About 60 employees of a South Korean electrical subcontractor on a Washington Group International project are returning home from Iraq after two of their coworkers died and two others were wounded in an ambush near Tikrit Nov. 30. Omu Electric Co. reportedly acceeded to demands from the employees after a confrontation over the company's failure to inform them about the lack of secure working conditions on an electric transmission line project between Baghdad and Tikrit. Omu is a subcontractor to the Philippines-based Shiloh Co., which is a subcontractor to Washington Group International, Boise.

Jack Herrmann, WGI spokesman, says his company is sending an executive team to look at security issues. He would not disclose the size of the team nor the timing of the trip, but says it was planned before the ambush. Omu "is still there determined to do the work, and other aspects of the project are still being done," including transportation and fabrication of materials, he says. Work also is continuing on two transmission projects and two powerplants WGI is building under a $110-million task order from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as on one hospital and miscellaneous administrative facilities under other task orders.

He says Omu is recruiting replacement workers and notes that "this was a transportation issue. To date, the incidents have been between sites," rather than occurring in fixed locations like powerplants. About 100 expatriates from various countries remain at work on WGI projects in Iraq, he says.