Attacks on corporations have disrupted (see Halliburton Targeting for more on this strategy) the pace and scale of reconstruction in Iraq. The costs of private security have added 25-35% reconstruction contracts. A second category of costs is market disruption. The scale of this disruption is hard to quantify, but it is quite large. Here's a recent example:
A "cost-plus" contract for a water treatment plant, jointly managed by the London-based AMEC and the California-based Fluor Corp, was originally estimated at $80 million (according to the Army Corps of Engineers). However, guerrillas coerced the local Iraqi subcontractor to withdraw. That and additional delays due to ongoing attacks have driven the completion cost of the project to more than $200 million.
The estimated cost of disruption, in this example, is a whopping 60% of total contract costs (or, if you look at it another way, its overrun is 150% of projected costs). It's even worse when you consider the massive mark-up (10 to 1?) baked into the original estimate because foreign firms were used instead of local ones. Given these costs, it is obvious why the US military-market nexus is running out of money for reconstruction.