Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pre-Iraq War opinion on Saddam Hussein

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete Naconkantari 16:04, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-Iraq War opinion on Saddam Hussein

I normally try to extend a presumption of good faith as far as possible, but in this case it is impossible. The topic has been narrowed only to opinion on an execrable individual, and only to such a time frame as to eliminate any comments to the effect that, bad as he was, the results of the war were worse. Anti-war figures are quoted only for their qualifying statements agreeing that Saddam is awful. There are no quotations at all from anyone in the Reagan administration in the 1980s when they were more or less allied with Saddam. There is not a single quotation from anyone who is an Arab, a Muslim, or even a citizen of any other country than the United States. There is not a single quotation even about how Saddam might stack up against, say, the leaders of adjoining Saudi Arabia; not a single quotation that deals with a single positive of his regime. We do not handle even Hitler or Stalin this way.

The article is little more than a collection of quotations. It is possible that there is material here that might be appropriately usable in some broader context. I would be open to suggestions for something short of outright deletion, but (1) I do not believe the particular scope implied by the title of this article is appropriate and (2) I believe that the person who has so far written almost the entire article has narrowed it even beyond this scope in a way that creates an even stronger bias. - Jmabel | Talk 00:22, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to add all the statements you can find supporting Saddam Hussein's good will (and harmlessness) from prominent opinion leaders and public officials in the United States. It can't be too hard. If you want, just send me the links and I'll do the grunt work of adding them myself -- just make sure they're prominent public officials or prominent in the media. Why would you opt to destroy information (in an article several days old and still expanding and being refined) rather than help make an article better? I specifically separated the idea of trusting Saddam Hussein from being pro- or anti-Iraq war in the first two sections of this article. Also, see the Ted Kennedy section. I didn't create this to be an overall "Iraq War debate" article -- I wanted to focus on what important opinion leaders and public officials thought about whether Saddam was dangerous. Did you in fact read this article?Noroton 00:32, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
More thoughts: The "Bush lied, people died" position has been shouted for some time. One (not the only one) reason why this article is useful is that it provides a fair account of what people beyond the Bush administration actually said about the danger from Saddam's regime. There was a consensus that it was dangerous. So if someone wants to argue that Bush lied, more needs to be proven. I have no problem at all with including even earlier, Pre-Gulf War statements from the Reagan administration. Why do you want to destroy the article rather than add to it?
Also, I've included Republican comments, including one from Trent Lott opposing the '98 strikes. Another useful feature of this article is that it could show politicians changing their tune as the president changes from Democrat to Republican. And that applies to both some Democrats and some Republicans (and doesn't apply to others. Why can't you give me a few more days to develop the article, which I've already said is (a) a work in progress and (b) something I'd welcome help with? Again, why do you want to destroy the article rather than help improve it?Noroton 01:02, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete if the article stays the same. Not only is there serious POV issues, mentioned by the nom, but how is this article of any value to what the related articles have? Arbusto 01:48, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete With an unencyclopedic title like that, this is always going to be either an indiscriminate collection of information or a POV essay. Wikipedia (including this AfD discussion) is not a soapbox. An encyclopedia is not the place for this. Some of this information may be appropriate for wikiquote though. --IslaySolomon 02:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong Delete I foresee major problems with this article. Also as a casual Wikipedian I don't particularly care what the US thinks or thought of Saddam, which is what the article is about. Wikipedia articles are usually at their best when they represent a global perspective. Otherwise they normally suck balls.UberCryxic 02:16, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep - I'm assuming good faith in Norton.Bakaman Bakatalk 02:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Conditional Delete if the article is not massively overhauled. I feel that the article as it stands now is intended to push a particular point of view, but what is here is not completely irredeemable. A great deal of work must be done on a number of fronts.
    • First, instead of focuses entirely on the U.S., it must focus on global opinion as a whole, notably including Europe, Asia, and the Muslim world. In an ideal article, the U.S. might have more opinions cited in the article than any other one country, but the country would occupy only a minority of the text on the page. This means that many of the American quotes will need to be stripped out (or else we will end up with a 200kb article).
    • Second, the article is fraught with sentences that make it clear that its author is trying to convince readers of a point that he can't explicitly state without violating NPOV. The whole gist of the present article is "Democrats used to admit Saddam was dangerous, but because they are filled with blind hatred for Bush they betrayed their convictions to oppose the war." There is no other reason for statements like "Supporters of the Iraq War have noted the statements numerous Democrats and others that emphasized the danger of Saddam and WMDs in the past while the people or institutions who made those statements later opposed the Iraq War" and for the bulk of the text being quotations that all just happen to come from members of one particular political party in one country.
    • And then there's the lead that goes out of its way to say "Democrats and liberals knew Saddam was dangerous. Republicans and conservatives too." The article structure itself makes the same distinction, dividing statements into those made by Republicans/conservatives and those by Democrats/liberals. Why break it down along party lines like that unless you're pushing a point? In fact, why mention the opinions of elected officials and journalists at all, when the relevant opinions on the matter all come from people in the intelligence community (and related fields like diplomacy)? It is entirely on the findings of these agencies, after all, that the politicians and media figures base their statements. The only reason to quote them and not their own sources is to try and score points against them. Andrew Levine 03:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
      • I just noticed another howler, right in the opening sentence: "...[O]pinion on Saddam Hussein in the United States had developed into a consensus (not without dissent from a minority) that Saddam's regime was dangerous," and the word "minority" links to Protests against the Iraq War! In other words, the article is saying that those who opposed or protested the war believed Saddam to be harmless. Does the author really believe that this fairly or accurately refects the reasoning of the war's early critics? This is one of the clearest indications that he is trying to sneak a political agenda onto Wikipedia. Andrew Levine 03:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. per nom, major POV issues. 24.192.64.200 03:02, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment registered users please! Stubbleboy 03:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Responding to Andrew Levine: 1. I've started to include Republican comments on both the '98 U.S. strikes against Iraq during the Clinton administration and how those views sometimes contrast and sometimes don't contrast with their views during the Bush administration. None of that fits your characterization. And I have specifically stated that people could oppose the war for other reasons. 2. the article does focus on opinion in the U.S., which should be reflected in the article name. (I've said before that I had trouble with the article name.) It gets broken down along party lines in organization because that's a clear way of organizing it and to make the point that a consensus existed. Levine, you didn't really read to the end of the article, did you? Another point: the relevant opinions are the opinions of the decision-makers, and ultimately of the people who affect public opinion, especially in the United States.Noroton 03:18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Speaking of howlers Andrew is shocked, shocked that a political agenda might be sneaked into Wikipedia. Take a look at the Iraq War category pages (links at the bottom of the article in question here) and see the shape of Wikipedia's coverage of the controversy: tons of information on opposition to the war, tons and tons of it. If Andrew is saying that the article lacks information, it can be added. I get the impression from the comments here that the real objection is that certain facts should not be noted in Wikipedia and rather than make the information readily available to readers, information should be suppressed because it makes some people uncomfortable. Reasons for opposing the war despite thinking Saddam was dangerous can be added. People who thought back then that Saddam was not dangerous can be added, but none of that disproves that the consensus was that he was dangerous. Why that fact should be controversial or politically biased is beyond me. Why people are more interested in suppressing information rather than dealing with it is beyond me. But it can't be that people here are trying to sneak a political agenda into Wikipedia, Heavens no! Again, check out the articles in the several categories linked to at the bottom of the article in question here. It's quite a statement about politics in Wikipedia.Noroton 03:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
So you are admiting you wrote this article with a political intent? Arbusto 05:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Comment -- Arbusto No, I'm admiting that I wrote an article reporting an area of consensus (about the danger from Saddam's WMDs) which was later part of a larger political controversy (on whether or not to go to war with Iraq). Do you think it's possible to fairly do an article on that (reporting on what the consensus was)? Do you think we should have articles on such subjects? What specific ways could I have been more fair in doing it? Are you admitting that you object to it because you think it hurts a particular side of a controversy simply to get the facts out? None of these are rhetorical questions. I realize a lot of the problem here (not all of it) stems from the title of the article. What if it were "American pre-Iraq War consensus on whether Iraq was dangerous" -- what would such an article look like to be fair, or should such an article exist at all? Again, it's not a rhetorical question -- I'd really like to know what you think.Noroton 16:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Comment. Noroton, the solution to a problem of too much bias, as with water in a washcloth, is to squeeze hard until it is drained out. The solution is not to add milk. --Dhartung | Talk 06:19, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete as this he-said, she-said litany is more oppo research than encyclopedia fodder. If it were given a better scope it could be the kernel of a United States-Iraqi relations, heading the category. As it is, though, it's not just obvious POV-pushing -- no matter how you "balance" it, all it's about is POV. The important parts of this history are not the various statements (made in context of their times, but taken out), but the actual concrete things that happened. Sorry, this just seems like a fishing expedition, or in service of those who go on them. --Dhartung | Talk 06:17, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Comment -- Dhartung: you say all its about is POV but it's about other people's POV -- the POV of the people I'm quoting, and they're from all parts of the political spectrum except the far left and the far right because it's an article about what the consensus was. What the consensus was is a FACT, not an opinion, and I'm reporting it, not editorializing in support or opposition to it. I guess the overarching problem that I'm seeing here is that you people don't want an encyclopedia article that (no matter how fairly or accurately it's presented) covers what a consensus opinion was about an important issue. When you say "all it's about is POV" you really mean, "all it's about is reporting on a POV" (although I dispute that, it's all about what the consensus was and in some cases how that changed among both Republicans and Democrats). Is that a fair description of your ultimate objection? Because with all the complaining about NPOV, I don't see what could either be added or taken out to satisfy you. It's the concept of doing an article on this subject that you really object to, right?Noroton 16:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Reply: Indeed, Noroton, it is the concept itself that I object to. It's a history of points of view. I don't find that useful or encyclopedic. It's like the difference between who signs a get-well card, and who spends all the time in the hospital with you. --Dhartung | Talk 12:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Reply -- Dhartung: Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think it would be hard to have any kind of article about history without including points of view, and it's hard to have any deep coverage of something important without separating parts of it into individual articles, so I don't see how Wikipedia could operate well under the restrictions you'd set for it.Noroton 20:26, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Noroton, I did indeed read the entire article. But while I was reading more and more of it, the faith I had that you were attempting to be neutral disappeared. The simple facts are these: Your article presents quotes in a way that is deliberately meant to demonstrate a contradiction between what certain people have said and done, and imply that those making the statements changed their stated positions out of political expediency. This is what you admitted above. To that end, you have almost completely ignored the context in which the statements were made. You chose to present the information in a structure that was broken down by party lines and not a chronological structure that would allow the statements to be viewed in the context of the Iraq disarmament crisis and the War on Terror that formed their backdrop. Thus your article ignores the fact that the execution of Operation Desert Fox, by degrading Saddam's WMD projects, rendered moot (or at least cast in a different light) all of the pre-December-1998 quotes, and with it ended the consensus that Saddam still posed a danger. Your article also ignores how the presentation of intelligence by the Bush administration was the primary influence on the opinions of politicians in the year preceding the invasion of Iraq. You left out global opinion on Saddam Hussein, even you have not provided a reason why the article should focus solely on the United States. If these cannot all be addressed, what we have left is an article that presents information deceptively, and we cannot keep such an article on Wikipedia. And yes, as Dhartung says, if you think that some articles have an anti-war bias, you remove the bias instead of adding counter-bias. Andrew Levine 06:43, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment -- Andrew: (Please see my comments to Dhartung, above, I'd be interested in what you think about them.) You claim to have read the article, but I don't see it. First, I've added (and was in the process of continuing to add) context and direct links to full sources for as many of these quotes as I can get. I deliberately put information about Operation Desert Fox in the article to show that some of the comments were made before and during that episode, and each statement is dated so that anyone can see that. I have also reported that some people have made the political point that these statements seem to contradict later statements. What you say about Operation Desert Fox is interesting and wrong. I DID put in that context. People thought (see Clinton comments in this article and see Albright comments in the "Degrade..." section of the Wikipedia article on Operation Desert Fox) that Operation Desert Fox had delayed Hussein's WMD program and destroyed some material and production capacity, but no one claimed at the time that it destroyed it. Some people said it delayed WMD production for six months (Kissinger, Brzezinski), some said four years. Besides that, some of the statements, as I said in the article, but which you ignore here, were made well after Operation Desert Fox. This is all in the article you say you read (I did add to it yesterday, perhaps you didn't catch the additions?). Second, I did leave out global opinion -- it didn't affect the American consensus, and global opinion would belong in its own article, I think. It was America that decided to go to war and that was decisive. Frankly, global opinion held us back for a while, but ultimately it was irrelevant because we went to war anyway. Figuring out what the "global consensus" was is not something I can do, and I'm not sure how valuable it is. Figuring out what the American consensus was is obviously valuable as background for understanding the decision to go to war. And how do you show there was a consensus unless by showing that the major players across the political spectrum, identified by party, for instance, were essentially of one mind on the subject (which was PART of the overall debate on the Iraq War). I suppose you can quote others saying "there was a consensus" and that probably should be done, but you've got to at least provide plenty of examples of it. Only by having articles about part of that massive debate can we adequately cover, in enough detail, what the overall debate really was. Or do you take the position that we can't have articles covering debates, no matter how important they are? By the way, it's not that I think the articles have the bias, it's that I think the articles themselves are focused on aspects of the controversy over Iraq that are designed to put the anti-war side in a good light, ignoring other aspects, which I think is the reverse side of what your real objection is about this article.Noroton 16:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Comment post script: I have absolutely no problem including quotes from people like Jay Rockefeller saying why they opposed the war despite having thought when they first voted to authorize it that Saddam was a threat, and even blaming Bush's presentation of intelligence. The value would be that it informs everyone what the position of someone like Rockefeller's was and why it changed. There were plenty of people who recognized some degree of danger from Saddam but who opposed the war nevertheless. I have no problem with including that information as a section in this article and even contributing to an article solely on that position, because I think it would be a valuable contribution to anyone trying to understand the debate. My motive here really is to help readers better understand the debate which this article is one step in doing.Noroton 16:54, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Comment p.p.s.: By the way Andrew, if I were so partisan in wanting to hurt Democrats, why would I be including Republican comments like Trent Lott's, and why would I treat Ted Kennedy the way I did, adding his statement in opposition to the war despite his view of Saddam trying to get WMDs? And why would I keep replacing links from bloggers who were making a political point with Web pages that reproduce entire statements, giving context? And why would I constantly link to the Snopes.com Web page that gives context? Could it be that I'm actually, honestly trying to get at the unpartisan truth instead of trying to make a partisan point?Noroton 16:59, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Your continued efforts to improve the article show a good-faith effort to remove POV, but I am still afraid that this needs to be completely restructured to avoid even the perception. By the way, I think it is equally unfair to treat Trent Lott the same way. --Andrew Levine 18:16, 27 September 2006
Since the above comment, nobody has reworked the article to make it any less POV. I don't think Noroton is interested in doing what is necessary to make this article unbiased in its nature. Andrew Levine 23:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, POV issues, it's unlikely the article can become encyclopedic. This chunk of content should be moved out of Wikipedia. --Terence Ong (T | C) 09:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, the POV is so bad it's almost painful. Moreschi 11:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Rename and Cleanup, while there are obvious POV issues as described above, this is really no different than articles like Governments' positions pre-2003 invasion of Iraq and American government position on invasion of Iraq. I would rename this something along the lines of Americans' perceptions of Saddam Hussein regime pre-Iraq War or Americans' pre-Iraq War opinion on Saddam Hussein regime. This is a useful body of knowledge to have, especially in light of everything that has come out since. It is well researched, although there were many American voices of dissent that must be included as well.Joshdboz 11:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. This is, as I noted on the article's Talk page, a fairly transparent attempt to push a point of view.
    • Comment: I was going to post this on the article's Talk page, but since it seems most discussion is occurring here, I'll put it here.
Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. And use of the word "repair" was unnecessary. I should have just said "work". I apologize for being rude. But this is a thoroughly biased article.
Have you read WP:AGF? The policy in a nutshell is: "Assume that others are trying to help Wikipedia rather than harm it, unless there is clear evidence to the contrary." I don't think you created this article with malicious intent. I have not assumed bad faith. I've no doubt you mean well. I certainly have never said that you were attempting to harm Wikipedia. I apologize if I haven't said this nicely enough, but what I am saying is that on a fundamental level this article does not meet WP:NPOV. It also fails a few other requirements for quality articles.
To begin with: In its first sentence, [[Pre-Iraq War opinion on Saddam Hussein]] narrows its scope to only one topic: American opinions on Saddam Hussein relevant to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which if nothing else is an instance of ethnocentrism. Later we learn that even that isn't really the article's scope: It's actually just a collection of quotations from U.S. politicians and a pair of U.S. newspapers.
This article is fraught with bias and misconceptions. Returning to the first sentence: "Pre-Iraq War opinion on Saddam Hussein in the United States had developed into a consensus (not without dissent from a minority) that Saddam's regime was dangerous to the United States and the world."
  • The "and the world" bit is hopelessly vague. The primary object of Saddam's aggression was Iran, followed distantly by Israel, which he and many others in the Middle East regard as an interloper on Arab land, and more distantly by Kuwait in 1991, when he invaded because he regarded Kuwait as a thorn in his side and he believed he could get away with invading.
  • "Consensus" connotes an agreement reached after a meeting, rather than a widespread misconception.
  • The "minority" mentioned is at best inaccurate, since the protests against the invasion of Iraq were protesting the invasion of Iraq for a wide variety of reasons, not necessarily arguing that Iraq posed no threat to the U.S. or "the world". Many of them argued that, actually, Iraq posed no significant threat, or even that what Iraq posed a threat to was Iran, which actually is the country that most of Iraq's military aggression was directed towards.
Perhaps it was rude of me to conclude from the article's obvious bias that the article's sole contributor's political proclivities were showing in the way that it was written. If so, I am sorry, but that is the way it appears to me.
Another relevant part of WP:AGF is as follows: "Assuming good faith also does not mean that no action by editors should be criticized, but instead that actions should not be needlessly attributed to malice. Accusing the other side in a conflict of failing to assuming good faith can, itself, be a form of failing to assume good faith." --Mr. Billion 17:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Comment---Mr. Billion:Thanks for toning it down and thanks for the thoughtfulness of your comments both here and on the talk page. I think I overreacted too and replied too harshly, and for that I apologize.
Part of the problem here is certainly mine: My conception of what the article is about was too hazy when I started it and this debate is helping me clarify it. Because I was so hazy, it led to misunderstandings about my intent, which was to report on what other people's opinions were and how that formed a pre-war consensus on ONE aspect of the overall issue of Iraq: whether Saddam was dangerous. That doesn't end the debate on the war and in fact it was a consensus that existed independently for several years before the idea of going to war was debated. I think the subject I've described is valuable enough for a fair article in itself, do you? I think the subject here should be covered and covered with roughly the same scope in one article, but that other articles on related subjects would better put it in context. I just wrote several replies to Arbusto, Dhartung and Andrew and I'd be interested in what you think about some of the questions I asked. As to your specific objections:
  • Ethnocentrism -- we're a nation state that essentially had its own debate about going to war with another nation state. Therefore limiting this to America is justified, not for ethnocentric reasons but because this country is its own political unit and each political unit makes its own decision (so we have histories of Massachusetts in colonial times, for instance, and histories of Virginia, and having those histories is not parochial in any wrong way). Did the opinions expressed in other countries have an affect on our debate to go to war? Even if they did, what's relevant is what my article is about, which was what our opinions in this country were about the danger of Saddam's regime. Opinions elsewhere, particularly England, France, the Arab world, could make valuable articles as well and I'd read or even contribute to them.
  • "Consensus" -- interesting point. I think there were various meetings, though. I prefer that word (it's concise for one thing and probably useful for a title) but I have no problem with prominently discussing what widespread misconceptions there were. For instance, it appears that Operation Desert Fox was more successful than even the Clinton Administration believed. This wasn't discovered until after the war was over. Desert Fox appears to have actually knocked out the WMD programs right up to the invasion. I think some discussion of what was misperceived would be useful in the article, with a link elsewhere for the fuller discussion.
  • "minority" I think you're right, and putting that link in was a bad mistake on my part. I'll take it out. I also think it's worth mentioning who was in that minority and why they thought that way.Noroton 17:38, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • "and the world" the threat was vague and I would be amazed to see you back up your points about Saddam's threat being almost entirely a concern of Iran and Israel. I think you're way out on a limb there. In any event, in reporting on what the American widespread belief was, it was that Saddam posed some danger to us (I think I've certainly shown that was the belief) and we also believed he was a general danger to anyone he could lob a missile at or wherever he could sneak in a terrorist with a WMD.Noroton 18:07, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Prepare to be amazed, then. As the Iraq Survey Group noted: Saddam didn't have any WMD but he wanted them. As to why he wanted WMD, they observed: "Iran was the pre-eminent motivator of this policy. All senior level Iraqi officials considered Iran to be Iraq’s principal enemy in the region. The wish to balance Israel and acquire status and influence in the Arab world were also considerations, but secondary." As Brent Scowcroft, National Security advisor to George H.W. Bush observed in August 2002: "Saddam is a familiar dictatorial aggressor, with traditional goals for his aggression. There is little evidence to indicate that the United States itself is an object of his aggression. Rather, Saddam's problem with the U.S. appears to be that we stand in the way of his ambitions. He seeks weapons of mass destruction not to arm terrorists, but to deter us from intervening to block his aggressive designs."
As to whether it was known before the invasion that Desert Fox had degraded Iraq's WMD capability, refer to the Snopes.com article from which you collected many of these quotes: Afterwards, the military "announced the action had been successful in 'degrad[ing] Saddam Hussein's ability to deliver chemical, biological and nuclear weapons." National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice noted in 2001 that "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt." Colin Powell said the same month that Iraq "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours." It is misleading to say that the whole world was unaware that Saddam no longer had any significant WMD.
Regardless, this article's content (just a collection of quotes) is more suitable to Wikiquote, although again, proper context is essential. That and the palpable bias in its creation that JMabel and others have noted is why my vote is still Delete. My perception (just an impression I get) is that the changes Noroton has made are efforts to save "his" article rather than actual efforts to reach neutrality. He believes that his opinions in this discussion are "the voice of sweet reason amidst the howling storm," which indicates a continuing view that he is right and everybody else is wrong. --Mr. Billion 20:14, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Comment: Mr.Billions:What amazes me is how you insist the limb isn't already cracking: The Iraq Survey Group was formed AFTER the war. We are talking about before the war. Brent Scowcroft is certainly someone to be listened to as a person who once had considerable responsibility, but he is hardly the last word, had no inside information on Iraq's capabilities at that time (to my knowledge, anyway), and would have been relying on educated guesswork. I don't think Scowcroft presented (or had) any evidence at the time for that statement. I'd be happy to include his thoughts on the subject as the minority view, however. The assassination plot against George H.W. Bush doesn't appear to fit in with your Scowcroft statement.
As to whether Operation Desert Fox degraded Iraq's WMD capabilities, the consensus was that it certainly did. The consensus, even from official government spokesmen at the time, was that the degrading was not permanent. There were varying estimates as to when Hussein could eventually get WMDs built. Just see Clinton's comments in the article. See Albright's comments in the Operation Desert Fox article (I put them there). As I said, ONLY AFTERWARD did we realize how effective Operation Desert Fox was -- the Iraqis seem to have given up after that. Feel free to include those quotes from Rice and Powell in the article, and please explain why they fly in the face of everything said by everybody quoted the next year, in 2002. Could it be because Iraq continued to play games with inspections and because, after 9/11, the U.S. became concerned about nonconventional delivery of WMDs via terrorists?
As your comments show, the subject itself is interesting -- you just don't like the information I have put in the article. Rather than censor, you should be helping, or at least supporting others, in putting all of this into a coherent whole, as I keep suggesting. I have no problem taking this subject wherever the facts lead. Do you? I've also demonstrated on this page that I can change my conclusions instead of stubbornly holding on to a position unless I feel it's correct. Now that hardly seems like I'm impervious to other people's opinions, does it? (and don't take edit summaries so seriously)Noroton 19:59, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Since you seem so easily offended by other people speculating as to your own motivations, it would behoove you to refrain from accusing others of bad-faith motivations. I'm somewhat offended at your claim that I "just don't like the information [you] have put in the article", and that I'm only seeking to "censor" it. You might yourself review WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. What I dislike, and what several other people on this page have said they also dislike, is the brazen bias inherent in the way you created this article.
The Iraqi obsession with Iran was well-known before the Iraq Survey Group was established. The fact that Iran was by far Iraq's primary target was already well known to the United States military. Regardless, even if they somehow had no idea of this, it would be irrelevant to the current discussion. I was replying to your claim that it was impossible to support the observation that Iraq posed a danger primarily to Iran. You said "I would be amazed to see you back up your points about Saddam's threat being almost entirely a concern of Iran and Israel," and that I was "way out on a limb there." I presented evidence in support of my statement, and you changed the subject to when the United States became aware of Iraq's military goals. That is a red herring.
I haven't seen anywhere on this page where you've changed your conclusions. Presented with evidence of the fairly obvious fact that Iraq's goals were traditional and regional, you attack General Scowcroft's credibility without any evidence of your own. When it was first observed that the article is thoroughly biased, you attacked me for not being nice enough and allegedly breaking WP:AGF.
General Scowcroft was well aware of the attempt on George H.W. Bush in Kuwait in 1993. The U.S. had already tried to assassinate Saddam 260 times in 1991. And as Scowcroft said, if the incompetent 1993 attempt were any sort of justification for invading Iraq, why didn't we do so in 1993? It is at best an excuse. Even after 1993 George H.W. Bush himself did not advocate invading, and in fact still remained strong in his insistence that it was right not to invade in 1991. As he wrote in his memoirs, doing so "would have incurred incalculable human and political costs." The 1993 attempt may not be all it's cracked up to be.
By the way, I don't think you can so easily erase from memory things that you've said by merely saying "hey, don't take me so seriously." Even if you're merely joking, insulting people who are part of this discussion is in very poor taste and represents a violation of WP:CIVIL, a policy which I'm aware you are very concerned about. --Mr. Billion 16:51, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Comment -- Mr. Billions You're losing track of what was said. On Iraq's danger beyond Iran, Kuwait and Israel, you seem to want to argue what actual danger existed, whereas I contributed an article about what was thought at the time, so any points you make that go beyond what was known and believed at the time is irrelevant to this particular discussion (although interesting in itself, this is the wrong forum for that debate, which I'd win). You are the one changing the topic, not me. The quotes in the article show that it is a historical fact that there was a widespread belief -- a consensus -- that the Iraqi regime was dangerous to America. Nothing about what Scowcroft says contradicts that historical fact. I do find the Rice and Powell quotes dispositive and much stronger, however, and definitely worth including. I can say that because my mind isn't closed and can accept contrary information. In part, that's what collaboration is about. What I want is to get information out so we can come closer to the truth. I guess that makes me biased.
You insist on taking seriously and personally a flippant, humorous phrase I put into the edit summary. You also characterize my criticism of your rude initial comments, which you appeared apologetic for later on, as an "attack" on you. Why not just stick to the subject?Noroton 19:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Indeed, let's stick to the subject. A majority of voters--A consensus--recognizes that this article is so blatantly biased and misconceived as to not be worth keeping. Making flippant remarks, calling others rude, and insisting that reality is irrelevant in an article on opinion will not help to change that. --Mr. Billion 22:40, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
And you've done such an admirable job in sticking to the subject: attacking me. When I take your arguments seriously -- and I've been very earnest and serious in answering you, making this discussion very long -- you ignore all of that, focus on off-topic minor points that you think you can condemn me for (and strain to reach for something to condemn), then bring in observations from after the time period we're talking about here. Then you crow about more people voting for your side. I guess I was mistaken in responding to you. I won't make that mistake again here> Last word's yours if you want it.Noroton 21:46, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I haven't "attacked" you; I have criticized the article and the way it was written, which you seem to have taken unusually personally. The observations about Iraq's motivations, as should be obvious from reading what has already been said, were easily available well before the invasion.
I am disappointed at the way you first say some of your remarks were merely "flippant" and "humorous" and then switch to insisting that they've all been "earnest and serious". This is not helping us. That and the plainly visible tendentiousness in the construction of the article under discussion leads one to wonder about your actual level of earnestness and seriousness.
I'm disappointed that you feel that discussion is not a helpful way of resolving disputes, but if you now wish to shut yourself off from communication, that decision is yours to make. --Mr. Billion 06:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I haven't "attacked" you; I have criticized the article and the way it was written" You're so right. How could I have misinterpreted your cool, calming language as anything other than a reasonable, helpful, fair-minded, collegial effort on your part. Thanks for pitching in!
  • ["it will require a large amount of repair... Noroton's pet political project" -- 25 September (from your very first comment, on the [Talk:Pre-Iraq War opinion on Saddam Hussein|Discussion page]])
  • So-called "apology" that I guess wasn't really an apology: "I apologize for being rude. ... Perhaps it was rude of me to conclude from the article's obvious bias that the article's sole contributor's political proclivities were showing in the way that it was written. If so, I am sorry, but that is the way it appears to me. -- 17:00, 27 September
  • "My perception (just an impression I get) is that the changes Noroton has made are efforts to save 'his' article rather than actual efforts to reach neutrality." -- 20:14, 27 September
  • Well, at least I'm not under attack. I'm just "disappointing": "I'm disappointed that you feel that discussion is not a helpful way of resolving disputes" It's just an impression I get, but after all you've said, does that wording ring a little false coming from your keyboard? And do you think this response of mine is meant to be humorous or earnest or both? Oh, that's right, you don't even think someone can alternate between one and the other, never mind be both at once.Noroton 16:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Calm down. You seem to be getting very worked up over this. I am displeased at the attempt to push a point of view (and about a dozen others have also concluded that the creation of this article was such an attempt, so it's not just me) and your subsequent behavior. I don't think someone can legitimately alternate between flippancy and earnestness, then claim to have been consistently earnest. I don't have anything against you personally, but I wish you'd drop the POV-pushing.
It is good that you've chosen to return to the discussion, but the sarcastic and confrontational nature of your return has not helped matters. I don't know why you've taken my statements so personally, but I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings.
As IslaySolomon and others have noted, this content is not suitable for Wikipedia.
This discussion has ceased to be productive. --Mr. Billion 19:32, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
This discussion long since ceased to be productive. I've shown where the confrontation started and who started it. I leave it to anyone, including yourself, to check the accuracy of your description of your comments and mine -- I don't find your descriptions accurate in the least. There is no sense trying to create an article on a controversial topic when so many Wikipedians are more interested in suppressing information than in trying to improve an article. The standard is that the article has to be perfect at birth or we'll kill it in the crib. Great example of collaboration guys.Noroton 20:05, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're saying is inaccurate. Nor is it clear what you mean by "who started it." JMabel was the one who nominated this article for deletion, not me. Several others have had the same criticisms of the article's structure as I have had. Perhaps you're focusing on me because I was the first one to point out the obvious political intent. Regardless, the point is not that Wikipedia doesn't or can't have articles on controversial topics--There is no shortage of those--but that Wikipedia shouldn't accept articles that are clearly intended to push a point of view. Your accusing "so many Wikipedians" of merely seeking to censor your innocent pursuit of truth is insulting. That is itself a very poor attempt at working within a group. We are not blind, and we can recognize partisanship when we see it. Please stop insulting us.
Please. --Mr. Billion 20:40, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Noroton, I think that your latest efforts at improving the article present a good-faith effort at removing POV issues. There is a lot that still needs to be done, however, in terms of its structure. I will see if I can work on it a little more over the next few days. In the meantime, I am changing my vote on the article to Neutral and will see if we can reach a common ground. Andrew Levine 18:16, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Eight days later, Noroton no longer seems interested in restructuring the article as needed. Andrew Levine 23:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep with Cleanup POV issues is not a valid reason to delete an article. If the problem is POV, we can simply cleanup the article to make it NPOV. Ramsquire 18:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Weak Keep assuming Good Faith Valoem talk 19:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Delete as I feel the article as presented is incapable of conforming to NPOV and reaches too far into the realm of OR (even leaving aside that the title suggests a topic 100 times broader than what it is). I admire the degree of research done here, but I think the author may misunderstand the meta-academic nature of wikipedia. This is not a place where one does research and presents a paper. This is a place to cite a published academic paper if it regards a broader topic.

That said, since the author has obviously done some extensive research, there's no reason for it to be completely lost. I would say that all of the quotations in the article have value to the public debate about Saddam Hussein and the Iraq War, but best practice would be to create a third party site with only those quotations and add a passage or two to related articles here with a citation to that third party site. My OR concern is not about the primary sources, it's about their presentation here 'with findings' in an original way.

Wikipedia is a tertiary source, not a secondary one -Markeer 21:53, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment -- Markeer: You make good points, but they don't apply to this article. I'm not advancing a thesis that doesn't exist, I'm providing an account of what was said. I think I can find citations of what others have said about the positions people have taken, but Wikipedia (and any encyclopedia) has always used direct quotes, too. There are more here than usual, and writing an article about a debate is something new for me, but this isn't fundamentally different from other articles and doesn't have to be. You don't say why the article is incapbable of conforming to NPOV -- why?Noroton 23:11, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete what with Wikipedia not being a soapbox, and this being a polemical essay. Why shouldn't the opinions of all the people who thought Saddam was a great guy in the 1980s be included here ? Ah, carefully chosen parameters. That is why it will always be POV. Angus McLellan (Talk) 17:28, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment -- Angus: You ignore information included in the article that is contrary to some simple partisan "soapbox" statement. You call "polemical" what reports on polemical statements from people (what article about a controversy wouldn't do that?). You ask the purely rhetorical question "Why shouldn't the opinions of all the people who thought Saddam was a great guy in the 1980s be included here?" because you ignore the top part of the article itself (relying only on the article title, which I'd prefer to change to the boldface version in the top paragraph). Rather than ask a rhetorical question, why not make it a real question? The real answer would be: That doesn't relate to the perceived danger of Hussein to the U.S. and the world, which is the subject of this article. If "the opinions of all the people who thought Saddam was a great guy in the 1980s" aren't in Wikipedia, I think that's a worthy subject for an article or part of an article. If it doesn't exist, I'll be happy to help put it in -- how 'bout it, Angus?
  • Strong Keep for all the reasons I've stated above and may later state below, although I think this is a lost cause.Noroton 20:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep per Joshdboz and Ramsquire's comments. —Morning star 02:44, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep It has an axe to grind but that doesn't mean it should be deleted instead of fixed. It's only two weeks old and almost all the edits are from one user. With time we can make it conform to WP:POINT. People won't fix it if it's going to be deleted. - Peregrinefisher 20:10, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete as a violation of WP:NOT Section 1.5.3. This is... a bunch of quotes. That makes it a violation of the policy against collections of primary source material. Plus, I think there's an original research issue here. If someone else had done a literature review, and an article in the "Academic Journal Of American Opinion" had used all the quotes copied here to do a statistical analysis on "Pre-Iraq War U.S. opinion on Saddam Hussein" (there's a systemic bias issue in the current list, but that's not grounds for deletion), we could use that journal article as a source. The quotes themselves, though, without an intermediary analyst... I think is too far in the direction of original research. The Literate Engineer 02:32, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Comment--The Literate Engineer Well, the first seven footnotes or so link to intermediary analysis, although it's partisan. They could be described more in the article -- would that satisfy you?Noroton 03:05, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Comment No. One, I'm inclide to agree with the part of the WP:RS guideline that says blogs and forum posts should never be accepted as secondary sources. Two, the analysis is of the wrong sort. I offered statistical analysis as an example. A secondary source that used the quotes as the input for calculations that found a 95% confidence interval of 57% to 79% of the U.S. population felt a certain way, that would be fine. An academic journal article that used all or some of those quotes for a case study in how political leaders present themselves in response to or in an attempt to shape public opinion, fine. All of the analysis presented in the first 5 sources, source #9, and source #25 (the 7 I checked, assuming them to be a representative sample) in my opinion either addresses a topic other than the topic of "pre-Iraq War opinion on Saddam Hussein", and is therefore irrelevant for our purposes here, addresses the topic but lacks enough of an academic nature to be a reliable source, or both. They'd be ok as examples backing up a statement like "Bloggers and op-ed columnists have used quotes by some politicians to suggest that they have flip-flopped on the subject of the Iraq War," but that's a different subject. The Literate Engineer 03:53, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Comment--The Literate Engineer: You're joining the discussion late and I can't really blame you if you didn't catch my comment somewhere in the ocean of words above that my original title wasn't well thought-out. I suppose I should have changed the title of the article (there's a process to do that while a delete discussion is going on, but I didn't have the patience to figure it out). My preferred title, and the real subject of the article in question is in the boldface words at the top of the article. Therefore public opinion isn't part of the article (and it's addressed in another article anyway). As I said above, it's an article about a political-opinion controversy: that's where the sources are. You either use the sources you have in as fair a way as possible, or decide you don't want to do an article on a particular subject. It seems to me that the subject is important enough to include in Wikipedia. Some contributors to this discussion have said they don't think so. Can the subject be covered fairly at all, or is there something inherent in the subject that makes it impossible to be covered fairly? My thinking is that any subject above some level of importance (however you define it) can and should and even must be covered by a project like Wikipedia. I can't see any way that the subject of whether there was a consensus on the danger of Iraq WMDs is not an important subject. I think it's one important part of the debate about the Iraq war. It's in that overlapping area of political controversy and recent history, and it affects the way people think. This subject is not the only part of the Iraq War debate that's important, but it's one part that is. In all the commentary of this discussion so far, I've seen a lot of emotion, a lot of invective and a lot of complaints, but hardly any grappling with (a) whether or not this is a subject important enough for a Wikipedia article; (b) whether or not it can be covered in Wikipedia fairly; (c) how to do that. The response to the article has been mostly emotional and often childish. Wikipedia seems to have its limits. I'm resigned to seeing my work wiped out and to see nothing but invective (except for a few responses like yours) in response to attempting to do an article about a controversy.Noroton 18:21, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • delete. Irrepairably (sp?) POV. Unlike the title, the article is a collection of arbitrarily arranged selected United States politicians' pre-Iraq War opinions about Sadam Hussein. Thryduulf 23:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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