South Korean's Leave Iraq

by kos
Mon Dec 8th, 2003 at 01:08:15 PST

Iraqi guerillas: "Mission accomplished".

A week after two of their colleagues were killed in an ambush, the remaining contingent of 60 South Korean contract engineers and technicians working for the U.S. government on a project north of the capital has decided to leave the country.

It is the largest known withdrawal of contractors over security issues and follows a week of confrontations between the workers and their managers that culminated with yelling and punches Sunday afternoon.

The decision by the men, who were working to fix electrical power lines, is likely to delay one of Iraq's most critical reconstruction projects.

Of course, this all begs the question -- why aren't Iraqi contractors being used? Those guys were able to keep the Iraqi grid working pre-war, unlike the US companies now attempting (and failing) at the task.