Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Niger uranium documents

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 keep. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 07:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Niger uranium documents

Note per NPOV concerns I have renamed the article to Niger uranium documents. Let's focus on the topic, not the name which is trivially fixed. Derex 03:52, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Unsalvagably POV article. The term "yellowcake forgery" gets only 265 Ghits [1], practically all of which are from Wikipedia itself, Wikipedia mirrors or left-wing blogs. The title itself is an NPOV violation, as are the opening paragraphs, both of which treat the "forgery" as settled fact, even though the UK still insists to this day the documents were accurate. In any case, the article is largely a laundry list of data points that don't provide any direct evidence to back up its accusations, and are in some cases self-contradictory. I believe Wikipedia should have an article about the yellowcake incident, but this article is so hopelessly one-sided that I think it's best that it get an official delete consensus so that a new one can be built from scratch; any attempt at major editing to this one will just lead to POV-based rv wars. Aaron 18:30, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Further Comment: And yes, I'll put myself on the spot here; if this gets deleted, I will personally write the replacement article - a real one, not just some two-line stub - within seven days of deletion. If I don't, I'll go to WP:DRV myself and request the restoration of this article as-is. --Aaron 18:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Why not just go ahead, be bold, move and rewrite it yourself? --RoninBK_TCE# 02:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment: Because, as I said in my nom, I think that will do nothing but start an edit war. A successful AfD will at least allow me to rewrite it with some consensus behind me. --Aaron 20:34, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Comment: This is absurd. This is not what AFD is for. First, try editing the article in the normal process. You say you'll get hopeless POV battles, but you haven't tried. Are you saying here that others are POV, or yourself? If other's that's pretty much the ultimate violation of WP:AGF considering you haven't discussed it at all over there. If it is a POV-battle, then you take it to RFC or to mediation. This is simply not a valid delete reason, and the nomination is an end-run around standard Wikipedia procedure. You have not placed a POV tag on the article. You have not made a single edit on the talk page. You have not specified a single POV complaint other than the title, which is now changed (it was verfiably a forgery anyway, so that wasn't even a good reason). Also, if we're AFD'ing things for NPOV, how long do you expect your own personal re-write to last before it gets AFD'd? What exactly are your credentials that you think AFD should "endorse" you personally for a re-write, as seems to be your rationale? Derex 04:02, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Actually, I don't think the UK stands behind these documents. The UK says that Iraq was trying to acquire Uranium from an African nation (not Niger but probably Congo or South Africa). These articles (Yellowcake forgery, sixteen words, Plame affair, aluminum tubes etc, etc) are used by some to confuse the facts. It's a shame because there are encyclopedic value to some of these but it is lost in an attempt to smear UK and and US politicians and governments. --Tbeatty 18:39, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Before posting this, I attempted to find an actual statement from the Blair government saying anything along the lines of "Nope, we were had," but I couldn't find one. If anyone can find such a statement (and I mean a real statement from the current UK government, not an allegation from some mid-level hack), I'll be happy to scratch that line from my nom. The article's still hopelessly POV regardless, sadly. I spent a half hour trying to figure out a way to fix it, and couldn't come up with one that I didn't think wouldn't end in a nasty edit war. --Aaron 18:47, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: did you bother to try to find a single article or statement from the Blair govt (or any other credible source) suggesting these documents were not cheap forgeries? Where do you substantiate the claim that the UK still thinks these docs are real? This is the most bizarre AfD I've ever seen.--csloat 08:14, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment:If you simply looked at the Butler Review (i.e., an inquiry committee within the British government), which is linked in the article, you would have seen multiple statements acknowledging the forgery, including this one: "The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it."[2] Emphasis mine. Since I'm not the first person to bring this up here, I'm wondering why you have yet to strike that line from your nomination. *Sparkhead 02:57, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete I think the article may be salvagable, but the title is unsalvagably POV. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:43, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Changed to Neutral after the move, but would prefer the redirect to be Deleted. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 21:17, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Maybe move to a new name and rewrite a bit. I think it's definatly a topic wikipedia should cover though.--Peephole 19:12, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete and salt the page title. I wouldn't mind seeing a Yellowcake Incident, or some similarly named article, providing it was NPOV, and well sourced. But this article is certainly POV, and the title prevents it from being anything other than that. - Crockspot 20:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment All that salt can raise the blood pressure. So many articles needing salting!Edison 05:17, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Rename Then edit so as it to make it more encyclopedic and NPOV. It certainly is important enough for an article and several citations are included to mainstream newspapers of the US and other countries as well as US government investigations, so the material is there for a good article. It would be better to edit this into a better article than to delete it and create a new article from scratch. I can't see why a new article on the same subject, even with a new title and a new creator, would be immune to the edit wars predicted for this one. "Yellowcake incident" is probably a better title than "Alleged attempts by Iraq to buy uranium from Niger" which pretty much represents how it was described in the press.Edison 00:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: I'm having trouble understanding why the phrase "Yellowcake Forgery" is controversial when no one in the US government denies that the documents were forgeries.

Speech: The White House
Transcript of Ari Fleischer’s Press Conference
Recorded Monday 07 July 2003 and Transcribed By Joshua Micah Marshall

FLEISCHER: Yes, I see nothing that goes broader that would indicate that there was no basis to the President's broader statement. But specifically on the yellow cake, the yellow cake for Niger, we've acknowledged that that information did turn out to be a forgery.

bragova 21:42, 16 October 2006

Oops. I guess it is not controversial so far as Bush and most opponents of his policies are concerned. Who does that leave still denying it is a forgery? Any evidence the British still claim the documents are genuine, despite the reported anachronisms? The Butler Review by the British on prewar intelligence says "the forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made.” So it seems hard to find any government still claiming the documents were authentic. Edison 04:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment One point is that forgery is a crime, and without either a conviction or a confession from the individual alleged to have committed the forgery it's best just in the legal sense to avoid the word "forgery". Some American government droid saying the paper is a forgery is not proof that it is. A sworn confession from the specific individual who put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) might be. --Charlene.fic 12:39, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment This document has been described as a forgery by the White House Press Secretary as well as the British commission cited above. "Forgery" is more than a legal term requiring an indictment before it can be used. It remains an appropriate term here.Edison 14:44, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment I agree that "forgery" is fine in the title, as refering to the documents. It's the "yellowcake" that bothers me. I'd prefer a more encyclopedic name. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

• Keep (but clean-up, or even rewrite as per Aaron). As the article says, certain documents "proving" that Saddam Hussein's regime tried to purchase yellowcake from Niger turned out to be forged. Hence the current name is appropriate.
  OTOH, the article should make it clearer that there is other evidence for that attempted purchase which has not been discredited. (For one presentation of some of that evidence, see here and here. See also Joseph C. Wilson's report to the CIA.) Hence the current content needs lots of work from some brave editors. Cheers from a not-that-brave CWC(talk) 08:06, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I'm not too sure what to do, but I think if this is closed as keep, it should also definitely get the {{cleanup-afd}} template placed at the top by the AFD closer. I'm torn between opining delete and cleanup-afd. The article looks like a WP:NOR violation as a synthesis to make a point, rather than being the balanced, encyclopedic portrayal of the subject that it should be, which makes me almost ready to opine that deletion is the right answer. GRBerry 20:56, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Hopelessly POV and violative of Wikipedia policy prohibiting Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and uncorrectible because of POV-advocacy by a dedicated bunch of Axe-Grinding. Morton devonshire 22:23, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Having read through the article and talk page more thoroughly, it is quite clear that this is a WP:NOR violation as a "synthesis to make a point". Given the talk page history, I'm don't believe that Wikipedia editors are currently capable of maintaining an article that adheres to our policies on WP:NPOV and WP:NOR on this subject. Normally NPOV violations aren't reasons for deleting, but they are if the violation can't be repaired. GRBerry 16:59, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Would you mind listing a specific NPOV violation on the talk page over there. It's one thing to assert that they can't be neutral. But you haven't even taken the effort to point one out. These supposed hopeless POV problems don't leap off the page at me, so specifiying a few for discussion before condemning the article is not too much to ask I think. As to OR, I see many citations to mainstream news sources, so identifying a few parts which are OR would also be helpful. Derex 05:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep: I hate deleting an article for NPOV violations. The better course is nearly always to edit it into shape. Although GRBerry sounds convincing. I'm willing to help in recrafting it. There are some complications here:

1. The Yellowcake forgery was a forgery, and that's not POV, that's just fact.
2. Some statements were made by the Bush administration saying that Bush's comments on yellowcake from Africa shouldn't have been put in the State of the Union speech (those White House statements need to be exactly sourced, I don't think they are in the article, but I do think they came from the White House spokesman). Despite the fact that the Bush administration said it made a mistake, there's plenty of evidence on the record indicating no such mistake was made and Bush's comment in the State of the Union message was accurate. This is a confusing situation and the article, because of constant POV pushing within it, just makes it more confusing.
3. The Butler report does reject the idea that the yellowcake forgery was what British intelligence relied on. That needs to be high up in the story, now it's near the bottom.
4. The article has a statement casting doubt on the Butler report. No original research, please. Just cite someone else casting doubt -- and then be ready for cited statements in support of the integrity of the Butler commission.
5. The larger point about Saddam's regime and yellowcake is whether or not he was trying to get it. There needs to be a statement up high saying that there are assertions that he was trying to get it and those assertions are independent of the forgery. Perhaps this whole article should be merged into a larger article about that. In the long run, the yellowcake forgery may not be notable enough for an article of its own, although I think it is at this point (and probably for as long as we're in Iraq).Noroton 04:52, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per the NPOV issue. I would like to say keep but I would be kidding myself to believe after surviving an AfD that the editors holding the article in its current form will simply allow it to be rewritten in a less POV manner, then it wouldnt serve its purpose would it? I think this should be added possibly to other articles however covering reasons given by the administration for gonig to war, or broken up and inserted into the appropriate larger articles, but its current state is misleading and I have seen too many articles on AfD with promises to fix NPOV violations just to have those same authors not change the article because "it passed AfD, so its fine" --NuclearZer0 12:20, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I'm not sure what to do here. The article should definitely be moved and at least partially rewritten but I'm not convinced that deleting and recreating is the best approach. Perhaps a straw poll on renaming on the articles talk page would have been the better approach? GabrielF 15:26, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and edit. Gamaliel 21:29, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, edit, and rename. Deletion of the article and salting the name will not prevent any future edit war, it'll just move the potential conflict to an article with a different name. Nothing is stopping Aaron from writing a replacement article in his user space and the proposing it as a replacement. This is a content dispute. Take it through the dispute resolution process. --Bobblehead 01:53, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep I renamed it for npov; trivial to fix so certainly not an AFD issue. But, the topic is absolutely without question notable. This nomination borders on the absurd. Extremely well-cited. Could use some polishing, which would be a much more constructive use of time than debating an AFD on a clearly notable topic. Nominator even concedes notability, with "promise" to re-write his own version. Umm, that's a new use for AFD. States it is hopeleslly POV, but has not even placed a POV tag on the page, and has not even made a single edit to the talk page. An absolutely preposterous abuse of Wikipedia procedure. Derex 03:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep as per Noroton and POV should be one of the last reason an article should be deleted, when it is based on factual events. Maybe time could be better spent re-writing it, instead of stalking these articles to death. Khukri ^{(talk . contribs)} 07:32, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep: as per Noroton. Clean up the POV, and lets put a stop to what appears to be a concerted effort to purge Wiki of articles that are embarassing to Bush and the conservatives. NBGPWS 07:41, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete"Well-cited" sources dispute this article's content as dubious.--Scribner 07:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Question I don't really understand your comment. Are you saying that an important (well-cited) source has commented on this article? If so, who? Fishboy 09:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strongest Keep: Important historical issue, still in the news, extensively documented; named for AfD for purely POV reasons. If you have POV issues, discuss them on the article talk page; AfD is not for this purpose. Fully agree with Derex above - "An absolutely preposterous abuse of Wikipedia procedure." Could not have said it better myself. Scribner's claim above - "well-cited sources dispute content as dubious" - great reason to keep the article and cite the sources (though I find the claim dubious to be honest).--csloat 08:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Another instance of trying to use AfD to sledge-hammer a neutrality dispute. JamesMLane t c 09:32, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and edit - AFD is neither Requests for comment nor Third opinion sought. Smack Aaron with a yellowtail for well-intentioned abuse of process, and get back to editing, please. :) -- nae'blis 16:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Name change is deifinitely a step in the right direction, and from here it's just a matter of bringing the article up to snuff.--Rosicrucian 18:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep now that the name has been changed.--Strothra 22:29, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Name change good move, just needs some cleanup. Trying to state that calling the documents a "forgery" is in any way POV is ridiculous, all reliable sources, including the US government, acknowledge the forgery. Another apparent abuse of the AfD process. *Sparkhead 22:22, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Sparkhead is spot on... everyone admits this was a forgery. Cleanup dont delete.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 22:29, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Nae'blis, less the fish slapping part. Yamaguchi先生 01:31, 22 October 2006
• Keep "Yellowcake is in common use in magazines and blogs about this topic. This term has historical signifigance. Don't delete soley because of NPOV -- improve the article instead. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.189.111.74 (talk • contribs) 04:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - interesting to read the debate; i certainly side with the view that this should not have been brought to AfD to begin with Mujinga 23:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment expanding on my "vote" above.

We will not be able to write an article about the "Niger Uranium Documents" for decades, until those documents are declassified. We can and should have an article about some of those documents, because there is plenty of information on the public record. The documents in question (1) came from Italian intelligence, (2) stated that Saddam's regime had tried to buy yellowcake from Niger and (3) were later exposed as forgeries. Hence "Yellowcake forgeries" is an accurate title. That some people attempt to tar all the intelligence regarding Saddam's attempts to acquire Nukes with the forgery brush is not an argument for deleting this article.

OTOH, this article is currently in a bad state, and needs lots of POV and OR removed. See the insightful comment by Noroton above. Cheers, CWC(talk) 04:47, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

No need to wait decades; the forged documents were made publicly available in 2003. I agree though that "yellowcake forgeries" is a perfectly acceptable and accurate title.--csloat 05:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Yes, the documents were forged, as acknowledged by the Bush administration and the British government, and yes, the forged documents were about yellowcake from Africa. So what is the problem with the original title? There is no implication that Bush or Blair forged them.Edison 05:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for that link, csloat. Can we put that in the article?

I see my preceding comment wasn't clear enough. Western intelligence agencies have lots of "Niger Uranium Documents", only a few of which have become public. It is impossible to write a good article about those that are still secret, but we can write one about the ones which are now public — which were forgeries about yellowcake. (BTW, I've seen speculation that the forgeries were a simple but lucrative confidence trick, inspired perhaps by nearby confidence tricksters.) Cheers, CWC(talk) 05:58, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, this stuff should be in the article. I'm not sure what other "Niger uranium documents" you're referring to; unless we want an article about the history of uranium transactions from Niger but that really isn't what this article was ever about. It's about documents that show that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger in the leadup to the Iraq war, that were cited as evidence that Saddam sought such uranium. Since Saddam didn't seek such uranium, no such documents exist, and the ones that do exist are obvious forgeries. There are no other classified documents that I am aware of on this matter. (It is true Saddam sought such purchases in 1981, and there are probably documents about that, but that was never what this article was about). There is a little side show about the Butler Report that some conservatives apparently still harp on about, but the consensus of opinion among experts looking seriously at this issue appears to be that it is a bunch of hooey. Certainly I haven't heard of anyone suggesting that there are other Niger uranium documents lurking somewhere that show that Saddam was actually seeking uranium from Niger all along.--csloat 06:58, 25 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.