Landscape Contractors Busy in Baghdad

After the dust from the bombs cleared in Baghdad during its last war, rebuilding began as democracy slowly began to take place after Saddam Hussein's fall. The though majority of the rebuilding effort came from the pretense of the American military, many people were called from around the world to help in the rebuilding effort. As money was freed up, many contracts became available for employees to clean up debris, rebuild buildings on top of rubble, and many landscape contractors also went looking for work.

Even as the Americans began to establish bases throughout the country, irrigation systems were needed to supply troops with running water and irrigation to its surroundings. As a result, many landscape contractors, both Iraqi and from other neighboring countries, found work in the post-war era, replenishing the grounds of American bases and reestablishing neighborhoods and urban areas. In the aftermath of the occupations, many workers from Syria, Jordan, the UAE, India, Pakistan, and Uganda found themselves reworking the grounds of Baghdad and surrounding cities.

Landscape contractors hired by the American companies often worked on cleaning up around the base perimeters and vital roads used by coalition forces for various cargo transports. Those who could pass a security clearance were often able to work within the grounds of American and British bases, but the vast majority of workers were Iraqi or from surrounding countries. For those that found themselves within those grounds, landscape contractors were replanting greenery, laying stone and cement, moving dirt, gardening, and cleaning out debris were there was once pure war and structural turmoil. Replanting shrubbery and finding irrigation systems for these were highly complicated in the desert climate of Iraq, especially in areas not close to the Euphrates.

While work still continues in Baghdad, much of the work has fallen back into the hands of the emerging private sector in Baghdad. As American, British, and remaining coalition forces begin a mass withdrawal from Iraq, landscape architecture, design, and implementation will fall back into the hands of the Iraqi working class. Even as contractor companies come home and fight for work in other parts of the world, those who might lose their job might be able to pick up where they left off on the local market. Despite this, many African employees who made their way to Iraq are returning home to places like Kenya and Uganda and finding that they must to compete in a volatile marketplace for their trade.

This type of work was formerly completed by military personnel, but after the massive downsizing in military budgets after the Cold War, much of the work is services by local labor who work as contractors. In the global conflicts that occurred after the late 1990s, it would have been very difficult to find American servicemen doing the work of landscape design. This was the case, however, during theatres such as Vietnam, Korea, and otherwise, though still not terribly widespread. Today, it is unanimously contractors that perform these duties during occupations and other conflicts.