For a while there in August, Understanding Government was monitoring the heated dispute between U.S. military commanders and the Afghanistan government over the death toll of a U.S. air strike into Azizabad, Afghanistan. The U.S. military claimed that five civilians had died from the attack and 30 militants. But the ...

I always feel a bit guilty for subscribing to the New York Review of Books.  Pulling it out of the mailbox, impressed by its authoritative headlines, I step inside and put it on the front left corner of my desk, confident that I'll tackle it in a day or two and finally become a smart, thoughtful person with unassailable knowledge and intellectual confidence.  A month later, when my desktop copy is half-covered with bills and other unread magazines and the cover has taken on a slightly yellowed tinge, I realize that I may not be fated to be a true member of the intelligentsia. 

But I keep the Review around, not just to see colorful ads for all the amazing books I'll never get to read, but also because it has reporting that is different from so much else we all consume in one form or another.  Take a look at Michael Massing's excellent travelogue from today's Iraq (with most stops inside the Green Zone) and you'll realize how much we don't know about our government's continuing failures in Iraq -- the country we've been occupying for five years.  You'll also realize just how difficult it will be to extricate ourselves in the next five.

The New York Times' Paul Von Zielbauer reports that three U.S. soldiers handcuffed, blinded and then shot four Iraqi with pistol shots to the head, according to an ongoing Army investigation. Von Zeilbauer obtained the information from one of the soldiers in ...

After the Washington Post, NPR, and other news channels brought the scandalous care of returning Gulf War vets to light, it was only a matter of time before the question faded from view -- at least until Dana Milbank of the Post dragged it back into the light.  His review of top Army generals' recent performance on Capitol Hill is a great portrait of the way things work in this town.  Even though the situation hasn't improved much since then at many Army hospitals, and even though the facilities are understaffed by as much as forty percent, and even though the generals themselves characterized the Army's performance as "a logjam" and "not meeting the standard," the main thing is:  the guys somehow got through the lawmakers' grilling and could go home at the end of the day.

The New York Times'  Ron Nixon reports that the Democratic-controlled Congress pledge to cut earmarks, the money tacked on to legislation by individual lawmakers for pet projects, is not being heeded. Earmarks in this year's labor and health spending bill making going through Congress ...

The New York Times’ Michael Brick does some journalistic assisted suicide, letting the U.S. military hangs itself through professing love for Ultimate Fighting Championship. U.F.C. is a pro league of mixed martial art and jujitsu fighting, what John McCain once called “human cockfighting.”

Now it’s all ...

The New York Times’ Felicity Barringer reports on a struggle between the Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers—and local citizens—on how to best use 67,000 acres of Mississippi Delta wetland. The Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of federal flood control projects, has proposed since 1941 ...

Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are more likely to be unemployed and underemployed, Stephen Barr reports in the Washington Post.  Many end up in "protective services" in part because of a built-in assumption by employers that returning soldiers can't do much else beyond stand guard.  Barr notes that "many ...

We can't say nobody warned us.  That's the key to preventive journalism, and one of the reasons Understanding Government will be giving away $50,000 to the best piece of preventive journalism published in the year-long period ending on June 30, 2008.  And there's no shortage of potential topics, as Alex Prud'homme's column in the New York Times makes clear:  even after Hurricane Katrina, few journalists are looking at the threat posed by America's aging network of levees and earthen berms.

A non-classified Rand Corporation study commissioned by the Army, completed in 2005, offered across-the-board criticism of the Army's planning, troop deployment, and war prosecution efforts, including decisions made by Gen. Tommy Franks, who oversaw the Iraq invasion and the immediate post-war strategy, and then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.  It also targeted ...