Talk:2003 invasion of Iraq/Archive 2

Coalition of the Willing — Origin of phrase

Recent edit by IP qualifies that the phrase coalition of the willing was only used by opponents of the war. This is false. The President used the term continuously throughout the first two years of the war. I will revert later unless there is objection. -asx- 11:36, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

already reverted. I don't know what this edit was from, probably not someone with all his senses at the moment. Rama 12:51, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

hehe, thanks. . . ;) -asx- 19:37, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Factual Error

I don't know if anyone brought this up, but Operation Iraqi Freedom was never referred to as Infinite Justice. That was the original title for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, which was changed to Enduring Freedom after Muslim protests. It's a rather glaring mistake that shouldn't be there. Wickbam

I believe there is a date error in the section on weapons of mass destruction as a justification for war. If the Iraqi chemical attack against the Kurds refers to Halabja, it was in 1988 and not 1983.

Anti-War Comments

This is obviously an anti-war article. It is embarrassing to me and I think it should be changed. This article has comments about how bad it was that the war was not permitted by the U.N.

This article is already somewhat disputed. However, it doesn't matter if it is embarrassing you, you are obviously either a rampant republican or just stupid. Your single point about how "This article has comments about how bad it was that the war was not permitted by the U.N." doesn't prove anything if you are referring to the Opinion and Legality part. The authors of this article objectively presented other peoples' opinions at worst, or the popular view. This section presents facts about opinions, not opinions about facts.

typical of the militant left to call people who disagree with them "stupid." liberals are so defensive nowdays now that it's become clear that they are not the majority! but i digress. anyways, below contradicts your claim that the article is objective (yes, they should have said "supporters of the president" or "opponents of the administration"). the article should leave politics completely out of the article, or at least keep them concise, as limited as possible, and in their own section; the article fails to do this. no matter what side of the arguement you are on (and which side you are on you have made quite obvious), you must agree that encyclopedia entries (which this is) should simply say what happened and the official reasons for it, and let the reader go elsewhere to find opinions on why this or that happened or succeeded or failed.

How is one supposed to leave politics out of a topic which is so highly political? The best we can hope for is presenting an accurate record of the various reasons for and agains the war.

as poorly as this comment was written, the gentleman who started this topic is correct. this page is an embrassment on wikipedia. If i were a teacher (and i intend to become one), i would not allow my students to use any of this article as a source. especially sections on "Popular Opinion" and the ever famous section on the "Mission Accomplished" debacle, that is entirely not belonging in this article (not to mention that the helicopter v plane question is about as off-topic as it gets). this article needs a lot of work, and for goodness sake, wake up and help us people. i'll admit here im a Bush-suporter, but since when did the members of wikipedia give up on just giving facts?

What content in the article do you believe to be not a fact, if any? 64.179.125.66 02:04, 17 May 2005 (UTC) (I am User:Kevin_baas)

The biggest objection I have had is how this page covered "popular view" of the conflict. I like how it has now been given over to its own section, and that certantly quells a lot of my objections. The "Mission Accomplished" article is both out of place and uneccisary in my view, and should me moved to its own section as well. I have no problem with information i disagree with being presented, what i object to is information on either side being presented as neutral, the same as whats going on on the Fox News discussion. if were going to cite people, we dont say "Some People" or the ever famous "Popular View", we say "Suporters of the president claimed" and "opponents of the administration have claimed". These problems are starting to work themselves out, and i am pleased with the progress over the last few days. i will keep a eye on things, and be sure to point out any issues I have, but with this section edit last night, i am pleased with the progress -Warzybok

Any democrats out there who watch Fox? Im farely young, and i dont follow politics to much. But i heard that Fox is mostly republican. I think this needs to be adressed. But Warzybok does have a point about how we should use "supporters" and "opponents" and other labels. But I think that it would be wierder to say "oh, and by the way the anti-war view is the popular one"

If you believe bush then you are an idiot. 'nuff said

All right, I'm going to get rude, because I am tired of these insults being thrown around. Whoever made that last comment, SHUT UP. This is a discussion page, not an insult gallery. You discuss the article, not present you political views. I happen to be a Republican but I don't go about insulting liberals for their beliefs. Liberals, you should do the same. It's stupid. 'If you believe Bush then you are and idiot'. I can't get over how childish that sounds. I could get all fiery about my political views, but I'm not going to because I think rationally and I know it's pointless. I haven't heard half as many insults thrown about by conservatives as I have liberals. I'm tired of it. So, if you can't get into a discussion without insulting somebody, I suggest you keep your mouth shut.

E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 20:36, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Exactly! Here is the typical nuanced republican manuover, impune the real target: call the objectivity of the text into question, then launch into a long attack on liberals, and how they are so insulting, abusive and just plain irrational thus skipping the need to actually cite any factual errors or errors in bias. Lets make a list of acutal problems and go through it. --Gregg

Could we please try to stay on the topic? I find it sad on a forum intended for objective facts that people find the need to state what the political opinions of others should be. You don't have to be "liberal" or "republican" to write accurate facts, you just have to present the information without leaping to conclusions - in fact, it would be preferable to avoid drawing conclusions. Presenting the information without implying that the reading audience should think one thing or another encourages people to make informed decisions. As of yet, the evidence I see shows that both "liberals" and "conservatives" are displaying shameful immaturity. This is not a personal power struggle, this is an encyclopedia site. Please remember, therefore, to try to stick with the facts and not to tell people what to think. By the way, if you are going to oppose someone on the grounds that they are not citing actual errors, don't then make the same mistake. This is supposed to be a site to present facts, but even the debate forums of Dream and Write seem more careful than this. -- Mithlas

I agree with you that we should not go around insulting each other, but I do object to you saying that 'Liberals should do the same". I am a liberal, and I don't go around insulting conservatives, so I find this comment sterotypical and insulting to me.

• I agree with the original comment that this article has gone to hell. Any attempt at neutrality is reverted and everytime i see a new edit its always to tack on another anti-bush "fact". I put fact in quotations because there are no sources for them, or the sources are unreliable. This article has gone over the edge. It's completelly unreliable for neutral information.--EatAlbertaBeef 00:48, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

First off: liberalism and conservativism are equally saturated with idiocy and insults. There is no correlation between political ideology and how much of a jerk someone is. Next, it should be noted that, worldwide, the war in Iraq is generally accepted to be everything the page says it is. Wikipedia does have a bias favourable to the US, which I hope I am not too bold in saying is a right-wing country. This is considered to be a neutrality problem. See Anglo-American focus. --64.180.101.42 04:58, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Just because something is generally accepted doesn't make it right. Hitler was Times Man of the Year and generally accepted great guy.--EatAlbertaBeef 17:33, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Look. DO you people have nothing better to do than complain about a Wikipedia article? Come on. Whether or not the information is acurate is unimportant. The war is unpopular, and any way you phrase it will make it look anti war to you Bible-belters. Anyways, Iraq isn't all sunshine and rainbows, anyways, so you can't really make this "a nice, happy page".

hhamdy283 June 13,2005

Whether the article is accurate or not is very much important and what we are saying is all true. The vandalism, mostly by anti-Bush wackos, is out of control and we need to find some way to fix it. The vandalism has stretched to the talk pages now. I just removed a vandalism on my previous edit. I kind of laughed when you called me a Bible-belter. I go to church only on the religious holidays. Avoid stereotypes. They can get you into trouble. Anyone who thinks that war is all rainbows and butterflies is ridiculously naive. War sucks, but sometimes it is nessisary to prevent a greater tragedy befalling innocent people, or to prevent a madman (cough,Saddam,cough) from killing anymore innocent people.

(introducing commentary at inapropriate place because of highly humorous comment. Killing Iraqi civilians in the 80s with weapons from the US was ok. After the 90s it was not?)LtDoc 19:23, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

War is never neccessary, you fool. More people have died at the hands of the US military then the hands of Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party. It annoys me greatly when you Americans always believe war is the only answer, but you only fight in wars that serve your best interests. If you look at Canada, which has participated in every peacekeeping operation, we have only brought peace, not war. The US only fights if they benefit from it. And also, speaking of stereotypes (look above), I find it ironic that an American is scolding me for stereotypes, whereas the US is the most racist "culture" on the face of the earth.

hhamdy283 July 1st (Canada Day), 2005

E. Brown, Hurricane enthusiast - Squawk Box 18:58, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Some gems from (apparently) hhamdy283 taken from one paragraph:

1. "War is never neccessary, you fool."
   • Niave, but insulting.
2. "More people have died at the hands of the US military then the hands of Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party."
   • Apologist denial.
3. "It annoys me greatly when you Americans always believe war is the only answer, but you only fight in wars that serve your best interests."
   • Ill-informed stereotyping.
4. "And also, speaking of stereotypes (look above), I find it ironic that an American is scolding me for stereotypes, whereas the US is the most racist "culture" on the face of the earth."
   • Hypocrisy amok! In a single sentence even!!!

--Seth (July 11, 2005)

I agree with hhamdy, despite being an american myself. And seth, look at the facts. More people have died at the hands of the us military. bob

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I can't remember the latin phrase to define Seth's philosophical analysis, but he essentially responds with "nuhh-unhh" to every single claim. Stereotyper! Apologist! Hypocrite! Nice, real nice. I wouldn't go as far to call the US racist, though...but there is a strong undercurrent of Americentrism.

But anyway, I browsed over this and didn't really change anything...I do agree that the little jabs of subtlety, like the supposed "mission accomplished" heading that has since been replaced, are not in good taste. Other than that, this is a detailed and useful refrence. Well done Wiki-community.--24.72.227.2 05:57, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

---

Well, seeing as this isn't a blog commentary section, I didn't want to over-expound. What I decided to do was quickly point out the fallacies in almost every one of hhamdy's sentences in that one paragraph.

• The "war is never necessary" comment is niave because I only need to demonstrate one necessary war to invalidate it, while hhamdy must show an alternative to every war that has ever occurred.

• The next sentence is denial because he doesn't even try to justify it (with bob committing the same) despite years worth of claims that up to 500,000 have died under Hussein since '91, while iraqbodycount.net or whatever claims a max of 26,000 killed. It's apologist if he forgives Hussein for the indirect deaths (which I assume he does), which are likely a large part of the suspected 500,000.

• "...you Americans always believe war is the only answer..." Come on, try to tell me that's not stereotyping!

• And I shouldn't even have to spent any unicode on why the last sentence was hypocritical. If you can't see it, I can't help you.

If you're talking about wikipedia being american-centric, perhaps you're right and that should be undone. Not, however, by leaning anti-american. I know I'll get flamed for that last, so let me just offer that if you trust our enemies' words more than our government's, you'll have a difficult time convincing me that you're pro-american...or even neutral.

If, however, your talking about Americans being american-centric (which you seem to, given the context of the statement), I'll offer a big old, "so what?" Few nations' people are guilty of any less regarding their own nationality.

--Seth (July 21, 2005)

Allow me my 2 cents. War is never necessary, that is a fact. Its sometimes the faster, "better", cheaper, easier, more justifiable way, but never the necessary one. And yes, I can show you that every single war the planet has seen was unnecessary, and I doubt you can show me one who has. Also, Im sorry to point out that this statement is not naive, nor the explanation you gave for it being naive is coherent. Perhaps a more coherent way of defending your point would be that human nature is the cause of the war, and it would be naive to presume people would rather talk it out than get it bashing on with each other. I could dispute that too, but that is beyond the point.

As for denial...perhaps, but not for the reasons you claim. Apologistic, never. Come on, WHO on their right mind would be apologetic to mass murder? No one does that. What the user problably meant, and what is well documented and verifiable, is that the US is responsible for more deaths in its history than Saddam Hussein or any other Iraqi. (Hiroshima, Nagazaki, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Native Americans, etc etc)

As for the following comment (ill-informed stereotyping) your comment falls short on the facts. Just review public polls on wheter the US should invade Iraq, Afghanistan or even Vietnam, prior to the conflicts. You´ll come to realize the the majority (50%+) was in favor of such course of action, even in after the invasion the majority shifted to believe that invasion was not justified and should stop as soon as possible. So, no, theres no stereotyping in that sentece in the strict meaning. Perhaps you feel upset because it was supposed to be a generalization that "every" american believes that "might makes right" or that "shoot first, find WoMD later", which is obviously not the case. But it cant be disputed that lots of people who think like that show this kind of disposition in here.

And for the last statement, well, one cant be neutral to a subject were he is involved with it; thats human nature! But bickering in the discussion page will bring nothing productive to the article or to those who read it.

I must confess, however, that those last two paragraphs were highly demonstrative of why America (and thus americans) is seen as an self-centered, arrogant, prepotent, unliked nation (and thus some people) and why this is ever escalating in the world today. Your division of the world in two teams, "those who trust the US gov't words" being the right and "those who trust our enemies" being wrong is just so typical that I really dont understand how you can point fingers at someone and accusing them of stereotyping. That "youre either with me our against me" attitude leaves most of the world grindind its teeth. And "giving the old SO WHAT?" just exemplifies my point. America is disliked for a lot of things, some justifiable and others not so much, but the straw that breaks the camel´s back is that you (as a people) dont care to be viewd as self-centered, giving this superior feeling over the less fortunate sould who werent born american. LtDoc 19:23, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

---

hmmm...

"if you trust our enemies' words more than our government's, you'll have a difficult time convincing me that you're pro-american...or even neutral"

...since when does having faith in the government have anything to do with being American? And please tell me, what does it mean to be an American? In a country with 23508923508 different ethnic groups, religions and so on and so forth, we don't really have a national identity...nothing in common really other than an adherance to consumer culture and the ideals we carry about personal freedoms and individual rights. Now If you mean by "anti-American" that I am against the policies that are being carried out and the decisions that are being made under this Administration, I strongly encourage you to analyze the actions of this Administration and decide for yourself whether or not they are making intelligent decisions. If you come to the conclusion that they aren't, you suddenly aren't anti-American, so don't be afraid to second guess yourself.

On top of that, it doesn't necessarily make you a liberal either, nor does it dismiss you from the chance of being a republican - i'm sure you will still fit in with one of the ranks: wealthy businessmen, NRA member, white supremacist, nationalist, oil tycoon, christian, outdoor sportsman, good old boy. After all, the republicans all have so much in common, just like the athiests, feminists, hollywood, hippies, homosexuals, jews, and countless minorities that make up the democratic party (joking, just something for Wikipedians to consider when constantly polarizing the two parties and stereotyping, i.e. "typical of the militant left to call people who disagree with them "stupid." liberals are so defensive nowdays now that it's become clear that they are not the majority! but i digress.")

And no, I don't believe "few nations' people are guilty of any less regarding their own nationality", because...see: History, specifically between the periods of 1803 and 1815, and the entire chunk of history that incudes social darwinism, new imperialism, fervent nationalism, and so on, extending from towards the end of the 19th century to halfway into the next. Especially look at the First World War as well as when nationalism comes to a head in World War II. As a result, Europe was left in ruins, foreign policy aggravated situations or created problems we face today (see: Britain in the Middle East during and after WWI, Europeans in Africa and elsewhere drawing borders, colonizing, oppressing, and so on) To top it all off, humanity as we know it was almost destroyed because of self-serving national interests and agendas, driving nations to the point of developing weapons that threaten our own existance as a species. Yeah, I think most of the world has decided that nationalism is a little bit dangerous; but we're pretty new to the game, so until we lose an arm or leg (I guess Vietnam didn't count), its disregard for and polarization of the dissenting world as well as a rewriting of history that seems fit for our boastful and self-absorbant nation. No wonder nobody likes us anymore.--24.72.227.2 10:18, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

---

I imagine the editors of this article would not be pleased with us mucking up the discussion page with such partisan smegma. If an authority on this page doesn't actually mind, then I'll continue posting here. In anticipation of them minding, I have copied this conversation to a forum on another website and invite those interested to go to the website instead.

As a teaser to continue, however, I'll mention the following briefly and say that my full response is posted on the other website:

• I do believe that it is largely human nature (among other animals) that makes aggression, and war by extension, sometimes necessary.

• Comparing deaths caused by Hussein in the period of 1991-2003 against deaths caused by the U.S. during it's entire 230 year history is ridiculous.

• When referring to human behavior, generalizing across a population IS stereotyping. So hhamdy was stereotyping.

• I identify with America. French people identify with France. Why am I the arrogant one?

• What does it mean to be an Italian? And is 24.72.227.2 regretting the diversity of people that have come to our country because, "...we don't really have a national identity..."?

--Seth (July 23, 2005)

I really cannot understand how you can say thing like "French people identify with France" right after saying "generalizing across a population IS stereotyping". Rama 08:56, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Is it as bad as, "...whereas the US is the most racist 'culture' on the face of the earth?"

--Seth (July 24, 2005)

Probably worse. "...whereas the US is the most racist 'culture' on the face of the earth?" is an idiotic generalisation. Your own rant was also self-contradicting, on top of that, since you allow yourself to condemn a user for making generalisations, and then start making one yourself (for the record, I know plenty of French nationals who do not "identify with France", whatever this can be supposed to mean). Why don't you go and edit this site of your and stop wasting our time and ressources here ? Talk pages are for discussing improvements to articles, not soapboxes. Rama 16:18, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

I'll accept that it would have been more accurate to say "some" or "many" or "most" _____ identify with _____. But you berate me for a benign stereotype when people here were defending the HATEFUL stereotype? Then accuse me of ranting? As for the alternate site, I'm the one that realized that this wasn't the best place to conduct this conversation. I made the effot to relocate it and invite anybody who was interested. Nobody from here has accepted the invitation. Then you reply here and berate me for conducting this conversation here? Why the hell didn't you go to where you were invited if it ticked you off so much to have this conversation here? I won't originate any new conversation here but I will still reply to anything directed at me.

--Seth (July 24, 2005)

P.S. I didn't "condemn" the user. You read a lot into what I said. I pointed out how ridiculous it was to say, paraphrasing, "it's ironic that you're accusing me of stereotyping when Americans are the most racist culture on Earth!" It was funny too, because he said it in a single sentence. --Seth

P.P.S Reinvitation to the forum topic for continuing this argument.

Iraqi Government sovereignty

zen, I would sure like to see what legal theory you can conjure to explain why the "government" of Saddam was sovereign (de jure, not de facto - although the latter also raises some interesting questions like no-fly zones and Kurdish authonomy). I am Lockean myself, but you're welcome to try a Hobbsean line of reasoning if that helps. This should be fun. ObsidianOrder 07:52, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Tony Sideway added that I believe but it's based on a U.N. definition of a country is it not? So you are claiming Iraq wasn't a country? The U.S. signed Iraq's armistace/surrender treaty after the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam's regime had a seat in the U.N. General Assembly. The no-fly zones were passed by the U.N. security council. zen master T 07:59, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, international recognition and the seat at the UN very much settle the matter (though it's not always necessary... Taiwan has neither, yet might qualify as a "sovereign" government (?)) Rama 08:07, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

well, it seems like you guys should actually read the sovereignty article (and also [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] ... heck just google [6] [7] [8] to fill in the huge amount of stuff missing from the wikipedia article). International recognition or a UN seat are not the criteria for sovereignty under any of the common legal theories (except declarative, sort of). Also zen you said "definition of a country", we are talking about the government of Iraq not the country of Iraq. ObsidianOrder 08:25, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't see how this comes as a counter-arguments that Iraq was a sovereign nation. Could you be more specific ? Rama 08:32, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In a nutshell Locke's definition is that sovereignty (i.e. supreme authority) always resides in the People as a whole, who may enter into a "social pact" granting sovereignty to a State which governs with the consent of the people, for the purpose of protecting their natural rights. Obviously a government without the consent of the people cannot have sovereignty, and neither can one which does not protect (or worse, which itself deprives them of) their natural rights. There are other theories, but a similar objection exists under most of them. Now this all may seem rather strange to you (since it doesn't mention the UN or any kind of international recognition) but this is a very influential theory, in particular in the formation of the USA, and on most views of sovereignty since. (There are two other closely related but competing views of the social contract by Rousseau and Hobbes; modern theories are essentially refinements of Locke's, in particular popular sovereignty and parliamentary sovereignty)ObsidianOrder 10:13, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The reason why I pointed out the distinction between country and government is because they are not interchangeable: country, nation, state, and government are all quite different things. Specifically: a nation has sovereignty by definition (according to Locke); a state or government may or may not (depending on whether it governs with the consent of the people, and honors the social contract); a country is the wrong type of entity to apply the concept to. ObsidianOrder 10:13, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You're clutching at straws OO. More specifically you're trying to argue a narrow definition of sovereignty that suits your politics; that of making the sun shine out of the U.S. government's ass. Whether the Baathist government held popular sovereignty may well be debatable, but that it held sovereignty under international law is not. As an anarchist I don't believe in the right of any group to sovereignty over others, but this doesn't mean I deny its current existence as a practical reality. —Christiaan 21:32, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

See also: Talk:Iraq_Liberation_Act#Collection_of_statements_relating_to_national_sovereignty_in_international_law

Argue based on any other common theory of sovereignty then, why not? ObsidianOrder 10:35, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This isn't going to get us anywhere. For the purposes of the UN Charter, UN recognition is what counts. If you signed up to the UN Charter (and the USA did, as did the UK) then you recognise the sovereignty of the other member states. Iraq was sovereign. Even the US and the UK recognised that--without sovereignty they wouldn't have had to bother with the UN at all. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:04, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

anyone who follows current events knows that the UN is a corrupt bureaucracy that accomplishes nothing. the only things i can think of offhand that the UN has accomplished recently is placing "peacekeepers" in Africa who rape and murder local residents, placing China and Cuba on the human rights committee, and the emerging oil-for-food scandal, which kofi annan was aware of to say the least and his son was directly involved in. america does not care what the UN thinks...and the UN will never have the power it once did. the UN failed miserably as the League of Nations and was a major factor in the outbreak of WWII, and it is failing again, only this time much slower. i guess what i'm trying to say is that the current administration doesn't care what the UN says, and never will. you all can blather about locke and hobbes and al franken and rush limbaugh and even david duke if you want to, but they are all irrelevant. saddam hussein was a murdering bastard who slaughtered his own people...i dont care if we flipped a coin to justify why we invaded Iraq, we should have finished the job and killed Saddam during Desert Storm.

Importing Locke's political theory about just sovereignty into an article like this is clearly POV. Should the article on the first Gulf War be edited to note that Kuwait was not actually a sovereign state because it didn't have fair elections? In that case, Saddam's invasion of it wasn't really such a big deal, right? Of course, in the real world, Kuwait was a recognized country with a recognized government, just like Iraq, and Saddam's invasion of Kuwait was an act of aggression. If you consider those governments unjust, you're welcome to hold that opinion, but it doesn't change the facts. JamesMLane 22:28, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

James - I am not "importing" Locke's theory, it is fundamental to most of our current ideas about the role and nature of governments. The US has a document called the Declaration of Independence that you may want to read. Pay particular attention to "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government ..." and the rest of the first two paragraphs. That is Locke in a nutshell. Regarding Kuwait (the state, not the country), I would say that it had no particularly strong claim to sovereignty (although for the most part it honored its part of the social contract). Saddam's invasion was an act of aggression against the people of Kuwait, and that is why it was wrong. The existence or not of sovereignty of the state of Kuwait has nothing to do with it. ObsidianOrder 10:35, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

All this misses the point. I have no question that Iraq was and is a sovereign state. I say that the addition of the term is POV as it makes it look more like there was less and less justification to "invade" than there was. The inclusion of the term is making the article have more of left wing slant, not a more neutral one.--MONGO 06:50, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, the alternative is letting people think that Iraq was not a sovereign country, something which you agree is wrong.

"less and less" is difficult to quantify, but we can at least be confident that if some people think that sovereign countries cannot be invaded (I doubt there will be lots of them, but anyway), they will encounter the part about the justifications for the invasion and see the arguments.

Trying to define the "non-POV" line of the article is not feasible, and exposes us to letting notable facts aside to stay in this pre-determined line. I would much rather see the line of the article elvolve according to the reality of facts. Rama 08:55, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I did not say that. I said I didn't want the word here....it serves no purpose except to continue to make this article more POV.--MONGO 13:11, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I didn't mean to say that you did. I simply say that a fact such as this one, which is accurate, notable and informative, can be inserted into an article without bothering about the article changing its balance. Rama 16:25, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Saddam's dictatorship may have been sovereign de facto (more or less) and recognized as such by other states (which simply means no other state decided to challenge its authority), but that in no way means that it had any legal basis for claiming sovereignty. So far, nobody has offered a single argument beyond international recognition or the UN charter. Obviously sovereignty does not arise out of the UN. Franky, as far as I am concerned, the UN is simply a collection of third-world tinpot dictators with delusions of grandeur [9] [10]. The UN does not have any kind of magic power to create sovereign governments just by saying it is so. I'm interested in any argument as to why Saddam's dictatorship had the right to claim sovereignty under any legal theory, Locke's or any other. However, "because the UN said so" is not an argument, it is merely an appeal to an authority which does not have the powers you try to attribute to it. ObsidianOrder 10:35, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, apart from our personal opinions as to what a legitimate government should be, the only stable, legally binding and internationally applicable critera is the United Nations (which, for the record, has countries as members, and includes the USA; "collection of third-world tinpot dictators with delusions of grandeur" is certainly flamboyant style, but inaccurate). Rama 10:43, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Rama - the members of the UN are states, not countries. "tinpot dictators" is accurate: of the 191 UN members, 48 are dictatorships, 54 are "partly free" and 89 are democracies [11]. "third world" is also accurate, 117 of them have lower-middle or low income per capita [12] and the median income per capita is around $2500. Oh, I forgot "tiny": the median size of UN members is 6.8 million. Hell, I live in a city which is larger than half the UN members, and I even get to elect the mayor. Why should my city not have a full UN seat? Obviously such an organization is absurd, hence "delusions of grandeur". You say "stable" and "legally binding" and so on, that's just beating around the bush, you have failed to explain how a dictatorship can have a right to sovereignty (i.e. right to absolute authority over its subjects) under any legal theory without circularly referring to a (bogus) authority composed of just such dictatorships. These are not just my "personal opinions", rather they are the foundational principles of my country (and of Western democracies in general). ObsidianOrder 11:31, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Obsidian, you're expressing a particularly extreme opinion that may be common in one or two areas of your country. You're entitled to hold that opinion. But that isn't the same as fact. The facts are that the US and UK governments are both prominent members of the UN and are signatories to the charter of that institution. The charter upholds the sovereignty of its member states which can only be overridden in certain circumstances. It is thus significant that Iraq was such a sovereign member of the UN, even if it wasn't in good standing. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:44, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, I still believe that the use of the term sovereign is only here to push a POV. By having this word inputed here after the page has remained the same for a while in that paragraph and to see some of those now defending that word tells me that you and those that think like you are the ones with an extreme opinion on the matter. All I have to say is the word sovereign as put into this paragraph makes the article less neutral, not more so.--MONGO 12:08, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Tony - what precisely are the criteria for being a UN member? Control of territory which is not contested by anyone with a sizeable military? If the criteria are anything else, it is not evident (e.g. Taiwan is not a UN member, but Tuvalu is). That is sovereignty de facto which is merely descriptive of the uncontested exercise of power, nothing more, and which is entirely dependent on the recognition of other powers. Establishing the right to sovereignty de jure requires a whole lot more, and incidentally does not depend on whether any third party chooses to recognize it or to contest it. You keep calling this my "opinion" but it is in fact the universally accepted legal theory of sovereignty, which I provided numerous references to earlier. ObsidianOrder 12:29, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

To paraphrase, there are two possible meanings "sovereign", namely "recognized by world powers" or "created by the just consent of the governed". The first meaning, which is what people seem to argue based on, disappears the moment any major power effectively withdraws recognition. The second meaning is inherent, but obviously does not apply to Saddam since there is no conceivable legal basis a dictatorship. The word is there for one purpose, to further the "illegal invasion" meme. Well, I could go through and change "government of Iraq" to "Saddam dictatorship" or "regime", I suppose. "sovereign dictatorship of Saddam" just doesn't have the same flair, don't you think? ObsidianOrder 12:29, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The problem I have with the remarks by ObsidianOrder is that many countries can have their status of "sovereign" country abritrarly debated, which can lead to ad nauseam arguments. For instance, the United States of America can be said not to be sovereign, since they can elect presidents

for whom only a minority of the people will vote. Some people will say that the very concept of government is illegitimate. Therefore, as to leave this sort of discussion outside of this article, I suggest that the UN be taken as a criteria. Rama 12:51, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I believe, as mentioned in the Iraq Liberation Act, that an attempt to tie the act to a US violation of international law is original research as no one has made this argument. I think any attempt to draw a conclusions as to the legal status of the war is POV pushing, and the term "sovereign" is an attempt to push the article one way. TDC 16:37, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Even Kofi Anan said the war was illegal at the time; it is hardly "original research", and certainly not POV pushing, to point out Iraq was a sovereign nation prior to the invasion. Why do the supporters of the invasion feel the need to alter the historical record like this?--csloat 16:49, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why do those oppose the war fail to see that there are many legitimate sides to an argument? Anna's comments about the legal status of the war (and Kofi knows all about Illegal UN shenanigans doesn’t he?) are his opinions, and not the opinions of the United Nations (unless the UN passed a resolution that I am not aware of). The thing about law is that no two people agree on how to apply it and what it can be applied to. Clearly the US, Britain and the Allies found legal justification to remove Hussein and opponents to his removal by force have found legal justification against this. Its two interpretations on the same thing. Let us not put subtly POV terms in the article to add credence to one or the other.

Realistically, not mentioning long winded references to international law or historical precedent, a sovereign nation is defined by its ability to remain one. It might not be as PC as some may like, but it is the most honest definition of the term. TDC 17:03, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand. Do you mean that any nation susceptible of being invaded is not a sovereign nation ? Rama 17:12, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Iraq's sovereignty is not "subtly POV." It's a fact. And I don't think Kofi's opinion should be included as a fact but I mentioned that to respond to your BS argument that Iraq's sovereignty is a matter of "original research." As for your point that sovereignty means not being invaded, that is just lame. Any country can be invaded. Was Kuwait "sovereign" before Iraq invaded in August 1990?--csloat 17:25, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I want to suggest a possible solution to this impasse. Since the whole point about sovereignty is that a UN member isn't supposed to just up and invade another, we replace the term "sovereign Iraqi state" by "fellow UN-member, Iraq" when writing about the plans for regime change. We may be in dispute over use of the word "sovereign" but we can agree that the USA is bound by its treaties and both Iraq and the USA are UN members and the Saddam Hussein government was recognised diplomatically by the UN at the time. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 16:42, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Nonsense. Many countries did not have normal relations with Iraq. Saddam was not recognized dipolomatically by many countries either and there was no communication directly...only through third party mediation. "fellow UN member" sounds a bit heavy. I certainly never considered Saddam to be a member in good standing...nor did the vast bulk of other member states in the UN.--MONGO 20:18, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Saddam was internationally recognized as the leader of the sovereign country of Iraq. Your idiosyncratic view that he was not a "member in good standing" is entirely beside the point. Iraq was a sovereign country. This is not controversial. You're just toying with semantics. There was nobody else recognized as the country's leader, and it's clear that the state was sovereign, regardless of the impact of sanctions or of Saddam's murderous thuggishness. Even Rumsfeld would recognize that. Get your head out of the sand.--[[User:Commodore

Sloat|csloat]] 21:18, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I was saying that Saddam was not recognized diplomatically by some countries in refute of Sidaway's comment, which is a fact. Are you some kind of idiotic moron or what?--MONGO 07:14, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Firstly, as far as I know, the Iraqi government was recognised by most (if not all) Western countries. Secondly, you can find examples of countries not recognised by other, which are no less sovereign. Most countries do not recognise Taiwan as a country, but it does not make it less inviolable. Etc.

The seat in the UN is a sufficient but not necessary criteria for a sovereign state. Rama 07:23, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

recap

just to re-visit this dead horse: nobody has advanced any argument for sovereignty other than "because the UN says so". those that brought up that argument have not cited a single source. anyone? the only reason i see for adding the word sovereign in that sentence is to suggest that trying to overthrow it was somehow wrong or illegal. seems like pure pov-pushing to me. if you really want to put in "sovereign", well, should I change "government" to "dictatorship"? or perhaps you'd like to argue that it wasn't? just saying. ObsidianOrder 10:30, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

How about "because the U.S. says so"? They do. They said that when they ratified the U.N. Charter. When you ratify a document, you are unconditionally affirming every statement within it. That's what ratification is. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 22:05, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

Kevin - "because X says so" is never a good argument, regardless of who X is, it's a logical fallacy [13]. UN Charter - how exactly did Saddam's regime fit the membership requirements under Articles 1.2, 1.3, 2.3, 2.4 and so forth [14]? If the UN actually paid any attention to its own charter they should have withdrawn Iraq's membership a long time ago. ObsidianOrder 23:02, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia has it's own argument for appeal to authority logical fallacy. You'll notice that it's not neccesarily a logical fallacy. There are conditions for a legitimate argument from authority. Regardless of anything, Iraq ("Saddam's Regime") was an actual member of the U.N. And your last line is also a non-sequitur. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 23:47, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

The UN is a sufficient criteria. What sort of arguments against sovereignty would we have, apart "right of the strongest", which does not make a legal argument, and considerations about democracy which are irrelevant in the context of international law, and would exclude most countries anyway ? Rama 10:39, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

"UN is a sufficient criteria" - source? Arguments against - well, I only wrote about five pages of that above, but to summarize: sovereignty is either viewed as extrinsic (based on international recognition and ability to enforce) or intrinsic (based on a social contract). If sovereignty is extrinsic (or de facto), sovereignty is lost when recognition is withdrawn, and anyway it means little (basically territory you have enough force to exercise dominion over and/or other powers choose not to contest). If sovereignty is intrinsic (or de jure), then it was absent in this case. International law is a very murky thing which spans both, to a degree: extrinsic issues such as treaties, the UN charter, and security council resolutions; and intrinsic issues such as the UN definitions of genocide and the UN declaration of human rights. Nonetheless, most legal theories tend towards intrinsic sovereignty, which was completely absent in the case of Saddam's dictatorship (and yes, many countries may be in a gray area, so what?). ObsidianOrder 11:02, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Your arguments mean that anyone can deny the Sovereignty of virtually any country, making it essentially useless. The United Nations were founded precisely so that countries would be unable to contest the sovereignty of other nations on blury arguments like issues of minorities or disaproval of the form of government (like Germany did about Poland in 1939). The United States of America and all members of the so-called "Coalition of the Willing" are members of the UN and signatories of the Charta, as was Iraq and all other parties. Therefore, the United Nations have the authority to decide on the matter. Rama 11:09, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

again, please, do you have a source for this supposed UN authority? membership in the UN is voluntary, and any member can do whatever they please if they are willing to suffer the consequences... which are nil, in the case of permanent members of the security council (hah!). what the heck authority is that? no, you can't deny the sovereignty of any country unless that country's government grossly abuses the powers granted to it... that's a short list, and Iraq was very close to the top of it. ObsidianOrder 11:35, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

You are basically denying all modern internationl relations, and international law in its entirety. According to your theory, treaties are only bilateral (or n-lateral) pacts which can be broken at any moment which is seen fit by a sufficiently poweerful party. This was, for instance, the case before Second World War. The United Nations were designed to overcome to state of fact. The fact that the United States of America is a membre of the United Nations, having signed and ratified the Charta, binds them to international law. The "consequences" are not a way to buy the right to escape international law, and the fact that it might be difficult to submit the United States to some forms of sanctions (note that it is not always the case, see economical sanctions under the WTO, for instance) does not legaly grant them the right to act unilaterally in contradiction with the Charta.

Also, if you want to deny the sovereignty of Iraq on the ground that its president was not properly elected, that there were Human Right abuses, people disapearing, mass arrests on political grounds, unilateral military operations, etc., you open the door to people denyin the sovereignty of Russia, China and the United States of America, notably. Which is obviously an absurd result. Rama 13:45, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

"deny the sovereignty of Iraq on the ground that..." - When the mountain of corpses of innocents piles high enough (100,000 or so in a decade might be a reasonable threshold) it is time to do something about it. That was definitely not the case in the US, and probably not in China or Russia either, but it was in Iraq, several times over, probably. At that point, any sane person has to conclude that, treaties be danmed, it is time to act (although you may disagree on the best course of action, naturally). How exactly are you going to draw a parralel between Saddam's genocide campaigns and anything the US has done in the same period?

Yes, treaties are n-lateral pacts which may be broken at any time by anyone willing to deal with the consequences, that should be self-evident. What else do you think they are? As you suggest, the UN was designed to prevent international action, which it does (sort of), but only at the cost of sweeping any problems within a nation - even the most appalling distasters - under the rug of "sovereignty". "signed ... binds them" until they choose not to - and who exactly has jurisdiction to try them for a violation, anyway? (Bear in mind that the ICC only has jurisdiction when all parties agree to it.) "Right" - what kind of right? Legal, moral, treaty-based, or ...? You might want to look at some other fancy pieces of paper the UN has produced but refuses to enforce, such as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and see how they apply to the Anfal campaign. ObsidianOrder 19:47, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Here, here...I agree strongly. My argument of the use of the word is that it's placement here is a buttress of antiwar, or anti-action and helps to promote this article not as a discussion of the action, but as a statement against the action (of "invading" Iraq)....it is not our job to give opinion on whether the war was just, only to report the events as they unfolded...therefore, I fail to see that if the word "sovereign" is here in the place it is put that there can be anyway this article can be a neutral one.--MONGO 09:26, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Tony - could we agree on some kind of compromise? i can live with some variant of "sovereign" or better "UN-recognized" or "internationally-recognized" if we change the "Iraqi government" part. pick something descriptive from the Saddam Hussein article, e.g. ""repressive", "authoritarian", "regime", etc. some hybrid such as "... overthrow the repressive (but UN-recognized) regime of Saddam Hussein ..." might work? what is being overthrown is closely related to the reason why, if you say "Iraqi government" there is no apparent reason other than meddling. P.S. seems even people strongly opposed to the war are with me on the sovereignty issue ([15]). ObsidianOrder 13:30, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

The level of aubsurdity in this thread is quite stunning. I don't know what planet some of you guys live on, but over here on the planet Earth (you'll find it just past Venus and right before Mars) nobody of any serious international standing (other than very arguably the governments involved in the actual invasion) has suggested that the Hussein regieme was not the legal government of Iraq, nor have they suggested that Iraq itself, its people or its current borders were not essentially sovereign. To suggest anything else is to be very selective and to open up barrels of worms that have no place in a discussion of the recent invasion. We'd need to work on rewriting the entire history of the Middle East, the Ottoman Empire, British Colonialism, etc. I listened to the lead up to the war very carefully and I don't once remember anybody in the US administration seriously suggesting that Iraq was not a sovereign state. The entire debate around whether or not [[16]] was valid legal pretext to invade essentially seals the fact. The text of the resolution itself refers to the Iraq, not to the "dictator in Baghdad", etc. the annexed letter from El Baradei and Blix is addressed not to "Saddam Hussein's friend and confidant Amir H. Al-Saadi" but to "H.E. General Amir H. Al-Saadi Advisor Presidential Office Baghdad Iraq". This would be more than enough justification for the Iraqi government to claim that it was acknowledged as sovereign in any legal sense. If Hussein was not legitimate, then why did the government not revert to the Hashemites or one of the previous military dictatorships?

It's offensive to think that we can be rewriting the history already to suit the victors. This is easily one of the most controversial invasions since the Vietnam War and to suggest anything else, to suggest that it was accepted by the majority of world opinion is very American-centric, very POV and very unprofessional. I absolutely want to see the American (and British) justifications for this war included in this article, but the mainline should adhere to majority world opinion and not fall victim to the systemic bias that is natural in any Internet site. This is a world encyclopedia, not an American encyclopedia. As has been stated before the fact that the US saw fit to go before the world to justify this war is enough to very strongly suggest that the notion of Iraq's actual soverignty (or that of it's government) was not seriously debated in the State Department. If we're going to pull the term out of the article then I'd like to see at least one quote by any senior member of the US government, on the record, stating that it was their professional opinion that Iraq was not sovereign. The Iraqi government might have had questionably legtimacy, it might have been a very interesting philosopical and political science case study, but it was most certainly the considered legal opinion of international and national bodies that Iraq, in a legal sense, was a sovereign state. Play games all you want, this is simply a fact.

Now I don't for a second support the idea that Iraq was "good" or "legitimate" in the philosophical sense, but if this is the standard we are to apply, then we're in for some pretty serious trouble in describing the actual world around us. Is the current US government legitimate without the support of the absolute majority of the population in the last election? What about the current government of Canada, a minority government? Tony Blair just got his government re-elected with something under 40% of the popular vote and far less of the absolute majority. What about Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF? The Apartheid era National Party in South Africa? Or how about the current Sharon government in Israel? They have disenfranchised an entire portion of the population that de facto lives under their control. What about Fidel Castro? Pervez Musharraf's government? Hamid Karzai's? If we're going to play this game we can't be selective. As abhorrent as it is, we're far safer allowing the internal mechanisms of a nation dicate which face is presented to the world and dealing with it. A bunch of ivory tower political theorists who occasionally write on a completely open Internet encyclopedia are not the standard that the world (or even the US government) uses when considering such issues. Let's leave the original research to the researchers and the phlosophy to the appropriate articles. Gabe 21:35, 13 May 2005 (UTC)

"As abhorrent as it is, we're far safer allowing the internal mechanisms of a nation dicate which face is presented to the world and dealing with it." - yes, it is abhorrent, but it is not safer, and I absolutely refuse to do so. yes, the "internal mechanisms" should be given the benefit of the doubt, but egregious behaviour should get a vigorous response. "on the record" - okay: "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power" [17]. That sure doesn't seem like acknowledging sovereignty, does it? The list of examples you give is easily divided into two groups, those in which the population as a whole is involved in selecting the government, pursuant to laws they as a whole have passed (US, UK, Canada, Israel, and now Afghanistan) and those in which that is not the case (Zimbabwe, Cuba, Pakistan). There is no equivalence between the two, putting them together is bogus. I am not selective, I would view any intervention in the latter group with the goal of restoring a democratic government which recognizes human rights as being legitimate. That, of course, is not a sufficient reason to say we should actually do it - but if we or anyone else did it, it would be legitimate (right/just/morally justified). ObsidianOrder

No you misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm not suggesting that we should just curl up in a ball and pretend the rest of the world is all pink and happy, what I'm saying is that the dangers inherent in everybody drawing their own conclusions about what a sovereign nation is (or isn't) are far greater than working with the common understanding and actively pointing out its weaknesses. All the more so in the real world of diplomacy and international relations, but it still applies in a purely intellectual conversation. Words are symbols and unless we can reach a common agreement as to what those symbols mean then we're not really communicating. Do you really think that you beating me over the head and me beating you over the head with the word "sovereign" is accomplishing anything? "That sure doesn't seem like acknowledging sovereignty, does it?" No it doesn't, it sounds like bellicose posturing for the sake of making a point. I'm not suggesting that Saddam shouldn't have been removed, I'm merely questioning the mechanism and the rewriting of history that's going on. In the world of might makes right this might not seem like such a big deal, but in the world of laws (one of the great criticisms of Saddam's regieme) it is absolutely critical that we respect even that which we abhor. If Saddam was universally considered non-sovereign there would have been a very strong and well publicized movement to replace him supported by the usual suspects like the EU, the US, etc. but there wasn't. The problem is that the mistake was already made, unlike some of the less savoury characters out there we in the West did acknowledge him as sovereign back in the 1980s when it was convienient to do so... simply the fact that the United States acredited ambassadors to his government is de jure acknowledgment of the sovereignty of said government in international law. The fact that numerous treaties have been signed with his government since is further reinforcement of this point. The fact that a large number of countries continued to acredit diplomats to his government since the 1991 Persian Gulf War is further acknowledgement that in the eyes of a large part of the world, his behavior, while abhorrent, was sovereign. Look at the mandates that UNSCOM, UNMOVIC, the IAEA, etc. got, they all explicitly discuss sovereignty issues -- none of them would have gotten through the UNSC without the tacit approval of the US government. As far as the nations I mentioned in my little list go, the problem is that none of them are as clear cut as you seem to think of the first 4 only the UK could be considered to be clearly not a problem and I only included it to point out that (since you invoked Locke) it's not entirely clear what the consent of the people entails. Does 30% of the pouplar vote entail the consent of the people to be governed? The others all have substantial dissident bodies within their polity which some would say are being repressed. The latter list is a contrast becasue in the West we largely consider these to be totalitarian regiemes, but despite this fact it's hard to establish exactly what Cubans or Pakistanis want for example. So who makes that judgement? Me? You? George W. Bush's handlers? The King of Spain? No. Instead we deal with these countries, encourage them to become more pluralistic and to expand the polity to include those who are not enfranchised and wait for a better day. Are you suggesting that the Cuban government is not sovereign? Do you think you'd find much support for this view if you did? The only difference in a legal sense between the soverignty of Cuba and the sovereignty of Iraq 3 years ago, is that Iraq is now occupied by a foreign military. I would go so far as to say that in a legal sense Iraq was more sovereign in 2002 than it is in 2005, but I'm sure I won't get any support from you for this viewpoint. (As an aside, I find it very surreal debating sovereignty with somebody who's handle is Obsidian Order. ;) ) Gabe 19:10, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad you get the joke ;) To reply to a few points: "in the world of laws" - laws are only useful when they serve as a mechanism to produce (an approximation of) justice. International law, along with the whole system of treaties, UN, acredited ambassadors, nation-states, etc etc that you talk about has (spectacularly) failed to do so, and a reasonable person would look beyond the legalities and to the underlying reality of oppression, internecine war, warlordism and genocide in much of the world. No doubt a good argument could be made that Saddam was sovereign de jure. However, that is an unjust law, and therefore void (or it should damn well be). "who makes that judgement?" Everyone makes it for themselves, it's called a conscience. Then we vote for people who implement our consensus judgement. "Are you suggesting that the Cuban government is not sovereign?" Yes, I am - if you doubt it, just ask any Cuban. "the consent of the people to be governed" is not determined by >50% vote for the current government, it is determined by a workable system for choosing a government (i.e. free, fair and self-correcting) which all of them do have, one way or another. "substantial dissident bodies ... are being repressed" - only if you don't know what repressed is. ObsidianOrder 10:41, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Excuse me if I sound provokative, this is not my intent; I find the debate interesting, an the questions asked by ObsidianOrder legitimate; but in the light of the last comment, I would like to ask: are the United States of America sovereign ? Rama 13:39, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, obviously. You haven't made an argument I can refute, so I'll just say it should be obvious if you have any first-hand experience with the opposite (i.e. a really bad government). These ratings may be helpful : as a first approximation any country that scores 6 or worse on the political scale does not have a government with any claim to sovereignty, while any country that scores a 1 has a rock-solid claim. ObsidianOrder 04:12, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I meant according to the main criteria which are often put forward as clues that Iraq had a bad government.

I do not mean to start a troll or wage accusation, but the sovereignty of the USA does not appeaar so "obvious" to me according to the criteria you apply on Iraq:

• The United States have used mass destruction weapons against civilians; (in the past, and not under the current government; I will only point that the people responsible for this have never been trialed)
• they are currenly using torture;
• they currently have a president whose first term was not granted according to the wish of the majority of the people, and also based on a hasty count and court decision;
• they have broken their international engagements in such basic domains as not waging war;
• there have been occurences of massive abusive arrests for political reasons.

Of course the extend has no comparison with what happened in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, but what is usually stated as a criteria is the existence of significant instances of such problems, and not quota, and in this regard, I find it difficult to dismiss these critics from the USA.

The list is of course interesting, but there is no mention of the methodology which has led to these statistics; I notice that in spite of all the above facts, the USA have the best possible ranking (1-1) (while Japan and Greece have 1-2, though none of these is true of them at present -- Iraq, on the other hand, has a (7-5) grade as for 2004, which would sort of relativise the claims that "Freedom reigns" there). One other problem is that Saudi Arabia has the worst possible grade (7-7); one of the main rationals for the Gulf War of 1991 was that the integrity of Saudi Arabia needed to be protected. Well, anyway, the discussion is interesting, but tends to lead to no particular place.

But to stick with the very article, my main concern is that I haven't yet heard of any significant institution, or personalities, making clear claims that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, was not a sovereign country. On the other hand, it was recognised by the United Nations, and by its main members (including the USA, isn't it ?). So, for the article at hand, could we for example state that Iraq was a member of the United Nations, that its government was recognised by the members of the so-called "coallition of the Willing" (after double-checking of course) and mention the names of the potential parties contesting this, alongs with appropriate links ? Rama 07:42, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

The whole debate is utterly absurd. Would those who have started the discussion please look up "sovereignty" and "(sovereign) state" in ANY respected modern text-book on public international law before they carry the argument any further? They may also call the Foreign Office or any Embassy of the United Stated and ask whether Iraq was regarded as a sovereign nation before and after the war. I dare to predict that the answer will be something like: "Yes, of course. Why do you ask?" [Hint: The "sovereignty" of a state in international law does not depend on the legality of its government.] --- jollyjumper, 21 May 2005, 20:01 (GMT+1)

My God, this is truly absurd. Seems to me much useful time could be saved if people had a way to simply stop responding to someone like O.O. The fact is that Iraq CLEARLY was internationally and commonly accepted as a soverign nation and the preemptive invasion is most certainly of questionable legality, and it is most certainly appropriate to point out that we're not talking about a U.S. invasion of Oregon here. It is a whole other country we're occupying in a distinctly arrogant unilateral fashion. What O.O. is asking you all to do here is prove that some argument (that he can't/won't succinctly delineate himself) disputing Iraq's soverignty (an claim that nobody made during the runup to war anyway) is wrong. Next time leave that bait on the hook. -- perplexd, 22 may

--- Its more than just the U.N.

"Obviously a government without the consent of the people cannot have sovereignty" - this is true - sort of. This is clearly a case of semantics. Theoretically, a government cannot have sovereignty under described circumstances, because if the people are unwilling, the central figure has no power or control over the social order. Such a condition essentially leaves us with anarchy. However, a regime that forces its people to act under its power is sovereign as long as the people continue to serve the government, no matter how despotic. Terror in the form of secret police and other intimidations may be carried out in order to maintain this sovereignty, BUT until the population refuses to service its leader or leaders, that leader is sovereign because of their ability to control the population and rule over their land. As far as nation-states are concerned, the only situation where there is no sovereignty would be anarchy, in which case, a nation-state cannot exist because no group or person is in control of the people within stated borders. I suppose it is debateable as to who maintained sovereignty of the Communist Bloc, since these nations were all puppet governments, but nevertheless, SOMEONE is sovereign. The same goes for Napoleonic Europe, the Holy Roman Empire, United States or United Kingdom. Someone is always sovereign.

What Locke suggests is that people OUGHT to realize that a government cannot exist without the support of its people - if they were aware of this and rid themselves of the oppressor, this ruler would no longer be sovereign - obviously. But, until an individual or group is no longer controlling affairs, he, she or it remains sovereign. What you are arguing for is POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY, where the people directy choose their government, as opposed to just serve it.

So what if part of the population objects to the government in power? That does not matter. Complacency does not change terminology...based on the ideals of western democracy, I suppose you could argue over who is really "Free", but when one uses their own preferred system as a barometer, you again run into problems with semantics. --24.72.227.2 07:24, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

the former dictator of Iraq is "Saddam", not "Hussein"

See this footnote for details. Arabic names do not work the way Western names do, and Saddam is probably the best contraction, Saddam Hussein is also ok, but "Hussein" or "Mr. Hussein" is simply wrong, the correct version would be "Mr. al-Majid" - if you want absolutely nobody to understand who you're talking about, that is. More details: [18]. ObsidianOrder 11:23, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Countries supporting and opposing the war

Under this heading is notation about Korea; however it does not mention which Korea we are talking about. I think that it is safe to assume its South Korea, but assumption and fact are two seperate things. Someone needs to clarify.

{{sofixit}} Rama 08:50, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Conquest of Iraq"

JamesMLane added the term conquest as a description of the action. He stated that if the term liberation was to be here then so was conquest. I believe the article is already POV simply with the title of invasion, which is POV and others have also had a problem with the title alone. Why add more POV when the effort of adding liberation was an attempt to balance things out...now the addition simply makes it seem more left leaning of an article than it already is. See our own article for a definition of Conquest in which it clearly stated that: "A conquest is the act of conquering a foreign land, usually for its assimilation into a larger federation or empire". I sure don't want Iraq to be the 51st state and I am sure the other member states that participated in the "invasion" have no interest in assimilating Iraq either. If folks don't like the fact that the war occurred that is fine, but this is not the place to discuss the pros and cons...furthermore, the article continues to suffer under a neutrality and now I see an accuracy tag due in no small part to the lack of effort on some editors parts to even attempt to be neutral.--MONGO 07:38, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm a Pacifist, and I personally believe the invasion of Iraq could legitimately be called a conquest, but I don't think enough people call it that to warrant inclusion. Googling "Invasion of Iraq" nets 1,200,000 hits. Googling "Liberation of Iraq" gets 122,000 hits. Googling "Conquest of Iraq" yeilds just 21,000 hits. ("Destruction of Iraq" nets more.) So I don't think the term is on par with the others. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 16:59, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

"Invasion" is POV? An invasion is an empirically observable phenomenon, and hence in way POV. Unless you are arguing that the American and British militaries are indigenous to Iraq, which I suspect you are not. Conquest I'll give you. Unended 00:16, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Conquest" expresses best the aims af the military attack, as they can be judged from the following actions of Bremer's command: privatisations and subtraction of the control of Iraqui's economy from the Iraqui people to American corporations.

prompted by repeated breaches

I am not sure that I understand this part:

although it was prompted by Iraq's repeated breaches of Security Council resolutions regarding Iraqi disarmament inter alia

could it be explained ? Rama 20:13, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

UK Attorney General's Advice

Please read the UK General's Advice and update as neccessary.

The link you provide is a dead link.--MONGO 14:56, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Number Ten site is like that--URLs mysteriously move around. Very frustrating.

Several News sites (BBC, Guardian) have mirrored the document on their own website (hopefully with more permanent URLs), if needbe.

I found a note on the advice here. --Tony Sidaway|Talk

Here's the site of the media outlet that broke the story, with links to the full document, the summary, and to Resolution 1441: [19]. JamesMLane 21:46, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

On a side note, Number Ten was forced to release the document when an unknown person retyped substantial parts of it (to circumvent typographical document identification techniques) and handed it to The Guardian, which broke with an exclusive on its website at 1800 UTC Wednesday 27th.

Opinion and Legality?

There is absolutly nothing in the section Opinion and Legality to show opinions that support the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

• Edit: And the section "Popular" Opinion of the war only shows negative opinions. Could somebody please show some positive opinion towards the war?--EatAlbertaBeef 05:21, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Which legal source do we have saying unequivocally that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was legal? If you find one, cite it there. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 11:48, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There is ONLY OPINION that the invasion was illegal, there have been no successful attempts to bring an international law case against the coalition, much less get it proven and any sanctions enforced. Until that happens the invasion was legal.--Silverback 15:06, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

Sb, that's because the U.S., under the Bush Administration, demanded immunity from the international criminal court. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 18:19, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)

• I'm not talking about Opinions concerning the Iraq Wars legality i'm talking about opinions positive towards the war in general.--EatAlbertaBeef 05:20, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Only opinion? If the UN says its not legal, its not legal, tahts not opinion! If the US didnt have the authority to enter another sovering land, it shouldnt have, and thus is a crime in international law. If no one chooses not to prosecute, sue or whatever is bacause of reasons already stated in other parts. US power of veto in the UN, and fear of retaliation, be it economical or military.LtDoc 19:30, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

vote on new title

Move mess

After copy/paste moves turned this into a mess I'm hoping now that I've fixed it all. The current article name (2003 Invasion of Iraq) should not be changed without a lot of discussion - there are too many incoming links that would need to be fixed, and too many POVs to take into consideration. Personally any use of "U.S." in the title would be offensive against all the other countries that have lost troops in the war. Further, I don't know why "invasion" is being used as a proper noun in the current title.

2003 invasion of Iraq/history will have its history merged into this one, but that cannot happen until the block compression issue is fixed. violet/riga (t) 10:45, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this new title???

I see zero voting/concensus for this new POV title....wasn't the 2003 Invasion of Iraq POV enough? I seem to remeber quite distinctively that Tony Blair argued in favor of the "invasion" right alongside Bush, Powell and Rumsfeld...so why is it not POV to call the "invasion" now the U.S. Iraq war...in light of the fact that many other countries also joined the U.S.....furthermore, the U.K. also supported and participated the UN santioned no fly zones prior to 2003, so it isn't like the U.K. hasn't been involved all along...as well as Italy, Australia, Poland, Spain...furthermore, Bahrain has been used for logistics support and Kuwait was a start off point. Please explain this undiscussed change....--MONGO 03:08, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree w/MONGO. I requested a move unprotection on WP:RFP. Please see the discussion above Talk:U.S. Iraq War#terms for the war. :ooking in the what links here, one sees that this page has undergone a few title changes, but the most stable title by far was "2003 invasion of iraq". I did some google searches on previous titles and found that "us invasion of iraq" is about three times as common as "2003 invasion of iraq", but in light of my comment above re. specifity, i think "2003 u.s. invasion of iraq", or, as mongo alludes, "..u.s. led invasion of iraq" might be more appropriate. In any case, there has not been a consensus to move to "u.s. iraq war", and i would likewise like an explanation, and some discussion. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 04:04, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)

My god, even I agree with MONGO. This is a complete neologism. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:02, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

I also agree that the new title is significantly less exact than the previous one; I strongly suggest coming back to "2003 Invasion of Iraq". Rama 07:37, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree, especially since it wasn't just a US thing. I also think "2003 Invasion of Iraq" is cumbersome. The name Iraq War is widely accepted, why not call it that, with a note at the top to disambiguate it from Gulf War, Iran-Iraq War and the Anglo-Iraqi War of 1941? Grant65 (Talk) 09:02, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

terms for the war

From google:

5,940,000 for "Iraq war"
5,860,000 for "war in Iraq"
1,200,000 for "invasion of Iraq"
1,140,000 for "war on Iraq"
929,000 for "war with Iraq"
708,000 for "Operation Iraqi Freedom"
482,000 for "Iraqi war"
122,000 for "liberation of Iraq"
49,500 for "Second Gulf War"
21,400 for "conquest of Iraq"
529 for "Third Gulf War"

For what it's worth, I have never heard "conquest", and "liberation" only rarely (from Iraqi expats, actually). It appears that the article title is also far from the most common term. ObsidianOrder 07:43, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Then lets ditch them both and call it what it really is...the 2003 Iraq War...I inserted liberation because I found the title alone to be POV and tried to at least balance things out...--MONGO 07:47, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I would like to point out that there have been repeated talkings about this in the past and that "Liberation" has turned out to be understood by the majority of users as a neutral term fitting for the title (precisely like the matter about the "explicit support of the Security Council", this thing regularly comes under fire from a minority of users and wastes considerable time here). Rama 07:51, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well if that is the case then why did you eliminate the term liberation here:[[20]]--MONGO 08:21, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Rama, surely you mean "invasion" not "liberation" has turned out to be understood by the majority of users as a neutral term? What you said doesn't make sense, otherwise. Is there any archived discussion on this, or a requested-move vote? ObsidianOrder 10:18, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Liberation is a term for freeing something. In the context of Iraq, it would mean that Iraq or the Iraqi people were freed from Saddam Hussein and his government. This implies that the Iraqi people gained freedom from being invaded by another country, which is a matter of opinion. I also opt for the use of "invasion" because it is not disputable.

"Invasion" is a neutral term because it describes sending armed forces (or, in metaphorical uses, other agents, as in an "invasion" of Starbucks franchises) across a line of some sort, either a political boundary or a geographic one. To the extent it has a negative connotation, it's because an invasion is often, though not always, committed by an aggressor that is starting a war. Some invasions, however, are justified. I see no need to "balance" the title. My preference would be to ditch both "liberation" and "conquest" from the lead section but to note, in the body of the article, that these terms are used by proponents in an attempt to frame the argument in a way that's beneficial to their respective sides. JamesMLane 22:15, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I disagree...the only title this page should have is Iraq War. Everything else is POV.--MONGO 06:43, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

We also already have an appropriate page for Iraq war. —Christiaan 22:29, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mongo is correct. 2003 Iraq War is the best title because it is completely NPOV. As JamesMLane alludes above, invasion can have a negative connotation. Johntex 18:15, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. War can also have a negative connotation (for some reason). So can the word "Iraqi". But it is clearly an invasion by any sensible definition. The term "Iraq War" has lots of hits because there have been several Iraq wars, but only one invasion. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, it received a similar level of resistance - but was this the Kuwait war? – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 19:41, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

The problem with "war" is that it has a negative connotation both to the U.S. and Iraq: it implies that Iraq took offensive military action. This is false. Iraq's actions where purely defensive. Iraq did not exceed its international rights in any way with regard to the U.S., nor did they infringe upon the U.S.'s international rights in any way. Although actions of the former iraq government and saddam hussein may deserve appropriate titles, whether negative or positive, they do not deserve titles for that which they did not do, such as the connotation that they attacked the u.s., inherent in the title "U.S. Iraq War" Any action taken by saddam, the iraqi government, or the iraqi military, during the presence of u.s. military forces on the soveriegn territory of iraq, was taken in defense of self and soveriegnty, not in aggresion. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 03:12, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)

I second this. Also, "Iraq War" has more hits because it is slang. that is, it is more concise, just like "war in iraq" or "war on iraq". there have been multiple wars, including multiple military actions involving the u.s. the slang terms are ambiguous - they don't specify which military action is being refered to. It is assumed in the writting where these terms are used that the military action is specified by the context, hence the slang is used, in a similiar manner to how pronouns and abbreviations are used. (example "maura went to the store. she bought a loaf of bread." or "the environmental protection agency(EPA) was founded in xxxx. It is responsible for .... In 200x, the Bush Administration excised scientific information from the EPA's State of the Environment report..."). I'm sure that if you do a search for "EPA" and one for "Environmental Protection Agency", you'll get a lot more matches for EPA, as well. However, even though "EPA" has more matches, "Environmental Protection Agency" is the official name, and you'll notice that EPA redirects to it. Same holds true for a military action: the official title which specifies the specific action. (and i'm sure that many of the "iraq war" and "war in iraq" mathces refer to the first gulf war.) We all know what this invasion has been called for the past four years. Let's not make wikipedia a forum for revisionist history. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 02:24, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)

More from google:

5,940,000 for "Iraq war"
5,860,000 for "war in Iraq"
1,200,000 for "invasion of Iraq"
    639,000 for "the invasion of Iraq"
    248,700 for "[other] invasion of Iraq"
    153,000 for "u.s. invasion of Iraq"
    105,000 for "u.s. led invasion of Iraq"
     54,300 for "2003 invasion of Iraq"
1,140,000 for "war on Iraq"
  929,000 for "war with Iraq"
  708,000 for "Operation Iraqi Freedom"
  482,000 for "Iraqi war"
  122,000 for "liberation of Iraq"
   49,500 for "Second Gulf War"
   33,200 for "U.S. Iraq War"
   21,400 for "conquest of Iraq"

notice the bold title, compare with the italic title. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 04:14, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)

Wow, I was only gone for a day, and look at this move craziness ;) I'm in favor of "2003 Iraq war" myself - 2003 for specificity, and the rest because that's what everybody calls it. I should mention that there are some important differences between the different possibilities... in particular "war with or on Iraq" strongly implies that one party to the conflict was the (nation of) Iraq, which just ain't true... compare with "war in Iraq" or "Iraq war" which does not imply that Iraq as a whole was a party to the conflict. There is a reason why those are the most common terms by a factor of five, they are also the most neutral. "Invasion" is technically correct but has somewhat of a negative connotation by itself. Including "US" in the name is very wrong, since although the US contributed a majority of the troops, many other countries also contributed a lot relative to their size and the size of their militaries. In short, "Iraq war" is probably the best, with a 2003 added to distinguish it from other wars. ObsidianOrder 08:25, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

U.S.

As I've stated in other places it would be grossly offensive to imply that this was a U.S. war with Iraq. No chosen title should contains U.S. whatsoever. violet/riga (t) 09:01, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

The originator of the move, Stevertigo, also created some related categories and populated them with just one article:

• Category:U.S. War against Al-Qaeda
• Category:U.S. War on Terrorism
• Category:U.S. Iraq War

I nominated them for deletion. violet/riga (t) 09:09, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

violetriga, I concur. In a similar vein, it would be grossly offensive to imply this was a war with Iraq (as opposed to war on Saddam's regime). ObsidianOrder 09:45, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

It was the U.S.'s idea, and the U.S.'s misinformation campaign that sold the war, it was the U.S. who choose to go to war in violation of the U.N. Charter, even if it meant going at it completely alone. It's the U.S.'s war insofar as they fought for it and declared it. It's their idea. It's their responsibility. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 23:26, 2005 May 1 (UTC)

Ah, but did Tony Blair not also address in favor of the war. Did Russia not also, along with a number of other countries inform Bush of great potentiality of terrorist activity originating from Iraq? If we can't even agree on a title, how the heck are we going to agree with the substance of the article?--MONGO 09:34, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, call that a meta-commentary, but I think that the title is probably the most difficult part to set up. Most will go downhill from there ! :D Rama 09:52, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree that, for all the reasons you state, "U.S.-led" is an accurate statement of fact about the subject of the article. But we don't have to try to pack all the relevant facts about the subject into the title. The purpose of the title is to tell the reader, unambiguously, what the article's about. The current title does so. It would be accurate to call it "2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq" or "2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam" or "2003 U.S.-led coalition invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam" but all those facts belong in the body, not the title. JamesMLane 00:02, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

In lead section?

"Liberation" and "conquest" should be mentioned, because each summarizes a significant POV about the war. If we've reached stability on mentioning them both, though, what about moving them down? I don't think they need to be mentioned in the lead section. The elaboration of the grounds for support of and opposition to the war should come in the body of the article. I confess I was the one who added "conquest", but that's only because someone else had added "liberation". JamesMLane 05:19, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I added Liberation...but that was because I had a beef with the title of the article having "invasion" in it...which I considered POV....so my attempts to add balance were countered by your addition...it isn't that big a deal....we can dump all of the titles if we could agree to one NPOV title...As you have mentioned in another article...this one will probably remain with a neutrality tag on it as long as there is still a "war" going on....at some point the issue of the action will subside...some...maybe...I hope.--MONGO 06:41, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Why invasion, anyway?

It seems a lot of people feel that "invasion" is preferable to "war". I'm not sure why, so I'd like to hear from everyone why they feel that way. I assume there is no question that it was a war? Is it because "invasion" is more asymmetrical-sounding and you think that is appropriate? Or...? ObsidianOrder 09:54, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

The invasion was the initial phase of the war. Although this article drifts into a few post-invasion points, it's basically about the invasion. The invasion is over but the war isn't. In terms of keeping our articles to a manageable length, and breaking up large subjects so that readers can zero in on what they want, it makes sense to have an article that's confined to the invasion phase (including the diplomatic run-up to it). JamesMLane 10:15, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

That's a good point. The invasion begins when and ends when...I mean for instance the invasion of Normandy lasted only as long as the beachheads were secured and some forward areas of control were established. If this article is simply to be about the first week or so of the conflict in Iraq, is another one needed to discuss the week between then and the end of major combat operations....because what has been going on since that time, though it may appear as a war, is actually more of rebellion or insurgency organized to operate primarily as terrorists groups would...furthermore, the war is over and has been since the capture of Saddam or earlier...--MONGO 12:07, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

If we had a Normandy-type situation, then I'd agree that one article shouldn't try to cover the invasion and the succeeding eleven months of warfare. In this instance, however, I think it's most logical and most efficient for this article to extend to the end of major combat operations. The coalition forces never really lost the momentum of the initial invasion; it was pretty much all one operation. Furthermore, the amount of material in this article that relates to events after the first week isn't huge, so there's no compelling reason to break it out. I agree with you to the extent that there's some material in this article about the occupation that probably should be moved to Post-invasion Iraq, 2003-2005. JamesMLane 22:32, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't have thought of that. arguably the war is over (it's an insurgency, now) but the invasion continues (troops still there), no? ObsidianOrder 10:43, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

That would be the occupation stage. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 23:19, 2005 May 1 (UTC)

Btw, here is what the dictionary says...

in·va·sion (American Heritage Dictionary)
  1. The act of invading, especially the entrance of an armed force into a territory to conquer.
  2. A large-scale onset of something injurious or harmful, such as a disease.
  3. An intrusion or encroachment.

in·vade (American Heritage Dictionary)
  1. To enter by force in order to conquer or pillage.
  2. To encroach or intrude on; violate: “The principal of the trusts could not be invaded without 
trustee approval” (Barbara Goldsmith).
  3. To overrun as if by invading; infest: “About 1917 the shipworm invaded the harbor of San 
Francisco” (Rachel Carson).
  4. To enter and permeate, especially harmfully.

in·va·sion (Merriam Webster)
  1 : an act of invading; especially : incursion of an army for conquest or plunder
  2 : the incoming or spread of something usually hurtful

in·vade (Merriam Webster)
  1 : to enter for conquest or plunder
  2 : to encroach upon : INFRINGE
  3 a : to spread over or into as if invading : PERMEATE <doubts invade his mind> b : to affect 
injuriously and progressively <gangrene invades healthy tissue> synonym see TRESPASS

wow, this sure sounds POV, doesn't it? the literal meaning may be "to enter", but the connotations are conquest, plunder and harm or disease. ObsidianOrder 10:43, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

The invasion of Nromandy in 1944 is also refered to as an "invasion" in this very wiki. We have come through this several times already. Rama 10:50, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with "invasion of Normandy", that is counterbalanced by the fact that most people know who the good guys were ;) also "d-day" and "normandy landing" are nearly as common as "invasion of normandy". I don't have a huge problem with invasion here either, I just don't see any reason to prefer it, hence my original question. ObsidianOrder 11:11, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Haha, I can't believe you even wrote that. I have a question for you. Do you or do you not believe Iraq was invaded by the U.S., and that it was a notable world event? —Christiaan 11:41, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Iraq was entered by US troops, hence the situation fits one of the more obscure meanings of invade (="enter"). The common meaning of invade is "conquest and plunder", and no, I don't think that is the case in Iraq. ObsidianOrder 12:03, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

It "entered". Oh dear, not only is that laughable, but the invasion of Iraq is also believed by many in the world to be an invasion of conquest and plunder. So not only does it fit one definition of invasion but it fits the other as far as many people are concerned too. You've really got a cheek OO, I must admit, next thing you'll be running around attempting to delete any mention of the invasion of Iraq as if it never happened. —Christiaan 14:39, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to point out a correction here: the definition is not conquest and plunder, but conquest or plunder. The original idea of taking over the oil fields "to pay for the war" didn't fly, probably because it was exactly "plunder". The invasion of Iraq, in any case, is clearly conquest insofar as it is the overthrow of a government, and the acuqisition of military control over the territory. What happens after the conquest; whether one gives the territory away or what have you, does not make the conquest any less a conquest: one still acquired the power to do whatever one choose to do with the territory, by way of military force. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 23:19, 2005 May 1 (UTC)

When exactly was there a "plan" to take over oilfields to pay for the war? I also fail to see how Christiaan can compare the events in Iraq to those of what constitutes the rational definition of conquest such as German and Japanese actions in WWII.--MONGO 07:15, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

An anonymous editor added this link: [21]. I reverted it because that edit wiped out someone's user name, but I'm adding it here in an attempt to act in good faith. Cheers, PhilipR 20:23, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

vote

2003 invasion of Iraq (current) (or derivative thereof)

1. Jmabel | Talk 03:52, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
2. JamesMLane 04:58, 1 May 2005 (UTC) - let's stop moving it around and expend that energy on substantive improvements. Addendum: Because others have raised the point about capitalization, I'll mention that I also prefer lower-case "invasion" if that's doable. JamesMLane 04:09, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
3. "Invasion" shouldn't be capitalized, but we can't fix that now because of these moronic page moves. Neutrality^talk 05:21, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
4. Concur with Neutrality. What on earth has been going on these past couple of days? --Tony Sidaway|Talk 05:44, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
5. Rama 07:59, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
6. Lower case "invasion". violet/riga (t) 08:57, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
7. Frankie Roberto 11:36, 1 May 2005 (UTC) I don't see a huge difference in neutrality/connotations between 'war' and 'invasion', but invasion is more descriptive, implying foreign troops entering the country, whereas war could also mean Iraq troops invading other countries.
8. I dislike this name, but "Iraq War" is POV for presumption of U.S./UK perspective and "U.S.-Iraq War" is inaccurate. 119 03:11, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
9. With lowercase invasion as per WP standard. zen master T 09:42, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
10. Lowercase invasion ChrisChiason {{CURRENTTIME}}, {{CURRENTDAY}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} UTC
    • User does not exist. 119 23:53, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
11. lowercase csloat 20:16, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
12. lowercase for me too, please. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 23:35, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
13. lc BrandonYusufToropov 23:46, 7 May 2005 (UTC)
14. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 18:26, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC) -In point of fact presented by csloat, below.

2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq (a derivative of "2003 invasion of Iraq")

1. Christiaan 23:41, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
2. --EatAlbertaBeef 03:09, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Iraq War (or derivative thereof)

1. Jmabel | Talk 03:52, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
2. --MONGO 06:43, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
3. ObsidianOrder 07:58, 1 May 2005 (UTC) - either this or "2003 Iraq war" for specificity
4. violet/riga (t) 09:48, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
5. Canoeguy81 04:01, 2 May 2005 (UTC) perhaps "Iraq War (2003)"?
6. --Twikit 19:52, 2 May 2005 (UTC)Twikit 12:48, May 2, 2005.
7. Kevin Myers 06:21, May 3, 2005 (UTC) The most widely used name in English, which makes it the correct title for Wikipedia purposes. "Iraq War, 2003" is the Library of Congress subject heading, btw.
8. Rangeley Correct name
9. Kenyon 19:21, May 14, 2005 (UTC) - what ObsidianOrder said above.
10. Themissinglint 21:45, 16 May 2005 (UTC)
11. Unended 00:21, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

COMMENTS

How will these votes be counted? I think there should be a vote between the current title and "Iraq War"; then after picking one we can add "US-led invasion" and "US-Iraq War" to the mix. A majority (at least right now) clearly prefer the current title, but I think it's clear the majority would be even bigger if we added those who suggest "2003 US-led invasion" (who obviously would not prefer either of the "IRaq War" titles). --csloat 22:25, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

Another unilateral move

So, while the above discussion and vote are in progress, someone else has come along and done a unilateral move -- this time to a title that hasn't even been proposed in the poll but is fairly close to an alternative that's clearly trailing. The user doing the move apparently hasn't even commented here. The move can't be reversed because the former page has an edit history. I'm leaving a message on the Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard asking that the move be undone pending completion of the poll. JamesMLane 03:36, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Done. violet/riga (t) 08:15, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

accessory vote

For those supporting "invasion" in the title, should "invasion" be capitalized?

2003 Invasion of Iraq (yes)

2003 invasion of Iraq (no)

1. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 08:32, 2005 May 2 (UTC)
2. violet/riga (t) 08:35, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
3. JamesMLane 08:56, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
4. Frankie Roberto 09:22, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
5. preferably no. Rama 10:01, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
6. No. Naming convention: Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun (such as a name) or is otherwise almost always capitalized (for example: John Wayne, but Computer game). --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:49, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

End

Can we call an end to all this random moving now? Timwi just came along and moved it to 2003 invasion of Iraq and managed to separate this talk page too. I hope everyone is happy with what we've ended up with. violet/riga (t) 21:31, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

Sovereignty

Zen said in an edit summary "under the U.N. charter's definition Iraq prior to 2003 was a soverign nation, you can add what the U.S. claims separately" The U.S. ratified the U.N. Charter, and therefore claims that Iraq was soveriegn. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 04:02, 2005 May 3 (UTC)

I meant that whoever was against "soverign" could add what the U.S. is claiming now about the legality of the invasion. zen master T 04:06, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Well in any case, the U.S. legally recognized the soverignity of Iraq, up to and including the time of the attack. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 04:08, 2005 May 3 (UTC)

Why don't we say "Fellow UN member", in fact ? I think that it is more directly relevant to the article than the issue of sovereignty, and might have the notable side effect of easing the fussing around this particular point. Rama 04:11, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Well the question arose as to whether the U.S. invaded a soverign country or not. Insofar as this article refers to a military action, soverignty is the relevant issue, not the involvement of any participant in any given international body. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 04:39, 2005 May 3 (UTC)

Several things... first, this paragraph is specifically talking about the Iraq Liberation Act, which if you actually read it does not say government of Iraq. It says instead: "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime." Given the way the act is worded, it will not apply to any government of Iraq other than the Saddam Hussein one (if a change of government happened spontaneously, for example). Second, the act specifically describes its goal as "To establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq" and "It is the sense of the Congress that once the Saddam Hussein regime is removed from power in Iraq, the United States should support Iraq's transition to democracy by providing immediate and substantial humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, by providing democracy transition assistance to Iraqi parties and movements with democratic goals ..." and so forth. To describe all this as "groups trying to overthrow the sovereign Iraqi government" is highly inaccurate and POV, since it omits both the reasons (Saddam) and the goals (democracy), instead making it appear that the US is maliciously interfering in the affairs of an ordinary foreign government. I think that the best way to handle this is just to quote a bit from the act and let the reader decide whether that is a good or a bad thing, rather than trying to slant the issue with references to "sovereign". I think everyone knows Saddam's government had a UN seat, for what it's worth. ObsidianOrder 05:40, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

to omit those may be POV, but to say that the government is not being overthrown by military force would be simply false. it does'nt matter how it sounds, clinically, it's precisely true. the leaders were systematically deposed or killed by way of military force, until the government in question was no longer operative. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 05:57, 2005 May 3 (UTC)

true, but that is not what the ILA was about. we are here discussing the paragraph dealing with the ILA. the pro-democracy organizations that received assistance under the ILA did not do any overthrowing, by force or otherwise, in fact they probably didn't do very much. ObsidianOrder

Kevin, you say "The U.S. ratified the U.N. Charter, and therefore claims that Iraq was soveriegn". I have a problem with that "therefore". Such a simple word, but it glosses over such a large number of assumptions. Sovereignty comes from the UN Charter? Says who? The UN again? Isn't that a bit circular? This is not the view commonly held by political scientists/historians/lawyers/philosphers, who have written tons of books on the subject of what sovereignty is, from Plato through Hobbes, Locke, Russeau, Hegel to the modern writers such as de Jouvenel. Really, please read up on this [22] before continuing to argue that sovereignty comes from the UN. There is far too much written on this for me to summarize, but believe me, sovereignty is not usually thought to come from the recognition of any organzation. ObsidianOrder 06:10, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Do we actually have indications that the US government contests the sovereignty of the pre-invasion Iraqi government ? if there are none (if), it would certainly be a strong clue that the US authorities were sticking to the UN-implied sovereignty, and in such a case, certainly a good clue that the Iraqi sovereignty could not reeasonably be contested. Rama 07:02, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Rama, obviously if the US legislature passed a law that would seem to interfere in the internal matters of Iraq, they are not recognizing the sovereignty (=authority) of Saddam's government. The consistent use of the word "regime" to refer to it might be a further clue (along with its eventual forcible removal).

Conversely, I might ask whether there is a reason to refer to sovereignty in the paragraph about the Iraq Liberation Act in a way that implies that it was (oh, to pick at random) against the UN charter, or against international law? There is no argument there, and no source, just innuendo. To put it plainly: has anyone made an argument that the ILA was in fact inconsistent with treaty obligations of the US under the UN Charter, such as the obligation to respect the (supposed) sovereignty of Saddam's government? If yes, cite it. If not, remove the word sovereign as being irrelevant to the subject of that paragraph. I don't have to justify the removal of the word, you have to justify why it should be there. Whether it is a fact or not does not matter (I don't think it is, but that's a separate subject), the question is why it should be there of all places. Obviously by being there it implies that the ILA was a violation of sovereignty/wrong/illegal/etc, which seems like original research, and that's why it should go. But, if anyone actually made that argument, then by all means footnote it (briefly). ObsidianOrder 07:40, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, if we assume that the declaration of intentions of the US government is describing a legal plan, and that Iraq is indeed sovereign, it certainly is remarkable, and worth mentionning, that such a plan can be drafted against a sovereign country. If we assume that the plan is illegal, the sovereignty of Iraq is an important part. So either way, it is very notable that Iraq should be sovereign.

Now we still have the question of whether Iraq is indeed sovereign; for now ObsidianOrder seems to be the only one contesting this, and I must say that his argument, yet very interesting, have not convinced me for now, but there might be other interesting arguments about this. Rama 08:02, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Rama - thank you. The use of the word here is really a small issue, but it irked me because of the implicit argument it tries to sneak in. I have no problem with that argument being brought up if it is explicitly stated and sourced. I've looked, but so far haven't found a good legal analysis of the issue, it gets mentioned in passing in the likes of Mother Jones (sovereignty-gasp-everyone-knows-it's-wrong-to-interfere) but that's about it. The sovereignty of any government can by no means be taken as an established fact merely because of UN membership, however, especially since there are many different kinds/meanings of sovereignty (de jure/de facto, popular, declarative, ...) and it is unclear which one we're talking about. Incidentally, the US has a bit of a recent history of screw-you laws aimed at various bad guys in addition to the Iraq Liberation Act, such as the Iran Democracy Act and the North Korea Human Rights Act. Basically all of them have the same structure, a findings section of "you're a bad government for the following reasons..." and a policy section of "we'd like to see you replaced with a democratic government". This may seem awfully heavy-handed, but on the other hand you could say it simply tries to restore sovereignty to the people of those nations by supporting their right to self-determination, and to restore their essential human rights, which sounds a lot like what the UN Charter says in some of its oft-ignored parts (in articles 1.2 and 1.3 for example). I agree that the question of sovereignty is highly relevant for the reasons you describe, but it deserves more than a one-word mention, and that should probably go in the articles about the ILA and the rest of these laws. ObsidianOrder 21:53, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Neutrality Dispute

Could someone please explain why the neutrality of this article is disputed? the_strategy_freak 23:26, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Secret document leak

Should we add info about the documents that were apparently leaked about the secret agreement to go to war, between Brits and America (see main page) or wait for the story to develop further

I think it should be added asap. zen master T 06:07, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

I added a short reference to the George W. Bush article. The only reason I didn't add it here and in Iraq and weapons of mass destruction was that I thought a more detailed treatment would be appropriate for those articles, and I didn't have the time. The full text of the memo is available here: [23]. JamesMLane 06:41, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

Significant fragments:

Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult.

Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 07:59, 2005 May 11 (UTC)

Is the use of War accurate?

Just a technical point, but as far as I know there was no formal declaration of war delivered to any Iraqi official/ambassador etc. and therefore it was not a 'War' in the legal sense. 'Conflict' would be more accurate but still NPOV. --Cynical 13:52, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

A declaration of war is only the formal start of a war. Looking at the dictionary, "war" does not need a declaration to count as a war. "War" includes according to the dictionary:

1)"a situation in which two or more countries or groups of people fight against each other over a period of time" (this applies here)
2)"a situation in which there is aggressive competition between groups, companies, countries etc." (this applies here too)
3)"a fight or an effort over a period of time to get rid of or stop sth unpleasant" (e.g. terrorism if you like)
Even if only one of these three fitted, "war" would apply. It is perfectly NPOV.

"Conflict", by contrast, sounds pretty euphemistical (which would be POV), don't you think so too?NightBeAsT 20:07, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

"declaration of War" is an obsolete term, not been in use the last 50 years. From a semantic point of view it's correct to use the term "war", from a legal point of view it is also correct; it applies when the rules of war come into force (look up the Geneva Conventions art. 2), and the United States have even acknowledged the application of these conventions in Iraq; e.g. Saddam Hussain was given POW-status. That this was a war by all meanings of the word is not really controversial, regardless on political stance. --Cybbe 20:46, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Certainly an ibsolete practice, but obsolete term ? Rama 21:04, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

But the U.S. has disputed that their captives had protection under the Geneva conventions. they were calling them instead "unlawful combatants", which, in any case, if the Geneva Conventions don't apply, means that they were not "those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals." So logically, given that we are talking about "those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves....in the hands of a Party...or...Power of which they are not nationals.", it neccessarily follows that the U.S. did not recognize the invasion of Iraq as either a "conflict" or "occupation". Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 17:55, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

IT MAY BE OBSOLETE BUT IT DOES REPRESENT THE TORMENT THAT WAR IS.

"fight against eachother" Iraq was not fighting against the u.s.; they were defending themselves. They were blocking, not extending. If someone tries to hit me, and i put my arm out in front of me, and keep it steady, and they hit my arm, and they get hurt, I am not fighting against them. I did not invade their personal space, and I did not endanger them physically, or threaten them physically. As to my body, so to Iraq.

2nd definition: aggression, competition: there was no competition. and Iraq was not aggresive. Iraq was defensive. At best, assertive. To be aggressive is to exceed, by force, your de facto entitlement, and to infringe upon another's. This was one-sided. Iraq did not engage in aggression. Self-defense is not aggression.

3rd defition: this definition clearly does not apply at all. Iraq was not doing anything unpleasant to the U.S, and the U.S. government had no evidence that it had or was developing any means to. They had no evidence that iraq had any WMDs, and no evidence that the government of iraq had any connection with terrorism. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 22:24, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable with calling this a "war" for a different reason--this was just the final act of a war that had been going on since 1991. There was a cease-fire after the liberation of Kuwait, but hostilities continued as evidenced by the embargo, the no-fly zone, and operation Desert Fox.

didn't you just call it war yourself? sounds like your complaint is not with the word "war", but rather which war. SaltyPig 22:40, 2005 Jun 17 (UTC)

Regarding whether the lack of a formal declaration of war means there was no 'war' in the legal sense: Maybe. But in the linguistic sense? See: the Vietnam War, not very well known as the "Vietnam Conflict." Unended 00:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

deciphering Weapons of Mass Destruction

I've tried to clarify the summary but am stumped here. What does this section summarising the 'Interim Progress Report' on 2003 October 3 mean?

Most topics concerning biological agents are discussed as "BW-applicable" or "BW-capable"; the report mentions nothing that was being used in such a context.

Does it mean this?

The report categorized most biological agents as "BW-applicable" or "BW-capable"; the report does not mention any agent being used in Biological Warfare.

If so it doesn't seem correct, so I'm still puzzled. In any case the section needs clarifying and better English. Any ideas? -Wikibob | Talk 14:09, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

Rational

The rationale list starts "the stated goals of the invasion, according to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, were to:", but includes "secure Iraq's oil fields and resources". That doesn't seem like something Rumsfeld would list as a "goal of the invasion," even if he later made it an objective of the operation. Can this be confirmed anywhere? "goals of the invasion" might not be the best label, either. Themissinglint 21:52, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Yellowcake forgery

An edit inserted the statement "although no direct proof has ever been presented that President Bush knew the doccuments were foregeries before his 2003 State of the Union address". This seems weaselly, and I don't think we need to lard every article with statements of what isn't known. Because this is in a section presenting the views of opponents of the invasion, I changed it to state that the critics find fault with Bush either way, but without presupposing whether he knew or not (I agree that whether he knew is an open question). JamesMLane 01:19, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Good call. --Kenyon 02:58, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

As a critic, i concur: if he did know, he was just plain lying, and if he did not know, then he was not performing the most basic as well as the most important responsibilities of his job. (actually this is true in either case, because telling the truth is a basic and important responsibility of his job.) In either case, he was being dangerously irresponsible. And I stress dangerously. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 03:10, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

My objection was only that the insinuation in your articles present form was that the president knowingly had those doccuments foreged, thats why i put the extra line in. in truth, it still looks like that in its present form, but im not gunna fight you on this. --Brandon Warzybok 21:42, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

The Bold Question

What's it going to take to get the PNPOV tag removed? Who's got the beef? What is the beef? Can we come to some sort of accomodation where we can all accept the article as factual and unbiased? What's it going to take? --JonGwynne 05:31, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I think the issue is just to hot as it stands to take away the alert, until the war is finally "resolved", i think this article will be a magnate to POV edits, and political snipes. I’d like to see it taken off, but only if we can be assured that responsible members of both political sides will keep a eye on this article 24/7 --Brandon Warzybok 16:22, May 19, 2005 (UTC)

I think it should be taken off. I think there are enough people to keep an eye on this to put a tag up when its called for. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 19:24, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

---

"Many staff and supporters within the Bush administration had other, more ambitious goals for the war as well. Many propagated the claim that the war could act as a catalyst for democracy and peace in the Middle East, and that once Iraq became democratic and prosperous other nations would quickly follow suit, and thus the social environment that allowed terrorism to flourish would be eliminated. However, for diplomatic, bureaucratic reasons these goals were played down in favor of justifications that Iraq represented a specific threat to the United States and to international law. Little evidence was presented actually linking the government of Iraq to al-Qaeda (see below)."

Surely it is fairly widely believed that the most important goal, among these "other, more ambitious goals", was to provide stability for a pipeline south from the Black Sea related fields? I mean, isn't that why the Taleban was negotiating in Washington until the Bush Administration told them they'd invade if they didn't come to terms -- before the "9/11" attacks? Now, its unknown whether this goal was Bush' primary goal, but as far as "other, more ambitious goals", it seems an obvious "other" and obviously "ambitious" goal :)

---

Individuals should be given the right of "assumption of innocence" on Wikipedia. You do not have enough evidence to back these claims up, and to be frank, it is proposals like this that make me very leery of ending the PNPOV. Also, how the hell do the Taliban tie into Iraq?--Brandon Warzybok 20:27, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

---

"SFOD-D, SAS, SASR, Navy SEALs and Combat Controllers played vital roles--their missions however were never documented in any way. "

Removed the above text from the Opening Attack section. Undocumented "facts" should never be in the Wikipedia. Until the above statement can be verified by an authorative source, it should be left out. I've also edited the last paragraph of that section for grammar and remove any hard to verify "facts". Comatose51 21:27, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

Why this article is execrable

This article is truly execrable. The reason: it spends over twice as long (18 screenfuls by my count) discussing the causes of the invasion than the actual invasion itself (7 screenfuls). It explains the minutae of trivial justifications (or non-justifications) of the war, and completely fails to answer a central question, how did the US/UK so overwhelmingly defeat the Iraqi army. Ultimately there is no "right" answer as to whether it was justified or unjustified, so why bother screenful after screenful of trivial attempts of description! Tell us how many tanks the Iraqis or the coalition deployed and how many were destroyed!203.217.69.80

Wars in itself have always lacked significance. The causes and effects are important, not the weapons, soldiers or anything history books will certainly make only litte, if any, mention of.NightBeAsT 11:17, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

You speak absolute and unmitigated nonsense. Pick any book of military history, and there will be a real focus on the battle plans, deployment, weapons, soldiery, and materiel. See Six day war and Normandy invasion to pick two random examples. Buy a copy of any war history and read it. 203.217.67.254 15:39, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't need my mind filled with trivial information on how exactly someone fought, thank you. Such redundant information are only used to fill the books and provide entertainment for the kids/gun nuts. When the invasion of Iraq will go in history, you will not read "the Iraqi forces were mysteriously defeated", but something like "In March/April 2003 the US and Great-Britain attacked Iraq after allegations of WMDs and removed Saddam's regime in a war hotly disputed pertaining to international law". Articles should not be a brainless accumulation of information but go into detail of such a proportion mention above (translated from a history book). Soldiers, operations, weapons, tanks - these are irrelevant distractions that should NEVER dominate an article, but rather ethicality, causes and consequences. The distractions are blind oversimplifications that focus on how to avoid focusing on why concerning a war. They're unworthy of a wikipedia article. What do you think was wrong about WW2? The Germans should have used more anti-tank mines in the battle of El-Alemein?! That's what I call enlightenment! What a farce the debate is! I'm off.NightBeAsT 17:17, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Probably the answer lies somewhere in between, with lots of justifications and context. Probably, yes, eventually, History will judge as to whether it was legitimate or not. As for the "how did the US/UK so overwhelmingly defeat the Iraqi army", I'm afraid that a quick look at the numbers of forces in presence is self-explanatory, it's not like the Iraqi army had any sort of chance in a direct confrontation to begin with. Rama 12:42, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps you're endowed with powers of perception that mere mortals like myself struggle to reach. Compare the (second) battle of El-Alemein; Montgomery had double the troops and tanks, substantially diminished supply of the Germans, and still it was a very close run thing, with the Commonwealth troops suffering 12,000 casualties. At the time conventional wisdom said you needed an overwhelming (e.g. 4-5:1) ratio of attackers to defenders to win. Air superiority alone does not explain this either. Now the coalition attacks with roughly the same number of troops, a slight superiority in tanks, air superiority, against well-defended entrenched positions. This (alongside the 1991 deployment) have been the biggest massed tank battles since WWII - and really the only such battles since WWII, excepting possibly some battles in the arab-israeli conflict. In WWII, both the Russians and on the western front such assaults were hard grind, taking months or years of terrible sacrifice. Here they took days (or even hours) to overwhelm the Iraqis, with practically no casualties on the one side. WHY?

What has changed? *Why* did the Iraqi army have no chance? What precisely is it about US/Western power which makes it so overwhelming? This article cannot hope to answer the question of whether the war was "correct" - hence the NPOV tag. It can go some distance to answering these questions above. And personally, I find the question of "why is US power overwhelming" much more interesting (and if not interesting, at least ANSWERABLE) than tedious thrashing over the maybe right, maybe wrong, but ultimately today UNANSWERABLE question of whether the war was justified under international law. 203.217.67.254 15:39, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Intuitively, I would say that it is easily understandable since the equipement of the so-called "Coalition of the Willing" was 20 to 30 years more recent that the Iraqi one, and by the massive use of missiles and aviation, a feature almost or totally absent on the other side. So there is no great surprise at this, it's close to the invasion of Poland by German forces in 1939.

But if you have more details which you can share, by all means to include them in the article. Rama 16:23, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

• I say create an entirely new article called Dispute over 2003 US Led invasion of Iraq or somesuch and leave this article to the actual act of invasion. It'd be alot easier that way...--EatAlbertaBeef 04:22, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I think separating it that way, with a paragraph on this page to summarize the dispute, would be a good approach. -- John Callender 12:58, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It is an option, but keep in mind the drawbacks of creating spin-off pages. Usually, they are discouraged. Rama 14:15, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What's actually execrable is that the article takes up 35 screenfuls. It needs to be pared down considerably and stop repeating itself so much. If that's done, there's no need to split off a new article. Also, I disagree with the IP dude entirely. Obviously cause is much more important than what got bombed. Graft 15:30, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually the IP dude thinks you've got it exactly right - but I'd phrase it as saying that if you're to have n screenfuls on the causes, you should have n screenfuls on the outcome. Note I consider the details "a central question", not "the central question". Another real irritation is the POV inherent in 95% of the article discussing the behaviour of the Coalition, and next to nothing discussing the behaviour of the Iraqis. Even if they weren't saying anything (beyond the announcements of the information minister!) we could at least estimate the numbers and models of tank they deployed. 203.206.251.38 13:12, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The actual circumstances of fighting can in many instances be of great importance. For instance, the comparatively poor training and/or depleted ranks of the US troops deployed in the Ardennes in December 1944 enabled the Germans to make much more progress than they could have if faced with crack divisions with plenty of equipment. As a result, the Allies might not have reversed their earlier assumption that the war was almost over, and therefore would not have resumed their full-scale bombing of Germany, which led to the destruction of Dresden. Tell me that isn't important. It is a specific case in which the numbers of troops and how and where and when they fought directly had an impact on the political equation, directly dictating the flow of events and resulting in massive social upheavals that may otherwise not have happened.

More generally, military actions are expressions of the political equation and therefore attention to their details is important. Battles are often the bottlenecks through which politics must pass, and sometimes their results are surprising and impact the political climate accordingly. The details of warfare are not for the "kids" or the "gun nuts"--that's like saying that studying women's movements is for "lesbians." War is an activity in which a great number of people engage and have engaged, and is therefore worthy of serious, detailed study, regardless of what anyone thinks about a specific conflict. Warfare, reprehensible as it is, is a central feature of human civilization and one of the primary functions carried out by states. Whatever you think morally about this statement, it is incontrovertibly true, repeatedly demonstrated by practical example.

Aufregende June 1, 2005 11.45 am Eastern US

I would like to second 203.217.67.254 and Aufregende. Both raise excellent points. The "nuts and bolts" of the conflict are important, not least because they provide an insight into the parties to the conflict. The outcome was by no means certain, and how it came about is indeed quite interesting. ObsidianOrder 00:27, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I understand that spin-off articles are discouraged, but this isn't an article about the dispute over Tomatoes being a fruit or a vegetable. This would be a spin-off of an issue that has divided the nations opinion of their president and has become a bone of contention for anti-americanism around the world. I think that without creating a spin-off we are being detrimental to the factuality of this article and the legitemacy of Wikipedia. We don't need spin-offs over every single little topic, but a general division between the war itself and the dispute over it would be greatly beneficial.--EatAlbertaBeef 01:33, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is the proposal roughly to have a few screenfuls (3-4)? at the beginning of the article stating the leadup to the war, starting with a conspicuous phrase that the reasons and justifications of the war are uncertain, linking to the Dispute article? This would work very well I think. 203.206.59.96 04:53, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

US legality

i believe these facts should be included together in the article:

• president bush initiated war against iraq.
• under the supreme law of the land, which all relevant US officials must swear to support, only congress has the authority to declare war.
• under the supreme law of the land (which cannot be overruled via any law except amendment to itself), congress does not have authority to delegate to any other branch or party its authority to declare war.

if legality is to be discussed, surely the law of the US shouldn't be ignored -- at least not by wikipedia. SaltyPig 12:22, 2005 Jun 2 (UTC)

• Did they ever actually sign for peace after the first Gulf War? I don't think so, and if they didn't then then Iraqis were violating their ceasefire agreements. Plus the Iraqi Liberation Act. Plus UNSC Resolution 1205. I don't think the debate on legality is that one-sided and I don't think wikipedia should make a premature judgement on the debate on war legality until its resolved in congress.--EatAlbertaBeef 00:48, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

are you referring to what i wrote? if you are, i'm puzzled. the same situation applies to the first gulf war. there's no "premature judgement" on the facts i've outlined above; they exist now, and they existed both in 2003 and 1991. not that it's relevant to the article (since no judgment on legality is required to state the above facts), but it is not for congress to rule on the legality of its own actions. the more i read what you wrote, the less i think you wrote in response to my note. however, it's in the same section. please explain or put into a separate section. thanks. SaltyPig 04:20, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)

• Then let me put it into simpler words for you. The debate over legality has not been concluded. Wikipedia should not make premature judgements for either side. Adding the facts you mentioned in your first comment would just add more POV when we're trying to reform this page to a NPOV.--EatAlbertaBeef 19:51, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

government's opinion with regard to how it violated or didn't violate the constitution is irrelevant to the truth and applicability of the facts listed in my proposal. you state that "The debate over legality has not been concluded." what debate? the US government does not and cannot write/edit wikipedia articles. what the supreme law of the land states with regard to war could not be more appropriate for inclusion in this article, especially under the heading of "legality", and what some government body says about the legality of its own actions with regard to that cannot possibly fall under NPOV -- now or 20 years from now. the constitution was in place, and the relevant actions have been taken. legality of those past actions is analyzed by the reader when weighing them objectively against the law that was in place at the time, not by listening to the "conclusion" of some government committee. however, the law (summarized or explicit) should be in the article for the reader to do his thing. BTW, where is this debate you refer to being held, and by whom? when will it be concluded?

with regard to the US constitution (supreme law of the land) and prior, overt actions of the US government, there is no information which we are awaiting. the facts are extant, and they do not depend on a mythical "debate". the claim of "premature judgements" is a dodge. when will the "debate over legality" of the iraq invasion be "concluded"? never. what does that have to do with the inclusion of immutable, relevant truths in this article? nothing. SaltyPig 21:27, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)

There are current investigations going on right now trying to conclude whether the iraq war was legal or not. If you want to add your "facts" go right ahead, I won't revert them.--EatAlbertaBeef 21:33, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

thank you. if not inconvenient, could you steer me toward those investigations for my own edification? if you're referring to USG investigations, i haven't heard anything about it. would surprise me if such a thing were happening. SaltyPig 21:43, 2005 Jun 4 (UTC)

I'm only concerned about people adding more facts to the article that could be POV in nature that could be worsening the situation over the dispute of NPOV. I heard about numerous commitees and investigations on the legality of the war, but not a thing about them since. I wish to look into this.--EatAlbertaBeef 01:36, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I noticed your recent changes, do you think you could add an off-site source?--EatAlbertaBeef 15:07, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

sure! i've been dying to use off-site sources, but somehow i got the impression they were frowned on within the articles. should i do a fancy ref thing (will take me a little to get up to speed), or just link out the text? SaltyPig 00:55, 2005 Jun 7 (UTC)

[24]Like this. Just stick it at the end of your facts.--EatAlbertaBeef 03:04, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

i thought i'd read somewhere on a wikipedia style page that that was the least desirable way to include a source. but i'll look into it and have ready in a day or two. any particular facts you'd like an external source for, out of what i wrote? SaltyPig 03:17, 2005 Jun 7 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute?

• Could somebody please make a short list of the reasons why this articles neutrality is disputed? It's discouraging to viewers of this article who wish to learn about the 2003 invasion of iraq and find that the neutrality of the article is disputed and what they're reading is polarised. Also, if we can create a list of reasons the neutrality of the article is disputed we can work through them and eliminate the dispute. --EatAlbertaBeef 00:59, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Here's my take on stuff that seems to be advocacy, rather than neutral. I've only got time right now to cover the first third of so of the article, but here's what I see. Second paragraph of the introduction:

The invasion began without the explicit authorization of the United Nations Security Council, but most legal authorities take the view that the action violated the U.N. Charter. The Bush Administration has cited Security Council resolutions from early 1990s as legal justification, though there is no clear support in any of them for military action against Iraq.

To me, this is advancing a POV. All of these statements might be true, though if so, they certainly are not universally acknowledged to be true. I'm suspicious of the "most legal authorities" line from a POV standpoint: I'm not aware of any objective poll that has been conducted of the universe of legal authorities on this question. It might be true, but even if so, I don't think it's very relevant; legal systems do not arrive at determinations of truth by polls of the universe of legal authorities. Basically, this paragraph is editorializing.

The whole introduction is too long, and is confusing in terms of organization; it jumps from a point before the war to the war and the aftermath of the war, then jumps back into the war, then back to a time before the war, then finishes with a discussion of what the military operations were called. This isn't relevant to the NPOV dispute, but it would be nice if we could clean that up at the same time the POV stuff was being addressed.

The Prelude section is, again, somewhat disjointed, but at least to my mind avoids an excessive POV.

I think the Rationale section has some POV trouble, with some anti-war editorializing evident in the following paragraph:

Many staff and supporters within the Bush administration had other, more ambitious goals for the war as well. Many propagated the claim that the war could act as a catalyst for democracy and peace in the Middle East, and that once Iraq became democratic and prosperous other nations would quickly follow suit due to this demonstration effect, and thus the social environment that allowed terrorism to flourish would be eliminated. However, for diplomatic, bureaucratic reasons these goals were played down in favor of justifications that Iraq represented a specific threat to the United States and to international law. Little evidence was presented actually linking the government of Iraq to al-Qaeda (see below). (emphasis added)

The words I've bolded in that paragraph all seem questionable from a neutrality standpoint. Some of the assertions (especially the last one, about the paucity of evidence linking al Qaeda and the Iraqi government) might well be technically true, but there is a fairly clear editorial judgement coming through in those words. The paragraph would be stronger as a neutral encyclopedia article if that language was toned down, and the reader left to form his or her own conclusions on what the significance of the information is.

I don't have time to continue through the whole article at the moment, but a quick glance shows me some more language issues like the ones I've mentioned above. There's also a sense I get that the article spends too much time on the fine points of the justification for war, and that the overall balance would be improved with that sumarized somewhat, to leave more room for discussion of the war itself. I understand that the justification is an important issue, and that a lot of people (myself included, as a matter of fact) are outraged at a lot of what the Bush administration did in bringing the war about. But that's a separate issue from the question of achieving NPOV in this article. And as it stands, the biggest POV problems I see (at least in the first part of the article) are an excess of editorializing from the anti-war side of the issue. -- John Callender 04:53, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Continuing through the rest of the article, here are some other POV problems I see:

In fact, most of the international community, including the US/UK intelligence community, came to some form of this conclusion ["absolutely convinced that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction"] or at least were ambivalent. The Bush administration, though, said they had additional, secret intelligence they could not yet make public which proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Iraq had such weapons.

Again, this sounds like editorializing to me. I think it overstates the degree of support in the intelligence community for the "no WMD" position, and that the "In fact" and "or at least" phrases betray a non-neutral approach to the issue. The "beyond a shadow of a doubt" line sounds like someone is setting up a strawman to be knocked down; yes, I agree that in the last 12 months before the start of the war senior Bush administration officials made many statements that tended to overstate the case against Saddam as it was currently being made in their own intelligence reporting, and that that intelligence reporting itself had undergone a suspicious massaging in the direction of heightening the threat represented by Iraq. But the reality of what the administration did, when looked at from a neutral point of view, was more ambiguous than this sentence indicates.

No weapons of mass destruction were found by the Iraq Survey Group, headed by inspector David Kay. Kay, who resigned as the Bush administration's top weapons inspector in Iraq, said U.S. intelligence services owed President Bush an explanation for having concluded that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. [12] However, the team claims to have found evidence of low-level WMD programs — a claim hotly disputed by many, with the Biosecurity Journal referring to the Biological Warfare (BW) claims as a "worst case analysis" [13].

This paragraph is a good example of something that's going on throughout the article: warring POV. It reads very much like a slightly biased statement from one side of the issue, followed by a balancing statement from the other side of the issue, which is itself further "balanced" back in the original direction by an addition from the first side. The end result is better in terms of NPOV than something created solely by one side or the other, but better still would be a rewritten version of the paragraph that integrates the relevant information into a single, neutral presentation acknowleding the controversy.

With that said, though, this whole section ("Weapons of Mass Destruction") is too long; I think it should be summarized more aggressively, with the removed information incorporated into the linked-to page at the beginning of the section, if it's not already represented there.

The lengthy "dueling Dr. Kay" section, in which people from the pro- and anti-war side offer up competing characterizations of Kay's statements, is well-sourced, but again, betrays its development as the accretion of slightly non-neutral statements attempting to balance each other. I think the article as a whole would be stronger if some of that could be distilled down and summarized. The fact is, there's a lot of ambiguity in terms of what the various actors in the WMD controversy have said at various times. I think it would be best to summarize and characterize that ambiguity, and illustrate it with whatever strictly factual information is available and beyond dispute (of which there's actually a fair amount at this point, if you can navigate through the minefield of advocacy-based characterizations from both sides).

The following paragraph is actually really good NPOV, I think. I'm offering it here as an example of the tone I'd like to see through the whole article:

The current situation concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction seems similar to that portrayed by Hussein Kamel in 1995 and that of Imad Khadduri [22], that Iraq had almost completely destroyed its programs, but sought to retain as much knowledge and information that, should sanctions ever end, the programs would not have to start over from scratch.

The following has a slight anti-war bias that I'd like to see fixed:

As of May 2005, small quantities of chemically degraded mustard gas had been found in old munitions. However, these are generally regarded as left-overs from the pre-sanction era before the 1991 Gulf War, and in November 2005 David Kay, the head of the Iraq Suvery Group charged with finding Saddam Hussein's WMDs stated that there probably were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq prior to the invasion and that the likelihood of any WMDs having been sent to neighboring nations like Syria was so small that it was not a viable explanation for what happened to the weapons.

I think "generally regarded" is probably a little strong, given the amount of strong rhetoric still being voiced by the pro-war side. If the Iraq Survey Group's findings support that characterization (which I believe they do) then a more-specifically sourced reference to that support would probably be better. Same thing for the last sentence about weapons having been sent to Syria: given the strong advocacy on both sides of the issue, I'd be more comfortable with a characterization that quotes Kay directly on that point, perhaps preceded by a characterization of who it is who is advocating the "WMD went to Syria" position, and what it is, specifically, that they are charging (to the extent they actually are charging anything specific).

Continuing in that same paragraph, I see a stronger bias that goes the other way (that is, that supports the pro-war position). I assume this is more of the "balancing" being done by the respective sides in their efforts to rebut the advocacy statements being placed in the article by their opponents. But again, I think it would be better to rewrite the whole thing into a neutral presentation that summarizes both side's positions, rather than swinging back and forth between anti- and pro-war POV. The article can describe the controversy in a neutral fashion; it shouldn't be used by those engaged in the controversy to argue with each other. Anyway, here's the rest of the paragraph:

The general consesus is that the intelligence community, including the CIA and other foreign services, failed to provide an accurate picture of the WMD program in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. The U.S. government and the Bush administration have not yet taken official stances on the intelligence failures, but Congressional investigations, primarily under Democratic leadership, were either underway or forming in the spring of 2005.

The last part there is just factually wrong; both houses of Congress, and all the relevant committees, have been under Republican leadership since before the war started, and that Republican control has certainly played a role in determining the pace and output of the investigations. And the "general consensus" part is factually correct but misleading; there's a consensus that the intelligence was inaccurate, yes, but there's also a position being voiced by the Democrats that the intelligence became significantly more inaccurate, and always in the direction of enhancing the threat represented by Iraq, as it worked its way up the chain from analyst's reporting, through the vetting process, to the production of classified summaries, to the production of public summaries, and finally to its characterization by senior administration officials.

The discussion of purported ties between Iraq and terrorist organizations is mostly really good from a NPOV standpoint, but it seems out of place in this article. I'd think a paragraph or so of summary, and a link to another article that specifically examines the question in the level of detail given here, would be better. The section already links to such an article; I think the information given here should be included there (if it isn't already) and this section aggressively summarized.

Similarly, the "Opinion and legality" section already has a subarticle that it links to; what remains on this page should be aggressively summarized, with the removed information being incorporated into that article if it isn't already. The tone in this section seems pretty good to me, for the most part. The extensive quotation from the Downing Street memo should just be summarized, though, with a link to that document's own article for those who want more detail.

The section that covers the events of the war itself are really good from a NPOV standpoint. I'd like to see that expanded by a section that summarizes events since the end of "major combat operations", with linking to the relevant articles at Post-invasion Iraq, 2003-2005 and Iraqi insurgency.

However, the coverage itself was intrinsically biased by the fact that Internet penetration in Iraq was already very weak (with an estimate of 12,000 users in Iraq in 2002). Further, the deliberate destruction of Iraqi telecommunication facilities by US forces made Internet communication even more difficult. Different versions of truth by people who have equal ignorance of first-hand, raw data are by definition a very biased substitute for original, first-hand reports from people living locally. The World Wide Web did deliver some first-hand reports from bloggers such as Salam Pax. Additional information was available on soldier blogs. (emphasis added)

The editorial voice in the line I've bolded, above, is inappropriate POV, to my mind. It may or may not be factually correct in the argument it is trying to advance, but I think the article would be stronger from a NPOV standpoint if it didn't make the argument.

The following paragraph on Peter Arnett in the "Media coverage" section is pretty weird:

Peter Arnett, who had won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1966 for his coverage of the war in Vietnam was fired by MSNBC and National Geographic after he had declared in an interview with the Iraqi information ministry that he believed the U.S. strategy of "shock and awe" had failed. He also went on to tell Iraqi State TV that he had told "Americans about the determination of the Iraqi forces, the determination of the government, and the willingness to fight for their country", and that reports from Baghdad about civilian deaths had helped antiwar protesters undermine the Bush administration's strategy. The interview was given 10 days before the fall of Baghdad, more than 500 US soldiers have since been killed, in addition to over 18,000 medical evacuations for 11,700 patients [77].

The last sentence, in particular, is pretty clearly editorializing about something, though I can't quite tell what. In any event, the numbers in it aren't really relevant to what comes before it, and are very much out of date at this point anyway. My assumption is that this was added by a person from the pro-war camp who wants to balance the discussion of the treasonous (at least in the view of the more-zealous in the pro-war camp) Arnett. A better approach to doing that, though, would be to make the presentation of Arnett's actions more neutral (do we really need to introduce him by citing his 1966 Pulitzer? because to me, that seems like editorializing), and let readers form their own judgements about what he did.

In general, I think the "Media coverage" section should be pulled into a subarticle, and summarized down to a couple of paragraphs in this article.

That pretty much covers the POV problems I see in the article as of now. Summarizing those problems, in descending order of significance (that is, biggest problem to smaller ones), I see:

1. an inappropriate amount of material (material which, in and of itself, is fairly neutral for the most part) in the "Rationale" and "Opinion and legality" sections,
2. a number of places where light to moderate anti-war bias has been countered by light to moderate pro-war bias, where the biased statements should just be edited into a neutral presentation of the elements of the controversy, and
3. a few places (specified above) where there are some fairly obvious weasel words and editorializing going on.

Anyway, I failed in terms of your request to make "a short list" of POV problems, but if you want to throw out all the forgoing specifics and just look at the above list, that's what I see as problematic. I look forward to reading what other people think the article's problems are. -- John Callender 15:34, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Much much better then I could have asked for. I believe that the entire article should be alot more summarized. People keep wanting to add every little fact about the dispute over the war and it has gotten to the point where it has made the article confusing and more like a forum for debate then an encyclopedia article. I understand there are alot of personal feelings involving the war (I support bush btw) but I don't feel it should get in the way of the NPOV. I hope someone starts on putting your recommendations into action ASAP. I'm sure if we managed to summarize, stop the point-for point-against bickering and generalisations we can get this article Featured.--EatAlbertaBeef 19:56, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• I started cutting down the introduction, eliminating the POV and making it alot more coherent. I don't know what to do with the section at the bottom about George Bush's statements on March 17th. I don't feel they have any relevance but I left them anyways.--EatAlbertaBeef 20:10, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What you label "cutting down POV" is actually removing facts. zen master T 20:11, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Zen-master, do you agree with the NPOV dispute? If so do you have any suggestions towards the NPOV of this article? I feel that there are a number of generalisations made within this article that can be changed.--EatAlbertaBeef 01:16, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Resolving POV disputes generally doesn't mean completely removing information. For example, why did you remove the infobox? "coalition of their allies" can be worded better and more accurately, for an "ally" to support the invasion half heartedly with a token force doesn't really mean much. Justification for the why something happened is perfectly acceptable in an article. John Callender suggested "aggresive summarization" which I generally am in favor of, but there is a high degree of risk someone will "accidentally" remove highly relevant information while labeling it an "aggresive summarization". zen master T 08:08, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't realise I had removed the infobox. Well we still have to rewrite or reword the article to put it all in context. Currently the introduction goes from one event to another. Facts themselves are fine its just how you use them, how the article is currently just looks like a big list of anti-war facts. (To me) We have to start working on making this article alot more coherent and less scattered.--EatAlbertaBeef 15:13, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't the formulation "... between the armed forces of the United States, Britain and a coalition of their allies against Iraq" sound a little bit weird ? It looks like the Armed Forces of several Western countries went out of control and started a war by themselves, without orders, against a nation. Couldn't it read something like "between the United States, Britain and a coalition of their allies against Iraq" ? Rama 15:28, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Change it. I was just trying to rewrite when it singled out Poland and Australia.--EatAlbertaBeef 22:08, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I wish to protest the fact that the war was commenced under the guise of finding the weapons of mass destruction (WMD's) that we were all told that Sadam had stockpiled. There is no reference to this in the introduction to the article, it is the biggest farce of our lifetime and already history is being changed by people attempting to be 'patriotic'. Jachin 22:35, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

July 15th, 7:20am EST: This entire article needs to be rewritten based on the term "conflict" not invasion. The term invasion inherently contains reference to perspective and point of view. Therefore while it may be factually correct to call it an invasion, it is not a universally held opinion. I highly doubt the Bush administration has actually referred to it as that. There is debate as to whether it is a Police Action, a War, an Invasion, etc... so call it a conflict which simply indicates there is a problem between the two government actors. It is very disturbing that this is how the article is titled and constructed. Come on, get it together.

This has been discussed several times already, please read the previous talks and don't say nonsense. The landing of Allied troops in Normandy on the 6th of June 1944 is called "Invasion". Rama 11:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

No, he's right. Another example is mathamatics, which inherently contains reference to perspective and point of view as well. 1+1=2 is just an agreement hold by some people. While it may be factually correct to call the result "two", it is not an universally held opinion. I highly doubt all the people who haven't received any education have actually referred to the result as "two". This is underscored by the fact that people in other countries refer to the number two with other words, such as "deux", "dos", "zwei", etc, so let's call it "1+1=conflict" instead. Conflict?! What a nice euphemism! Really NPOV to replace accurate facts with 'facts' playing themselves down.

Now everybody stop it. Rama 11:51, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I have in fact scanned the previous NPOV related comments, and most are more specific than this general complaint. It is briefly addressed but not to my satisfaction. Furthermore, the vote does not include a comprehensive or appropriate title choice. The discussion was nonexhaustive, and does not consider the Vietnam-esque scenario that seems present in the country. The legality of the situation, the conduct of government and individual actors before the conflict, as well as a whole slew of related issues are still in question and unresolved. Maybe the history books will coin it as such, but it is inappropriate to do so now. There is a definitional element as well I will get to shortly.

First, Rama, your parallel does not hold for D-Day, the territory was "invaded" as a counterstrike and what is referred to in that use is a much more isolated assault. It is a single event within a much larger conflict called World War II. We do not refer to all of World War II as an invasion. It was a war. We do not refer to the Vietnam Conflict as an invasion. Don't make irrelevant comparisons.

Secondly, the "fact" that the U.S. violated/invaded/intruded into Iraqi territory is factually undeniable, classification of the specific event under loose definitions (simple intrusion). However, the cateogrization of the content of this article as an Invasion IS STILL contestable. The connotation suggested in this use of the word invasion suggests an incendiery, harsh, unnecessary, and unaccepted breach of Iraq's sovereignty, is pre-emptively indicative of a commonly held intellectual if not also international and liberal perspective regarding this latest "war in iraq." The title alone suggests an opinion regarding the, yes, CONFLICT, how it arose, and what resulted. Let us not forget that this does not exist in a vacuum. Invasion suggests looting, plunder, continued occupation of territory, possession, and a million other things that were not outlined as part of the U.S. goals for military action (the primary claim was self-defense and removal of criminal governors/actors, misguided or not). As I said before, this non-neutral point of view is not shared by all, particularly that of the current U.S. government which ordered the ongoing U.S. military involvement. While I happen to whole heartedly agree with this liberal perspective and abhor the actions of my government, it does not help to write an article of fairly high importance to the current international political climate with such an obvious bias and the existance of this laughes in the face of any concept of free exchange of accurate information. Someone change it, or I will go through the article and rewrite it as I see fit. I will continue to flag it as NPOV until someone at least discusses why they believe a multi-year engagement can be referred to as an invasion. This article appears on lists of past and present military conflicts throughout history, and given its in current status, among the countless other points I have made, IS NOT A MILITARY INVASION. This is not the Mongol Hordes, the Romans, or the Visigoths, the U.S. isn't keeping it. The information needs to be restructured from its current invasion/post-invasion structure.

And to the moron who so brilliantly to decided to ignore the spirit of my comment, I can't really tell if you're being sarcastic and got what I was saying, or are just really too stupid to figure out that I'm right and need it to be explained to you. If the above didn't make it clear.: Words. Have. Meaning. But not directly referential 1:1 representational meaning you ignorant (insert whatever name you want here). Words have power, they have emotional content. They flare, imbue, and transform our sentences into thoughts, communicating qualia in ways nonabstract elements such as a zero or a one cannot. But you knew that, right? Anyway, I won't keep stating this unless someone would like to alter my opinion on it, so hopefully there will be some responses, but if not I'll just keep flagging the article for an NPOV violation. Anyway, can't we just change it to "operation iraqi freedom" or something? And keep invasion limited to the parts where it applies? Call the general action a conflict for the most part? Thanks,

I was addressing what I thought was concern about the negative connotation of the word "invasion". If you need proofs that the term "invasion" can be applied to a war-sized conquest of a country, I advise you to check Invasion of Poland.

I would also like to point you to WP:NPA. Rama 13:01, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

To the first post, I disagree. The term invasion is limited by scope. Simply, it is not applicable here and that the parallels to both D-Day and the Polish Campaign are not tenable Apple's to Apple's comparisons. They both occur in the context of World War II. I am not placing a limit of timeframe or geographical scale of an event to classify it as an "invasion" or other, rather terminology should be decided by significance in the overall structure of the conflict. (Please note, things like invasions of mongol hordes also don't count because the intent or historical outcome adheres to and in fact, created the negative connotations such as looting, etc). In this instance, the "invasion" IS the formal conflict. It could be subdivided into aistrikes/manned incursion, followed by an occupation with the intent of liberation and regime change, but this is parallel to any other military campaign or war, except that it is the whole "military" event and appears in lists of conflicts/wars. If a different article were on those lists that structurally encompasses this, the occupation, the conditions leading up to the conflict, etc... then, only then, might invasion become debatable. But it isn't, and the whole conflict is treated as an invasion which is problematic. If the consolidation project is attempting to rectify this, good! Also, the German's intent was territorial gain, something to do with "liebensraum" and this addresses my greater concern attributing particular intents to the connotation of the word, which do not seem appropriate from a neutral perspective. The U.S. has not kept the territory and never expressed the goal of doing so, and is not raping or pillaging. Granted it is true our modern era where government actors serve a reduced or at least severely altered role blurs the actual intent of "liberating" Iraq and suggests the involvement of some U.S. interest other than self-defense. This is problematic and in a future, revised understanding of the word, invasion may become applicable. In the court of public opinion and understanding, it is decidedly POV, only serves to polarize the right and the left, and should be abused.

To the NPA comment, assumedly in response to the guy antagonizing me in an ambiguous fashion and calling him a "moron", look, I'm smarter, better looking, and have a much bigger.... I also have 6 fingers on each hand (which is awesome), speak 42 languages, and have ascended to a higher plane of existence. But seriously, he got his passive agressive shot, I got mine. It's all good.

Finally, thanks to whomever altered the title to crisis, much more NPOV and of course the rest of the article will follow suit eventually I'd hope. I'd help out myself but I've been rather busy recently and wanted to see if there was some agreement on this perspective. At least in recent general discourse with my friends, I have found there is quite a bit.

Just a general question about dates

I've read elsewhere on wiki that apparently British grammatical and stylistic rules are to supersede other versions of English style and grammar, e.g. American English, et al. If so does this mean we should change all the dates to the form # Month Year?

I'm not a wikipedia expert, but it looks like Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) might have the information you're looking for. John Callender 07:30, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

if you've read elsewhere here that "British grammatical and stylistic rules are to supersede other versions of English style and grammar", i'd very much like to know where that was. to the contrary, the wikipedia Manual of Style states (my bold): "Cultural clashes over grammar, spelling, and capitalisation/capitalization are a common experience on Wikipedia. Remember that millions of people may have been taught to use a different form of English from yours, including different spellings, grammatical constructions, and punctuation. For the English Wikipedia, there is no preference among the major national varieties of English."

good rule of thumb from the manual: "If an article is predominantly written in one type of English, aim to conform to that type rather than provoking conflict by changing to another. (Sometimes, this can happen quite innocently, so please don't be too quick to make accusations!)" SaltyPig 06:02, 2005 Jun 12 (UTC)

UN and US

There are some interesting discussions here, including some humorous ad hominem attacks. Thanks for the entertaining spectacle. I myself tend to agree with some of the insulting opponents; for example, I would tend to agree that the UN and the US are both corrupt oligarchies which pretend to democracy, and are filled with power-hungry beaucrats who wish to grab money and oil. In fact, they are not only similar, but in fact overlapping, as most UN operations are primarily US staffed. :)

I did notice that the article about the failures of the occupation focussed mostly on the looting of the museum; for purposes of current events, it would make sense (so I think) to speak of the looting of the arsenals and weapons of mass destruction. It was hardly surprising that the occupiers did not secure museums; it was more surprising that they did not secure, and apparently ignored, most arsenals and locations of weapons of mass destruction. Not only was it ironic (as being contrary to the propaganda of the time), but more importantly, it was of large consequence, as it has heavily influenced the subsequent descent of Iraq into emerging civil war, and the concommitent deteriorating standard of living across most of the country.

Leaning a little left of neutral

After reading just the second paragraph (regarding the UN), I have to say the facts are clearly one sided. Isn't it true that the "Oil for Food" scandal would/has clearly influenced the members on the Security Council? That the Members on the Security Council had very large economic interests in Iraq and would loose them if there was a war, and now the clearly vocal SG of the UN now being implicated in influence in the "Oil for Food" scandal. These facts would clearly give the reader a better understanding of a possible reason why the UN acted the way it did.

The last and final resolution did warn Iraq of possible military solutions, if it did not comply.

One could clearly argue whether this is relevant or not, but just declaring that the Security Council was against the war without the above mentioned is avoiding reality.

---

I stand corrected this whole passage leaves out many important facts. It also includes many unsubstantiated facts, such as Iraqi civilian deaths, that just go beyond the pale.

This passage clearly needs a complete top to bottom rewrite.

i agree that the part you cite isn't neutral, but i strongly disagree with the characterization of its leaning as "left". anyway, it looks like you're new here at wikipedia. that's no reason you can't jump in and be bold. go to it, and good luck. (you'll need it. heh heh.) SaltyPig 14:10, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

• I agree with you completelly. I'm glad you mentioned this on the talk page ahead of time as somebody who does lean a little left of center would certainly change your edits. This article needs to be rewritten.--EatAlbertaBeef 01:23, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well, pick out a chunk that is the worst example of the POV you're objecting to, and either fix it, or, if you want to increase the odds that it will survive for a while, hammer out a suggested alternative here on the talk page. -- John Callender 16:45, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Absence of declaration of war: police action

This article is titled 2003 invasion of Iraq, which is perfectly fine and NPOV, but to claim in the opening paragraph that it is a war is to miss the essential fact that there was and has been no such declaration of war. If it is a war then it is illegal, however if it is considered as a police action falling within the executive authority, then it may be given some legitimacy under emergency powers. Even so, insofar as we would commonly refer to the invasion as a war (like the Korean War, the Vietnam War, etc.) this was a preventive war, not a pre-emptive war, and this should also be stated. Whig 20:50, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

some quick points: the police action article is weak, and basically serves as a setup for somebody to call any undeclared war a "police action". that's euphemistic government-speak. whether a war is declared has no bearing on whether its a war. that's simple logic. if the distinction is important to you at the article outset, then simply call it what you appear to be claiming: an "undeclared war". however, then the problem is that it was declared, but by the president and informally, not by congress in any fashion. while "undeclared war" is a stretch, it's not nearly as much as "police action". further, the iraq war does not meet a rough criterion ("local") of the wiki-linked police action article. a war against an entire country is not "local". "police action" is a government term, invented by presidential administrations and sycophants to pretend they hadn't violated the US constitution.

calling this a "preventive" war is about as POV as it gets. if you think "preemptive" is POV, then please remove that, rather than calling it something even more POV. and i'd caution against using phrases like "more precisely" as in the edits i reverted. that phrase, in both cases, was incorrect. SaltyPig 21:05, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Since the president doesn't have constitutional authority to declare war, he cannot have declared it unless illegally. So you are saying it would be more NPOV to call this an "illegal war" than to call it a police action? I agree that undeclared war doesn't make sense. However, in common usage, it is a war, and most people won't immediately understand unless we say it is "more precisely" a police action. That is not POV, that is just clarification.

straw man alert! and most people won't immediately understand what? no idea where you get the need to bring in this term "police action". it's nothing but a term that claims "wasn't no war, holmes," while bodies are lying everywhere. SaltyPig 22:16, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think you misconstrue my meaning in the opposite direction. I propose to say it is a war in common parlance, but strictly speaking a police action, not to justify it as legitimate, but to make the distinction plain: this military action did not arise out of any declaration of war by the congress (at least so far as the US military's involvement is concerned) but as a personal action of the president as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Furthermore, and separately, the inclusion of the national guards forces arises purely out of a presidential declaration of national emergency, as such forces are otherwise under the control of state governors. I could be POV and say the "war" is purely illegal, but to do so would be a stretch and would impute criminal intention (mens rea) to the irregular actions of the administration, whereas a fair portrayal putting the best light on the actions of the administration must still acknowledge that this is not a constitutionally authorized war. Do you understand my point? Whig 11:33, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As for preemptive/preventive, there was no actual and imminent threat of invasion BY IRAQ against the "coalition" nor against any of his neighbors, so this cannot have actually been a preemptive war. The justification for the invasion was quasi-preemptive in claiming that Saddam possessed WMDs (which has proven false, and according to the Downing Street disclosures was known to be false at the time). In all fairness, we can say that it was advertised as a preemptive war, but in fact it was preventive. Whig 21:19, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

what did it prevent? SaltyPig 22:16, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Preventive wars need not actually prevent anything, which is why they are considered violations of the just war theory. The idea of a preventive war is that it is an action without any specific provocation by the other side, on the theory that the other side might otherwise at some uncertain point in the future pose a hypothetical threat to the interests of the invading power. In this sense, a preventive war against Iraq might be said to have prevented Saddam Hussein from obtaining, IN THE FUTURE, nuclear, biological or chemical weapons which he might then have used against his neighbors or other US/"coalition" interests. He did not have such weapons at the time of invasion, so we were not "preempting" any imminent attack. To give a paraphrase in more normal terms, a person who did not like you and knew you did not like him could "preventively" attack you on the grounds that you might someday obtain a gun and pose a threat to you at that future time, even though you possessed no gun at the time of his attack. Legally his attack against you is improper, but as Wikipedians I think it would be a bridge too far for us to say that the US/"coalition" attack on Iraq was illegal, for the same reasons as stated under my defense of police action.

In effect, by protesting the use of "police action" and "preventive war" you are not so much enforcing NPOV as protecting the POV of the administration's spin-doctors who want to say that this was a constitutional and preemptive war. It was not, factually. I could find cites (and probably will do so in order to support my point if no one else does so first) to back my point, but it isn't strictly necessary since there isn't really a factual dispute. Whig 11:33, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

these are theories (nonsense in most cases, IMO), and should be outlined in the article as such if the words are going to be used. remember, i'm not defending the use of "preemptive". toss it along with "preventive". factually, this was not a constitutional war; therefore, it was illegal. i have no problem at all with wikipedia saying that, though i doubt it will last for 3 minutes w/o a revert. i put hard facts in the US legality section, and readers may draw logical conclusions from them. we shouldn't present as facts the theories of the same fools who pulled the strings to the present mess. the article should say what they said (attributed) and what they did.

a bit of reductio ad absurdum, if you don't mind: i state that in order to prevent my car from getting rained on, i will immerse it permanently in a pool of hypoid oil (ruining it, but keeping rain off it). now should you call that a preventive measure in a wikipedia article about what i did? a psycho measure? or should wikipedia simply say what i said, what i did, and what the actual result was? the answer is obvious to me, and i don't see a line separating one absurdity from another. by presenting facts, we allow the readers to judge for themselves as much as possible. it is someone's point of view that the recent iraq war was launched to prevent something; simply say so, and move on. arguing that not identifying the claimer of such a theory amounts to POV... well, that's making me chuckle. identify, attribute, and do so with respect for the reader. nothing is harmed by saying who claimed it's a preventive (or whatever other adjective) war. still can't believe we're having this argument over some wanting to not attribute an opinion to parties that tried to sell it. claiming it's a police action? i've honestly not heard that claim made of the iraq war until this week, on this page. i certainly don't agree that it's true. i think it's opinion, and a dastardly one at that. even most of the knee-jerkers who clamored for the war call it a war. SaltyPig 19:57, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The problem with the above is that you are stating a legal opinion which may or may not be shared by others. In particular, stating that because it isn't a "constitutional war" it is therefore "illegal" you are claiming that the War Powers Clause prohibits military action by the executive without a congressional declaration of war. You might even be right as a matter of principle, and I might even agree with you, but that doesn't give us the authority to declare our opinion as fact. If the invasion of Iraq is illegal because an undeclared war, so was Korea and Vietnam, so was Somalia and Serbia, and so was every other "war" since the second world war, because no wars have been declared by the congress since that time. However, the congress delegated authority to the president to deploy armed forces as commander-in-chief and their legislative enactment (constitutional or not) is the basis for calling this invasion a police action. NPOV requires that we at least give a reasonable basis for the invasion being a legal exercise of executive power rather than asserting it as illegal, though you reasonably might give some attributed statement to the effect that it is illegal. Whig 01:13, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

i am not going to revert the latest squeeze to get "police action" into the article. however, i strongly oppose it on grounds that "police action" is a government euphemism which should never have been allowed to be defined as "an undeclared war". it's a sloppy term with radically POV/dishonest origins, and has no place on wikipedia except in a manner which recognizes and communicates its real nature. there is a good term to describe undeclared war; it's "undeclared war". i am puzzled by the effort expended to put this ridiculous term "police action" into the article when "undeclared war" is what's really intended. even that is disputable. the iraq war was declared by george bush, and perhaps the best factual term for such action is "illegal". tired of arguing about it though. SaltyPig 18:02, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

While I don't think any great purpose is served by reiterating our arguments needlessly, I'd suggest that you might want to make constructive edits to the police action article itself. Whig 18:44, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Preventive War

I definitely think it is accurate and NPOV to state that this was a preventive war by definition rather than a preemptive one.--csloat 21:57, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

it was a "preventive" war only by claim of the bush administration and his pals and supporters. looks like a classic "prefer the disease to the cure" situation to me (now as it did then). as i asked in the previous section, what did it prevent? you're talking about somebody's supposed intentions, not what really happened (and perhaps not what the real intentions were either). if you want to write that it was claimed as a preventive war, and who claimed it, please do so. calling it NPOV is laughable. "preventive" is tainted with bias. and please don't misunderstand me as defending "preemptive". i think it's clear from the previous section that i agree that should be stricken, unless it's given the same "claimed and by who" treatment as "preventive". SaltyPig 22:21, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

See self-defence. Is it preventative killing if I shot you before you even pull a gun on me, or is it murder? Is the ethical nature more or less severe when the scope and extent of the act is greatly increased? Is there such thing as "preventive killing", insofar as it remains to be demonstrated that anything was prevented? To the contrary, would not a death have been prevented were one to not engage in "preventative killing"? Does not the same apply to war? This is the logic of the law of self-defence, and in light of it, I don't see how "preventative war" can be considered a meaningful phrase. Kevin Baas^{talk: new} 23:58, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)

It's not "preventative" war; it's preventive war, which is different from preemptive war. Bush and his cronies called it a preemptive war, a phrase used to describe a first strike initiated against a nation that is on the verge of attack. Israel initiated a preemptive attack in 1967 against Egypt. The Bush admin called this war "preemptive" but many scholars have noted that he was using the phrase inaccurately, since there was no evidence of any imminent attack by Saddam. A "preventive" war, on the other hand, is launched against a country that is not on the verge of attack, in order to prevent them from being able to attack in the future. The Bush war against Iraq is a classic case of preventive war (as is even indicated on the relevant wikipedia page). And no I don't think it is unnecessarily POV to make this claim, as it is a claim that is generally accepted by most military analysts who write about this issue. To Saltypig -- Bush claimed it was preemptive, not preventive. You may be right that it didn't prevent anything, but that doesn't matter -- a "preventive" war is defined by the claims and perceptions of the nation that initiates the first strike, not by the "reality," however that is determined. And as the wikipedia entry indicates, "preventive war" is generally held to be a violation of international law.--csloat 01:17, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Given that the area is so controversial, we can minimize edit wars by doing as SaltyPig suggested: Don't assert, as a fact, that it was preventive or preventative or preemptive or pre-emptive, but use these terms only when attributed to someone, with a citation. JamesMLane 01:53, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't think NPOV means completely refusing to make judgments of fact or definition when clearly warranted by the evidence. I don't think this is a big deal but it seems to me that wikipedia could (and should) state that even though the bush admin has used the term "preemptive war", this war is in fact a classic case of "preventive war." I don't really think that would be a controversial statement at all in an encyclopedia, and I don't see any evidence that it would cause an edit war, but who knows (I've certainly seen them over less). --csloat 02:51, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

...a "preventive" war is defined by the claims and perceptions of the nation that initiates the first strike, not by the "reality," however that is determined.

if you believe government should write wikipedia, please go ahead. i won't revert, but do expect that somebody else will. you're making an argument that opinion/perception should be expressed as fact, merely because it's a) widely accepted (according to you), or b) the opinion of a government ("nation", in your words). "preventive" is a subjective term in this context, and i only ask that you attribute the opinion to a source when putting it in the article. re "preventative", please don't get hung up on that; you know what JamesMLane meant. that's a whole safire-style argument that could go on for weeks. SaltyPig 04:48, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No, no. You're interpreting this all wrong. My point is that the definition of "preventive" means the attacking nation believes that a war will prevent a future attack. The point is not to affirm or even judge that belief. The thing is, the Bush admin would not admit to fighting a "preventive" war, because such a war is basically a war of aggression. As you rightly point out, the Bush perception that they are preventing a future attack is based on sheer fantasy at best and on a pack of lies at worst. But either way, Bush claims to have fought a preemptive war; a war based on the perception that an attack is imminent. I think it is reasonable for wikipedia to point out that the bush admin is wrong about this. Does this make more sense? I don't mean to nitpick; I do think the distinction between preventive and preemptive war is important because the latter is considered more justified, and can even be legal, while the former is rarely considered justified and is a clear violation of international law. Anyway, if I do change this I will definitely look for sources first, but I wanted to hash this out on talk first. --csloat 10:57, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think that csloat might have been mistaken for a supporter of the official US governmental excuse for the invasion, which he clearly is not (" a "preventive" war (...) is basically a war of aggression").

That being said, I think that saying "preventive war" still might be confusing for someone not familiar with the subtlies of the terminology. For instance, I wonder what would be the reactions if one flatly stated that the attack against Pearl Harbour in 1941 was an act of "preventive war" (which was both the explanation and the intent of the Japanese government of the time). Rama 11:21, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Bush has to some extent admitted fighting a "preventive" war. From a Washington Post report of a Bush speech to the U.N. in 2004:

Despite the inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- the stated reason for the attack -- Bush also said: "We're determined to prevent proliferation and to enforce the demands of the world, and my nation is grateful to the soldiers of many nations who have helped to deliver the Iraqi people from an outlaw dictator." [25]

Even if it's deemed "pre-emptive" it's been criticized; for example, the article "Iraq: The Case Against Preemptive War" in The American Conservative. [26] JamesMLane 11:29, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Rama - that is correct; the attack on pearl harbor is another example of preventive war. I agree that people seem to have interpreted me as saying that a preventive war is a just war or good war in some way; that is not my contention at all.--csloat 12:09, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

csloat, it is true that the definition of "preventive" means the attacking nation believes that a war will prevent a future attack. What is not established as fact, however, is that the United States actually believed that it was in danger of any future attack, and hence whether it actually believed the war was preventive. In other words, you are taking U.S. assertions of its intentions at face value, without any good reason to do so. I strongly urge the assertion to be sourced to the Bush administration, and only as a claim. That is established fact. That the war was preventive or even that the U.S. sincerely believed it to be is not even close. Unended 01:48, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

This is incorrect. The Bush Admin called it a preemptive war, not a preventive war; it is not possible to source this to the bush admin because the bush admin is at odds with the reality. My claim is that we should include info refuting the bush admin claim, because the war was not even close to preemptive. A preventive war is not to stop an imminent attack - I agree with you there is strong cause to doubt any bush claim that any such attack was imminent - but rather to prevent an attack or other threat from a country at some time down the road in the future. This is a simple matter of definition. The bush admin may not have believed it but the point is that is the public reason they stated. Like the japanese attack on pearl harbor. Which was also a preventive war. The whole point of preventive war is to strike before an adversary becomes a threat, when they are not ready for it. Again it doesn't matter if Bush lied about this. What matters is that the reasons that were cited were reasons that define it as a preventive war rather than a preemptive war. Sorry that this is so confusing -- in military and political science literature this distinction is actually quite clear, and not very controversial at all.--csloat 02:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't have any objections whatsoever to using the adjective "preventive" so long as it is phrased accurately. If you want to say that prevention of an attack or other threat from a country down the road was "the public reason [the Bush Administration] stated" for war, as you did here, then I am fine with that because it's accurate as phrased. But if you say that the war was in fact a preventive war, then you will get disagreement I think, because it is nowhere near established that the U.S. government acted in fact to avert any perceived future danger. (I for one don't believe it acted for that purpose; I believe the U.S. government invaded to secure control over Iraq's natural resources, but I won't be adding language that it was an "imperial war.") The bottom line is that it is impossible to prove motive. In lieu of that, we need to recite facts and let readers draw their own conclusions. I think labeling the war as preventive, preemptive, or imperial is not a statement of fact but a conclusion. Asserting that this or that person claims that the war is preventive, preemptive, or imperial is a statement of fact. Unended 03:02, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

I'd heard the term 'preventive war' applied to the Iraq war in the narrow sense csloat is applying it, but I think the reactions here show that a general encyclopedia reader might well be unfamiliar with the specific meaning of the term, and take it the way SaltyPig did, as somehow excusing the invasion. It probably could use a sentence or so of explanation if the phrase is going to be included in the article, so readers don't get the wrong impression (and so zealous opponents of the war don't cite it as POV). -- John Callender 16:48, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Csloat's argument is sound but preemptive is more common. I mean, if we wanted to present the reader with the truth, we would offend the supporters of the war whose opinions are irrelevant to reality. So, for the page, preemptive seems most NPOV... (note: I have not made any attempt to seek NPOV on my talk comments ;)) --Tothebarricades 18:17, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Preemptive may be "more common" but it is plainly inaccurate therefore not NPOV. Whig 18:51, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't matter. The following are also accurate: (1) George W. Bush and the rest of his cabinet are guilty of war crimes. (2) The invasion was illegal. (3) All of the stated motives are lies. Yet it would not be in accordance with NPOV to state these things outright. Meh. --Tothebarricades 01:39, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

i think this sharp distinction between "preventive" and "preemptive" (where one's considered POV and the other NPOV) is pure artifice. i'm not buying it, and i don't care what the view of the person proposing the term is. again, i ask: what was prevented (or preempted)? these terms, including "police action" are so vague and loaded with intentions that you can make the same arguments and apply them to pretty much every armed mass conflict in history. was the american revolution a police action? was pol pot fighting a preventive something or other? i'm not buying that these are appropriate terms for the encyclopedic voice, and i haven't seen any plausible explanation for the delineation. it was a war. no need to even argue about these adjectives, let alone fight for their use in the article (except as claims clearly attributed to specific parties). when in doubt, stick to plain facts and let the reader figure out the nuance from those facts. analysis is so easily overdone here. funny how politicians and proponents can use "war" for the slightest perverted domestic program (war on this, war on that), but when hundreds of thousands of people are actually killed or maimed by gun-toting, flag-waving, uniformed soldiers (using "weapons of mass destruction", no less), it becomes some tidy euphemism. let's stop playing games with the english language, regardless of the direction. war is war, and it's not a mystery when it's happened. in this context, "preventive", "preemptive", and "police action" need to head for the disposal, except when almost accompanied by a banner announcing, "this is an interested party speaking." SaltyPig 19:22, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The term "war" is often used as artifice, indeed, "war on drugs", "war on terrorism" and so forth being quite nonsensical propaganda. This sort of reductio ad absurdum reasoning would suggest we can never use the term with precision, but there exists a very real legal meaning to the term which ought not to be obscured by propagandistic usages. With that said, I would not be opposed to clarifying language in respect to the revolutionary war as being a successful rebellion. Whig 19:38, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The importance of making such distinctions is to provide necessary context. Simply saying that it is a "war" divorced from its manner of declaration and prosecution leaves vital facts out of the picture. NPOV does not mean we sanitize the record, nor that we make legal conclusions ("it is an illegal war") — saying that it was preemptive is plainly false, your objection to it being called "preventive" seems to require that we prove what it did or did not prevent, rather it is more to the point that it was justified on preventive grounds, i.e. to prevent Saddam Hussein from using WMDs and/or otherwise becoming a threat at some point in the future — there was no claim that an actual attack by Iraq was imminent. Whig 19:47, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

you're fighting awfully hard to keep from attributing views to those who hold them. why? it's a simple enough thing to do. why the fight? just say who claims such a thing, and have done with it. seems pretty clear to me that you want to have wikipedia say the things in the encyclopedic voice. why? i don't agree with it. i don't think it's a fact that it's a "preventive" war just because somebody claims it was so. any war can be claimed to be preventive. washing my clothes is a preventive action. however, i don't go around telling people i'm going to do a preventive clothes washing; to do so would make it sound exceptional. you're selling something, and it's quite obvious. if this was a "preventive" war, then what is not a preventive war? nothing. in which case, why use the word at all? the intent is to make this war seem like an exception, which it was not. it was a bunch of power-hungry apes who don't give a damn about the destruction they caused. in other words, it was a standard government war. "preventive" is an ameliorative dodge that has no place in an encyclopedia, except when clearly attributed to the specific parties brazen enough to try it. is that party you in this case? will you be quoting yourself? SaltyPig 20:16, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The problem with saltypig's argument is that these are precise terms, with precise definitions, and they are used in all of the literature you can find on war in political science or military strategy. If the aggressive government claims the war is preventive, that is what makes it preventive -- not whether it actually prevents anything (since nobody can look into the future). It's true that the term might confuse the layman but that is easily remedied with a link to the article on the term, as well as a link to preemptive war. This is not a wishy washy term with vague definition - it's easy to figure out if a war should be considered preemptive or preventive based on a look at the discourse produced by the aggressive party in the lead-up to war. As Whig points out, the bush administration did not argue that an attack was imminent but rather that they were going to prevent a future harm. It doesn't matter that none of us believe the future harm existed or did not exist; the important thing is that it is very clear the bush administration believed (or at least publicly stated) that it did. Again, this is not an opinion -- it is a simple matter of definition. --csloat 20:21, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think what SaltyPig sees as a disagreement is really just a misunderstanding. My personal POV and presumably that of csloat and SaltyPig is that the invasion was illegal, immoral and unproductive. Okay? That's what I think, but it is improper for me to inject that POV into the article. What strokes me the wrong way is the fact that the article currently refers to this as a preemptive war when it was clearly not. Whether and how words like "war" get twisted around to mean different things for propagandistic purposes is not on-point, except to make all the more important that we clarify what we do mean when we use the word. Here we have a war (in common parlance) without a declared state of war (in law) and it is important to disambiguate with appropriate reference to the executive authority which commenced it — the military term for this is a police action. Secondly, we need to not let the claimed "preemption" doctrine override our need to distinguish preemptive war from preventive war. The latter does not legitimate the invasion and occupation; it tends to discredit them in customary terms without being a matter of simple opinion, but fact. As an encyclopedia, we report the facts neutrally, those who feel that preventive war is sometimes or ever justified can continue to think so. We have no place saying otherwise, but reasonable readers who observe the distinction may be more inclined to draw their own negative inferences. Whig 21:14, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

To further respond to SaltyPig's question: "if this was a "preventive" war, then what is not a preventive war? nothing." Wars are of several types, including but not limited to:

• Defensive war
• Civil war
• Rebellion
• Preemptive war
• Preventive war

Strictly speaking, the invasion of Iraq was a preventive war, the current ongoing war in Iraq is a rebellion. Whig 21:48, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, the invasion of Iraq was claimed to be a preventive war by those who waged it. Whether or not the U.S. actually invaded Iraq to head off any future threat (as opposed to, say, to secure control over valuable natural resources) is simply not an established fact. You are trying to establish the motivation of the U.S. government. That is not known. We only know what the U.S. government publicly declared its motivation to be. Unended 03:15, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

You're wrong, unended, that is not true. The invasion was claimed to be preemptive, not preventive. That is the crux of the issue here. The issue is not motivation at all; it is declared intention, and these are terms with precise meanings. The fact is the US did NOT claim to be waging preventive war, because a preventive war is a war of aggression (as is, for example, a war to control natural resources). You seem to not understand that we all are agreeing about that point; it is just a terminology issue, and you are confusing the two terms.--csloat 07:35, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I am not confusing the terminology at all. Bush did. You said yourself (correctly) that the war was publicly justified by the need to prevent a future threat, and you said (correctly) that such a war is a preventive war. Hence, the war was claimed as a preventive war, whether or not the Bush administration used that term or some other term. You said that "it is not possible to source this to the bush admin because the bush admin is at odds with the reality." That's not true, if you just follow the preceeding simple logic. A parenthetical could be added about Bush's confusion over the terminology. How the war was justified (i.e., as a preventive war) does not change just because Bush (or anybody else) used the wrong word to describe what they were doing. (As if it's unusual for Bush to use the wrong word to describe something.) But the terminology does not control. The facts do.

Unended, you make a good point, and it is primarily to correct the confusion over terminology that we need to make clear that the claimed justification was for preventive war, even though it was asserted as a doctrine of preemption. I don't think "preemption" was a malapropism, in this case, as it served a very substantial purpose of (false) justification. Whig 14:50, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That's exactly what I was calling for when I started this. We should point out both that bush used the term preemptive war but that the more accurate term in context is preventive. The term bush used was no accident - it was repeated by members of his cabinet not so given to misstatements. The reason they used that word rather than the more accurate "preventive war" is that a preemptive war can be considered defensive, whereas a preventive war is always considered aggressive. I think we're reaching a consensus here, but now the question is how to put that in the article.--csloat 16:37, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Couple relevant quotes

• "All of us have heard this term 'preventative war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time... I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing." [1]
• "A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility. I don't believe there is such a thing, and frankly I wouldn?'t even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing." [2]
• "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." -[1]
  • -- Dwight D. Eisenhower, [1] Unknown [2] Press conference 1953 [3] Farewell Address January 17, 1961 -~~

Context for above quotes from anon user -- Eisenhower was under pressure from some particularly hawkish Air Force generals who wanted the US to pursue a first strike capability against the Soviets so we could wage preventive war. He was pointing out what a bad idea that was here. He was not saying that the term has no meaning.--csloat

I agree with some of what you say, csloat, but the problem is your assumption that a particular precise understanding of the meaning of "preventive" and "pre-emptive" is as common and as clear-cut as the difference between red and blue. The discussion here should show you that it isn't. Our focus should be on accurately presenting the facts so that the readers will understand them, not on trying to fit our narrative into a Procrustean bed of a particular set of definitions (even if you think it's clearly the correct set of definitions). One example: You wrote above, "The fact is the US did NOT claim to be waging preventive war, because a preventive war is a war of aggression." Let me repeat one of my comments above: Bush has to some extent admitted fighting a "preventive" war. From a Washington Post report of a Bush speech to the U.N. in 2004:

Despite the inability to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- the stated reason for the attack -- Bush also said: "We're determined to prevent proliferation and to enforce the demands of the world, and my nation is grateful to the soldiers of many nations who have helped to deliver the Iraqi people from an outlaw dictator." [27]

To the extent that Bush and his spokespeople addressed the imminence of the alleged threat from Iraq, we could certainly present what they said, along with criticisms of it, and the facts cited by each side to bolster its case. We can do all that without getting hung up on particular words. JamesMLane 2 July 2005 07:25 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm just not buying that; the distinction is crystal clear once you look at it with precision. And I don't think there is disagreement about the distinction itself; just about which one is appropriate in the circumstances. Your quote from Bush supports my view that the war is more accurately called a preventive war but he did not in that sentence say "we are waging a preventive war." I agree it amounts to the same thing - that was my point originally - but when the Bush folks talked strategy and categorized the Iraq war they used "preemptive" and they did it for a reason -- the political fallout from declaring a preventive war was not something they wanted to deal with. Now, you may be right that the terminology here is just not that important, but I don't think it's irrelevant or imprecise. --csloat 2 July 2005 10:13 (UTC)

The "political fallout" would have arisen because huge numbers of voters would have applied this fairly technical distinction that you're harping on? and would have considered international law to be primary in their evaluation of Bush's conduct, i.e., they would have supported a pre-emptive war but opposed a preventive one? Well, absent any polling data, I'm just guessing, but my guess is: No way. We're talking about an electorate where something like 40% of the people still think Saddam had a significant role in perpetrating the 9/11 attacks. I don't think they're paying attention at the minute level you assume. Even if some are, millions aren't. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't phrase our article in such a way that the reader gets a correct picture only if s/he is already familiar with this particular usage of the terms or takes the trouble to click on the links to the articles explaining them. We can just say that Bush defended the invasion on the basis that, otherwise, Iraq might pose a danger to the U.S., and that others criticized it because the danger wasn't of the imminent type that justifies an armed action that would otherwise be aggression. Isn't that an accurate statement of the positions? It could be fleshed out a little on both sides but that's the gist of it. JamesMLane 2 July 2005 10:31 (UTC)

political fallout - no; most voters wouldn't know the difference, but organizations like UCS, CDI, etc. would have known and certainly military experts would have known, and military experts and political leaders in other countries would have known and this audience of elites would cause trouble. Hell even Colin Powell would have gotten his feathers ruffled by that phrase and you can bet the distinction was discussed. Plus the newshounds who follow military affairs at NYT WP BG etc. would have made it into a bigger deal too. But I agree with you to just explain the positions; I think the term preventive war should be brought up somewhere, if we are going to mention the "preemption" doctrine... but who knows; it's 4 am here and I should go to bed.--csloat 2 July 2005 10:56 (UTC)

Iraq War consolidation project

Goals: 1) To create an infobox for all related articles by a quasi-heirarchical order, perhaps. 2) to rename articles according to proper, less cumbersome titles. -SV|t 22:55, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Excellent idea. Whig 29 June 2005 06:20 (UTC)

here, here! Good plan. --csloat 29 June 2005 06:26 (UTC)

That sounds good, but be careful with #2. Note the case of September 11, 2001 attacks. That article went through many names, including 9/11, September 11 attacks, September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and even September 11, 2001, attacks with an extra comma. The title is more cumbersome than "9/11", but it's worth it; it was worked out over years of agonizing compromises. Because of this, all related pages have names like Background history of the September 11, 2001 attacks and Organizers of the September 11, 2001 attacks, not "Background history of 9/11" and "Organizers of 9/11", for consistency. This case seems similar.

I would ethusiastically support better organization and consistency, but related pages should be called things like Casualties of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and Background history of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in my opinion. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} June 29, 2005 13:41 (UTC)

By the way, I want to join this project. Where should we discuss it? Here? – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} June 29, 2005 14:42 (UTC)

The Power of Nightmares

The article on the BBC documentary "The Power of Nightmares" is in need of a criticism section. I invite all who have seen it, particular those of a neo-conservative leaning, to visit and contribute. (The documentary is widely available for download on filesharing networks) Seabhcán 28 June 2005 18:07 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that documentary out, I loved it. It was right on the money.

Elements of the War in Iraq

The invasion by allied forces is just one part of the larger Iraq War. It would be absurd to say that when Saddam's forces fought back, resisting "Operation Iraqi Freedom", they were invading Iraq. They were already in the country. One might say they were "opposing the invasion". So we need to distinguish between "the invasion" and "the war".

The Normandy Invasion is the best known example, probably. Allied forces stormed the beaches, and then rampaged around the French countryside. The invasion itself was part of the Allied campaign, and properly only refers to the movement of troops and material into the country. The "invasion" this was one-sided. The ensuing battles were two-sided.

World War II was two-sided. America did not start or lead WWII. It entered the war - which had already begun - on one side.

In the Iraq War (2003) - which began in 2003 - US and British troops invaded the country. They followed up with a two-prong campaign heading toward Baghdad, which they conquered (or at least entered) shortly thereafter.

I would say (as a former military man), that the war between Iraqi forces and Allied forces is not identical to "the invasion of Iraq". The invasion was just part of the war. This leaves us with the question of what to call the war.

Well, how do we usually go about naming things in the English-language part of Wikipedia? What is the most common name in English for this war?

• Gulf War
• Gulf War II
• Persion Gulf War
• Iraq War
• Iraq War of 2003

We need to distinguish this war from the previous one a decade before, which was pretty much fought between the same sides. Uncle Ed July 7, 2005 20:33 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, the term World War II does not imply that France Iraq took offensive military action. As I recall, Germany invaded and conquered France. Uncle Ed July 7, 2005 20:38 (UTC)

the invasion of iraq, just as with the normandy invasion, is something which was not a single-party action. whether they wanted to be or not, iraqis were a part of the invasion (on the defensive side), and acted in it. i see somewhat where you're headed trying to make the distinction, but i think it's one that's artificial and impractical. an argument can be made that the invasion of iraq persists today. i do not accept the notion that an invasion can be so cleanly isolated from the war of which it is a part. i don't think "invasion" is the word to use when trying to be surgical about time and parties involved. if someone launches an invasion of my home while i'm there, i'm involved any way you slice it, and i don't consider the invasion over until he's dead (or at least wishing he were). SaltyPig 7 July 2005 22:07 (UTC)

Arguments: justified vs. unauthorized

Cut from the 3rd or 4th paragraph:

The Bush Administration has cited Security Council resolutions from early 1990s as legal justification, though there is no clear position in any of them with regard to the use of military action against Iraq.

Let's divide this into the two main points of view (see Wikipedia:POV):

1. Bush claims UN resolutions as one kind of justification for using force.
2. Bush opponents say NO!, those UN resoultions did NOT authorize the use of force.

Uncle Ed July 7, 2005 20:52 (UTC)

What's in the resolutions?

Can we say authoritatively that Bush was wrong about the resolutions justifying his decision to use force? Is it, in another words, beyond dispute that none of them "clearly" took a position endorsing the use of military action against Iraq?

Or should we cast this as a dispute between (1) Bush and his supporters, on one side, and (2) Bush opponents?

• Bush cited the resolutions as supporting his decision. Opponents say the resolutions didn't recommend using military force.

That's how I would put it, but being on the Mediation Committee and all, I think I'll wait for other contributors to respond.

See Wikipedia:Be timid. Uncle Ed July 7, 2005 21:24 (UTC)

Well, the old resolutions were clear about force against Iraq then. Nobody ever disputed that. Whether Bush in 2003 was right is different from whether he was clearly right - i.e. whether there was justification is not the same as clear justification. I think it quite fair for Wikipedia to say that there was no clear justification from the old resolutions - after all, they were old resolutions not specifically intended to be applicable to the situation 12 years later. I am not sure that even Bush and the State Department ever said that their interpretation was clearly correct. The presence of a controversy, where many. probably the majority of international law experts say that this interpretation is wrong seems to make it clear that the justification could not logically be called "clear". So the present wording was already qualified enough. --John Z 7 July 2005 22:38 (UTC)

I prefer the majority of international law experts say that this interpretation is wrong to he was wrong. Gives Wikipedia a bit of distance from it, instead of taking a side. It's more dignified that way. Uncle Ed July 7, 2005 23:12 (UTC)

Especially since the Bush POV is, "Under Resolutions 678 and 687 -- both still in effect -- the United States and our allies are authorized to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction." [28]

So this gives a choice. We can either say (a) Bush is wrong, or (b) Bush claimed UN Resolutions authorized force to disarm Iraq of WMD, but certain international law experts said that Bush misinterpreted the resolutions. Uncle Ed July 8, 2005 00:21 (UTC)

Or, more accurately, (c) Bush claimed the UN resolutions authorized the use of force but nearly all international law experts -- including the UN General Secretary -- found that his interpretation was not only incorrect but also self serving and even mendacious. Perhaps I'm taking it too far but that claim is certainly supported by the evidence. The conclusion of most experts -- nearly all, I think, outside of the neocon inner circle -- seems to be that Bush willfully violated international law. (Though I agree with whoever will object that the "willful" part is not something we can conclude in an encyclopedia, so I'm ok leaving the "self serving and mendacious" part out of the wikipedia entry :).

We should also be clear on this that there are two questions of legal interpretation at work here -- (1) the question of whether 678 and 687 authorize the use of force, and (2) the question of whether international law permits the near-unilateral use of force in the manner that it was used (i.e. a preventive attack without international approval). These are independent questions, so it is possible that Bush is right and wrong at the same time - in other words, that the UN resolutions authorize the use of force but that the way Bush went about using force was illegal. --csloat 8 July 2005 00:38 (UTC)

I agree that the questions can be taken up separately. If I recall correctly, Bush provided 4 or 5 distinct justifications for his invasion. One was that he was enforcing a UN resolution (as authorized) - which as you point out, everyone outside of the Bush camp says was not authorized. Two was that it was a legitimate pre-emptive act of self-defense (grab the WMD before he uses them on us) - vs. the POV that (a) this requires international approval, which he didn't have and (b) it turns out Saddam didn't have any WMD.

So at this point my only question is, do we mention all this stuff here in the 2003 invasion of Iraq article, or stuff it into some other article which discusses whether the invasion was justified (as Bushies say) or not (as everyone else says). Uncle Ed July 8, 2005 02:43 (UTC)

The rationales offered for war are already in the article under 4.Rationale.--csloat 8 July 2005 07:26 (UTC)

Did Ari Fleischer rescind Bush?

cut from article:

The following day, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer rescinded Bush's previous statement, saying that the U.S. would invade Iraq whether Saddam Hussein left or not [29].

I'm not sure who wrote that, or why they even thought that. Let's take a look at what Fleischer and Bush actually said.

MR. FLEISCHER: The President addressed that last night. And the President made clear that Saddam Hussein had 48 hours to leave, beginning at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time last night. The President also made plain to the American people that if Saddam were to leave, the American forces, coalition forces would still enter Iraq, hopefully this time peacefully, because Iraqi military would not be under orders to attack or fire back. And that way Iraq could be disarmed from possession of weapons of mass destruction. [30]

Some regard Ari Fleischer's statement as 'correcting' or 'updating' what Bush said before. These advocates interpreted the president's earlier remarks as meaning that if Saddam left Iraq within the 48 hour deadline, then there would be no invasion. Fleischer apparently is contradicting those advocates, by maintaining that it was "plain" that the coaliton would "still enter" Iraq - the only difference being that there wouldn't be hostilities.

I'm not sure what rhetorical point the advocates are trying to score, by painting Fleischer's remarks as some sort of reversal or correction. Are they trying to portray Bush as being unfair in some way? Like, "First you said he had to leave, now you say you're going in anyway."

... messages urging the dictator to leave Iraq, so that disarmament can proceed peacefully. He has thus far refused. All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing. [31]

I see no contradiction between this formulation and what Fleischer said afterwards:

1. Leave Iraq, and we'll come in peacefully and get the WMD.
2. Stay there, and we'll use force to disarm you.

There was no mention of the US military staying out of Iraq. Either way, they were going in, Bush said. The only choice was the hostility level. No Saddam, no hostilities. Saddam stays, war starts. Uncle Ed July 8, 2005 00:12 (UTC)

First, why does it matter, since the point being made is that Bush was set on invading regardless of the facts on the ground. Second, you are wrong, and the quote you pulled provides no support for your position. It is not enough that there by "no contradiction." You must show us how it was "made plain" that the U.S. would invade Iraq regardless. Please point out where in that quote Bush "plainly" asserts that the U.S. military will enter the country "so that disarmament can proceed peacefully"? He doesn't. It's an obvious reference to UN-guided disarmament, and every sensible person would understand it as such, since it was the U.N. which had been overseeing "peaceful disarmament" for the last decade. Try again. Unended July 8, 2005 00:29 (UTC)

Iraq's Chemical Weapons

The article states that US intelligence knew about Iraq's chemical attacks against the Kurds in 1983 when Rumsfeld visited Saddam as a special envoy of the Reagan administration. However, the source cited says nothing about the Kurds. The source, from the Guardian ([32]), writes only about the use of chemical weapons against the Iranians, and specifically it seems the Iranian military, not civillians. Also, the Wikipedia article about the Al-Anfal campaign ([33]), which was Saddam's attempt to ethnically cleanse Kurds from Iraq, states that it began in 1986, three years after the visit of Mr. Rumsfeld to Iraq.

Also, I think the article is extremely light on the facts of Saddam's past use of chemical weapons against his neighbors and nationals, as well as his history of thwarting UN weapons inspectors, although better information can be found elsewhere at Wikipedia ([34]). The article also doesn't mention the beliefs of such prominent "opposition" members as the Clintons ([35] & [36])and John Kerry ([37]) about Saddam's probable possession of WMD's, and these were people who received classified briefings from US intelligence and the State Department.

By the way, I believe this is a fantastic project and thank you for all your time devoted to it. I appreciate it a great deal. - SLM@8 July 2005 13:10 (UTC)

Shahab is a liar (TDC's edits & my rv)

I have a copy of the Financial Times article from lexis/nexis if you want to see the full text. I also linked another article there. In general I think it is bad form to simply delete things that don't have links. If you suspect forgery, get yourself a library card and go look it up yourself. But don't just assume forgery -- that seems a huge violation of the "assume good faith" norm on wikipedia. Otherwise we can never have citations from books or other non-internet resources. In any case, I think the purported links between al Qaeda and Saddam are pretty thoroughly debunked in this article; the article on the invasion should not become a source of misinformation that is refuted elsewhere.--csloat 00:11, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Don't 99% of Wars involve Invasions?

I have had an issue with the title of this page since I first saw it. It should be titled, "Gulf War 2", not "2003 invasion of Iraq". 99% of wars involve an invasion and they had it coming from the United States because they were involved in terrorism against us. I find the title very offensive...it makes it look like Americans are a bunch of bullies who invaded Iraq for no reason. Saddam Hussein sponsering terrorism against the United States is what caused it. I would very much like to see the title changed to "Gulf War 2". It is also a slap in the face of all of the soldiers from all countries who fought to make Iraq free.

--Phatcat68 09:08, 18 July 2005 (US ET)

Iraq was not invaded because of "Saddam Hussein sponsoring terrorism against the United States", but because some governments displayed suspicions about weapons of Mass Destructions. You might want to re-read pre-war talks by Georges Bush and Tony Blair, notably.

Generalising to all wars saying "they had it coming from the United States because they were involved in terrorism against us" is one piece of bold statement...

As for the rest, I have trouble understanding what you find offensive, or how you infer from the title that there were no acceptable reasons for the aggression against Iraq; this might be actually be true, but the information, if any, is not contained in the title.

Finally, your suggesting of "Gulf War 2" leads to many issues; beside the fact that it sounds like a computer game title, there are many possibilities to begin the numbering, not to speak of the people who will argue that the war never stopped between 1991 and 2001. Rama 13:38, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Civil wars generally don't involve "invasions", but yes, generally wars between nations would have to involve some sort of invasion. I think simply calling it a war makes more sense.--Daveswagon 18:56, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Well, Fatcat, arent they? Enlighten us.

"Generalising to all wars saying "they had it coming from the United States because they were involved in terrorism against us" is one piece of bold statement..." I am troubled by the fact that I never said the above statement that is quoted by [[[User:Rama|Rama]]. I never said that "they had it coming". I guess I inferred that but I never actually said that statement, so it should not be quoted as such. What I said was that they caused it. Actions have consequences. If somebody sponsors terrorists who attempt to blow up the World Trade Center (in 1993...Saddam was a sponsor of this act but the American liberal press did not want to report it), then any retaliation by that country's government is the consequence. Too many people today do not believe that their actions have consequences and therefore do whatever it is that they want to with no regard to consequences. Saddam thought he could hide behind al-Qaeda and stay secretive about his involvement. Thankfully, conservatives in the United States found out and told about his involvement. Yes, the press conferences said it was due to weapons of mass destruction, but I sincerely hope that everybody does not believe everything that the press reports. They do not report all of the facts all of the time and people (such as President Bush) do not always reveal all of their reasons. Why would he say that it was due to Saddam's involvement in terrorism against the U.S. when his own country's press refuses to report it?!? He wouldn't. Nobody would believe him because unfortunately, the press has the most power in this country. I still say it should be titled Gulf War 2. Gulf War 1 technically ended when Saddam surrendered Kuwait back. If we argue that Gulf War 1 never ended, we could do the same about WW1. Germany quietly re-armed for another attempt to dominate the world in between those wars. Saddam did not believe we would come back, so that is further evidence that Gulf War 1 was over. Please rename this article Gulf War 2 in honor of those brave men and women who fought to make Iraq free!

--- Phatcat68 08:13, 23 July 2005 (US ET)

Very nice that "Thankfully, conservatives in the United States found out and told about his involvement"; too bad, however, that they are not able to produce convincing evidences for this; curious, also, that intelligence professionals are sceptics. Troubling, finally, that Iraq was invaded on the basis of accusations that we now know were false; this, unfortunately, makes it difficult for us now to these terrorism theories for granted without more proofs.

As for honouring the "brave men and women who fought to make Iraq free", I am very afraid that this is not the purpose of an encyclopedia. For this endeavour, you might want to find, or start, some other wiki or blog on which you could write. Rama 12:36, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Dude, Saddam has not sponsored any terrorism against the U.S. What's more, this isn't even controversial. Hussein did not have anything to do with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or 9/11. I, of course, cannot prove a negative by showing you everywhere the evidence does not exist, but you can certainly attempt to prove a positive. Unended 14:56, July 23, 2005 (UTC)

My views are very similiar to those of Rama. Im glad to know that there are some people that have not been brainwashed yet.LtDoc 21:55, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Brainwashed. Formed an opinion from the facts presented to them. Same thing right? It would be just as easy for me to claim you have been brainwashed by Michael Moore. Not that I would, I assume that everyone here has the right to their own opinion and if you believe them to be wrong prove them wrong with facts. --EatAlbertaBeef 05:08, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

most regard as illegal

When we change from "most regard it as illegal" to "some regard it as illegal" aren't we distorting the reality? The only legal authorities I can think of who justify its legality work for the white house. It's not my area of expertise so I don't plan to meddle, but it seems to be a question easily answered by counting how many consider it illegal -- it's certainly the majority opinion outside the US, and it is backed up of course by the opinion of the secretary general. Does someone have a more authoritative analysis of this question? --csloat 02:18, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are both former lawyers who supported the war ([38], [39]). I doubt they had any qualms about its legality. Do they work for the White House? SLM@28 June 2025 16:41

Both have said they were very disappointed with the way the war was started without international support, and that they would have gone through the UN had they been president. To my knowledge neither has directly addressed the legality of the war but such statements about the need for international support through UN indicate that they did in fact have qualms about its legality. In any case if you look worldwide rather than just in the US it becomes very clear that most regard this war as illegal. csloat 16:56, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Well if you can find a survey of everyone on earth about the legality of the War in Iraq which has results to that effect, then we can definatly change it from some to most. Until then that is considered a generalisation and should be avoided in the context of an encylopedic article. --EatAlbertaBeef 04:53, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

First of all, if an opinion poll included everyone on earth, it would no longer be a poll or a survey but a census. But even a scientific poll with a randomly selected sample isn't necessary to make that claim justifiable, I don't think. If, for example, you found that a huge proponderence of countries in the world had large newspapers with editorials condemning the war as illegal, with no countervailing expression of an opposing view', I think that would be substantiation enough even though it might not be scientific proof that 50% + 1 person holds that view. I suspect that "most" is probably accurate, but I'm not sufficiently motivated to produce the substantiation. I do believe it can be gotten, though, and it doesn't mean commissioning a poll of every nation on earth. -- PhilipR 02:53, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

If its easier for you to believe that the world is cheering on as Bush stampedes Afghanistan and Iraq (just to pick random 2 countries) go ahead and cheer on. Now if you want to actually discuss something, drop the atitude and try to broaden your preceptions by acknoledging that there is intelligent life outside north americaLtDoc 01:50, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I was under the impression that it wasn't just US anti-war activists (whose side I've gradually come to) who distinguished between Afghanistan and Iraq as being very different questions. Am I just being insular here? I truly thought that world opinion generally though not exclusively leaned toward seeing Afghanistan as a just war of self-defense given the indisputable al-Qaeda presence there, and it wasn't until GWB's misadventures in Iraq that he lost world opinion. Please advise; this isn't just snark on my part. - PhilipR 02:43, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

Since some people seem to think that only "some" of the world regards the 2nd Iraq invasion as illegal. Here is a link from Gallup; one of the most respected names in polling up there with ICM and MORI. http://www.gallup-international.com/ContentFiles/survey.asp?id=10 From that link: "In general, a war against Iraq declared unilaterally by the US and its allies does not receive much public support." The exact number of "not much public support" is less than 10% according to the accompanying documents. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq did not have the support of the UN it was a unilateral invasion. Therefore, according to the Gallup poll it is More than fair to say that "most regard it as illegal". Enough evidence for AlbertaBeef and everyone else? 68.199.46.6 07:36, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

I think you should edit it to give that specific detail as fact: A Gallup poll on such-and-such date showed that only 10% of...". But before you edit, you should probably register or log in; my intuition is that an edit with a registered account will probably be given more credence than an IP, even if one could debate whether that should be so or not. - PhilipR 15:57, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

That Gallup poll asked nothing about legality. The questions were phrased about whether military action was appropriate. Does "inappropriate" really = "illegal"? - Sethery 16:00, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Where the Czech government stands

"The Czech government still stands by its assessment that Al-Ani had indeed met with Atta in Prague. [42]"

I've read the link given, and I see nothing about the Czech government insisting that the meeting actually happened. The closest it comes to affirming the meeting is asserting uncertainty: "This meeting is simply not proven one way or the other." --Mr. Billion 19:49, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Atta in Prague and TDC's Bad Edits

Sorry TDC, this discussion (as you are well aware) has already taken place on the Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda page and the evidence is crystal clear that Atta was never in Prague. The Czech intel report you cite was based on a single unreliable eyewitness from Prague's Arab community who saw Atta on TV after 911 and thought he remembered seeing him in Prague. The Czechs backed off their report.[40] The New York Times report was described as "a fabrication" by Ladislav Spacek, a spokesman for Czech president Vaclav Havel. But Spacek also "said Mr. Havel was still certain there was no factual basis behind the report that Mr. Atta met an Iraqi diplomat."(Peter S. Green, "Havel Denies Telephoning U.S. On Iraq Meeting," New York Times (23 October 2002) p. A11.)

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III has claimed that "there was no evidence Atta left or returned to the U.S. at the time he was supposed to be in Prague. ... We ran down literally hundreds of thousands of leads and checked every record we could get our hands on, from flight reservations to car rentals to bank accounts."[41]

Even further doubt was cast on rumors of such a meeting in December 2003 when Al-Ani, who is in U.S. custody, denied having ever met Atta ([42], [43]). According to Newsweek, it was "a denial that officials tend to believe given that they have not unearthed a scintilla of evidence that Atta was even in Prague at the time of the alleged rendezvous."[44] It is also notable that Atta's own religious and political convictions made him violently opposed to the Saddam regime; according to the 911 Commission Report, "In his interactions with other students, Atta voiced virulently anti-Semitic and anti-American opinions, ranging from condemnations of what he described as a global Jewish movement centered in New York City that supposedly controlled the financial world and the media, to polemics against governments of the Arab world. To him, Saddam Hussein was an American stooge set up to give Washington an excuse to intervene in the Middle East." (p. 161)

All of the above is on the Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda page. I can reproduce it here again if we really want that redundance, or I can revert to the simple statement of conclusion that we had before, and people can look at the other page if they want more information. But I do not think we should have inconsistent statements on the two pages when it is obvious one is just disinformation that you are spreading in order to bolster your little conspiracy theory.

I'm going to revert again; please do not revert back -- either include all the above information or leave it alone. But do not just cherry pick the information that supports your POV. --csloat 21:19, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

update: I erased "faith" from the title of this section as I mean to assume good faith; I will assume that TDC is spreading disinformation unknowingly rather than in bad faith, even though he is an active participant on the other page where this conspiracy theory is being discussed. TDC all of the information above plus even more is on the timeline on that page under April 2001. The Czechs do not exactly stand by their report -- they wanted to avoid embarrassing the official who believed the story so they attacked the NYT, but it was just posturing; hence the admission by Ladislav Spacek that Havel was still certain there was no such meeting. Interesting how there has been no discussion of this supposed meeting by Czech officials since that statement, no? My guess is it is still considered a big embarrassment to Czech intel. Anyway I apologize for saying your edits are in bad faith, but they are wrong wrong wrong. If you disagree, you will need to provide evidence refuting these specifics rather than simply reverting to general conclusions.--csloat 21:33, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

In other words TDC is right and you are wrong, but that doesn't matter because you "guess" that any information contrary to your opinion is a lie?! Unbelievable.--198.93.113.49 15:00, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

No, in other words, look at the damn page. If you don't like Wikilinks, there's also this article (accessible with Bugmenot) that says that one of Havel's spokesmen announced that Havel was "certain there was no factual basis behind the report that Mr. Atta met an Iraqi diplomat." It also corrects an article from the previous day, when the Times had erroneously reported he had made a call to Bush about it. And chapter 7 of the 9/11 Commission Report, which points out that no evidence indicates that Atta was in Prague other than the one unreliable report, there is evidence that he was in Florida, and that Ani wasn't in Prague at the time that the meeting supposedly took place. All this stuff is right in front of you, presented several times. Don't be obtuse. Mr. Billion 15:59, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

User:193.x.x.x -- Pot, kettle, black. How is "guessing information contrary to your opinion" is incorrect different than what you are doing? Are you aware that the FBI looked into Atta's cell phone records and his ATM withdrawals during the time the Czech report put him in Prague? His cell phone remained in use, in the USA, throughout the time Cheney said he was in Prague. And a picture was taken of him, when he made a routine ATM withdrawal, a day before, or a day after this infamous non-meeting. I urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to reconsider your support of Mr Cheney's repetitions of this claim, until you have done more homework. -- Geo Swan 16:19, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for clearing up the bad faith allegation; now, onto the substance of the issue. I think the issue is slightly more complicated than is presented. I really do not know what to make of the Times report and later retractions of Havel’s statements. I don’t know if you are correct in your assessment that the Czech’s were simply embarrassed by bad intle from the BIS, or if we have another Jason Blair on our hands.

As far as what was in the BIS report, no one know. There have been reports that it was just one lone eye witness; some have claimed that Atta (or someone looking like him) was caught on surveillance footage. The 9/11 Commission did not specifically mention the Czech BIS report (unless I am mistaken, but I have read the entire report).

As for the Czech BIS, and the Havel backing off the Atta in Prague claim, I doubt that if Havel had doubts as serious as has been reported would have allowed Hynek Kmonicek, the Czech ambassador to the UN, to submit this statement on February 24, 2003, many months after the Times broo ha ha stating that he“'can confirm that during the stay of Mohamed Atta ... there was contact with Mr al-Ani, who was on 22 April, 2001 expelled from the Czech Republic on the basis of activities not compatible with his diplomatic status”. [45] [46]

I think there is much we don’t know here, and in this instance, there is definitely enough contradictory evidence to preclude a disposition one way or the other.

On a side note I neither can nor will explain away the ATM record, or the ticket, or the car rental. Although these types of people do use aliases, and Atta did not himself have a DL (which makes it pretty implausible that he rented a car). And BTW, the ATM picture was taken of him on 9/10, not in April. TDC 21:38, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

You're wrong about these things, or at least I have seen no evidence to back up your claims of what might have happened. Everyone agrees the Czech BIS report is based on a single unreliable eyewitness. I have never heard any information like you suggest that there is video surveillance of Atta in Prague. If you have information to the contrary you are welcome to present it. The phone, ATM, and driving records are all on record; what makes you think Atta had no drivers license? I believe it was under a different name but that does not mean he did not rent a car. There is no evidence of him leaving the country in April 2001. There is also a court case in Florida with another terrorism suspect where the FBI presented evidence of Atta in florida at the time (I will have to hunt around for details on this one but I have seen the records and it is reported on in several books). As for the Czechs, are you suggesting that Havel did not say what the NYT says he did? Again, after the Czechs complained about the NYT report they went on to back up Havel's assertion that he did not believe the evidence was there to support a meeting. Again it is just my guess that the flip flop was a means of covering up an embarrassing mistake; the conclusion of Havel does not seem to have changed. The records of Al-Ani are also pretty clear - he was nowhere near where he was supposed to have met Atta on the 8th, and he is now in custody and everyone agrees he is probably telling the truth when he claims never to have met Atta. You cite Hynek Kmonicek but it is clear that he is the only one in Czechoslovakia who seems to believe this meeting actually took place. Certainly it is no longer the conclusion of Czech intel, or, for that matter, of any other intelligence agency on earth!

Some claim this is a matter of me (and others) believing only the information that supports my point but that is incorrect. I am looking at specific refutations of these claims and at other specific claims that make such a meeting impossible. Everything we know about Atta's movements suggest he was in Florida at the time, and everything we know about Al-Ani suggest he never met Atta. The fact that Atta considered Saddam an "American stooge" (911 Report) also bolsters this conclusion. Again, if there are specific facts that refute these conclusions, I am open to hearing them, but muttering "we may have another Jayson Blair on our hands" doesn't cut it. Nobody has suggested with any credibility that there was any reason for the NYT to fabricate such stories nor offered any evidence that they have. By that logic we can't trust anything printed anywhere. I think the preponderence of evidence in this case comes out pretty clearly against the conspiracy theory, and the only reason this theory has any legs at all is that certain people (especially Stephen Hayes) have been promoting it constantly like a mantra, in spite of the evidence to the contrary.--csloat 22:08, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Real quick, Atta never recieved a DL until May of 2001 [47]. All we know about Atta's movements during the time in question was that someone (perhaps Atta, perhaps someone else) was using his ATM card and his phone during the time in question. Although Atta was pulled over, during that time, I could fake bieng my brother if I were pulled over. I will get to the rest later. Perhaps the BIS thinks it was Atta in April of 2001, because he had met with (allegedly) Al-Ani and cased the RFE building (this was btw, caught on tape) in May of 2000. But once again, please provide a recent link with a direct non-anon statement, if you are going to convince me that the BIS, has distanced itself from the report. TDC 22:32, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

At least according to Daniel Hopsicker's book, Atta had a DL under another name prior to that and was very familiar with driving around that part of Florida. I don't know - the book is based on exclusive interviews with people at the flight school and others in Atta's circle in Florida so it's hard to verify, but I haven't seen any evidence to dispute any of it. But in any case there has never been any shred of evidence presented to substantiate the fantasy that someone else was impersonating Atta at the time he was pulled over (this is certainly something that could be checked in police records anyway, and many traffic stops are videotaped. If it wasn't Atta, his mug was certainly pretty well known after 9/11, the cop who stopped him could tell you right away). You say you could fake being your brother -- is there evidence Atta even has a brother that would have been in Florida at the time? Is there any evidence that Atta had a reason to have a "brother" impersonate him? It doesn't even make sense -- why would Atta go to such great lengths to pretend he was in Florida? I don't even know of anyone else speculating that this might have been the case other than you, right here.

As for Al-Ani - a couple of things. First, he was seen photographing RFE -- not Atta. You ask for later sources confirming that the Czechs backed off their claim -- look at Washington Post July 8 2003 or Sept 28 2003. From the first one: "After months of further investigation, Czech officials determined last year that they could no longer confirm that a meeting took place, telling the Bush administration that al-Ani might have met with someone other than Atta." The second article has similar statements (and is written by different writers). The Boston Globe on September 19 2004 suggests that there was another man named Mohammed Atta (spelling his first name differently from our Mohamed) from Pakistan who flew to Prague in 2000 and thereby confused Czech intelligence. (The Globe cites a Chicago Tribune story on the name confusion). The Globe article also points out that opposition leaders in Czechoslovakia are calling this a failure of intelligence on the part of the Czech government -- again substantiating my theory that Czech intel is just embarrassed by the whole thing. But in any case we have a non-anon statement on the issue from Ladislav Spacek, the same guy who thought the NYT report was a "fabrication," admitting that Havel's office now did not believe the meeting occurred (I quoted that above in this discussion). By the way, if you still don't believe any of this, I encourage you to pick up the phone and call Havel's office (or even the BIS) yourself. It's not like we can't confirm this stuff. I'd be very interested in their answer.

Look, this is all a fantasy that grew out of a mistaken eyewitness report and then was consistently repeated by "true believers" like Stephen Hayes, Doug Feith, Richard Perle. The problem is that they start from their conclusions (e.g. "the meeting did occur") and then reason backwards. And, in classic conspiracy theory reasoning, they shift the burden of proof -- saying it is now the burden of those who don't believe the conspiracy to prove such a meeting didn't happen. The problem is that you can never completely prove a negative, which is why the burden of proof is typically on those who assert a positive (e.g. "the meeting did occur") to prove it. In this case, the conspiracy theorists cannot prove it, so they rely on faulty reasoning such as this.--csloat 00:57, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

One more thing: for your theory to be true, you need to do more than suspect that we may have another Jayson Blair at NYT. You need to demonstrate that we have several of them at NYT, at WP. at BG, at CT, at AP, and the dozens of other news agencies who have reported on this. To be right you have to assume that the assertions of Stephen Hayes, Richard Perle and Doug Feith, as well as a Czech politician, based on their own analysis of raw intel data that had not been properly vetted by the relevant agencies (CIA and DIA here, BIS there), over the conclusions of those agencies as well as of every mainstream reporter I'm aware of, not to mention the conclusions of the 911 Commission. The NYT October 2002 pieces were based on months of research and interviews and the articles from 2003 and 2004 report the analysis and study of BIS of its own data. Once you sort through all the evidence and statements it takes some pretty bizarre logical leaps to get to your conclusions about this meeting. --csloat 01:16, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Time for an archive

This page is too long to be practical. Anyone object to archiving those sections that haven't had activity since, say, May 2005 (to pick an arbitrary cutoff)? - PhilipR 16:03, 31 July 2005 (UTC)