Talk:Gulf War

Article merged: See old talk-page here

Citation needed

Citation needed for number of captured soldiers looking for SCUD missiles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.173.92.217 (talk) 19:59, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Accidents

The infobox separately notes casualties due to friendly fire and accidents. However, isn't friendly fire an accident? I'm just curious as to why the two categories are separated.VR _talk 04:03, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Not in a military sense, I don't believe so. An accident is something like being run over by a truck, and those types of injuries or deaths are rarely counted as casualties. Deaths by (un)friendly fire are. §FreeRangeFrog 04:55, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Swedish field hospital

Does a field hospital count as being part of the coalition? Sweden sent a field hospital and a medical staff of 525 people according to Swedish sites, but it's not mentioned in this article. Or does only combat troops count towards the coalition? If the medical personnel indeed counts, could someone with knowledge update the map? 78.69.144.98 (talk) 21:06, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it does. If you have a source, add it. Or paste it here and I'll add it as appropriate. §FreeRangeFrog 01:40, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Here is a source from the official website of the Swedish Armed Forces, although it's only available in Swedish at this moment. The Swedish field hospital was part of the British Operation Granby. http://www.mil.se/sv/i-varlden/Utlandsstyrkan/Truppinsatser/Kuwait/ 78.69.144.148 (talk) 23:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Added to [1], sorry for the delay, I forgot! §FreeRangeFrog 05:11, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Overuse of "citation needed" remarks

I've noticed a prolific overuse of "citation needed" remarks akin to marking "on a normal sunny day, the sky is blue" as "citation needed." Most the points where some prolific citationist has posted these remarks are well-known, well-established, and well-documented facts, understood by nearly all those who were adults during the Gulf War. They're not fanciful claims, or uncharted personal opinions, and since I've made only one correction to this article, which has not be "citation needed," I feel free to contradict the over-prolific use of whoever has posted them here. Recommendation: Before you slap a "citation needed," please take the 60 seconds to Google the information on your own to ensure that it's warranted, as most "citation needed" marks are NOT warranted. If you need help on your Googling skills, please stop by my talk page. Thanks. - Mugs 12:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC) Those are the rules, if you don't like them start your own encyclopedia. "Well everybody knows that" is just ridiculous. If it's so easy to find on Google then why don't you just do it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.247.83.135 (talk) 17:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Material was added today which is covered by citations. An anon IP was reverted for inserting unneeded commentary and has added needless citation requestions requests. Recommend another editor review and remove today's requests. ----moreno oso (talk) 20:03, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

The claims tagged are NOT covered by citations - the citations are related to the verifability of claims made by Saddam, if at all. It's not verified if the claims made by the mass murderer were reliable and fact-based!!! Stop with your another falseties! Down with mass murederes and their trolling fans! --213.29.199.136 (talk) 20:16, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Citations

I've referenced the new material quite adequately. I have over a dozen citations in one paragraph alone. (Some of the other sections have two or three citations. Others none at all.) All of it is from respected news sources such as the New York Times, Newsday, the Financial Times, the Boston Globe, etc. I dont know how to do those special "news citations" , but if someone insists on that, I'll gladly do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phooey108 (talk • contribs) 22:53, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, good work. ----moreno oso (talk) 23:00, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Israel

The introduction states, "Iraq also launched missiles against targets in Saudi Arabia and Israel in retaliation for their support of the invading forces in Kuwait." Since when did Israel have anything to do with the Gulf War? If I remember correctly, Israel not only did not participate, but were even prevented from retaliating after being hit with SCUD missiles. So, I don't see how it can be said that Israel "supported the invading forces" (or was involved in any other way) and this be the sole justification for the SCUD missile attacks. Pardon my facetiousness, but (even if Israel had participated) what a coincidence it was that no SCUDs were launched at Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syra, Egypt, Oman, or the UAE. Why is that, I wonder. I think we all know why. (And it's not because all but Israel were out of range.) It's for the same reason that Saddam was paying $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers: antisemitism. 211.18.204.250 (talk) 04:34, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Heh, that's one of those OMG moments I guess. You're absolutely right. But don't assume bad faith, it was probably just awkwardly worded because it also mentioned the Saudi attacks, which were technically valid military actions. I've revised the paragraph a bit to make the distinction. §FreeRangeFrog 05:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Uh, back in the real world, it's understood that Saddam's attack on Israel was an attempt to provoke an Israeli response which would, since people in the Arab states don't like Israel, make Saddam look like the good guy, and undermine support for Arab participation in the war against Iraq. Or, you could shout 'antisemitism.' Either way, really. <eleland/talkedits> 15:58, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

It is obvious why Saddam's Iraq would attack Israel in the situation of the First Persian Gulf War, as Israel (along with the Saudi monarchy) are among the closest allies of the United States in the Middle East region. The Iraqi government had warned long in advance that if the US attacked Iraq or anything Saddam's Iraq would respond not just be fighting the invasion but by also launching attacks on the top US ally Israel: with SCUD missiles. Tariq Aziz also stated this in public before the war. Before the actual outbreak of the First Gulf War, that began on the evening of January 16, 1991 in the US (and early morning around 2:40am on January 17, 1991 Baghdad, Iraq time) Saddam had offered a proposal to withdraw his forces from Kuwait in return for Israel withdrawing from the Occupied Palestinian territories (as the vast bulk of the international community recognizes these territories Gaza and the West Bank as being under illegal Israeli occupation); the US and Israel never even responded and rejected Saddam's offer outright and refused to bring the Palestinian issue up in context with the Kuwait issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Historylover4 (talk • contribs) 02:53, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

First into Iraq and Germanys Part.

I have noticed that you consider elements of the 2nd ACR to be the first in Iraq. to my Knowlwdge this was the scouts of Task force 1-41 consisting of elements of 1-41st Inf. and 3/66 Armor(2nd Armorde division(fwd). This Task force i also believe has the highes Casualtiyrate ofthe deployed Troops and is probably known for the two major Friendly fire incidents.

Secondly I noticed that the Deployment of dutch Troops to the turkish border is mentioned as participating in the conflict. In this Case Germany has deployed troops to because Elements of the Flugabwehrraketengeschwader 36 were deployed to Dyarbakir ( Spelling needs to be checked). As I remember these Troops beeing deployed as part of a NATO Inquiry by Turkey not as a Part of the coalition Forces.

Not to put up Germany for a compliment but needs it to mentioned that the German Constitution forbid the deployement of Troops along with the Coalition ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.29.132.4 (talk) 10:46, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Bundeswehr was deployed on NATO Territory in Turkey. It was called Operation Ace Guard. There is only a german Wiki article... http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ace_Guard PS: dutch != german —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.184.136.18 (talk) 12:44, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

What about The MARINES ?

Why is there NO mention of THE U.S. MARINE CORPS' Ground Units ? My Step-Dad (GUNNY TESTER), told me that his Unit was The 1st. Ground Unit in, or 1 of The 1st. ? I'm pretty sure they were the 1st.. re: OPERATION DESERT SHIELD. My Step-Dad passed away Oct. 2007. PLEASE someone with knowledge of these GRUNTS, Please Correct this HUGE "OVER-SIGHT." Thanx Kj968 (talk) 14:26, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Possible Invasion of Saudi Arabia -- Strange Comments?

The section "Possible Invasion of Saudi Arabia" contains two sentences that don't make much military sense:

The Iraqi armoured divisions would have encountered the same difficulties that Saudi forces faced defending the oil fields, namely traversing large distances across inhospitable desert. This would have been exacerbated by intense bombing by the Saudi Air Force, by far the most well-equipped arm of the Saudi military

Why would defending Saudi forces need to traverse "large distances across inhospitable desert"? They would have been defending in their own country, with all the natural advantages that offers in terms of falling back on their own supply lines and infrastructure while the Iraqis extended theirs. Why would they even defend empty desert anyway? The real difficulty the Saudis faced was that they would have been heavily outnumbered on the ground and in the air, and facing an opponent who had significant combat experience while they had virtually none.
As for the "intense bombing by the Saudi Air Force", that is speculation bordering on delusional. Aerial interdiction and close air support were not primary missions of the Saudi Air Force, and they were not likely to greatly increase their capability in those missions on short notice. There is no reason to think the Iraqi Air Force would have stayed on the ground or fled to Iran as they did when faced by the Coalition air effort in the actual campaign. Saudi control of the air would have been problematic at best, to say nothing of their ability to help their comrades on the ground. Agree that it is the most heavily armed Saudi branch of service (although the others aren't badly equipped), but numbers of weapons doesn't equate directly to combat capability. --Darkstar8799 (talk) 21:34, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Both paragraphs in the section have been waiting for citations since January 2009. That is ample time. The entire section should be deleted until someone can find something supportable to say. I'll wait a couple more days before doing so, in case this talk activity wakes someone up. Hohum (talk) 18:24, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I've referenced some of it, and removed the rest. As well as merging the section into the one on Desert Shield . - SimonP (talk) 19:57, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Norway?

That entire section is B&!!$#!#

The two filled in reference, the book doesn't exist and the webpage is false.

I am going to delete it outright. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.48.229.97 (talk) 05:19, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Source #4

Does anyone have the full title for reference #4? Currently it only mentions an author (^ a b Geoffrey Regan, p.214) , but not the title of the book - and as it also is not to be found in the bibliography it is...somewhat useless. Madcynic (talk) 13:58, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Removed content

I cut a couple of sections "Inconsistent Intervention in Other Wars of Aggression" and "Was War Inevitable?." I don't want to seem like I am removing all the anti-war stuff, but these sections were poorly written and inadequately referenced. They stood out from what is otherwise a well put together article. We do need a good discussion of opposition to the war. Perhaps a new section on "Opposition to the war" running though the various arguments given against it and covering anti-war protests and such. - SimonP (talk) 14:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

The Battle of Medina Ridge

I have been hearing and reading several different numbers in battles.

The Wiki says it was an armored battalion on both sides with the US being support by gunships and A10.

The History Channel said it was an armored battalion of Iraqi tanks against Two Abrams.

And I talked to a former nationa guard member who said it was a company of tanks vs an Iraqi battalion.

All three said it was a decisive US victroy.

So does anyone know what the actual version is? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.130.185.110 (talk) 18:49, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

"The Iron Brigade had some 3,000 vehicles, including 166 M1A1 tanks" ... "waiting for them in the distance was the 2nd Brigade of the Republican Guard's Medina Luminous Division"

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/920120/archive_018929_4.htm

"Colonel Montgomery Meigs, commander of 2d Brigade IAD, faced the Medina's 2d Brigade and part of a brigade from the Adnan Division."

html version of http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=A309687&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf

"The largest engagement of the ground war pitted five battalions of the US 1st Armored Division against the 2d Brigade of the Medina Armored Division and part of the Adnan Division (Republican Guard)"

html version of http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/CADRE_Papers/PDF_Bin/Wills25.pdf

Hohum (talk) 23:17, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Strange use of words

Under the section at the beginning of the article which talks about the results of the war, I cannot help but feel that there is not a neutral perspective put forth with the use of language. My main problem are the two points which read like so:

-Removal of Iraqi invasion force from Kuwait -Palestinian expulsion from Kuwait

It seems that one of these points presents a more or less cold fact, that Iraqi forces were removed. But the second seems to show it from the vantage point of the Palestinians. The word expulsion simply is too strong to be neutral. It seems you either have to give cold facts or speak with equal force.

For instance, here is an example of equal force (though not cold fact):

-Liberation of Kuwait -Palestinian expulsion from Kuwait In this example the point of view is the point of the oppressed and not the aggressor.

However if you wish to remain neutral it seems a better way would be to say:

-Liberating of Kuwait by removal of Iraqi invasion force (which is a fact) -Palstinian exodus from Kuwait due to Kuwait's expulsion of them (which is also a fact) The difference between what the article says and what I am suggesting is that I am giving both the cold facts and the impact it had on the people who lived through these experiences. I just think saying expulsion and leaving out liberation simply is not neutral nor necessarily as infromative as possible. Thank you. --Ic2705 (talk) 04:32, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Im confused...

the belligerants section has afghanistan as number one on the coalition forces. i didnt find anything about that in the actual article,and the fact that afghanistan was a 100% non-state by 1991 makes me think that this is blatant vandalism —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.206.123.207 (talk) 19:14, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

That is a good question. It doesn't seem to be vandalism, rather it seems to be based on this list which itself is credited to "Gulf War Veterans: Measuring Health" by Lyla M. Hernandez, which hardly seems to be an ideal source for military history. Encarta does not include Afghanistan in the coalition list nor do any contemporary newspaper accounts I've been able to find. I'm going to remove all mention of Afghanistan and the coalition table until we have some better refs. - SimonP (talk) 19:46, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Books I have read such as CNN's "War in the Gulf" have stated that 300 Afghan Mujahidin traveled to Saudi Arabia to fight in the war, but nothing I have read indicates that they took part in any operations. In 1991 Afghanistan was still ruled by a Soviet-backed communist government (even though Soviet troops left in 1989 the Soviet-backed government fought on until 1992). None of these sources are clear whether the 300 men were government troops or rebels.WDW Megaraptor (talk) 03:21, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Afghanistan should probably thus be left off any official coalition list. It sounds like there might be an interesting story about the 300 mujihadeen, and worth adding to Coalition of the Gulf War. We just need some good refs for it. - SimonP (talk) 01:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Air war, etc.

I just started reading the book Clancy, Tom; Horner, Chuck (1999), Every Man a Tiger : The Gulf War Air Campaign, Putnam, ISBN 9780399144936 and, taking a break to have a look at this WP article, I was surprised not to find a mention here of Chuck Horner. I have added a mention in the Air Campaign section.

I am thinking that I might edit info from that book into this article as I read, but I don't want to step on the toes of editors who already have a lot invested in the article. As an example of what I might do, I might add something like the following to the bottom of the Battle of Khafji subsection:

Colonel Dave Schulte, the Battlefield Coordination Element/Tactical Air Control Center (BCE/TACC) commander, summed up the lessons learned from Khajafi as follows:

1. Coalition air power prevented the Iraqis from massing forces, showing that they needed to mass air defenses first.
2. Iraqui failure to predect coalition responses showed that their battlefield intelligence was poor.
3. Iraqi execution of the attack and retreat showed good command and control of their forces.
4. The Iraqis fought well.

The Iraqi IIId Corps commander saw it differently. When he saw what was happening to his forces in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, he called Saddam and asked for permission to break off the attack on Al Khajafi and begin a withdrawal. Saddam replied "No, continue the attack, I want to make this the mother of all battles!" the IIId Corps commander replied, "Sir, the mother is killing her children," hung up, and ordered his remaining forces to withdraw.(citing Clancy & Horner 1999, pp. 451–452)

I'm not very far into the book (I jumped forward to see what the book had to say about the Battle of Khafji when I saw a subsection on it here. The book has about 30 pages on the battle but, due to a different focus, I am unable to provide cites from the book supporting the info on the battle already in the article.). This is just a first-guess at the sort of things I might add. I wouldn't expect that I'd be very protective about any material I added.

Comments, anyone? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:40, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Loads of POV

The developments are totally narrated from a Western (US/Zionist/Kuwait) POV with no consideration for the Iraqi viewpoint.

For example no mention is made of the extraofficial authorization of Washington to Iraq to solve its differences with Kuwait unilaterally (April Glaspie recordings).

The border claims of Iraq (a long term cause of the conflict) are not clearly stated anywhere.

The period of a puppet government in Kuwait is not mentioned either. Iraq only annexed Kuwait formally after the US position was clearly stated, previously it had installed a puppet government in the emirate. It lasted only a few weeks but is anyhow an important part of the developments because it indicates a period in which Iraq seemed to believe it will get away with the invasion with just a formal protest. Belief that was apparently induced by US diplomacy.

Also I suspect that the history of US-Iraq relations is not narrated from NPOV but as a justification of the war. No mention is made to the many US allies (France, Turkey, even Saudi Arabia before the invasion of Kuwait) that were strongly supportive of Hussein's regime and its role as Western ally in the area.

In brief: a pity that Wikipedia seems to be falling so deeply into what can barely be called anything but propaganda or Hasbara. That part of the article is not informative (NPOV) but disinformative in fact. --Sugaar (talk) 23:01, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

It's a pity you don't bring anything more than your own POV, without respectable references. Hohum (talk) 23:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

What do Jews, Israel and Zionists have to do with any of the things that you mentioned between Iraq and Kuwait?WDW Megaraptor (talk) 18:42, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Also there is no mention about the fact that the oil spill in the Persian Gulf was blamed by the Iraq government on US bombing of oil tankers that were in port. This is a perfectly reasonable alternative explanation (especially considering that the ports were attacked by coalition forces and did have oil tankers present) but is currently not even so much as hinted at. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.79.237 (talk) 20:17, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Commanders

I don't think that it is relavent to put the name of the leaders of NATO nations as military 'commanders' in the infobox, it seems unusual since those people did not directly order thier respective troops (ie. Brian Mulroney was PM of Canada and not a general in the Canadian military at the time) 99.249.228.146 (talk) 00:01, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree, and have thus removed them from the list. - SimonP (talk) 19:09, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

CNN video

This site: [CNN1] has the original CNN's video showed in the entire world on January 17, 1991.Here in Brazil all big TVs showed CNN in 1991.The first very modern war, including the press' coverage.Agre22 (talk) 01:13, 2 August 2009 (UTC)agre22

Glaspie controversy

I've removed some of the stuff pertaining to the question of whether American ambassador April Glaspie signaled that the U.S. would not oppose the Iraqi attack on Kuwait. This article is intended to be a quick overview, and spending 500 words on one side issue is unnecessary. The subject is already discussed at Invasion of Kuwait, and that is a better location for it. Even more important the section contains no references and a lot of opinion. - SimonP (talk) 18:09, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

You seem to have removed all of it; it's worth at least a brief mention. Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 07:19, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Result

Maybe the result should mention that it was a Coalition victory? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.209.195.83 (talk) 04:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Speaking of results, some of them are better labeled as "related consequences/events". The uprising against Saddam, stationing of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, and Palestinian expulsion from Kuwait are only several of MANY consequences of the war, and it's only in hindsight that they appear to be of any significance Masterblooregard (talk) 18:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

First paragraph makes no sense

The first sentence in the lead makes no grammatical sense. All it is is a list of various names for the war, but omitting those it is a sentence fragment. I figured I would note this here before making changes to the lead. Andy120290 (talk) 22:29, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't really get this entire article. Compare to some other war-related pages world war two although this topic is very general and vague, you can see it is extremely clear and easy to understand other excellent war topics: battle of midway [battle of iwo jima]]. After I've read through this article for just 2 minutes, it gets boring, if you know what I mean. I think this page should be contracted a bit and some info removed... 120.16.179.62 (talk) 10:26, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I added several templates that are needed on this article. I'm hoping some of the other editors would like to join together to streamline the page, removing superfluous information (especially in the opening), and generally help make the article easier to navigate. Thanks, Onopearls ^(t/c) 16:34, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I've sliced the lead down to something more readable. In terms of making the article a more reasonable length, I think the best idea would be to move the bulk of the very detailed air war section to its own sub page. If no one objects I'll go ahead and do so. - SimonP (talk) 02:21, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Removal of some infobox results items

I've edited the Results section of the infobox to remove the following items:

• Saddam Hussein remains in power—His removal from power was not an objective.
• Internal rising against Saddam Hussein brutally suppressed—Correlation does not imply causation.
• Establishment of US military presence in Saudi Arabia—Oversimplified. Also, see [[2] and [3].
• Palestinian Expulsion from Kuwait—Correlation does not imply causation. Incidentally, I have moved the wikilinked article to a name which complies with WP:MOS#Article titles.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

While the suppression of the rising was not caused by the war, the rising itself certainly was. That the US left Arabia over a decade later hardly negates the fact that the Gulf War began their presence there. The Palestinian expulsion was caused by their perceived or actual collaboration with the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait: whether or not one could regard that as a result of the war depends on whether one considers the war to include the Iraqi invasion. Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 23:36, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Kuwaiti Campaign

I believe that the liberation of Kuwait deserves an article of it's own, it has been listed in the Battles for months, and it needs it's own page. Skuzbucket (talk) 03:43, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Persian Gulf, not Gulf

There is no such thing as Gulf. It's Persian Gulf. Forever —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.174.19.194 (talk) 04:56, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

This Article Needs to be Renamed

This article should be renamed "Persian Gulf War". "Gulf War" is a shortening of the full name of the conflict, similar to calling World War II "WWII". Jrzyboy (talk) 14:14, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is to use WP:COMMONNAME: "Gulf War" is the most commonly used name for this conflict. It is also the name used in most of the reference material used for the article. (Hohum ^@) 19:21, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Unclear sentence

"The Iraqi reluctance to commit several armored divisions to the occupation, and its subsequent use of Khafji as a launching pad into the initially lightly defended east of Saudi Arabia is considered by many academics a grave strategic error." "and subsequently use Khafji"?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Revery (talk • contribs) 11:43, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Deletion

Following paragraph with citation deleted because citation does not verify paragraph content:

However, as of the year 2000, 183,000 U.S. veterans of the Gulf War, more than a quarter of the U.S. troops who participated in War, have been declared permanently disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

--NCDane (talk) 23:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

I've restored it and marked the cited supporting source as a dead link per WP:LINKROT. I'll add a cite of another source. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:50, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Entry name change request

Please change the name of the entry into "Persian Gulf War", with other alternatives redirecting to it, thus acknowledging the historically- and univesally-accepted name of the body of water where the war took place.

I appreciate your action that will contribute to the accuracy of Wikipedia's content.

Jahan Saghari

Per WP:COMMONNAME, the English wikipedia uses the most common English name for the conflict, which is "Gulf War". A google book search gives about 3,000 results for "persian gulf war" and about 8,000 for "gulf war" -"persian gulf war" (Hohum ^@) 14:11, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Persian or Arab Gulf?

I first noticed a broken template (since fixed) that was meant to reference Persian Gulf wars, but was changed to reference a template for Arab Gulf wars, which doesn't exist. In investigating how this happend, I found that back on 13:33, 16 May 2010 nearly all references to the Persian Gulf in this article were changed to Arab Gulf. A few of these references were changed back to Persian Gulf on 04:45, 17 May 2010. So, in an effort to prevent further back-and-forth editing, I'll raise this question for discussion: Persian Gulf or Arab Gulf?

Here's an article that discusses this very subject: Persian Gulf naming dispute
140.32.88.85 (talk) 18:57, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but that's not going to solve the ongoing edit war re "Persian" vs. "Arabian" gulf about this. The article is named "Gulf War". This seems unnecessarily and dangerously general. How about something like Gulf War (1990), with appropriate redirect changes and appropriate generalizing changes in the article text? Incidentally, I've noticed that some of the sources cited in this article are dead links -- e.g. http://ca.encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761551555_2/Persian_Gulf_War.htm. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 16:33, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

The article name has been debated at length already. Gulf War is the most common English name for this specific conflict per WP:COMMONNAME. How is it "dangerously" general? (Hohum ^@) 00:08, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Casualties in infobox

I've reverted this edit by an anon, which updated the casualty figures in the infobox and added some cites. The edit changed an infobox casualties1 parameter of "240 killed 776 wounded", supported by a cite of "Persian Gulf War - MSN Encarta". Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) (an archived version of a deleted MS Encarta page) more complicated content supported by several questionable cites, as follows:

1. "Over 1500 Kuwaiti troops killed (during and after the invasion)" and "392 US troops killed", supported by a cite reading, "title= World Almanac 2010 Page=176". I don't know whether this was intended to be part of a citation template or as the text of a citation but, at minimum, the publisher and year need to be indicated. An ISBN would be useful as well.
2. "18 Saudi Arabian troops killed", "11 Egyptian troops killed", and "6 UAE troops killed", supported by http://www.fact-index.com/g/gu/gulf_war.html#Casualties. There is a note at the bottom of that web page which says, "This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License." Please see Wikipedia:Verifiability#Wikipedia and sources that mirror or use it
3. "18 Saudi Arabian troops killed", "11 Egyptian troops killed", "6 UAE troops killed", "2 Syrian troops killed", "2 French troops killed", and "776 wounded", supported by the same archived MS Encarta page which previously supported the content which this edit replaced. That cited source does not appear to support these figures.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:39, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Well the fact that a lot of Kuwaiti troops died in the invasion by Iraq is undeniable. I don't know why this wasn't put into the casualty box for a while. Skuzbucket (talk) 16:27, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

If I provided the ISBN and the publisher and the year, could I revert the edits back? Because that is what the book honestly says. 64.81.146.143 (talk) 16:32, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

The addition of the World Almanac information mentioned in item 1 above, supported by a cite including the book title, author (if named), publisher, publication year, page number, and ISBN would be a good thing, IMO. If that source speaks of casualty information for others than Kuwaiti troops, that information should also be mentioned. If that source differs with other sources of similar prominence, information from both sources should be incluyded (see WP:DUE). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:08, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Unclear wording

"About 1,000 Kuwaiti civilians killed during the Iraqi occupation in addition to 300,000 refugees." The sentence is not clear. Did they make 300,000 people refugees or did they kill 300,000 refugees? Reference is also broken. 80.77.132.239 (talk) 17:08, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I've clarified the wording and fixed the dead link. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:36, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Stats

This article cites this CNN source to support assertions of 100,000+ air sorties flown, 75 aircraft losses (42 in air-to-air combat)The article also says that 88,500 tons of bombs were dropped, and I've added a cite of this source to support that.

However, I happen to have Clancy, Tom; Horner, Chuck (2000), Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign, Berkley, ISBN 9780425172926 handy, and I note that it gives different stats. The U.S. Aircraft Combat Losses/Sorties by conflict table on page 502 says that there were 14 combat losses in 29,393 sorties. The U.S. Bomb Tonnage Used per Month by Conflict table on the same page says that 40,416 tons of bombs were used. I don't know the reason for the striking differences and I have not edited the article to reflect them, but I thought I'd mention this here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 03:47, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

(added) I see that the Gulf War air campaign article says that the coalition lost 52 fixed-wing aircraft and 23 helicopters during Desert Storm, with 39 fixed-wing aircraft and 5 helicopters lost in combat, citing this source (apparently from a cache) which itself cites the next-mentioned source. That jibes with the figure of 75 aircraft losses mentioned earlier, but the supporting source there said 36 fixed-wing aircraft and 6 helicopters were lost in air-to-air engagements (a synthesis there would beg the inference that one helicopter was lost in a non-combat air-to-air engagement).

Lewis D. Hill, et al., Gulf War Air Power Survey, Volume V, A Statistical Compendium and Chronology (1993), United States Air Force, pp. 639, 643-648 (see this) looks like it might be a good source on this. I don't have time just now, but I'll try to take a look at this and figure out some reasonable resolution to these apparent conflicts. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 05:49, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

(added)Table 203 on page 639 there, titled Desert Storm Ttoal Coalition Combat losses By Cause contains grand totals as follows:

AAA	IR SAM	Radar SAM	Other enemy action	MIG 25	Unknown	Total
9	13	10	1	1	4	38

Table 204 gives a more detailed list of 154 lost and damaged aircraft (plus 23 attritted but uncategorized). I count 55 lost aircraft there, broken down as follows:

AAA	IR SAM	Radar SAM	Other enemy action	MIG 25	Unknown	Other	Total
9	13	10	1	1	4	17	55

That still leaves a conflict with the currently-cited sources, one of which is a CNN source. I'm going to throw my hands in the air and do nothing further at this point. My understanding of WP:DUE is that lack of media prevalence would weigh against citing the USAF source. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:04, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Unrecognizable

Amazing to see such mangled history. It's sad, because someone who wasn't around at the time might actually believe this provides a good overview. 71.203.125.108 (talk) 17:30, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Can't agree with you more.86.133.79.237 (talk) 20:22, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

What is this - Orwellian rewriting of History?

This article states so much as fact when it is actually merely 'official' opinion of coalition governments with no mention of alternative explanations.

It also contains some blatant inaccuracies.

For example, the oil fires were not surrounded by land mines, but by unexploded US cluster bombs. This was reported by news media at the time and verified by interviews with the bomb squads clearing them and yet it's not even mentioned.

No mention of the alternative (and more likely) explanation of the gulf oil spill - i.e., it was caused by the unintentional bombing (by US forces) of moored Iraqi oil tankers.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.79.237 (talk) 20:30, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

So, you shouldn't have any trouble finding reliable sources to support this. (Hohum ^@) 22:52, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Why do you presume that? It's not easy for most to go digging around in the BBC archives for news reports that I saw with my own eyes. We truly do have Memory Holes, but I refuse to see five fingers when I know there were only four!86.133.79.237 (talk) 20:20, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Chomsky's distortions, and this article

I don't care if people want to look at the Gulf war from his perspective, but including basically a word-for-word regurgitation of his notes (a selective compilation of contemporary news reports) in this article is grossly inappropriate. The only thing that matters is that te U.S. and the U.N. demanded an unconditional withdrawal by January 15 and Iraq rejected it. Their counterproposals are framed in isolation in the article, without noting that they essentially rewarded Iraqi aggression or would leave the region defenseless again, and thus were bound to be rejected. 71.65.71.145 (talk) 01:21, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Please identify the section you are talking about, and suggest concrete, reliably sourced changes. (Hohum ^@) 01:31, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Are you referring to the Iraqi Proposals for Withdrawal section? Currently, the last part of that section quotes a New York Times article by Thomas Friedman where he talks about the reasons why the US didn't want to settle for anything less than an unconditional surrender. By the way, from which work of Chomsky's in particular do you recognize the sources in that section? Enderandpeter (talk) 05:29, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Where did you get "unconditional surrender" from? Unconditional surrender would imply that they wanted Saddam to surrender his entire country and army, Kuwait plus Iraq. That isn't even close to what was demanded. The only thing that was demanded was the unconditional withdrawal from Kuwait.

All the sources are from Chomsky's "Understanding Power" as indicated in the note on the article. The sources are valid, but they placed out of context. No attempt is made to explain the fact from the very beginning U.S. officials insisted on an unconditional pull-out with no linkage, nor is there any attempt to analyze the precise meaning of the proposals which are vaguely worded. Furthermore, given that many books have been written about the Gulf War, it would seem far more appropriate to cite them for information about pre-war diplomacy, not vague contemporary news articles. Finally, not discussed at all in this article, in the final meeting between James Baker and Tariq Aziz, Aziz didn't offer any concrete proposals. [4] 71.65.71.145 (talk) 13:03, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

My apologies. I indeed meant "withdrawal" and not "surrender". Now, unfortunately, as I look at the linked footnotes for Chomsky's "Understanding Power" and the text of the Iraqi Proposals for Withdrawal section, it appears that a lot of Chomsky's text was copied and pasted here, which is an unsettling violation of WP:COPYVIO. Nothing that I've found indicates that this book is in the public domain. This section needs a rewrite, alright. I suppose I'll put a warning tag on that section for now, but I'll also work on rewriting it. Say, 71.65.71.145, you should go ahead and integrate the information about the meeting between James Baker and Tariq Aziz into the article. Also, are there any particular books you're aware of that contain good descriptions of the conciliatory proposals? Enderandpeter (talk) 14:02, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I re-wrote the section, but left the articles in because I don't want to be accused of removing sourced information. Nevertheless, it is obvious that the information is there mostly to distract rather than inform. For example, a "joint plan to alleviate Iraq's economical and financial problems" probably means Iraq wanted money. The phrase "an offer "to withdraw from Kuwait if the United States pledges not to attack as soldiers are pulled out, if foreign troops leave the region, and if there is an agreement on the Palestinian problem and on the banning of all weapons of mass destruction in the region" could be interpreted as meaning Iraq wanted a foreign withdrawal, concessions to Palestinians, and an agreement to control Israel's WMD before their withdrawal which would be obviously unacceptable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.65.71.145 (talk) 22:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for addressing the Iraqi-American diplomacy section. Unfortunately, there are still some plagiarism issues with footnote 88 of Chomsky's Understanding Power. For some reason, the user Maxl removed the non-free tag introducing that section. Until this issue is resolved, it is best to keep that warning. Here is why the current phrasing of the article is problematic:

Current Article Text

On 12 August 1990, Saddam Hussein proposed a settlement linking Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait to an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza strip, occupied by Israel since 1967.: Syria from Lebanon, and Israel from the territories it conquered in 1967

From Understanding Power

On August 12, 1990, Saddam Hussein proposed a settlement linking Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait to withdrawal from other illegally occupied Arab lands: Syria from Lebanon, and Israel from the territories it conquered in 1967.

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Current Article Text

Another Iraqi proposal communicated in August 1990 offered to withdraw from Kuwait and allow foreigners to leave in return for the lifting of sanctions, guaranteed access to the Persian Gulf through the Kuwaiti islands of Bubiyan and Warbah and full control of the Rumailah oilfield that extended slightly into Kuwaiti territory from Iraq.

From Understanding Power

According to sources involved and documents, Iraq offered to withdraw from Kuwait and allow foreigners to leave in return for the lifting of sanctions, guaranteed access to the Persian Gulf, and full control of the Rumailah oilfield "that extends slightly into Kuwaiti territory from Iraq" (Royce), about two miles over a disputed border.

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Current Article Text

Other terms of the proposal, according to memoranda that Royce quotes, were that Iraq and the U.S. negotiate an oil agreement "satisfactory to both nations' national security interests," "jointly work on the stability of the gulf," and develop a joint plan "to alleviate Iraq's economical and financial problems." There was no mention of U.S. withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, or other preconditions. A Bush administration official who specializes in Mideast affairs described the proposal as "serious" and "negotiable."

From Understanding Power

Other terms of the proposal, according to memoranda that Royce quotes, were that Iraq and the U.S. negotiate an oil agreement "satisfactory to both nations' national security interests," "jointly work on the stability of the gulf," and develop a joint plan "to alleviate Iraq's economical and financial problems." There was no mention of U.S. withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, or other preconditions. A Bush administration official who specializes in Mideast affairs described the proposal as "serious" and "negotiable."

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As you can see, the fourth paragraph of this section was fully copy and pasted from Chomsky's book. Until the problem is fixed, we should warn the readers. Thanks again, 71.65.71.145, for starting to work on this. I'll be sure to contribute to a solution soon. By the way, there's no need to feel like this section has to be based on Chomsky's book. Any verifiable sources are welcome. If anyone disputes any of the sources used, please share your reasoning here before or right after making changes. Enderandpeter (talk) 19:45, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Say, I've been trying to find the Knut Royce article mentioned in this section and I can't seem to find it. I've been looking via LexisNexis and Business Dateline. Business Dateline returns one single article by Knut Royce from 1989 in their Newsday archives from 1988 to the present. LexisNexis can't find anything by him from Newsday. Does anyone have a copy of this article by chance? (Royce, Knut. "MIDDLE EAST CRISIS Secret Offer: Iraq Sent Pullout Deal to U.S." Newsday. (Combined Editions). Long Island, N.Y.: Aug 29, 1990.) As I search on the web, the only hits I find for his article are either from the book Understanding Power or the Wikipedia article, which is rather strange if you ask me. My take is that if no one can locate this article, then it is not a good idea to cite from it. Enderandpeter (talk) 18:05, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

So my opinion about this is that unless the Knut Royce articles Chomsky refers to can be located, the information from Understanding Power should not be included here since it relies so heavily on that and other articles of Royce's from Newsday in 1990 that I can't locate at all. Again, if someone else can locate them, please let us know where you found them and share the sources, if you would be so kind. Once those articles are located, it would be wise to cite information from those articles instead. I'm given the impression that the articles do indeed exist given that someone included massive excerpts from them in the Wikipedia article's footnotes, which I don't think is a very good idea. It's totally unnecessary to include substantial parts of articles in the footnotes unless these sources can't be found elsewhere or they are extremely difficult to obtain. A 1990 Newsday article from a Pulitzer prize winning writer should not be hard to find, yet it doesn't exist in any of those major archives. Chomsky also refers to a NYT article (R.W. Apple, Jr., "Confrontation in the Gulf: Opec to Increase Oil Output to Offset Losses From Iraq; No U.S. Hostages Released," New York Times, August 30, 1990, p. A1.) where anonymous officials also verify the proposals National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft allegedly received from an anonymous Iraqi official. What do you think about this solution? Again, until those articles are found, I don't even feel comfortable rewriting the info from Understanding Power because the excerpts currently in the article do not appear to be verifiable. Enderandpeter (talk) 19:39, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

That fourth para looks like a conflict with WP:COPYPASTE which be should be restated or removed.

On that, and on Royce, this looks like the original insertion here. That cites "Newsday, January 3, 1991, p. 5 (city edition, p. 4)". Surely that's verifiable (or refutable) at a U.S. library (I'm not in the U.S., and can't check). Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:44, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the original contribution where the text from Understanding Power was inserted. Again, I've looked for Royce articles from Newsday since 1988 in the databases Business Dateline and LexisNexis and the articles do not show up. I literally just searched for "Royce, Knut" and only Business Dateline found a single article of his that was neither of the ones cited in the Wikipedia article. Hopefully the user Phooey108 still looks at his talk page. However, looking at the user's contribution, it looks like they weren't the one to add so much text from the Royce articles into the footnotes. That is probably the best person to try to contact in order to find copies of the articles, provided they still have them.

By the way, do you disagree that the previous three paragraphs violate WP:COPYPASTE? They have very minimal paraphrasing and it's clear that the majority of the words in their sentences came straight from Chomsky's book. Enderandpeter (talk) 03:18, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

They look pretty close to me, but I don't consider myself a good judge of such things. I haven't seen Chomsky's book and wouldn't look at it by choice if I had access -- Chomsky gives me a headache. On Royce, a bit of googling turned up this, this, and this. This purports to give an email address for him. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:09, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Okay. Sorry for being gone for so long. Such is the non-virtual world...

So a few interesting things happened. For one, I was lucky enough to get a hold of Knut Royce himself, and he definitely recalls the articles cited in this section. He also informed me of Newsday archives in Melville, N.Y., a building which is essentially their own library. Sometime earlier this month, however, I received an anonymous message on my talk page where someone posted a link to Royce's article MIDDLE EAST CRISIS Secret Offer Iraq Sent Pullout Deal to U.S. I have a strong feeling that my difficulty in locating the articles in question came from how the universities in my city, where I searched for the article, don't have databases for the "Washington Bureau" syndication of Newsday.

I was planning on incorporating the information from the Secret Offer article into the Iraqi-American diplomacy section without rewriting what Chomsky wrote. Also, I will probably go ahead and incorporate info from Understanding Power, particularly from footnote 88, into this section in a way that doesn't infringe upon WP:COPYVIO. Again, I would prefer to actually cite the articles that Chomsky himself cites, and so I will work on doing that as well. Anyone else who would like to do this too, or correct/critique what I write should feel free, of course. Thanks, everyone, for your help.Enderandpeter (talk) 18:35, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I'm confident that I fixed the WP:COPYVIO issue. Please take a look at the section and tell me your thoughts. There are still some Royce articles I'd like to more directly include here, but I'm still not having luck finding them. If anyone can point me in the direction of Knut Royce, "Iraq Offers Deal to Quit Kuwait," Newsday, January 3, 1991, p. 5 (city edition, p. 4) and Knut Royce, "U.S.: Iraqi Proposal Not Worth a Response," Newsday, August 30, 1990, p. 6, that would be spectacular. Enderandpeter (talk) 00:07, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The section is slightly better but the overall problem is that we are relying on 20 year old sources when books should be used. Contemporary news articles are not used for most war articles. Much context is missing. And we still have no idea how serious any proposals actually were when you consider that Aziz never actually put a straightforward offer on the table in exchange for a withdrawal from Kuwait when he had the chance. 71.65.71.145 (talk) 21:03, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

1947

The article states four times that the war started in 1947. Can someone provide a source to back this up? Cwelgo (talk) 15:14, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I guess this explains that issue. Enderandpeter (talk) 19:40, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Burned Iraqi soldier, free image

I came across an actual fhotograph of a bombed iraqi soldier, here: http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=64219&highlight=Gruesome. Upload??

According to this website, this picture is copyrighted and not free. It appears the copyright belongs to the BBC, and so unless you can set up some kind of agreement with them, it doesn't look like it's a good idea to upload it here. Enderandpeter (talk) 21:56, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Reversion and Citation bot

I've reverted this edit, which resulted in a double terminating period at the end of the citation (one supplied by the {{Cite news}} template and one supplied manually. The reverted edit had changed a User:Citation bot#Changing citation to cite journal / cite book / etc edit. After the reversion, I edited the reverted version to remove the bot-inserted parameter which was suppressing the terminating period. This is the first time I've come across this, which is explained somewhat at {{Inconsistent citations}}. Apparently, Citation bot, having seen both {{Citation}} and {{cite xxx}} templates in this article with the latter predominating, changed one of the former to one of the latter. In doing so, presumably because Citation does not supply a terminating period by default, it coerced the Cite news template with which it had replaced it into not supplying a terminating period, and left a hidden comment behind which it hoped would clarify things. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:49, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering what the heck that was all about. Thanks for dealing with the issue. I totally meant to use {{cite news}} in the first place, so I'll be more diligent about that. And thanks for sharing info about Knut Royce. I'll get on that issue as soon as I can. Enderandpeter (talk) 04:31, 2 October 2010 (UTC)