Talk:Anbar campaign (2003–2011)/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Cerebellum (talk · contribs) 16:18, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello! I will be reviewing this article. --Cerebellum (talk) 16:18, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fire away! My first goal is to pass the minimum thresh-hold for WP:GA (not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good!); my secondary is to move on to WP:FA ASAP, so any additional critiques beyond the scope of WP:GACR are welcome. Palm_Dogg (talk) 18:33, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First and foremost, thank you for your service! It's great to read an article on this topic written by someone who was actually there. Second, this article clearly meets the GA criteria. I have posted some comments below for you to think about as you go for FA, but I am passing this as a GA. Good job! --Cerebellum (talk) 00:08, 19 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Prose: The Iraq War in Anbar Province initially saw heavy fighting primarily between Iraqi insurgents and United States Marines, although in the later years insurgents focused on ambushing Marines with mines, known as Improvised explosive devices (IEDs). This sentence doesn't flow very well.
Prose: between the United States military and American-appointed Iraqi allies against Sunni insurgents. What is the precise sense of "American-appointed" here?
Layout: Per WP:MOSHEAD, section titles should use sentence case, meaning that titles like "The Insurgency Begins" should be changed to "The insurgency begins".
Prose: The capture of Saddam Hussein was the worst of both worlds in Anbar Province: many Anbaris were outraged over what they saw as the degrading treatment Saddam Hussein received. I don't understand this metaphor - how was it the worst of both worlds?
Expansion of fighting: Attempting to emulate the perceived-success in Fallujah, U.S. commanders in Ramadi followed the June 28 transfer of sovereignty by also pulling most U.S. forces back to several camps outside of the city, and focusing on securing a highway that ran through the center of the city. I'm not sure what this June 28 transfer is; could you elaborate?
Level of detail: Your coverage of individual insurgent attacks is quite thorough, but in some cases you may want to omit some attacks for the sake of brevity. For example, the second paragraph of the "Expansion of fighting section" section seems almost too detailed. I'll leave it up to you to change it or not.
Fallujah Brigade: Allawi disbanded the discredited Fallujah Brigade and privately gave the Marines permission to begin planning an offensive to retake Fallujah. At the beginning of the paragraph where this appears, you talk about the "perceived success" in Fallujah, so it would helpful to have some more explanation of how the Fallujah Brigade went from being a "perceived success" to "discredited." Also, were the National Guard battalions that deserted and the battalion commander that was kidnapped associated with the Fallujah Brigade?
'The insurgency and al-Zarqawi: Despite the return of sovereignty to the Iraqi Interim Government on June 28, the insurgency was still viewed as legitimate and the Iraqi government as agents of the United States. Viewed by whom?
Prose: Shia leaders called on their supporters to donate blood to Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah - Is this literal or figurative? Are we talking about actual blood transfusions?
Referencing: The "Second Battle of Ramadi" section does not appear to have any references - this should be fixed.
Anbar Awakening: On September 9, Sheik Sittar organised a tribal council attended by over fifty sheiks and Col. MacFarland. Who is Col. MacFarland?
References: Some references, for example reference #257, consist of bare urls; consider using citation templates to capture more information.
Broadness of coverage: It would be cool to have more info on the Anbar Awakening, specifically what sort of military actions they carried out.