In the Line of Fire.

This article reports that science takes a back seat to survival in Iraq these days. Ahmed Moosa, an engineering professor at the University of Technology in Baghdad, said that at least 58 professors, 150 medical doctors, and dozens of scientists at institutes and ministries have been murdered since the Iraq war ended in April 2003. Security is so poor that it prompted soul-searching at the meeting about whether grants that keep scientists in Iraq are even morally defensible. The first shock hit Iraqi scientists after the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein, when an orgy of looting engulfed the country. Universities and research institutions were devastated. The British government is considering bankrolling the DNA forensic science project, conceived by Ali Al-Zaag, dean of the Institute of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology at the University of Baghdad, and Hanan Malkawi, vice dean of the Faculty of Science at Yarmouk University in Jordan. Fellowships will be on offer in another initiative that could allow 500 Iraqi researchers to spend up to 3 months abroad.