http://www.medact.org/tbx/pages/sub.cfm?id=556 What will war do to Iraq? (PDF summary.) (I approve of specific, falsifiable, predictions in the field of political science; they make it more, well, scientific.)
Many of these predictions did not eventuate: the war did not last three months, nor did it claim “48,000–261,000” lives; nuclear weapons were not used, nor was there a civil war; Iraq’s infrastructure did not suffer “enormous damage”; refugees escaping the conflict did not “die in large numbers”; Iraq did not use chemical or biological weapons; oil wells were not set on fire; cities were not destroyed.
My question is (and with reference to a previous entry in which I wondered about the extent to which the disagreement over whether it was right to go to war amounted to a disagreement over the expected results): would Medact have supported the war if the outcome was the outcome the coalition got? Contrariwise, would the coalition have not waged war if the outcome was the outcome described in Medact’s report? 16:05
