Talk:2003 invasion of Iraq/Archive 2

Talk:2003 invasion of Iraq/archive1

Um, what the hell is going on? What's this new US-led invasion article? Is someone planning a big useful reorganisation, or just messing things up? Someone please clarify... --AW

I would move this article back to US plan to invade Iraq, but the existing redirect there has some history preventing it. ( 17:53 Mar 21, 2003 (UTC)

But this article isn't about the plan, it's about the invasion. We now have two articles about the same thing, which isn't helpful. And the one you've just created is just a subset of this one. --AW

That's easily fixed: modify this article so it again reflects the plan. That's what it's about mostly. Move the stuff about the actual invasion to the new article.

I disagree. I think it's best to have an overarching article like this which can discuss the invasion in totam - the preparations, the international situation, the course of the invasion itself, the ramifications...either that or split it into quite a lot of different articles. Two - a "plans" article and an "invasion" article - doesn't look like a good structure to me. --AW

I think there's scope for a separate article for the events leading to the invasion, that can be summarised and linked from the invasion page. There's too much to cover for one article. However Iraq_disarmament_crisis also exists ( 18:04 Mar 21, 2003 (UTC)

That's not the same as a page merely for invasion plans, though. Maybe something like "Events leading to the 2003 invasion of Iraq"? --AW

Events is a little vague. I suggested US preparations for the invasion of Iraq earlier?

No, because you describe it as "a separate article for the events leading to the invasion". This is surely broader than "US preparations". The point is that if there's going to be a split like this, the pre-invasion article has to cover stuff like the UN diplomacy, which doesn't come under the heading of "US preparations". --AW

Perhaps simply renaming is not a good plan. Some of the current article is just speculation about the likely course of the invasion and can probably be deleted. There is a description of military forces that could be moved to an article devoted to such things. There are already separate articles about Weapons of Mass Destruction that could take some of the material here. ( 19:01 Mar 21, 2003 (UTC)

I suggest instead moving it to US-led invasion of Iraq and trying to fix up these points. ( 19:37 Mar 21, 2003 (UTC)

OK, can we please come up with an unambiguous plan? Let me propose:

An article limited to a pure description of the actual invasion - not what happened before it or political controversy, just the military invasion itself. This can be "US-led invasion of Iraq" or "2003 invasion of Iraq" (this actually strikes me as a better title - this is an encyclopaedia, there may be other US-led invasions of Iraq people want to discuss. 2003 invasion is less ambiguous).

The other stuff from this page can be rolled into other articles, possibly - the "disarmament crisis" articles and the WMD article, perhaps. Any others? Whatever, let's get it done quickly, I have a bunch of stuff about the actual invasion and nowhere to put it at the moment. --AW

OK, I took action and cut this down to an article on the invasion itself. Now we need to discuss where to put the stuff I cut out.

Firstly, "US rationale for invasion". I think this and the "military preparations" section and just about everything else under it deserve a separate article on US political and military actions in the lead-up to the invasion.

The "UN position" section can possibly be rolled into the "United Nations actions regarding Iraq" page.

I think we can lose the "effect on civilians" section for now, and write a new article on the consequences of the invasion once it's actually FINISHED.

Comments? --AW

A bit of an NPOV problem -- the article was just starting to become a bit balanced between an exclusively US pov and a UN/rest-of-world POV. This, IMHO, was a good thing. If you split the pro-sentiment into one article, and the anti-sentiment into another, neither comes out neutral, they both end up looking like propaganda.

There should, I think, in an encyclopedia, be a single page, easily found with an obvious title, which makes some attempt to give a balanced point of view.

I don't see that this article is giving any point of view. This is a factual article about the events of the invasion, I don't see that it has any position on whether the invasion is desirable or not. It simply says "On Day X, force Y did Z". The reportage about the various positions on whether the invasion should be happening in the first place belong elsewhere, at least in the schema that ) and I are proposing. Probably in the UN article and the article on Iraqi WMDs. --AW

This article may not be the appropriate one to argue about, but the article that it was 2 hours ago is.

The problem isn't that your facts are unsupported (they are facts all right), but that only the facts being played up by U.S. press are being reported. If you want a "copper-bottomed" factual article, read some outside sources first. I've been following several outside sources including the U.N, German, Italian, French and Russian press. The U.S.-only bias is pretty obvious once you've read the others.

You're not seriously suggesting that the Frenchm, German, Italian and Russian sources are going to be free of bias are you?

Nobody disagrees on the facts, but which facts are mentioned and which are downplayed can lead to a bias, and sometimes a less-than-subtle one.

The article you are moving (where has it gone, anyway?) was starting to take shape because several of the american-downplayed facts and arguments were being slowly re-introduced.

For example, to look at the U.S. press, you would think that the "coalition" includes every country in the world except France (and sometimes Germany). Check this amusing British article as an antidote to that:

What can Eritrea possibly do to help the US in Iraq?

It's a truism that the victors write the history. Wikipedia is one of the first chances we've had to let the whole world write the history -- let's take advantage of that! Not just facts, but an attempt to find the facts that one country's press can't or won't mention, but another's might.

SteverapaportSteverapaport

I'm basing all the stuff I include on BBC reports, cross-checked with whatever other news sites I can find (mostly CNN). I only put something in once two sites at least have mentioned it, and if it seems questionable, I attribute it. If you want to put in things *actually happening in the course of the invasion* (since that's all this article covers now) that have been missed and that ought to be here, go ahead! It's a wiki, after all :). --AW

Have you considered that maybe CNN and BBC were not entirely reliable to express every side points of view ?

Once again: this article isn't expressing anyone's point of view. It's recording actual events. If you can cast sufficient doubt on whether anything reported to have happened in this article actually did, feel free to explain and remove it. If you think there are actual events in the invasion which have taken place and are not on this page, add them. --AW

I am glad to hear that. I am probably dreaming when I have the feeling to read a pro-coalition side view in it. Why is there no mention it was saddam and his sons who where the goal target on the first bombings ? Why is there no mention of the fact saddam appeared on tv at least 2 times since the war started ?

I don't see that either of those are pro- or con- anybody, they're just omissions! I'm doing my best here, but I'm not perfect. I missed those, so Why not just add them yourself, instead of complaining here? This isn't "my" article, it's a wikipedia article. Yeesh. --AW

sorry. since you have been writing most of the new article, I can't help calling it yours. Why did you not moved the previous one, instead of merely doing a copy/paste. It would have preserved the history. It is now a left over in an article, which as you state yourself hold little in common with the previous one. Why did you do that ? Making the history of an article disappear is a real loss. *I* complain because this article is oriented imho, and am getting tired to see my stuff removed for being poorly written.

Could you precisely tell in which articles you moved 90% of the content of this articel ?

Almost all of it went to Preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq. There is also important relevant stuff at Iraq disarmament crisis, United Nations actions regarding Iraq, Support and opposition for the U.S. plan to invade Iraq, Iraqi production and use of weapons of mass destruction and Worldwide government positions on war on Iraq. I think all the important stuff that used to be here is covered between those pages. I'll add them to the "also see" section on this page. --AW

OK, I've shunted most of the deleted stuff over to Preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq. I think there's some stuff I didn't put there that probably belongs in one of the UN articles instead, will have a look at that now. I propose this article be renamed 2003 invasion of Iraq, because as I stated above, it's much less ambiguous than US invasion of Iraq. --AW

once again, why didnot you create a new article, and moved the old one ?

I've seen reports, with photos and video of Kuwaiti soldiers kneeling next to Iraqi missile fragments ,claiming that Kuwait has confirmed that 2 of the Iraqi missiles were SCUDs. The other missiles are believed to be other types of missiles. Anybody seen any more information about this? If so, we should add it since SCUDs are prohibited under the U.N. resolutions.

It's known that Kuwait has said that. No-one else has, however (not even the U.S. military's official spokespeople), and I think it's wise to wait for at least more than one source before adding something as verified fact on this page. --AW

Until there is confirmation from the U.S. military on whether SCUDs were fired or not, keep it out of the article. Kingturtle 01:14 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

Adam, you report that "it is clear that it is a taped statement" and then continue with "one factor supporting this theory." If it is a theory, then it is not clear. Keep hearsay and innuendo out of the articles. Kingturtle 01:14 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

Erm, I didn't write that. I took that OUT. Check the current revision, by me - that bit isn't in. It was added by the previous revision, by an IP address. --AW

of course it's taped, everything on TV is taped. rewrite this to be somehow less US-biased. remove the vague and questionable assertions by the US military'

I put in that its taped because that's the major problem with trying to determine whether or not its "new". Everything on TV is taped, but not everything is live. This was defintely not live, according to analysts. That IS important.

I don't believe it was claimed to be live on broadcast, and no-one ever reported that it was. So saying that it isn't, as if this is something exciting and important, is misleading. --AW

DIdn't say that anyone did. But as it was, the article only questioned whether or not it was a body double and said that it was determined that it probably wasn't. That gave the false impression that we know for a fact that Hussein is still alive. Thats not the case. The question of whether or not the film was live or taped is important - if it was live, then we know he was alive. If it was taped - it could have been taped six months ago and would mean absolutely nothing. I don't have a problem with the statement that was added at the end though.

Sure, which is why I didn't remove the segment completely. I just rewrote it, rephrasing the basic information - we don't know when the statement was recorded - in more neutral terms. --AW

re: vague assertions by the US military... whats wrong with saying what the U.S. is saying? I'm attributing the statements to the US. Just as IRaqi statements are attributed to Iraq. I don't see any difference.

This is an article about the actual EVENTS of the invasion. If we included everything everyone said, we'd be here for the rest of eternity, and the article would be full of useless hearsay. Statements should only be included when they are the positions of each side on an actual, solid event (a missile attack, an incident in a particular city, for instance) - not something vague like the state of Iraqi command.

If you say so.. I guess you're in charge. Personally, I think Iraq saying that US forces have not set foot on Iraqi soil and the US saying that Iraq's military is breaking from within are pretty important statements.

No! No-one's in charge! This is an anarcho-syndicalist collective, this is! ;). In a sense you're right, but remember that this is an *encyclopaedia*, not a news report. Right now, what the US and Iraq say is kind of interesting to people, and it's certainly appropriate content for a news report. I'm trying very hard to keep this page not a news report, though, but more what a wikipedia article on the topic ought to be, in my personal opinion - a quite controlled attempt to present the actual concrete facts of what's happening in the invasion itself. Iraq says one thing, the U.S. says another - in a couple of days we'll generally know for sure either way, so we may as well wait for that point then write it down than have to keep chasing around changing people's statements. --AW

Removed "Coalition forces were greeted with cheers and hugs from Iraqi citizens as they took control of the city." as I've not seen anyone report this (let alone as fact and not hearsay), not even Fox News. If anyone can verify this, feel free to put it back. --AW

It was reported on MSNBC (with visuals of Iraqis helping marines tear down enormous portraits of Saddam Hussein) but if you don't want it in the article, that's fine. -- Someone else 09:20 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

Ah, fair enough, I haven't checked MSNBC. Seems odd that no-one else seems to mention it, though. Go ahead and put it back in if you want, but maybe since MSNBC is the only source, it should be attributed ("MSNBC reported that...") --AW

I've seen it reported. (Australian commercial TV would report anything.) But it's just a propaganda claim. The accompanying footage of three people waving was about as convincing as one of Saddam's speeches. It may be true. It may not. We have absolutely no way of knowing at this stage. It's just the inevitable PR guff that you get in any war. Wait a few weeks longer and all will become clear. Till then, let's just print the stuff we know. Tannin

Yes, this was the general position I was working from when I took it out. But things like this do happen in wars, and if the report was sufficiently convincing (detailed eyewitness reports, pictures, something like that) it might be worth reporting here. But if not, I agree with you, Tannin. --AW

I've seen a couple of articles on the net (which are probably long gone with newer information by now) that said elderly women were hugging coalition soldiers.

Um, if the following is included..

According to the Iraqi Minister for information, strikes have made 207 civil casualties in the capital

..Shouldn't we also mention that the Iraqi Minister of Information made a number of other statements that were completely and totally false - like US forces are retreating, we've killed 5 tanks, coalition forces have sustained a number of casualties, they haven't been able to hold cities in IRaq, they've captured civilians and pretended that they captured soldiers, etc, etc, etc. It seems like this claim is questionable to say the least, in light of the other claims he made. (I watched his statement in its entirety by the way)

true. We won't be sure until the war is over probably. But, I don't see it a reason not to include the information claimed by the other side. There were also some claims made by the us government, which apparently are very questionable (such as "proofs" presented at the UN). Do you also question other claims made by the us government ? The change made by aw is ok.

Of course. I don't deny that the US puts out misinformation - all goverments do.. including the US, and Iraq, France, Germany, etc, etc. BUT.. in this situation, nearly everything the guy said was obviously false - most of the US's claims on the war largely seem to be backed up by 24 hour-a-day television footage (for example, you can turn the TV at any time and see that US forces are not retreating, US forces are on Iraqi soil, photos and videos of Iraqi soldiers surrendering, our forces in Iraqi cities and driving down Iraqi roads, etc). The point is, I just don't think it makes sense to put much weight on any of his claims at this point. But, as you say, the change is ok. My note here was before the change was made.

"Our" forces? This isn't an American, Australian or British project. It's international. Please remember this. --AW

Yeah.. relax. This is just a talk page. I'm talking as an American here. Oh wait.. I'm sorry, what is the wikiPC word for it? "USAsian"?

Yeah. Maybe. But please try not to put too much this "our" forces in the article. Not everyone here is included in the "our".

Have I done that even once? I don't think I have. Like most on Wikipedia, when I type on a talk page I am speaking in my own voice for the most part. When I type an article, I'm not.

No, that would be The Nationality That Dare Not Speak Its Name. -- Someone else 11:28 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

I'm not from France though.

Silly me! I thought that was a large stinky brie hidden under that white flag you're holding in your prehensile tail! -- Someone else 11:40 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

Sure, but I think it's an especially important thing to keep in mind when trying to maintain an article like this, working from more or less universally Western-centric media (I wish I could read Arabic, or something...) --AW

It unfortunately is an western-centric media, and it should not be. I wish there were an iraki here

no question about that. I always keep that in mind when writing articles. Talk pages are much more informal. We shouldn't ignore the US media though.. sure it's biased, but no more or less than any other country's media. They all have their own agendas.

Yup. That's exactly the point. Nearly all the info put there is stuff taken on british or american or australian media. Clearly they should not be ignored :-) Just as other medias should not be ignored either. The US media here is the neglected one.

I know you're being silly.. but I was not suggesting that western media was neglected. Somewhere up above in this mess (or on another talk page.. I can't remember now with all of these articles), someone made a comment about US-media-bias and suggested using German or French media sources. That's just silly. My point was that we shouldn't overcompensate. Use everything to some extent. (Although, I do think Iraq's minister of information is useless.)

Actually, that's not so. Sure, all countries bias their media, I would not dispute that for a moment. But most countries, largely by virtue of their size, get a great deal of their media content from other countries, which has an enormous balancing effect. No-one can learn much about themselves by just looking in a mirror. It's simply not possible for a New Zealand or even a Canada to produce all its own media content. The United States is very unusual in this respect: it gets an almost pure diet of undiluted home-grown content. (Partly becaue of its sheer size, but also for both geographic and trade policy reasons.) The result is that, if you live in the US, you are far less likely to be exposed to a wide range of media content than if you live in (for e.g.) Ireland or Denmark or even France. The US, in this respect, is less akin to most of Europe and the English-speaking world than it is to China, the former Soviet Union, or, indeed, Iraq. Tannin

So, is there any objection to renaming this article to 2003 invasion of Iraq? ( 11:43 Mar 22, 2003 (UTC)

Nope, I was planning on doing this sometime today. It may leave redirect chains, though, that'll need checking. --AW

Text removed:

The US-British forces are beginning to show signs of confusion, with "frendly fire" downing of one British plane. The towns which were reported captured are now showing resistance by urban guerilla. It appears that troops were deliberately allowed to enter deep into Iraqi territory, only to be later spread thin and entraped in guerilla warfare, proper for any similar situation of foreign occupation attempt.

USA and British bombs have menaged to kill 77 civilians in Basra by means of heavy bombing, and hundreds of civilians are wounded in Basra and Baghdad. USA and British leaders have expressed their concern over the breaches of Geneva convention by the Iraqis, who showed captured and killed US soldiers on TV, a grave breach of the convention by the Iraqis.

Heavy military losses are reported in the invading army - 25 killed, 35 captured and dozens of wounded mercenaries. The resistance and such development was not expected by the military planners of the aggression, but they are confident that Iraqi forces will soon crumble in awe and that Iraqi people will begin to welcome the mercenaries with American flags and buckets of oil.

The above is reaching conclusions based on disputed facts. This is a clear violation of our NPOV policy and needs to be rewriten to attribute analysis to the correct parties. -- mav

Could you please tell a bit more why the facts stated above (as found in independent media reports by established news agencys like Reuters and AP) violate the NPOV policy? till we *) 23:30 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

Text removed:

The total civilian death toll -- including western journalists -- until now is estimated to lay between 126 and 199 casualities, according to Iraq Body Count project.

Is it possible to cite a more neutral source than this? --mav 01:57 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

I doubt it. [1]—Hephaestos 02:04 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

I doubt it too, but for different reasons, I think. A simple tally of figures given in newspapers does not make an independent estimate. The Iraq Body Count project makes no attempt to record or assess the original sources for their information. If they see a report in a major newspaper saying "Iraqi authorities claim 100 civilians were killed, but Allied command calls the figures greatly exaggerated", they enter it into their database as "minimum 100, maximum 100" since the Allied side failed to state an alternate figure. Unfortunately, we're not likely to get more balanced figures since the Allied side, and even the independent journalists in Baghdad, are generally not in a position to make numerical estimates. -- Tim Starling 04:25 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

Removed text:

According to the Iraq Body Count project, the total civilian death toll—including Western journalists—until now is estimated to be between 126 and 199, although this has not been independently verified.

This requires independent verification. We don't report things just because some website that gets 59 hits on Google says so. See above thread for more. --mav

I've put the text back in, because I find the methodology of the Iraq Body Count project convincing. They describe on their website en detail how they work, and I doubt they would a headline like the one cited here include as min 100 max 100, but as min 0, max 100. till we *) 23:17 Mar 25, 2003 (UTC)

Just because they describe it in detail doesn't mean it's flawless. You've actually got to read the detail to judge that. Here's a quote from the website:

Maximum deaths. This is the highest number of civilian deaths published by at least two of our approved list of news media sources.

Minimum deaths. This is the same as the maximum, unless at least two of the listed news media sources publish a lower number. In this case, the lower number is entered as the minimum. The minimum can be zero if there is a report of "zero deaths" from two of our sources. "Unable to confirm any deaths" or similar wording (as in an official statement) does NOT amount to a report of zero, and will NOT lead to an entry of "0" in the minimum column.

As a further conservative measure, when the wording used in both reports refers to "people" instead of civilians, we will include the total figure as a maximum but enter "0" into the minimum column unless details are present clearly identifying some of the killed as civilian - in this case the number of identifiable civilians within the total will be entered into the minimum column instead of "0". The word "family" will be interpreted in this context as meaning 3 civilians. [Average Iraqi non-extended family size: 6 -CIA Factbook 2002.]

It seems quite clear that my sample statement above would be considered "max 100, min 100", as long as the report appeared in two major newspapers. -- Tim Starling 00:26 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

Also, the fact that IBC's current figures (199-278) are quite a bit higher than the Iraqi estimate of 158 [2] suggests that something is wrong. -- Tim Starling 01:02 Mar 26, 2003 (UTC)

I would also like to know who are these people and why is their estimate so important that we should report on it? Just because somebody has a website, an agenda and supposed 'information' does not mean we should report the 'information'. Do these people have a track record of reliability? Are they famous? Do have expertise in statistics? News reporting? Anything? It doesn't really matter how accurate their estimates are because in the first place what they say is as important as any random group of people with a Geocities website. It would be far better for us to report that "Al Jazeera estimates there are 1,500 civilian deaths", "The Washington Post reports 25", the "United States government reports 3" and "Iraq says that 5,000 were killed". These are all well-known sources that we should report on - not some random website. --mav

Cite for this? Looks like a joke to me.

BEIJING -- Monday -- China has given the United States the address of its embassy in Baghdad in the hope of avoiding a repeat of the deadly 1999 bombing of its mission in Belgrade, diplomatic sources said on Monday.

China passed on the details of its Iraq mission, at around the time US-led coalition aircraft started dropping bombs in and around Baghdad, to prevent any repeat of the 1999 bombing Washington said happened because of outdated maps, they said.

It is REUTERS news. It sure looks like a joke, a black one indeed - lol

Independant check ? Tom

If I was China Id do that too. Dietary Fiber

from page Once the port city is declared safe, Coalition forces hope to begin delivering food and aid to cities under Coalition control.

I object to "coalition forces hope to begin..." here. Delivering of aid is organised and will be provided by humanitarian organisations, not by the coalition. Putting it that way implies that only countries from the coalition will bring help to population, which is grossly wrong.

Well, others are *already* sending aid. Kuwait for example has dozens of trucks headed north into Iraq, Save the Children is also headed in there. But the coalition forces have ships waiting off the coast ready to go in as soon as things are clear. Nothing incorrect about the above statement.

Shouldn't the "Operation" title be at the start of the article, as it is with Desert storm and other wars?

Naming

This entry should be named "U.S. invasion of Iraq". See the discussion of U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. This is an equivalently U.S.-dominated campaign, if not more so. --The Cunctator

Nonsense. There are around 20 countries actively involved in the war. -- Zoe

I don't mean the actual "article title" - I mean, shouldn't the Operation name be one of the first things listed and in bold as it is in other wars like Gulf War? It was the first thing and then someone moved it down a ways.

"Around midnight UTC (early morning local time), the Turkish military stated that 1,500 Turkish troops had moved into northern Iraq"

Has this been confirmed? I've heard conflicting info about this. Some have said the troops had always been where they are now and they haven't moved. Others have said they are moving troops in, others have said they're not. And unless I'm mistaken, didn't a Turkish offical just announce that they did not have plans to enter Iraq? Anyone know what is happening exactly?

I thought the "more than 30" were killed in the marketplace - this article says 14 dead and 30 wounded... Perhaps Wikipedians are reporting on breaking events too fast? Given the number of "major reports" that turned out not to be news, we should wait at least a day before adding anything new. --dan