6 November 2006 Three-and-a-half years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, some companies that had high hopes of business opportunities are shutting up shop after suffering heavy losses. US engineering giant Bechtel, which carried out $2.3 billion of work for the US in Iraq since April 2003, said last week that it was leaving the war-torn country after a spate of violence that killed 52 workers. Bechtel…