This emblem was awarded by the Central Intelligence Agency in recognition of our team's service during operations in Iraq.

Built under insurgent fire.

CIA paramilitary personnel beside one of four Mi-17 helicopters at New Al-Rasheed Airbase, Baghdad, Iraq.

New Iraq Development Group (NIDG) served as prime contractor for the airbase and aviation-support project supporting CIA paramilitary operations in Iraq. Our team’s scope included airbase construction, helicopter procurement, and the supply of equipment, munitions, vehicles, surveillance systems and runway safety infrastructure.

NIDG was Iraq’s first and only local Global War on Terror (GWOT) prime contractor. The CIA approached our team because of our pre-invasion reputation as the country’s leading engineering, procurement and construction firm, and a decades-old friendship between NIDG’s founder, Ghazi Faisal, and General Mohammed Shahwani, appointed Director of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service in 2004. Their friendship began during their college athletics days.

We built and installed blast-absorbing spaced concrete walls at the base while under mortar and rocket attack. We were then asked by CIA to build the same protection for the Iraqi Parliament’s speaking platform. When Parliament came under attack, it did exactly what was written on the label. When the Iraqi Prime Minister then asked for the same installation at his home, we politely declined: we don’t do private homes.

Photo: U.S. Air Force / Tech. Sgt. Kevin Williams.

Visual Slideshow Summary A visual representation of architecture and mission flow.

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Project Have Blue: An Overview of the Architecture A primary narrative outlining the concept, mission context, and operational workflow.

Audio Deep Dive

Regular air shipments of U.S. banknotes to the Central Bank of Iraq, drawn from Iraqi oil revenues held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

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The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement.

References, imagery and marks on this website do not imply or constitute endorsement of Project Have Blue Corporation by the U.S. Government, the Central Intelligence Agency, any other federal agency or the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Government work described on this website was performed by New Iraq Development Group, Iraq’s first and only Global War on Terror (GWOT) prime contractor.