This is an archive of past discussions about Iran–Iraq War. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
The sections (List of major Iranian operations during the war) and (List of major Iraqi operations during the war) are really ugly, and take much of the page length. How about we create a timeline for them, I created a test timeline here, comments
Banco Nazionale del Lavoro, US subsidiary and gov't funding, and Iraqi front companies
As I go through specific nation support to Iraq, three things have become obvious:
Iraq had a variety of front companies that bought from, or actually controlled Western companies
There was a complex system of financing for this, heavily involving an Italian bank ([Banco Nazionale del Lavoro]]) and its U.S. subsidiary, which was raided by the FBI. The front companies had gotten numerous U.S. loans
While many Western countries had theoretically proper rules about export controls on military items, including validating the end user certificates, there was very little followup. A number of items had end user certificates for Singapore, Jordan, South Africa, Brazil, Argentina and other countries (still confirming this), but went from there to Iraq. To a much lesser extent, some goods also went, by third parties, to Iran.
Should there be an article about the overall structure of Iraq's procurement, finance, and ownership? Does anyone have expertise in such things? I'd rather focus on getting per-country articles done.
This section, to me, reads more like an indictment and less like an encyclopedic statement of facts. It's reasonable up to the paragraph ending "The United States was the only member who voted against the issuance of this statement." Note carefully what I am saying. I agree with the previous as a statement of fact; I am not trying to whitewash the Reagan Administration.
The next paragraph is simply hard to understand, and again seems to have a POV. Unquestionably, Iraq used chemical weapons. I tried, but I don't think I succeeded, in splitting the previously last sentence. The part about the Reagan administration has a condemnatory flavor. Now, if some reputable source can be quoted as saying that the Reagan administration took no steps to stop the Iraqi use of chemical weapons, that's reasonable. As it reads now, however, there is an assumption the Reagan Administration should have, or could have, intervened. That may be true, but it needs to be sourced.
Following this, there is a flat statement that "There is great resentment in Iran", but no sourcing. This needs to be sourced, which shouldn't be terribly hard to do.
In the next paragraph, an intelligence report certainly needs to be cited.
I edited the last paragraph, but, although the citation on the medical effects of mustard gas is now correct, why is that level of detail present? I see no medical references to the effects of artillery or other means of hurting people in other sections of the article. I don't even see a reference to the effects of other kinds of chemical weapons. Unless there is a clear reason why there is a focus on mustard gas, it's too detailed for this article. Wikipedia has separate articles dealing with mustard gas, or, if you prefer, dichloroethyl sulfide.
I didn't want to start deleting without discussion, but fact tags several months old really should be resolved.
I am surprised people are not even checking the reference before editing back.
The source is Persian so please check with a Persian speaking native before reverting it back. Unless if you have an official figure different than that one. The above is the figure released by Iranian government, cited in Emadeddin_Baghi's site. He is a prominent Iranian journalist. It does not indicate wounded. That is why the number is not that high. Persian Magi (talk) 07:14, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Rumsfeld footage
The footage of Rumsfeld meeting Saddam, is of great historical importance, used in almost every TV documentary that has ever been made about the Iran-Iraq war, and is therefore regarded as one of the symbols of Iran-Iraq war. So trying to suppress it by calling it "undo weight" is POV and unacceptable.
If there is a footage of other notable officials meeting Saddam or Khomeini during the war, just go ahead and add them as well.--CreazySuit (talk) 01:52, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I repeat: undue weight. I'll offer a counterchallenge: put the Soviet, French, and U.S. weapons used by Iraq next to each other. If you want to talk about the symbols of the war, I don't think of Rumsfeld, but of the poor brave Iranian volunteers that martyred themselves in Iraqi minefields, made of Italian-designed mines, first manufactured in Italy, and then under license in Singapore, with Swedish and Swiss explosives.
How many Iranians did Rumsfeld's handshake kill, as opposed to those Soviet tanks, South African artillery, French attack aircraft and helicopters, Italian mines, or mustard gas from Singaporean shipments of thiodiglycol? Television documentaries also regard Paris Hilton as a significant symbol. The footage is of great propaganda significance, but indicative of very little with respect to the actual military balance. I note that Iraq changed from Soviet to French air doctrine and training for their pilots. Sorry, it may be a symbol to put the U.S. in a unique category of supporting Iraq, but the best that can be said is that it was one of many. Even the largest source of financial support for Saddam, in the U.S., was the U.S. branch of a state-owned Italian bank.
If you put the actual lethal weaponry and training provided to Iraq by all countries next to the picture of Rumsfeld, I'll believe that there is no undue weight to a symbol. I changed Western support to external, because, again, Saddam had huge amounts of Soviet weapons. Do remember those Iranian teenagers blown apart in minefields, and who built the mines and who laid them in the ground. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 02:11, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I repeat: That's your POV, and nothing more. To me, "propaganda" is erasing significant historical events, and pretending they never happened. Otherwise, there is nothing "undo" about the footage of Rumsfeld, it's a world-famous footage used in every Television documentary that has ever been made about the Iran-Iraq war by BBC, CNN and other neutral news sources, and that's what makes it a significant footage of the war. As for your arguments about balance, nobody is stopping you from adding other pictures. Go ahead and add a picture of Khamenei and Assad or Chirac and Saddam shaking hands, or perhaps add a picture of French pilots flying missions for Saddam...--CreazySuit (talk) 02:42, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Just as infoboxes oversimplify, so do pictures. I prefer text. It's much easier to find pictures of politicians shaking hands, and I find them of singularly little significance. It's harder to find meaningful pictures of tactical actions, such as fresh land mine wounds. As far as I know, French pilots never flew missions for Saddam; Iraqi pilots went to France for training. I wonder why France hasn't made such photographs widely available?
It would be quite easy to put pictures of Soviet tanks or French aircraft in Iraqi colors, but individual pictures don't convey the significance of reasonable statistics. It wouldn't surprise me if I put in a representative pilot plant for chemical and biological weapons, and very few people being able to say how it is different than a microbrewery -- and yes, some of the cultures bought by Iraq were for Saccharomyces species very good for brewing Belgian ale.
Actually, French pilots did fly missions for Saddam. "France helped Saddam also in other ways, it sold him Mirage fighter jets, some flown by French pilots who flew war missions for Iraq" [1]..."Both were subsequently damaged during the war with Iraq that lasted until 1988, chiefly in air strikes flown by seconded French pilots" [2]. But this is all beside the point, the footage in question is a notable footage of Iran-Iraq war, regardless of our opinions and feelings about it.--CreazySuit (talk) 04:27, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
--
Dear Howard, the footage has got huge media attention. At least because of this coverage (which you call propaganda), it must remain in the article. But I agree with some of your points. You may add a sentence or two to its caption for clarifying the issue to the readers and inviting them to read the text of the article. Pejman47 (talk) 12:45, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the picture is very significant and also properly positioned inside the article, if you feel it doesn't give the whole context you are welcome to add more referenced material to complete the picture given but not to take the significant picture out based on your POV.Farmanesh (talk) 14:15, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I know how to fix this
Add 2 columns to the table showing foreign support to Iran and Iraq by country. These columns should itemize the $ amount of military goods and services that flowed into that country (independent of who paid, but based on source country for the goods and services). So one column for Iran, one for Iraq.
Sort the table by $ amount for Iraq, biggest amount first.
The top 3 countries in the sorted table should get video clips of their leaders shaking Saddam's hand.
well, in the first look, it is not a bad idea, but remember that the onus is on you for finding those other pictures. Pejman47 (talk) 15:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Pejman, I tend to agree with you, if I understand that you are saying there are two problems. First, which is complex enough, is determining the dollar value of goods and services. Second, it is finding appropriate pictures; I am not saying pictures of their leaders shaking hands with Saddam.
Very few officials on either side were unwise enough to create media opportunities, although very few officials on either side had the egos of Saddam Hussein and Donald Rumsfeld. Soviet support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war#Motives for policy towards Iraq, does source dollar values but is not illustrated. For that matter, look at Soviet support for Iran during the Iran-Iraq war#Motivations for policy, and look for the sourced mention of the Soviet-Iranian arms cooperation agreements were signed in July 1981, arranged by Soviet Ambassador Vladimir Vinogradev. Vinogradev, and presumably his Iranian counterpart, were wise enough not to make it a media opportunity.
If there are no such pictures other than Rumsfeld demonstrating a lack of wisdom, as opposed to concrete support, a visual metaphor is going to need surrogates. As such surrogates, I put in pictures of Soviet and French combat equipment made available to Iraq. I would again note that spreading these around the article, and separating any from Rumsfeld, damages the visual impression given.'
First, we don't have a single reliable source on the dollar values. Some of the Iraqi procurements, described at British support and elsewhere, might have 6-10 countries involved just to hide the transactions. There certainly are estimates of Soviet and French trade, but there are much more complex situations such as Italy. Italy directly sold some munitions until it tightened export controls, allowed third-country licensed manufacturing of such things as land mines, but, perhaps most importantly, the state-owned BNL bank made several billion is purchase credits available through its U.S. branch, with the money spent all over the world.
Second, even if there was an absolutely accurate table of source countries and we didn't have to worry about the financial manipulation, it's considerably less likely that there are generally available pictures of high officials shaking hands with Saddam. Not everything was at his level. If you look at Matrix Churchill (UK), BNL (Italy), or H+H (Germany), you'll find that the contacts were not at a high intergovernmental level in front of news cameras, but often with Iraqi shell companies. Some of the heads of the Iraqi procurement and manufacturing organizations were relatives of Saddam, but there was a much more deliberate attempt to keep this clandestine.
So, with a fair amount of new writing, mostly to reorganize the sources to create the table, the numbers might be available without violating WP:OR. There simply may not be relevant pictures given these weren't done with state visits, but with often-obscure meetings, sometimes in third countries -- I remember a shipment arranged through several German companies, where Iraq had bought secret ownership of one, with the actual goods shipping from Austria via, IIRC, Singapore and Dubai. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 13:18, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
In some cases you may be able to find, for example, a picture of the CEO of BNL at the time, and a picture of one of these guys, and a document of a meeting and just make a side-by-side photo with a caption "this guy just gave that guy $5billion worth of Italian landmines". Erxnmedia (talk) 13:28, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't know if you are serious, but that would, to me, violate OR:SYNTH by putting together two separate pictures of different people to suggest they interacted. As I have said, I believe that pictures of the weapons are actually more informative, and I would appreciate help in finding one illustrating the effects of Italian mines.
Added pictures and would appreciate finding more
In the spirit of consensus, I added images of French and Soviet lethal weaponry sold to Iraq. It's against my better judgment, and runs counter to the entire idea of having detailed discusions of foreign support, to both countries, in separate articles. My feeling is that the foreign support issue is starting to be more emphasized than the actual fighting between Iran and Iraq. Were the Rumsfeld picture in the article on U.S. support to Iraq, I would not have the slightest objection.
Editors have spoken of iconic pictures. Can anyone help me locate public domain images of Iranian volunteers, dead in Iraqi minefields? I haven't been able to find one without copyright, yet this is one of my mental images of the war. It seems only fair to show that graphically, and point out that those people died on Italian mines, either built in Italy, or under license in Singapore with Swiss and Swedish explosives.
I appeal, in a sense of fairness, for help in finding such an image, which I think would help balance considerably.
Repeating request for assistance on additional picture, and overall picture issues
First, let me review what I believe was the response of several editors, when I removed the Rumsfeld picture, which should be in the US support for Iraq sub-article, just as other national sub-articles show representative pictures even though the world media may not have covered so many of the other meetings.
When I removed that image from the main image, there was complaint, because it was "iconic". It was suggested I add images dealing with other countries' support for Iraq. Now, I'm not a fully qualified graphic artist, but I did take some courses. One of the rules of visual presentation of complex, many-sided issues is that juxtaposing several substantive images, especially when they seem to be conflicting, is that having a montage, a sequence, of multiple pictures gets across the complexity of the issues. It gets them across in a way that separated pictures cannot.
Is there any question that France and the Soviet Union provided the largest amount of complete weapons to Iraq? If not, they belong together. In fact, one could argue for having 10 or so pictures together to show major (not all 30) suppliers to Iraq, and a lesser number for Iran.
Now, if the editor that moved the picture of the French aircraft to another section, lessening the visual impact, had instead moved the picture of Rumsfeld, purely from a graphics arts standpoint, that would have been reasonable. The weapons pictures from the Soviets and French would form one visual metaphor about military equipment, while the Rumsfeld picture would, especially if supplemented, form a visual metaphor about political support.
That picture, however, was not the one that was moved, and the Rumsfeld picture was kept, along with a Soviet one, in the prime position. Sadly, I have to consider that WP:UNDUE emphasis on a political relationship that undermines the visual impact of the weapons images. The three, kept together, told a certain visual story, although that story truly needs at least one more image, for which I again ask for assistance in finding. Such a picture would show Iranian casualties in a minefield built from Italian mines. I haven't found a public domain one, but, since I don't read Farsi or Arabic, there very well may be such content that someone else could find.
Respectfully, the argument cannot keep changing. If it is fair to add pictures, no more than one per nation, that get across the complexity of a situation, then it is not fair to claim there are too many pictures in a section. Why is two enough and not three? Why not one and not four?
I added two pictures and asked for help in finding a third, to portray the roles of four countries toward Iraq. It would be more reasonable to have moved the Rumsfeld picture than the military equipment pictures, since the latter two are more closely related. I cannot help but wonder if the Mirage was moved because it might actually make a strong, nonverbal argument, that countries beside the U.S. had a significant role in supporting Saddam's killing.
Again, I ask for any help in finding a mine casualties picture, and I ask the community to consider whether there is a valuable message: that support for Iraq was multinational from major countries, that is lost by saying there are "too many" in one section.
I just wrote an article about United Nations Security Council Resolution 348. In it, the Security Council discusses the settlement of a conflict between Iran and Iraq in 1974. I assume this is the conflict briefly mentioned in the Post-Colonial subsection of the Background section? Does anyone have more information on this conflict? - Schrandit (talk) 21:16, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
It was about Iraq claiming Iranian territory and Shah supporting the Kurdish rebels in Iraq in retaliation. Shah and Saddam later signed an agreement in Algeria by which Saddam ceded half of the Shat-al Arab river, and parts of the Iraqi hills to Iran in return for Shah's withdrawal of support for Kurds whom Shah officially regarded as "Iranian subjects", since Kurds are an Iranian people .--CreazySuit (talk) 08:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
"al-Qādisiyyah"-type pictures
What's the purpose of all these images with al-Qādisiyyah theme? There is no need to add 5 pictures with the same theme to the same section. Remember this is an article, not an image gallery. We should diversify the images to represent different themas of the war, not multiply the images with the same themes. Also, having more than a dozen images per article, and two images per section is discouraged per Wikipedia policy. Too many images make the page large in size, and unaccessible to those who have slower internet connections, which is the majority of the internet users in the world. --CreazySuit (talk) 08:16, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Photo text corrected
I corrected the text of the second photo (airborne landing with Chinook helicopter). It read "Iraqi" soldiers, which was wrong (unless the Iranians carried Iraqi soldiers in their choppers, note the REALLY BIG Iranian flag on the Chinook). Now it correctly reads "Iranian soldiers".- Best Regards Hansi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.253.211.143 (talk) 14:42, 20 August 2008 (UTC)
Apologies for deleting too much
Didn't mean to imply Vincennes was not in Iranian waters; I had only intended to remove the unsourced material about air-to-surface capability of the F-14A.
IIRC, even if it did, the radar track showed the track to be climbing, which would not have been an attack pattern even if an F-14A was intending to crash into the ship. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 00:52, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Serious problem of missing details
I've tagged this article POV.
Why is the most famous feature of the war - the human wave attacks by Iran, including the use of teenage Basij volunteers - buried deep in the article and not mentioned in the lead? --Ebudswenson (talk) 22:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Why is there nothing to-the-point like this sentence: Despite the conflict's length and cost, neither Iran nor Iraq made significant territorial or political gains, and the fundamental issues dividing the countries remained unresolved at the end of the war. in the lead? (I found the sentence in the encarta encyclopedia article on the war. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761580640/iran-iraq_war.html )
... instead of much less important stuff like: The Iraq-Kuwait conflict, while originally known as the Second Persian Gulf War, later became known simply as the Persian Gulf War.
... and unsourced and dubious claims like: The war is noted for being very similar to the Western Front of World War I, with Iraq paralleling Germany and Iran the Allies .... The front was static throughout most of the war, except for the first year... . --Ebudswenson (talk) 22:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I was in the Iranian military during the war. The "human waves" bit is much overplayed - famous, because people (such as the Iraqi regime, which also claimed to have killed 100,000 Americans during the first gulf war) who want to cast the war a certain way, talk about it a lot. In reality, that sort of thing happened in the first two years of the war. It was not really that characteristic of Iranian offensives. Most Iranian offensives in fact were not like that; typically, an operation began in the early hours of the morning, after midnight. The Iranians would successfully infiltrate the Iraqi positions, and capture them. The trouble would be that Iraq would counter attack, and had higher mobility, which meant it could suddenly mass more troops and firepower at a given point than Iran could. Apparently, not a single book has been written that tells the course of any of the battles, from the participants' points of view. So you can view this article in that light.Johan77 (talk) 04:41, 19 July 2008 (UTC)
I want to mention two points here:
First I agree with Johan77 on human wave thing being given more significance that it should have. In fact there I remember cases that I have heared of these mass attackes just being a distractor of Iraqi army so that more traditional types of army operations could be run while Iraqi army was occupied somewhere else. Apart from Iraqi propaganda system that Johan77 mentioned, Iranian religious government wanted (and to some extent wants) to show how its people are ready to die for their country and specially for their religion. This is difficult to understand for a lot of editors and readers in the western society and as a result they don't keep enough scepticism over exeggerated reports of effectiveness of human-wave attacks.
Second point is, while I really respect all the efforts to create an article which to me is a really good one, I seriously doubt about it looking neutral. Small amount of information sometimes is worse than complete absence of it. When on the first sentences of the body of the article you read that this many Iraqi casualties where result of original capture and then liberation of khorramshahr with no details of the other side, you feel like it is written from Iranian perspective. Though Iranian's contribution to this article have been way higher than Iraqis, I think sometimes we need to be careful not to create and unnecessary doubt about things that we do know are facts. My point is, if you give casualties of just one side of a particular operation because you don't know the other, even though what you are writing is a "fact" it still looks like an unfair view. Bornbyforce (talk) 10:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Edit warring - congratulations
Having got involved in the global warming article I know how dogmatic some people can be with the result that the overall sense of an article may express the "largest majority view" with the result that the overall article is patently untruthful.
I came here wanting to know how many people had been killed during the war - to be honest I thought it might be in the millions, but I wanted to know the facts.
Whilst the article did not give me that "headline figure" of the total number killed due to the war, it did give me a clear idea of the difficulty of deriving such a figure (although it did not obviously give civilians - which is something that needs addressing).
Reading the comments I notice you have some disputes.
I'm really writing this note to thank you for those disputes and not going down the global warming avenue of pretending that there is no dispute and hiding all adverse comments. In particular I liked to see "some say this ... but others say that" IT IS FANTASTIC because it not only tells me how many died, but it tells me how uncertain those figures are.
Compare that with the global warming article which says something like: "there is an overwhelming consensus that the world is heating up due to manmade CO2" - as if there were no dispute about it - that is a clear lie, particularly if you happen to know that world temperatures have been cooling in the 21st century. The world may be heating up (longterm), it may be cooling, and that is a legitimate dispute which the public should know about, and from my brief look at this article those involved seem to have the right approach to dealing with this kind of dispute. So, however problematic the actual dispute is keep up the good work!
Official figure for Casualties on Iranian side is 213255 based on references provided.
Official figure for Casualties on Iranian side is 213255 based on references provided. Emadeddin Baghi is a prominent Iranian journalists and his site here. The site is in Persian and cites from Iranian official lists that the number is 213255. I have edited the infobox to that effect. If someone has a different "official" source, please do add your reference and put both estimates/numbers together. If you have doubts about authenticity of the referenced site, please discuss it here. Simply removing a referenced matter is not a good etiquette to practice. I am not sure why people do revert without checking. Persian Magi (talk) 07:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Hi Persian Magi,
There are a lot of editors with various perspectives who change the numbers on the casualty box.
I agree that all changes should be supported by a specific reference source. If references diverge, then the numbers for all reference sources should be presented. This matter has been discussed above multiple times:
I participated in those talks as well. The source of confusion might have been that someone thought I was estimating on my own. I provided a reference with the figure. Then I simply mentioned that those figures are also in line with my estimates. If anyone else has a reference that says official numbers are different from the one I provided, they should put their references forward. Then we can say something in lines of according to such and such official source figures are this and that. Maybe I should not have mentioned that I did an estimate of my own as it is considered research by nature and not accepted in Wikipedia.
However, all and all, as per the reference provided, the official figure for the number of "killed" on Iranian side, based on the above discussion and the Emadeddin Baghi's site, who is citing the numbers according to the Iranian Foundation of Martyrdom (Bonyade-Shahid), a government organization responsible to provide for the families of the people who were killed in the war. You can not find a more official figure inside Iran for that. Persian Magi (talk) 13:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
changes in the name of the war
I moved the brief history of war's name ....
The war was commonly referred to as the "Gulf War" or Persian Gulf War until the Iraq-Kuwait conflict (Operation Desert Storm Jan-Feb 1991), and for a while thereafter as the First Persian Gulf War. The Iraq-Kuwait conflict, while originally known as the Second Persian Gulf War, later became known simply as the Persian Gulf War.
...from lead to new to subsection because the lead was getting petty long and the issue of the name is not really of interest to people who want a quick capsule summary of the war. --BoogaLouie (talk) 21:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Regarding "support" for Iraq from other states
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute does extensive research in the areas of arms control and proliferation, and they have databases which show what countries lend military support to others. Iraq's biggest arms sources during the years 1980-1988 were (in order): the USSR, the PRC, France, Brazil, Egypt, Denmark, then the US. While this is almost an aside, Iraq's WMD procurement came largely from West German companies and France's assistance in its nuclear program, as well as various biological and dual use materials which were acquired from a number of other countries. Since the basis of claiming "support" for Iraq by the USSR and the US rests primarily on these relevant facts, it would only be prudent to mention other states which were important in supporting Iraq as well.
SIPRI's table does not seem to allow for a stable link to give, but if you search for imports from those dates, you will see the following:
Since the basis of claiming "support" for Iraq by the USSR and the US rests primarily on these relevant facts... This table is not even a secondarily consideration where the United States is concerned, because the official policy was to direct non U.S.-origin military hardware to Iraq. SIPRI ATP data does not account for these transfers, nor does it attempt to. — eon, 10:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
Germany in Armaments support etc.
It says germany was one of several countries donating money to Iraq during the war. but was it the communist east germany, or the Democratic West? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.97.65.76 (talk) 20:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
"Tilt against Iran" produces two results. [3] "Tilt toward Iraq" produces over three-hundred results. [4] — eon, 10:40, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
An additional comment
No offense guys, but shouldn't the results section list Iran as having defeated Iraq. As it even says further down the page that Sadam waged war to invade Iran. The result ended in no new gained terrority for Iraq. In fact a cease fire was determined. I do not know about you, but if someone attacks your house with the sole notion of evicting you from your property and you succesfuly defend your property such that the agressor is forced to not attack or come near your house again. Doesn't that mean a defeat for the guy who wanted to invade your house? Sometimes questions can be solved mathematically if only you care to use your logic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by W0rldl3ad3r (talk • contribs) 09:31, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
Proposal to change a part of the structure of the article
I would like to propose that the structure of the 'Timeline' section of the article is changed. In my opinion, the structure will be much more organised if the sub-sections are divided up according to year (i.e. a sub-section entitled "1980", the next entitled "1981", the next "1982" e.t.c.). There are many other ways the sub-sections could be divided (perhaps one dealing with the initial Iraqi campaign in Iran, followed by one about the Iranian invasion of Iraq e.t.c.), so a consensus should be reached before the structure is changed, if a consensus is reached that the structure should be altered at all. I believe that, at the very least, the titles of the current sub-sections in the Timeline section should be changed. Titles like "Iranian offensive, blunders, and hardening of Iraqi resolve" don't sound very encyclopedic, nor does "Iraq battered, but not beaten", imo. Thank you for reading. JEdgarFreeman (talk) 02:28, 16 August 2008 (UTC)
Proposal to summarise the article.
I realise that I have not contributed a great deal to this article, but I would like to suggest that this article is split. I am proposing this is because it is very long, and a very long article, according to WP:Article size, has technical and readability problems. I believe that the sections that should be cut-back, summarised, and the left-over content moved to another article are:
6 Foreign support to Iraq and Iran
6.1 Iraq
6.2 Iran
6.3 Both Countries
7 Iran's armament and support
7.1 Military armaments/technology
7.2 Aircraft
7.3 Military tactics
8 Iraq's armament and support
8.1 Military armaments/technology
8.2 Aircraft
8.3 Chemical weapons
8.4 Biological
8.5 Financial support
11 Weapons of mass destruction
I have proposed these sections, because the guidelines of Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide imply that they are not meant to be major sections, yet they are greatly responsible for the very long length of the article. They are guidelines, however, and a consensus should be reached before deciding which sections will receive attention. Thank you for reading. JEdgarFreeman (talk) 17:01, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
12 year olds invade wiki
"Also if it was not for Behzad Vorohman the commander in chief of the Iranian Air force and the greatest pilt they ever had who in a desperate plan to stop Saddam Hussein from holding a meeting in great splender in order to demoralize Iran and already got his f 41 damaged by a missile crashed into the building in a heroic attempt to stop it, because of his great sacrifice the meeting was made in Delhi which greatly demoralized the Iraqi people rather then the Iranian people"
Who in the hell wrote this?
I want to rewrite it, but I cant find any reference of this in any of my texts on the subject. Light on the issue would be appriciated.
I am sure you are reverting my edits out of good faith. However, if you find something extraordinarily different from your opinions, pause and recheck evidence. Academic evidence deals with facts and real figures. As I cited from Nathan J. Brown, a professor of Political Science and International Affairs and director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University author of The Rule of Law in the Arab World: Courts, Politics, and Society in Egypt and the Arab Gulf States, the neutral estimates come closer to Iranian goverment (IRI) figures. He is no way connected to IRI and you can not find a more unbiased view of the matter.
It is a human nature to dramatize events and exaggerate numbers. IRI during the war tended to play down the numbers. That contributed to the dramatization and people's mistrust too. Those numbers have become believes now. I understand it is very difficult to overcome a belief, especially a popular one.
However, academic evidence does show that IRI figures were more correct. IRI during the war tended to play down the numbers.
I have to take side with Scythian in this one. I am not aware of if the IRI officially procliamed are indeed close to 200000, however a number close to 800000 seems to be closer to the reality., if one realizes that such town as Susangerd and Bostan in Iran were vitually totally murdered. Also it takes you a normal walk in the streets of Iranian cities such as Tehran, Tabriz and Esfahan to see how many streets are named after the martyrs. I Should also say that the the IRI numbers distinguish between the martyrs (Shahid) and the lost (gomshodeh). In addition there are still many cases of Shaid-e gomnam (unknown soldiers) who are not identified and pronbably not counted. I will search about the number more but Scythians'number are closer to the reality.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 23:00, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
There is no academic sources that states Iran lost less than a quarter million in an eight year long trench war. Get real. Iran was on the offensive for most of the conflict, and resorted to human wave attacks against fixed Iraqi positions during a conflict that was largely centered in trench warfare. Are you actually going to cite a single dubious source that claims Iran loss LESS than Iraq in the conflict, while on the offensive? That is nothing more than IRI propaganda, and has no place on Wikipedia. Virtually every source states that Iran lost at least twice the number dead of Iraq. If I actually have to go an re-list a half dozen sources showing this to combat your nonsense, my next stop is WP:ArbReq. You are doing a major disservice to the many Iranians who gave their lives in that conflict, by demeaning their loss. The Scythian08:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Dear Babakexorramdin,
I am not sure what you call it reality. Popular belief is NOT reality. Academics such as Prof. Brown do not have incentives to play down the numbers and go through thorough research when they write something. Here in Wikipedia we need to avoid doing research of our own.
Official IRI figures after the war and while Bonyade-Shahid site was online, showed the numbers on Emadeddin Baghi's websie. Unfortunately Bonyad-e Shahid site is not there. Prof. Brown's article also mentions the number 200000 as official figure.
Counting the street names also is research and does not constitutes a valid reference here. Although no one has really done so.
Not as a reference for Wikipedia, but for your curiosity, you can use my estimate, i.e. counting the graves of Tehran's cemetry and multiply it by a reasonable factor. Each block has only 104*54 graves and there are only blocks 24,26,28 and 32 (I might miss one or two so lets assume 6 blocks), all include martyrs from war and revolution and all. So all the numbers would be 30,000 for Tehran. Tehran used to have one fifth of Iran's population during the war. But considering that not all Tehran martyrs were there we can multipy that number with 10 and the figure is at most 300,000. So you see with all my conservative up playing 800,000 is like saying we had two three times missing in action.
Please note that 200,000 is not a small number. It is huge and big. It is twice the population of many cities around the globe.
Anyhow, academic sources is what we should be referencing here and all the above is research and opinions. So lets stick to the valid and sourced numbers. Regards, Persian Magi (talk) 22:35, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the info. Actually your methodology does make a lot of sense. But Tehran's population during war was not one fifth but something like 1-8 of Iran. But Ok you still corrected the possible error. However you should think of other things. The ratio of Martyrs to total population was much higher in Esfahan and Azerbaijani town than in tehran. Yet there were many more casualties in the southern and western Iran. especially during two phases of war 1- the beginning of the war when Saddam genocided the Khuzestani towns and nearly killed all population of Susangerd, Hoveyzeh, Bostan etc... and 2- near the end of war when Saddam like a crazy man bombed the Iranian cities, especially those in the west and nearly levelled them. especially those killed in the beginning of the war are never counted. But good thanks for the info. The popular bleief, nevertheless, is some 2 Millions, 800 000 seems a modest number compared to that.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 22:46, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Popular belief was Shah's regime killed 70,000 but the actual number is less than 5000 (that is the number people attributed to one 17th Shahrivar alone). Also do you know 2 million means more than half the population of Los_Angeles?
Here is another link about official figures (the figures are actually down to 188,015 (excludes those killed when fighting Kurdish rebells etc) but the total of all (including pre-1979 and post war fightings against drug dealers etc.) is 217489: http://www.hamshahrionline.ir/HAMNEWS/1382/820703/news/ejtem.htm
By the way, I checked the new [www.isaar.ir Bonyad-e Shahid] has a new link but does not mention the numbers anymore. I am guessing that they might be finding the very low number of people killed during pre-revolution demonstrations etc. embarrassingly too low as compared to the ones after. Persian Magi (talk) 22:54, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Is there any academic source saying something to the effect of "official Iranian government estimates of Iranian losses during the Iran-Iraq War are widely considered to be too low" ? --BoogaLouie (talk) 16:38, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I have already mentioned it. It is authored by Prof. Brown, a professor of Political Science and International Affairs and director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University author of The Rule of Law in the Arab World: Courts, Politics, and Society in Egypt and the Arab Gulf States, the neutral estimates come closer to Iranian goverment (IRI) figures. He is no way connected to IRI and you can not find a more unbiased view of the matter. Persian Magi (talk) 01:06, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Caution to The Scythian
The Scythian
Please discuss, read and keep it cool when editing and responding.
Wikipedia is not about politics and not a place for fighting political
agenda. No matter how much you dislike an academically referenced material,
you need not to carelessly revert edits.
The question is very simple. I have brought forward a citation from Proferssor
Brown siding Iranian government official figures over the popular belief.
So there is no point in digressing, disregarding and pushing for your own
point of view.
If you have academic references, please bring them forward.
I am revering your edit this time. If you do undo it again without bringing
forward any references, I might have to seek assistance from Wikipedia admins
as your behavior and words are not acceptable here.
The references have been added, and now you have the burden of explaining your edits. Wikipedia is not a place for such politcal propaganda. If you wish to cite the Iranian government over literally dozens of sources that show much higher figures, then feel free. I welcome the involvement of an arbitration committee. Case closed for now. The Scythian07:22, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
You are not reflecting the facts in your edit. Here are the facts:
The official figure, i.e the figure put forward by Iranian government has to be mentioned as it is announced. Why do you have problems with mentioning what Iranian government has put out. Even if you think it is a lie, it does not change the fact that they said the number was such and such.
Academic sources such as Prof. Brown say Iranian estimate is closer to reality.
Other estimates vary greatly and some are even greater than the whole number of military personnel Iran had.
We need to be specific. Why do you like to make it vague? It has to be clear on who estimated what.
Neutral estimates come closer to the Iranian claim but are uncertain.
Also I think, we need to use "other" estimates instead of "independent" estimates. Independent means parties with no involvement or interests. Would you agree? Persian Magi (talk) 08:02, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
And here is the link: http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761580640_2/Iran-Iraq_War.html
Contributed By:
Nathan J. Brown, B.A., M.A., Ph.D.
Associate Dean, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University. Author of The Rule of Law in the Arab World: Courts, Politics, and Society in Egypt and the Arab Gulf States.
No, it's very cut and dry. The United States never declared war against Iran. The United States never joined Iraq to fight Iran in this conflict (or any other conflict...ever!) L0b0t (talk) 18:47, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
Proposal to re-structure article
Last month, all the text was moved from the "Timeline"[5] and "Aftermath"[6] sections, in what I believe was an effort to cut back the size of the article. I agree that the article needed to be cut back. However, I believe that the wrong sections were trimmed. According to the Manual of Style for an article covering a war, [7], an article should greatly focus upon, among other things, the prosecution of and aftermath of a war. I believe it implies by extension that sections like "Foreign support to Iraq and Iran", "Iran's armament and support, and "Iraq's armament and support" should only be brief summaries, and dealt in-depth on other articles. Therefore, I propose that those sections are trimmed back, and the text from the Timeline and Aftermath areas that was moved be re-introduced into this main article. I also think the Timeline section should be re-named per JonCatalán's suggestion, as the text in that section originally was not a timeline, but a description of the prosecution of the war. Thanks for reading. Terrakyte (talk) 21:52, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
Here are my suggestions; take them as you will. I think the timeline section should be removed altogether, as should the two lists after it. The article, as it stands, is in poor shape. There should be heavy text on the progress of the war in this article, and every other section should be spiraled into sub-articles (as an example: once I begin the reconstruction of Battle of the Bulge, the article will focus on the combat and other areas such as deployments and what not will be spiraled into sub-articles, such as Wehrmacht forces for the Ardennes Offensive. Then, main combat section (under the section title) can have links to the following: "Time of the Iran-Iraq War", "List of battles of the Iran-Iraq War" (although, these two seems like they would cover the same topic), et cetera. Instead of "Order of battle" I would calle it "Comparison of forces involved", and then link to the order of battle. This article should avoid long lists, and instead reserve these lists for their own pages. I agree that the foreign support section should be cutback, as well (a lot). It should probably be made into two separate articles; "Foreign support of Iraq (Iran-Iraq War)" and "Foreign support of Iran (Iran-Iraq War)" (these can have redirects with fuller titles, like "Foreign support of Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War"). "Iran's armament and support" is best reserved to its own article and then linked to from "Comparison of forces" (this section can be subdivided into "Iranian forces" and "Iraqi forces"). The "Weapons of mass destruction" is an important part of the topic, but in case anybody wants to expand it I would also make a sub-article on the usage of WMDs during the Iran-Iraq War, and if possible cut back on the current text there. This article should be ~80kB long; that's a respectable length for such a large topic. The aftermath section, like Terrakyte mentions, should probably be moved back; or at least, partially. "In the media" sounds a lot like "Popular culture", and should probably be removed. Some other suggestions, if I may:
Cut back on the images. Per MoS, text should not be sandwiched between images.
Get rid of the "see also" section (all my FAs have this removed). All relevant links should be wikilinked throughout the text.
The summary section is redundant; the summary of an article is the lead.
Wow, it's refreshing to see this talk page used for discussion of article improvement rather than arguing over which belligerent the US supported more. Catalan, your proposals sound pretty good and we should work towards them. L0b0t (talk) 18:43, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
The Foreign Support articles are integral to understanding this war, which was not just about Iran and Iraq but had many other parties. In many instances there were significant parties that supported both sides of the war. There is a table of pointers to other sub-articles to simplify this section. I don't think it should be trimmed significantly, but perhaps be rewritten to emphasize the role of third parties in supporting and prolonging the conflict. Erxnmedia (talk) 13:56, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Comment Thank you very much LObOt for your effort. Erxnmedia, I completely agree that "The Foreign Support articles are integral to understanding this war, which was not just about Iran and Iraq but had many other parties." I just think that the Manual of Style dealing with an article covering a war [8] implies that the part of this article dealing with foreign support should only be a summary. If you are wondering why we should limit the size of the article, please look at WP:SIZE. If the part of the article that dealt with the prosecution of the war, and its aftermath, is put back into the article, and the rest of the article hasn't been shortened, then the article will probably exceed the maximum size limit of 100 KB which is advised by WP:SIZE. Such a limit was made because beyond that the article may experience technical problems for some users, and it has prose issues which are elaborated upon by WP:SIZE. Also, I don't think this discussion is the appropriate place to deal with the issue of who fought in the war, as this discussion is centered around a different issue. I don't mean to be bossy, I'm just worried this talk could side-track into something apart from a proposal to re-structure the article.Moved talk about that issue to section belowTerrakyte (talk) 19:51, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
As long as you don't lose content, if you can restructure into smaller articles while retaining the canonical focus, that seems fine.
Comment "As long as you don't lose content, if you can restructure into smaller articles while retaining the canonical focus, that seems fine." Exactly what I had in mind. Terrakyte (talk) 21:05, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Comment: I just did what I believed was best. If I moved any text somewhere that I shouldn'tve, then feel free to move the text back into this article and tag the other page(s) for deletion. -- IRP☎02:12, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Comment: Pretty much agree with Terrakyte and JonCatalán. "Foreign support to Iraq and Iran", "Iran's armament and support, and "Iraq's armament and support" take up a major fraction of the article, have their own article and need to be trimmed way back. Summary section is also redundant. Perhaps we could trim the WWI paragraph in the lead and add some of the text from the summary. --BoogaLouie (talk) 18:27, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Comment I believe consensus has been gained to follow my proposal and JonCatalán's suggestions. Thank you everyone for your input. I will work towards completing the changes to the article within the next few days, hopefully. Terrakyte (talk) 18:02, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
Sides in the conflict
I have moved some text from the discussion above, and copied another bit from there, to here, because I believe that what I have moved deals with an issue completely apart from the proposal being discussed above. I am afraid that dealing with the issue in the discussion above might put off other editors from joining in that discussion. I hope my action is ok. Terrakyte (talk) 21:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
The Foreign Support articles are integral to understanding this war, which was not just about Iran and Iraq but had many other parties. In many instances there were significant parties that supported both sides of the war. There is a table of pointers to other sub-articles to simplify this section. I don't think it should be trimmed significantly, but perhaps be rewritten to emphasize the role of third parties in supporting and prolonging the conflict. Erxnmedia (talk) 13:56, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
my point is that the article title "Iran-Iraq War" implies that there is a conflict with 2 parties when this conflict was notable for the number of kibbitzers. Erxnmedia (talk) 16:14, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the "football match" comment...Wikipedia has articles on thousands of wars, so if you read more than 10 of them, it becomes possible to take things less personally and view conflicts in more abstract terms. I understand that there are bodies in the ground as a result of the Iran-Iraq war and I have actually seen some of the graves. Nevertheless, a conflict is a conflict and conflicts have sides and different parties to the conflict will take one side or another. What is interesting about the Iran-Iraq war as a conflict was the number of third parties who took both sides of the conflict, quite cynically (i.e. with orders of magnitude more cynicality than I might seem to possess). Erxnmedia (talk) 20:41, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
do not justify things based on the "f"ilosophy of being neutral. this later "concept" is a a rubbish point of view essentially created by those who introduced the "koncept" of "dark age". i do not go into detail. the fact of the matter is that in west two different concepts in manner of critisms have been systematically confused: 1. not to tell the truth and 2. being neutral. these are different things. in east (oriental if you wish, or persia as i wish) these have been carefully distinguished long long time ago.--Xashaiar (talk) 21:12, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
So what's your point? Do you
(a) Not want to talk about other parties to this war and their relation to the primary combatants (states of Iran and Iraq)?
(b) Do want to talk about them but want to label them as either evil or good depending on which of the primary combatants they were supporting?
(c) You tell me?
I like your new ways of spelling words but I have no idea what you are trying to achieve in terms of the wording of this article. Or if you don't actually care about the article but want to educate me about some new way of thinking, this is more properly addressed to my User page and not to this page, which is about how to edit this article.
my point is far from education, though i do believe that it is a side effect of a discussions of this kind. about your (a) and (b): no and no respectively. (c): let us take for example the word support. the article says (in the table for example) almost explicitly "north korea supported iran and (arabs, usa and west) supported iraq". this is absolute non-sense. north korea sold bullets to iran for prices n-fold the standard whereas arabs and west participated in the war against iran (the infobox does not imply this explicitly enough). my last comment tried to say, for example, that 1. such wording gets "non-neutral pov" from wikipedia 2. however such wording is the true description of the matter. these are in direct contradiction.--Xashaiar (talk) 04:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
The US and Israel participated in the war both for and against Iran and Iraq, supplying both sides with arms and intelligence because they wanted to prolong the conflict and to make money. North Korea and many other nations sold weapons in most cases for pure profit motive. If you want to refine the sub-articles to indicate this, then that would add information. If you are referring to the summary infobox at the top right of the article --- that has been a battleground of it's own since the inception of this article, in terms of which countries get put as being primary supporters of Iran or Iraq and in terms of things like the total number of casualties. Some people spend an inordinate amount of time arguing about the infobox and getting into infobox edit wars without looking at the information in the article as a whole. That's a matter of personal preference. Erxnmedia (talk) 06:21, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Why is there a long section on foriegn devils who provided arms but nothing on important facts such as Khomeini's speech about drinking the cup of poison, the 1988 missile attacks on Tehran, or the actual ceasefire agreement? --BoogaLouie (talk) 18:31, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Because for quite a spell this article has been used extensively by certain individuals to promote an anti-American, anti-Western World POV. L0b0t (talk) 19:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
anti-american? anti-western? the truth should not be categorized as propaganda. no matter people like it or not. that's difference between a local tv channel and an encyclopaedia.--Xashaiar (talk) 20:47, 22 January 2009 (UTC)
Bad source
Just reading through the article when I came across an portion of section 2.7.4 that had been marked as needing some further clarification.
The shooting down of a civilian Iranian passenger plane Iran Air Flight 655 by the American cruiser USS Vincennes, was cited by an Iranian scholar [who?] as apparently giving Ruhollah Khomeini reason to withdraw from the conflict:[1]
An Iranian scholar present at the conference said a turning point in Iran's thinking came with the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in July 1988 by the American cruiser USS Vincennes. That incident apparently led Ayatollah Khomeini to conclude that Iran could not risk the possibility of U.S. open combat operations against Iran and he decided it was time to end the conflict.
I followed the source back and found that this portion had basically been lifted from this website. Before I remove this, I was just wondering whether anyone could actually find this scholar's name since I couldn't. Thanks. Yarnbarndarn (talk) 16:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Name
Why is it Iran–Iraq War and not Iraq-Iran war? The last one sounds more right since Iraq attacked first... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.108.232.65 (talk • contribs) 7 March 2009
There's no correlation between the name of a war and which party is considered the aggressor. As to why it became known as the Iran-Iraq War in English, it is probably because Iran was much more prominent in international news on account of the 1979 revolution.-choster (talk) 10:24, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Added a paragraph on the basij martyrs. How an article on the war this long can not have anything about the basij boggles the mind. How does anyone expect this to be voted a good article??? --BoogaLouie (talk) 16:20, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
Casualties on Iranian Side
Please read this section fully to the end before editing casualties section.
Evidence (and not research) is provided for the recent edit, although initial scanning and skimming through my earliest comments here (below) might have mislead some to think I was editing based on my own estimate. There has been frequent reverse edits on the figures provided by me from Emadeddin Baghi's site. I noted that MSN's encarta, by
Nathan J. Brown, B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Associate Dean, Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University, Author of The Rule of Law in the Arab World: Courts, Politics, and Society in Egypt and the Arab Gulf States, also confirms Emadeddin Baghi's citing, i.e official figures are around 200,000. Nathan Brown also says: "For example, Iran claimed to have lost 200,000 or fewer of its own citizens, while Iraq claimed to have killed 800,000 Iranians. Neutral estimates come closer to the Iranian claim but are uncertain."
Absolute and utter nonsense. No source outside of the Iranian government even jokingly places Iranian causalities at less than 500,000 dead over an eight year period. You place a link to a website in FARSI that 99% of Wikipedians could not hope to read, citing a figure of around 200,000 or so, and expect this to be taken as truth? Is this a joke? The Scythian06:53, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Please do not use impolite and un-academic language here. Whatever your political stand, as an author of Wikipedia, you should remain impartial. Wikipedia cites from any government officials and "official figure" here simply means the view of official government in Iran at that time and nothing more or less. So please refrain from being politically motivated. Stay calm, read in details and be to the point. Persian Magi (talk) 07:39, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
The figure for casualties on Iranian side has always been exaggerated. It might have been because Iranian government always tried to report a lower the numbers during the war. However, the numbers reported after war are pretty accurate. Considering that Iranian army
total were 305,000 soldiers and unknown number of (approximately 400,000 to 700,000), the previous figures of almost 1,000,000 would mean that almost ALL Iranian soldiers and militia were either killed or wounded during the war. That does not seem to had been the case.
I did my own estimate by counting the graves of killed for war+revolution in Beheshte Zahra, known as martyrs in Iran, the main cemetry of Tehran, when war ended.
All martyrs, either in war or as a result of actions by MKO etc., are marked separately and are easily countable. They were roughly in blocks of 24, 28, 26 and 32. Each block has around 100 rows and 50 columns, that brings the total number of martyrs buried in Beheshte-Zahra to about 20,000. Considering Tehran had a population of 6-7 million then out of around 55 million, we can estimate the number to be around 160,000, that is not too far from the official estimate after war.
Anyhow, if we can not rely on official estimates, I am not sure how anyone else can make a better estimate. Please provide reliable sources if you edit the relevant sections. Persian Magi (talk) 06:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
If this isn't drifting terribly far from the topic, Persian Magi, if you can read Sam Adams' book, War of Numbers, it discusses, in great detail, a process of casualty estimation. Adams was a CIA analyst who eventually resigned over what he felt was political manipulation of casualty figures in the Vietnam War. He explains, in great detail, how he came up with casualty figures for the NLF and PAVN.
Counting graves, although OR, is an interesting technique. I'd urge you to get your work published in a reputable journal or newspaper, so it can be quoted. Adams, and other U.S. analysts dealing with a guerilla war in jungle, found there were better metrics than "body count". David Hackworth, for example, used number of enemy weapons captured after an engagement, and that turned out to be a good predictor of casualties, with certain limits. Perhaps the losses of tanks and aircraft, if available, might better predict what actually happened in a battle. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 14:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
If I remember it correctly, Iran had something about 700,000 soldiers/Basij in 1987-1988. So the figures of 305,000 Army and 400-700,000 Basij seem to reflect the numbers at one point, not the numbers of all who served during the war. There were casualties, there was draft, there were replacements. So the 1,000,000 KIAs/WIAs aren't totally improbable (though I think it still may be too high).
Please note that the figure I put in the page as official figures are not my own estimate using my own grave counting method. They are official sources, i.e. sources from government of Iran. I reverted the page to show the official figures as provided by this source, which is from Emadeddin Baghi's site. So I gather it is a credible source. If someone wants to put unofficial estimates, please, at least, do not remove the official figures. Unless if you have questions about if the official figures are what mentioned there. Persian Magi (talk) 04:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
The current Iranian casualties are listed as "5,000,00" and someone should fix this. Fine hundred thousand, or five million? It looks like it could be either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.19.9.24 (talk) 17:16, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Shortening the lead
The current lead is a bit long, and the sentences seems to give excessive detail for a lead:
The war came at a great cost in lives and economic damage - a half a million Iraqi and Iranian soldiers as well as civilians are believed to have died in the war with many more injured and wounded - but brought neither reparations nor change in borders. The conflict is often compared to World War I,[2] in that the tactics used closely mirrored those of the 1914-1918 war, including large scale trench warfare, manned machine-gun posts, bayonet charges, use of barbed wire across trenches and on no-mans land, human wave attacks and Iraq's extensive use of chemical weapons (such as mustard gas) against Iranian troops and civilians as well as Iraqi Kurds. At time the UN Security Council issued statements that "chemical weapons had been used in the war." However in these UN statements the name Iraq was not mentioned by name, so that the situation is viewed as "the international community remained silent as Iraq used weapons of mass destruction against Iranian as well as Iraqi Kurds" and it is believed that United States had prevented UN from condemning Iraq.[3]
Notice the run-on sentence about WWI makes it sound as though Iraq used chemical weapons in WWI also.
I propose shortening the sentences about WWI and chemical weapons. WWI is a side issue, and there is plenty of mention of chemical weapons in the Use of chemical weapons section.
A proposed change: The war came at a great cost in lives and economic damage — a half a million Iraqi and Iranian soldiers as well as civilians are believed to have died in the war — but brought neither reparations nor change in borders. The conflict is often compared to World War I,[4] as both wars saw tactics such as large scale trench warfare, manned machine-gun posts, bayonet charges, human wave attacks, and chemical weapons. Iraq used chemical weapons (such as mustard gas) against Iranian troops and civilians and Iraqi Kurds, something many believed was ignored by the international community under pressure from the United States.[3]
Oppose - The current wording is better. The UN statements, and lack of international condemnation are extremely important issues, that should be sufficiently explained in the lead. --Sina111 (talk) 04:33, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
Article claims USA armed Iraq for the 80s war. Simply wrong.
Iraq did not get or use American weapons in the 80s war against Iran. See the Stockholm Institute for Strategic Studies exhaustive report on Iraq overseas arms purchases. Or look at all the stock film footage from the era, Iraq used mostly Russian weapons; tanks, apcs , with some South Afican artillery, some French Aircraft, and Chemicals weapons from German precursors. All the American weapons used were on the Iranian side from the pre 79 period.
The Article makes every attempt to blame the USA for supporting and starting the war, all out of proportion to the realty of the time.
The Article manages not to mention that at the start of the War Iran held, and was badly mistreating, 51 American dipliomats and staff. Not exactly a minor issue in Iran Amercian relations then or since. This act was however cruical since it demonstrated Iran's isolation from most of the rest of the world . Having North Korea on you side is a mixed blessing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.129.88.249 (talk) 15:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Last sentance in the Lead (sounds awkward, vague)
Last sentence reads:
However in these UN statements the name Iraq was not mentioned by name, so that the situation is viewed as "the international community remained silent as Iraq used weapons of mass destruction against Iranian as well as Iraqi Kurds" and it is believed that United States had prevented UN from condemning Iraq.
viewed by whom? wikipedia? Iranians? the Encyclopaedia Iranica author?
I feel this sentence is on-topic, but is phrased oddly. Could be better to reference the lack of UN clarity regarding chemical weapons in the Lead, but save the Encyclopaedia Iranica quote for later in the article... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Furyg3 (talk • contribs) 15:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
Photo Caption
The caption below the photo of donald rumsfeld and saddam hussein reads: "Donald Rumsfeld as US special envoy to the Middle East, meets Saddām in December 1983. Ironically, Rumsfeld would later become US Defense Secretary during the 2003 Iraq War which saw Saddam ousted from power, and ultimately executed." I would simply propose that the word ironically be replaced with coincidentally. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.224.60 (talk) 11:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
"U.S. green light for Iraq" bias
The section under the heading "U.S. Green Light for Iraq" mentions that Alexander Haig wrote a secret memo in which he says "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Prince Fahd" of Jordan" The Link for "President Carter" takes you too "Ronald Carter" who doesn't exist. This leads me to wonder whether it means Ronald Reagan, for whom Haig served as secretary of state, or Jimmy Carter, who was president when the the war began. The citation does provide some slim evidence that the Carter administration was complicit in Iraqs invasion, however, we should view Haig's remarks with a critical eye since he was part of the Reagan administration and bound to see things through his own biases.
The section should be broadened to accomodate the biases of the primary sources--of course the Carter aministrations would deny giving a green light to Iraq, and of course the Reagan administration would want a way to blame it on their predecessor. Perhaps rather than an having a section assigning blame for "giving the green light to iraq" it should be changed to a section mentioning how neither administration took steps to prevent Iraq's invasion of Iran, or to bring about a quick ending--probably because of US mistrust of the new Islamic regime in Iran established in the 1979 revolution.
This section should be removed completely. It is completely unsupported by any reputable sources and is outrageously POV. The single source for this comes from the openly socialist website Znet which itself is entirely depenedent on a quote from an even more left-wing fringe blog, Consortiumnews.com, which consists primarily of the rantings by a crank named Robert Parry, who is not a reputable journalist. The article Znet quotes (Consortiumnews.com, 1/31/96) was written only a couple months after the website came into existence in November 1995. The other source of the section are a quote from an Iranian figure from that period who naturally has an agenda against the Carter admin. The whole section needs to be removed. Walterego (talk) 23:59, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
This section is a good example of what is embarrassingly, seriously wrong with Wikipedia. A wikipedia editor quotes a line from the leftwing website Znet, which Znet was quoting from Robert Parry's website Consortiumnews.com. When you search Parry's website, which amounts to little more than a glorified blog, you find in his articles the relevant quote in its entirety: Still, I gained access to documents from that investigation, including papers marked "secret" and "top secret" which apparently had been left behind by accident in a remote Capitol Hill storage room. Those papers filled in a number of the era's missing pieces and established that there was more to the reports that President Carter heard in 1980 than the task force publicly acknowledged. (For more details, see the first four issues of The Consortium.) But besides undermining the task force's October Surprise debunking, the papers clarified President Reagan's early strategy for a clandestine foreign policy hidden from Congress and the American people. One such document was a two-page "Talking Points" prepared by Secretary of State Alexander Haig for a briefing of President Reagan. Marked "top secret/sensitive," the paper recounted Haig's first trip to the Middle East in April 1981. In the report, Haig wrote that he was impressed with "bits of useful intelligence" that he had learned. "Both Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Saudi Prince Fahd explained that Iran is receiving military spares for U.S. equipment from Israel." This fact might have been less surprising to President Reagan, whose intermediaries allegedly collaborated with Israeli officials in 1980 to smuggle weapons to Iran behind President Carter's back. But Haig followed that comment with another stunning assertion: "It was also interesting to confirm that President Carter gave the Iraqis a green light to launch the war against Iran through Fahd." In other words, according to Haig's information, Saudi Prince Fahd (now King Fahd) claimed that President Carter, apparently hoping to strengthen the U.S. hand in the Middle East and desperate to pressure Iran over the stalled hostage talks, gave clearance to Saddam's invasion of Iran. If true, Jimmy Carter, the peacemaker, had encouraged a war. Haig's written report contained no other details about the "green light," and Haig declined my request for an interview about the Talking Points. But the paper represented the first documented corroboration of Iran's long-held belief that the United States backed Iraq's 1980 invasion.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile5.html
The way that Parry titles his article an "X-File" without any irony tells you pretty much everything about how serious a journalist he is. That ZNet.com would quote a guy who claims to have snuck into a capitol hill storage room and found a secret memo, and that Znet.com would refer to Parry as a "journalist", means that Znet's credibility is zero. The section 2.2 depends entirely on this farcical quote. I plan to remove the whole thing, as it is an embarrassment to the whole article. If anyone wants to put it back, then you need to provide reputable sources for your assertions, and obviously Znet doesn't cut it. Thanks, though, as I now know never to believe anything cited from that website. What other kooky stuff is in the article I wonder.Walterego (talk) 00:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
Articles on foreign support
Since there is active discussion on the means by which foreign support, by many countries, of Iran, Iraq, or both, will be represented as subarticles, I moved the table that Ernxmedia derived from the table and lists in my userspace to the talk page, here. The goal of specific country articles is to establish that many countries had roles of various significance in the war, not just one as has been suggested by some editors.
Somewhere between 30 and 40 countries have involvement, some quite significant such as providing the bulk of the weapons used by Iraq. Not all those countries are yet in the list below.
Articles in the following table detail of support of other nations to either Iran or Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War:
Somebody wrote this into the article's text and I moved it to the discussion page:
The most practical way to describe such complex procurement is to put the history in the article for the country in which the sale began.
When a country, at the same or different times, supported both Iran and Iraq, the "export control" section of both articles is apt to be identical, assuming it describes a national policy, or, in some cases, the lack of one. When a country made an exception, that will be noted. Articles in the following table detail of support of other nations to either Iran or Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War.
The third paragraph in the introduction ends "...it is believed that United States had prevented UN from condemning Iraq." The source is 18. I checked it out, and the aforementioned statement derives from a single sentence in Encyclopedia Iranica: "Apparently, United States played a significant role in preventing a UN condemnation of Iraq in this regard." It is unclear just who believes that the United States prevented the UN from condemning Iraq. The writer of the article in Encyclopedia Iranica? But he says "apparently." So apparently to whom? The sentence uses weasel words and then sources to more weasel words. Unless there are any cogent arguments, I will delete the sentence.
Also, some how the United States was listed along with belligerents on the side of Iraq in stub on the right. Dealings arms isn't the same as being a belligerent, and if it is, many other countries should be listed as well. I deleted the United States from the list.--68.80.122.94 (talk) 02:29, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
No bias here. It is a fact that US/World remained silent. Even CNN in its report "Screaming Bloody Murder" touches upon this and similar issues. Moreover the source given is signed. "Apparently" here means according to evidence. Read the whole article and the other sources there. Look at this [9] where it says "The United States blocked UN censure of Iraq's use of chemical weapons.". Also [10] where it says "However, in 1988 the US worked to prevent the international community from condemning Iraq's chemical.." Also [11] where it says "The United States blocked U.N. censure of Iraq's use of chemical weapons". THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF SOURCES. Moreover, It is also a fact that US navy was among participant of the war. I have been editing this page since long time ago as this talk page and the history page of the article says. However the User:Uirauna who never edited this page before the time he came and changed "US navy" to "US". Also he/she has changed the stable form (10 October 2008, 5 November 2008, 17 December 2008,8 March 200911 February 2009,...) to what he/she wishes. Also he/she has changed the number of casualties from very lower estimates ([12], [13], [14]) to very high Iranian casualty [15]. This is a matter for others to decide..--Xashaiar (talk) 02:40, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Xashiar, please stop making accusations and wikistalking me. As you can see in the links you added, I only reverted edits by IPs that provided no edit summary whatsoever. Also, the change made (that I reverted) did not match the numbers in the source provided. If you have a problem with the changes I made, why did you not revert them? Why did you not come to the talk page or leave me a message? That's the way problems should be solved in WP, and I am always open to suggestions. Thank you. Uirauna (talk) 16:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Dear Uirauna, the dates of your edits on these pages, tell a different story, and you're the one who appears to be stalking him, not the other way around. But anyways, lets just keep the discussions on content. I went through history of this page over the past few months, and undid some of the poor edits by the IPs that had removed sources, or changed sourced numbers, etc. --Sina111 (talk) 16:38, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for keeping the focus on content Sina111. I went through your edits and as you said they are mostly number changes by IPs, and there's been plenty of them lately. Maybe we should request a page protection blocking edits by IPs. What do you think? Uirauna (talk) 17:31, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
It is absolutely ridiculous to deny historical facts that the United States provided military intelligence satellite photos on Iranian troop concentrations, escorted Iraqi oil in tankers flying "neutral" Gulf States flags and engaged in naval skirmishes with the Iranian Navy, and the United States needs to be listed as a belligerent as actual shots in anger were fired upon Iranian vessels and Kharg with the pretext of escorting Iraqi oil. See Dilip Hiro, The Longest War (Routledge, 1990) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.139.246.206 (talk) 06:08, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
Pleas Remove Bias
The article is biased against Iran and in favor of United States, western world and Iraq. There is now ample evidence that Iraq was ordered to attack Iran by United States. ( Video documentary; Saddam Hussein: The trial you will never see). There is no mention of the historical fact that Iranian Airforce almost finished off the Iraqi Navy in the first months of the war and this led to great difficulty for Saddam subsequently. But United States Navy then came into action and becoming the defacto Navy of Saddam Hussein, fighting Iran along side Saddam Hussein. There is no mention of CIA operations running against Iran simultaneously specially with regard to trapping Iranian pilots. There is almost no mention of Yoguslave, American, French and Russian pilots running missions from Iraq and Saudi against Iran.
At the end the article has been written to soothe the western audience and is not compatible with truth.--192.30.202.21 (talk) 23:02, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
There is no mention of those things because they never happened, they are just propaganda. Some video that you watched somewhere is just not evidence at all, let alone "ample". Secondly, Saddam had no significant relationship with the USA prior to the Iran-Iraq war because he was a Soviet client and a threat to the USA's regional ally, Israel. Thirdly, the allegation that the US Navy entered the war fighting along side Saddam's army, is purely ridiculous. In fact in 1987 the USS Stark was attacked by an Iraqi Jet and 37 sailors were killed. Fourth, no Iranian pilots were ever abducted or trapped by the CIA (what possible need woud the US have for Iranian pilots?). Nor did pilots from the air forces of those countries you mention conduct missions from Iraq, certainly not from Saudi Arabia, that would have been an act of war by Saudi Arabia against Iran. Walterego (talk) 12:11, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
you claim "the allegation that the US Navy entered the war fighting along side Saddam's army, is purely ridiculous." really? WP:RS and WP:V are the only criteria for inclusion of statements in articles. You can not source your claim and majority of sources contradicts that. What would you like to see sourced in this article? Moreover please mind WP:OR: you say "in 1987 the USS Stark was attacked by an Iraqi Jet". So what? Xashaiar (talk) 02:06, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
There is no reliable source for the claim that the US Navy fought alongside Saddam's Army because it just never happened. You refer to a "majority of sources" but you don't provide a single one. Provide a source that identifies a single incident where the US Navy engaged in combat with Iranian forces in coordination with or in direct support of the Iraqi Armed Forces. And obviously it can't be an incident which was part of the Kuwaiti Tanker War, since that was a separate conflict which did not directly involve Iraq. As to the USS Stark, that incident clearly indicates that the Iraqi Armed Forces were a threat to the US Navy escorts of Kuwaiti ships just as Iranian forces were, and that the US Navy was not operating in concert with the Iraqis.Walterego (talk) 13:11, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Avoid WP:OR and WP:FORUM. Tell us the "exact sentence" you are "concerned about" in the "current version" of the article.Xashaiar (talk) 18:50, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
