Beyond Iraq

The Policy of Preemption and Its Consequences: Iraq and Beyond

In this article we apply research in the field of judgment and decision making to the policy of preemption. We use Brunswik’s lens model to frame the policy of preemption as the integration of multiple fallible indicators under conditions of uncertainty. We use the Taylor-Russell diagram to demonstrate how the policy of preemption increases judgment uncertainty and error. The continuation of a ...

Beyond the Iraq Study Group: The Elusive Goal of Sustained Growth

Since its release in early December 2006, the Iraq Study Group’s (ISG) military, political and diplomatic recommendations have generated wide-spread discussions. Unfortunately, the country’s economic recovery has received considerably less attention. Yet the country’s economic situation is quite dire. The ISG correctly notes that: (a) instead of meeting a target of 10 percent growth for 2006 on...

Health in Iraq

Mortality in Iraq.

In their Article on mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq (Nov 20, p 1857), Les Roberts and colleagues use several questionable sampling techniques that should have been more thoroughly examined before publication. Although sampling of 988 households randomly selected from a list of all households in a country would be routinely acceptable for a survey, this was far from the meth...

Toward a Healthier Iraq

Health care in Iraq is the sector most influenced by variables such as political, cultural, social, and economic environments. The current status of national security, the deterioration of infrastructure, difficulty in accessing clean water and sewage services in some areas, and the national levels of poverty, malnutrition, and social fragility are all factors that negatively affect the health ...