic rehabilitation in the war-ravaged country.
Largely for that reason, First Responder Network contracting in Iraq-worth at least $100 million in wireless business-will be conducted in the shadows. For arguably good reason: We don’t want U.S. contractors with bigger targets on their backs in Iraq. It is bad enough already. Anything that looks or smells American in Iraq is on dangerous ground, subject to suicide bombing, kidnapping and beheading.
The Associated Press reported Radim Sadeq, an American-Lebanese man who worked for a mobile-phone carrier in Iraq, was abducted in the dead of night last Tuesday after he answered the door of his home in the upscale al Mansour district of Baghdad.
Lucent Technologies Inc., earlier this year awarded a $75 million telecom reconstruction and now overseer of the FRN, confirmed last week it would not name names of contractors and subcontractors for security reasons.
But how then can we gauge what progress is being made (or not) if there is a news blackout on Iraq telecom contracts. Perhaps I could have asked Dr. Mohamed Al Al-Hakim, Iraq’s minister of communications, for a status report when he was in town a little over a week ago. But Al-Hakim’s briefing to telecom lobbyists at Lucent’s D.C. office was closed to the press.
From some accounts, progress is indeed being made. The inspector general of the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority and the State Department are tracking FRN developments. Close to $100 million is earmarked for the FRN, though little has been spent. .
In the State Department’s report to Congress last month, U.S. officials outlined accomplishments since July. They included conducting site assessments in Basra to determine optimal placement of communication towers. The design was reviewed and accepted by the Ministry of Interior. State said Region 5 (southwest Iraq) and the National Control Center are set to be the initial regions to be implemented. Implementation of the 108 high frequency radios as part of the overall network began Sept. 15.
This quarter, State told Congress the goals are to have site assessments completed in Baghdad and other regions; to have all 108 HF radios installed and operational as an initial capability and objective redundancy capability; and to begin network construction in the highest-priority region, likely Baghdad.
For those doing wireless work in Iraq, the pay may be good. But conditions aren’t so hot.
