Parts of Iraq have been decimated

The US Agency for International Development has given a Massachussetts-based company the contract to help restore health services in Iraq.

ABT Associates, which provides training and capacity building services to governments and non-governmental organisations world-wide, will be paid $10m as part of what is the seventh of eight deals on USAID's agenda.

The job will include supporting a new Ministry of Health in Iraq, once US authorities or whatever successor government emerges has created one.

ABT will also take part in organising the delivery of badly-needed medical supplies.

Dr Mary Patterson, who will head ABT's team in Iraq, told the BBC that Iraq's health care system retains "quite a good foundation to build on".

USAID has also given a $10m, one-year grant to the World Health Organization to help it identify and restore essential health services.

Tied contracts

USAID's programme of contract assignment has triggered resentment and concern among countries outside what the US calls the "Coalition of the Willing" which backed its decision to invade Iraq.

All its early contracts went to US companies in a tightly-restricted bidding process - the biggest of which, for almost $700m, went to Bechtel, a construction company with tight links to the White House.

On its board is George Shultz, formerly Secretary of State under ex-President Ronald Reagan.

Bechtel is reported to be holding a meeting to discuss reconstruction in London, at which British and Australian firms in particular are expected to push for a sizable share of the subcontracts which will flow from Bechtel's deal.

Both these countries contributed troops to the war in Iraq, and both governments are keen to share the spoils.

In addition, Kellogg, Brown and Root - a subsidiary of Halliburton, whose former chief executive Dick Cheney is now US Vice President - won a multi-billion dollar deal from the Department of Defence to help rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure.