Challenges facing the controlling stage of the disaster response management resulting from war operations and terrorism in Iraq

The effects of war in Iraq are coupled with the susceptibility to natural hazards, which has exposed the people of Iraq to multiple man-made disasters. Despite the fact that terrorists did not have a hold on any part of Iraq before the US invasion, it is generally believed that Iraq contains many terrorists and terrorist organisations. As a result, violence in Iraq has become normalised, ranging from the Iraqi and US military assaults and sectarian militias, threat of suicide bombings, to violent street crime. Because response activities must operate in a constantly changing environment during a disaster, the response operation is complex and need more controlling efforts. Therefore, it is widely agreed that controlling the response to disaster stemming from war operations and terrorism is often considered a difficult stage within the four disaster response management stages: planning, organising, directing, and controlling. This paper is based on an ongoing PhD study. It aims to determine the challenges facing the controlling stage of disaster response management in Iraq with particular reference to war operations and terrorism. This paper adopts a single holistic case study approach, where disaster response management is the unit of analysis. In order to develop a rich and robust data set, a mixed methods approach is utilised based on semi-structured interviews, questionnaire surveys and document analysis. A conceptual content analysis is used to articulate the primary data and this is then analysed in the context of the secondary data. The findings show that disaster response controlling stage faced different challenges such as lack of modern technology and equipment, multiple sources for the decision at the scene, lack of public education, and failure in imposing a proper security cordon