Iraq, quantified.(Devil in the Details)

IF YOU'RE A JOURNALIST OR scholar writing about Iraq, chances are good you've come across the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index, a collection of statistics on the country's reconstruction (www.brookings.edu/iraqindex). The data are compiled by senior fellow Michael O'Hanlon, who, along with research assistant Nina Kamp, crunches numbers on the fifth floor of the Brookings building near D.C.'s Dupont Circle.

"This is ground zero," says O'Hanlon, 44, in his office on a busy afternoon, 10 days before the August 15 deadline for a new Iraqi constitution, which, like most ...

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