Talk:2003 invasion of Iraq

Article is highly vandalised

Could somebody rewrite it please? All these "Polish divisions", "Italian and Danish troops advancing toward Baghdad", "U.S. 7th Infantry and 5th Armored Divisions" are funny, but don't have any connection to real events of March-April 2003. 195.248.189.182 (talk) 10:14, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the best response to the vandalism is to put the page under semi-protection; most of the vandalism comes from unregistered editors. Spartacusprime (talk) 20:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Somebody do something with that ?

The story about polish, danish, italian and spanish divisions fighting in Iraq is still untouched. Even worse - somebody put Danemark to the coalition forces on top of the article. I won't repair it myself, couse my english is weak. Nobody is interested in so extensive acts of vandalism on english wiki ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.129.69.2 (talk) 23:57, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, nobody cares. This article is totally useless. Maybe I'll add some stories about Mexican troops storming Baghdad later. Or something about twenty Russian airborne divisions assaulting Kuwait after beginning of hostilities. And still there will be no reaction. Hey, is anybody home? 195.248.189.182 (talk) 17:27, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I've removed Denmark and the Philippines from the list in the infobox. If we have to put Denmark (with 50 soldiers), why we don't see Tonga (with 55) then ? I've left the kurdish militias though, it's quite possible if they have participated in combat. - Tourbillon ^A ? 11:22, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

social studies assignment.

why did the 2003 war in iraq start? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.56.1.226 (talk) 00:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Because Saddam was making nukes, he supported Al Qaida, he housed Al Qaida, and probably the most prominent reason (and this is just a rumor), he got his hands on some Swiss printing presses and was printing U.S. currency. Don't take my word for it, look these things up.Prussian725 (talk) 14:58, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Saddam was making nukes? You knew this and you didn't tell anybody?Pirchlogan (talk) 02:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

To make money --89.139.102.28 (talk) 01:48, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

yeah, we are definitely making money over there.

Picture of the Bucket needed

I saw a documentary about the war and saw some photos of the vehicle called the bucket which is like a big wheel barrel that offers little to no protection to US troops that was used at least in the start of the war - thanks --89.139.102.28 (talk) 01:48, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Stats.

Some of the statistics in this article are questionable. One in the first section jumped out at me - it says that more than 60% of Americans approved of using military force in Iraq. The statement is followed by two statistics from the same poll that state that more than 60% of Americans supported diplomatic efforts. I looked into the CBS poll. It appears that only 31% of Americans supported military action in Iraq. Perhaps this should be changed and the rest of the entry checked for similar errors... 68.161.114.27 (talk) 16:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

What date was your CBS poll taken on? WDW Megaraptor (talk) 01:54, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Terminology

The opening to this article states that the invasion was the "begining of the currect Iraq War". This information should be rewritten to reflect that the invasion was the begining of the most recent Iraq War. The Unitied States is no longer at war with the Iraqi government. The US forces that are currently there are for security and reconstruction purposes, not unlike post WWII Europe or Japan. 156.101.1.5 (talk) 19:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Military history of the war

This article's military history section is a bit slim, I propose section 7 be expanded to the following sub-sections:

Invasion
Dora Farms Strike
Opening attack (crossing the border, Umm Qasr, oil fields, Basra)
Air Campaign
Central Iraq (Nasiriyah, Najaf, Karbala, etc)
Northern Front (Kurdish region)
Special Operations (Western Desert ops, covert recon missions, etc)
Fall of Baghdad (Karbala Gap, Baghdad, Tikrit and transition to guerrilla war)WDW Megaraptor (talk) 22:05, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Move "War Crimes Against Civilians" section

The section of this article "War crimes against civilians" deals almost exclusively with incidents that took place during the Battle of Fallujah in 2004, which took place outside the time frame of this article. This section should be moved or deleted. WDW Megaraptor (talk) 17:56, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Deleted. There is already a war crimes section, but this section didn't fall into it at all. It mainly talks about the US use of phosphorous as a weapon, and even mentions that the US doesn't recognize it as a banned weapon. Civilians that get killed are called collateral damage. There was no mention of war crimes at all, and any credible mention of war crimes against civilians can go into the war crimes section, so there is no reason to rewrite the section. Also, failed wp:npov and wp:v. --Abusing (talk) 19:13, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm disputing the neutrality of this article

This article seems to have way too much content intended to castigate the US or bring up percieved crimes compared to actual coverage of the subject. Jtrainor (talk) 23:57, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

and yet, no-one moans when atrocities by the Iraquis are listed in the article. I'll assume you missed that part, and that you are not trying to tip the article in favour of one side over another, specifically the American forces. JackorKnave (talk) 05:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I want the thing to be balanced. Spurious claims of atrocities are not balanced. Jtrainor (talk) 17:04, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

That's nice. Reread the article and see if no atrocities by the Iraquis are mentioned.JackorKnave (talk) 23:26, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Scanning through it the balance to me appears to be as follows - 1) a small section here about alleged US atrocities, relating only to Fallujah; 2) a large and wide-ranging section headed "War Crimes" here which is a long list of alleged abuses by Iraqi forces in various places, mostly directed against individual members of the invading US/UK forces. So who was responsible for the deaths of all the 1000s of (unnamed) civilians killed during the invasion itself? Many were killed by cluster bombs, random shooting by troops etc. See this article, for one. Unless we believe that the US & UK military are organisationally and genetically incapable of killing civilians or committing war crimes, the fact that the article doesn't mention any such incidents demonstrates that it is if anything whitewashed and biased in favour of the US rather than against it. In any event I'm not sure tagging an article as not neutral and then vaguely saying not much more than that you don't think it's balanced helps. Isn't that referred to as "drive by tagging", per WP:NPOVD? --Nickhh (talk) 14:41, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

This isn't about balance, it's about facts. In the case of war crimes, it means war crimes. That's it. Not by your definition, that's just what it covers. If you can improve the article by adding factual information about war crimes, whatever the side, please do so, if you can list a reliable source. Remember, this article will only cover war crimes from during the period from March 20, 2003 to May 1, 2003. Any war crimes after that can be found on the Iraq War page. Civilian casualties do not qualify as war crimes, we're looking for documented war crimes. As long as the information has a reliable source, it is relevant. If you think the tone of the article has a non-neutral slant, feel free to improve it as you see fit, as long as you do not delete sourced information. The war crimes commited by the US or Coalition all took place after the period of time this article covers. It is not an intentional lack of information to slant the article, it is a well written section that describes facts. If you feel that certain information is being left out intentionally, feel free to add it to the section.--Abusing (talk) 05:00, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting we invent stuff, I am well aware that any additions would have to be properly sourced and identified as being alleged war crimes, that took place during the relevant period. My point was merely a general one in response to the neutrality tagging and allegations of lack of balance posted above by another editor (it wasn't me that raised the issue). I simply observed that "if anything" the lack of balance appears to be the other way from that claimed. Nor did I say that the killing of civilians is a war crime per se - I very specifically talked, for example, about the use of cluster bombs etc. I guess I or someone else might get round to doing a bit of research and pulling some sources together, so that any relevant information can be added at some point. --Nickhh (talk) 10:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think people's complaints of bias are primarily directed at the war crimes section. Also, the use of cluster bombs is not a war crime because the United States has not signed the treaty banning cluster bombs, and the Convention on Cluster Munitions was not adopted until 2008.WDW Megaraptor (talk) 12:51, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Well actually the editor who posted the neutrality tag (I note that it has since been removed) was very clearly complaining above about the article bringing up "perceived [US] crimes" and "spurious claims of [US] atrocities". On the cluster bombs point - a) I like the idea that war crimes are not committed by a nation's armed forces when that nation hasn't signed up to the relevant conventions or legal frameworks (on that basis a country could claim it was doing nothing wrong by executing POWs, if it had never agreed not to); and b) even prior to the Convention aimed at banning them altogether, the use of cluster bombs in built up areas - which would have the effect of causing indiscriminate civilian casualties - was widely considered to be a war crime. Anyway as discussed, if there are reliable sources alleging or documenting war crimes by US, UK etc forces, and I or someone else gets round to digging them up, these can and should go on. --Nickhh (talk) 13:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Just remember that what is a "crime" is determined by what the law defines as illegal. If there is no law then there is no crime.WDW Megaraptor (talk) 21:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Historic accuracy and neutrality are vacant

I was there for the first 18 months, and many events need to be reviewed vs the released records of the invasion. Also, this article skewers the policy-makers who are admittedly in the wrong at times, but fails to show the positive affects of the actions in the region. Also remains negative like a liberal college student about the governmental figures in relation. 71.227.244.97 (talk) 04:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC) Ghost 71.227.244.97 (talk) 04:50, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

"show the positive affects of the actions in the region". Positive effects of an unprovoked offensive war? Would that be USA ensuring control of the oil resources and thousands of civilian muslims/arabs killed monthly? It might surprise you, but some don't call that positive. 79.138.113.94 (talk) 12:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

What a slime ball- I'm sick of you conspirators saying we went in for oil- we have 2 trillion barrels of untouched oil in our own country why would we wage a resource war? it doesn't make sense.

unprovoked? Saddam violated 17 resolutions 160 times. provided 25,000 bounties to promote suicide bombings in Gaza...thats pretty provoking.

Thousands killed monthly by who? please ensure you make note of who killed them, less than 9,000 are attributed to friendly fire innocents, so the 200,000 civilians killed (2008 Iraqi ministry of health- not that damn freak of a 'report' by Lance and his busings buddies that inflated the number so highly had been killed by insurgents and terrorist attacks.

75.179.172.189 (talk) 04:17, 18 September 2008 (UTC) Jade Rat

Lead/overview

Any reason why these sections are split? It would seem to make more sense to combine the information in each of them, edited down a little, into a single introduction section. For example currently the main lead cites a poll about the attitude of the US public to the war, and the "overview" includes detail about world wide opposition. Not only do these two points hang together conceptually, but the war was hugely controversial (to say the least) and this should be noted properly in any lead. Equally the current lead mentions that no WMD were found, and then repeats this (with a few weaselly attempts to suggest otherwise) in the "overview". It's not as if the lead is absurdly outsized for an article of this length, and merging the two sections would hardly make it much bigger anyway once any repetition is removed. --Nickhh (talk) 15:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality on "War Crimes"

currently, the "War Crimes" section only list events that portray the iraqis' as the the ones committing warcrimes. some of the issues are like "Sergant Who" has been shot dead or "Jessica Lyn" has been raped.

like wtf? guys? did someone at the whitehouse wrote this section or what? Shaoquan (talk) 02:27, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

If you have reliable sources documenting Coalition war crimes during the period from March 20, 2003 to May 1, 2003 please post.WDW Megaraptor (talk) 06:24, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, as far as I know any war crimes committed by Coalition forces took place after this time period, and belong in the article, I believe the link is, Iraq War--Abusing (talk) 01:58, 13 September 2008 (UTC)