Contrack International Inc has become the first major US contractor to pull out of the reconstruction effort in Iraq, the Los Angeles Times said Wednesday, adding that high security costs were to blame. "We reached a point where our costs were getting to be prohibitive," company president Karim Camel-Toueg told the paper. Contrack, based in Arlington, Virginia, had won a 325-million-dollar award to rebuild Iraq's shattered transport system.
US officials said Contrack's decision to terminate work in Iraq was reached with the US government in November, but had not been publicly disclosed. Contrack, the leader of a partnership that won one of 12 major reconstruction contracts awarded in 2004, was the largest company to pull out of Iraq to date, the officials told the Times. But the company's move would not hamper rebuilding in Iraq, they said, adding that the contract would be put up for rebidding, a process which the newspaper said could take months.
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