In a way, the rebuilding may represent a pot of gold: The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) estimates it will cost up to $30 billion over the next three years.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) has already opened bidding for eight major projects, ranging from infrastructure to public health.

According to media reports, $900 million would be earmarked for these projects.

On Tuesday, US President George W. Bush unveiled a supplemental budget request that includes $1.7 billion for reconstruction projects in Iraq.

American companies could benefit from this bonanza. “Non-American firms are not ‘excluded’ from the US government’s procurement process,” USAID. “However, in the case of these eight proposals, we had a sufficient number of American firms to compete. This does not preclude an American prime contractor from choosing non-American subcontractors.”

But foreign companies are likely to collect only crumbs, if British shipping company P and O could serve as an example.

“We did make a bid but we have been told that we were not successful,” said P and O spokesman David Smith.

According to British media, many bids by British companies have been denied.

France, on its part, is “alarmed by reports that the Bush administration may award the lion’s share of Iraqi reconstruction contracts to US firms,” said The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.

The Movement of French Entrepreneurs and France’s Economy and Finance Ministry have just outlined their common position for rebuilding Iraq under the auspices of the United Nations.

For the moment, USAID has awarded two contracts: A $7.1 million deal to International Resources Group, and another, worth $4.8 million, to Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) that will manage the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.

Other contracts could be awarded this week, particularly for infrastructure projects worth about $600 million.

But USAID is not the only agency interested in Iraq. The US army on Tuesday announced it had granted the main Iraqi oil well firefighting contract to a unit of Halliburton Co., a firm once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, without any bidding.

Kellogg, Brown and Root, a unit of Houston, Texas-based Halliburton, which had already been asked by the Pentagon to draw up plans for extinguishing oil well fires in Iraq, was handed the contract by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The decision did not sit well with Democrats. Henry Waxman, the senior Democrat in the House of Representatives’ government reform committee, demanded an explanation in a letter to Army Corps of Engineers Lieutenant General Robert Flowers.

Meanwhile, the Center for Responsive Politics recalled that Halliburton had poured $17,677 into Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign. “A select group of US construction firms now bidding on a lucrative government contract to rebuild a postwar Iraq contributed a combined $2.8 million — 68 percent to Republicans — over the past two election cycles,” the center said.

In addition to Halliburton, companies like Bechtel, Fluor, Louis Berger and Parsons are mentioned by the media as likely candidates for contracts in Iraq.