Talk:Iran Air Flight 655/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Government Sources vs Independent Sources

Someone changed the title of sections to insinuate POVs. I am not sure how ruling by International court of Justice and NY reviews could be called conspiracy theories. They were not a party to the event and they did their assesment indepenently. So I think we should call them Independent sources rather than any opinion related name callings. So I reverted those edits.

Also the version of US government officials could not be called "sequence of events" . Guess someone is thinking that US government sources are only reliable sources, ever! No doubt they tend to believe so themselves. But at least to be on a safe ground we need to specify what we know as facts. They are their version of events.

We certainly can have an extra section for conspiracy theories, both American ones who claim there was some suicide mission involved (no surprise that this theory was also raised by American government officials too!) or on the theories from the rest of world claiming American government deliberately shutdown the airliner as a signal to Iranian government that they will do anything to stop Iranians from defeating Saddam. Well who knows, maybe someday we find one of them as true reflection of what happened! 203.48.45.194 02:38, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Sources for G.W. Bush's Senior

The quote is refered to in many places. I do not have access to Newsweek Issue. However, here are the list of the sources I can find online:

• http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0405/05/pzn.00.html
• http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9804-rogue.html

and many other sources...

Also in this book:

• "The 267 Stupidest Things Republicans Ever Said/The 267 Stupidest Things Democrats Ever Said"

by Theodore Rueter

You can find excerpts of the book at:

http://www.powells.com/biblio?show=TRADE%20PAPER:USED:0609806351:5.95&page=excerpt

There are many many other links showing the quote. I doubt it is unlikely that the quote is made up and he did not say it, especially it is not a humour type quote and serious. Furthermore, despite its seriousness, no republican publication has denied the quote!

KAL007

Very different tone than article about Korean Air Flight 007. I wonder, why there is no subtopic "Political response".

I'm not entirely sure the tone is that different. The article doesn't give the US a figleaf for its misdeed. And in this instance there's not suggestion that the flight was provocation - whereas there's an active theory in the KAL incident that the flight was probing USSR air defence. And I'm sure there was a lesser response (Iran having fewer friends, and friends of less significance) than in a US/USSR incident. But there were consequences, I think, and I tend to agree we should have more on them, as and when anyone cares to do the research. --Tagishsimon (talk)

F14 in Bandar Abbas?

Another point is that Bandar Abbas is not (and never has been) base for IIAF F14s. Major base of IIAF F14s is Isfahan 8th interceptor base, which is located about 1200 km north of Bandar Abbas.

Can you cite a source for this? According to the Discovery Channel Documentary it indicated there was an F-14 active on the ground at that airport at the time, and it claimed that the F-14s were based there. How does one account for the brief 21100 transponder code eminating from Bandar Abbas if not for the fact that an active F-14 was transmitting it? -- GIR 03:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

That is completely false, read the sources. It was found that 1 to possibly 4 Iranian F-14s had transfered to Bandar Abbas in response to heightened Iraqi air strikes on Iranian Oil and Naval facilities. Additionally, atleast 1 C-130 was operation as well as 4 to 10 F-4s (also equipped for anti-shipping) were based at Bandar Abbas. It is well known that Bandar Abbas was the only dual military/civilian airfield in that immediate region of the middle east. Again read your sources, I do not know how you can state "and never has been"... like anyone could even know that! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Cjsoques (talk • contribs) 02:39, 28 April 2007 (UTC).

Picture in article is of wrong type of aircraft

Hello. The picture in the article is an Airbus A310, which is a smaller and longer range version than the Airbus A300. The Iranian flight was an A300. I suggest the pictures be changed. www.airliners.net is an excellent place to get photos of any type of airliner and you can use them also.

Captain Mohsen Rezaian

• Someone has suggested to merge Captain Rezain's article with this article. I disagree with merge idea, when Captain Rogers has his own article then I think Captain Rezaian should have one.--Sina 22:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

"I will never apologise" - Did someone make that up?

"I will never apologise for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what it has done. I don't care what the facts are." I find it hard to believe somone would say or even think that. What if a mistake was made sometime? Mistakes do happen.

See "Source request: G.W. Bush Senior quote" section above. Rwendland 13:25, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

missing paragraph?

There seems to be a rather important paragraph missing from "The Incident." There is no mention of any plane getting shot down. The last paragraph refers to the event triggering an intense controversy, but no event was described yet! --ScottJ 20:54, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Cut portion form other related article

Cut from William C. Rogers III article. Please have a look at what material of it shoudl go into this article as the other article starte dto be a rehash of here I cut it short.

with a dual-salvo of SM-2 missiles. Iran Air 655, carrying 290 souls, had been airborne for seven minutes, when the missiles impacted approximately 8 miles from Vincennes and crashing into the Persian Gulf 6.5 miles east of Hengham Island (26°37.75′N 56°1′E). At the time of the incident, Vincennes was engaged in small arms combat with several Iranian surface craft and their helicopter had been fired upon during flight operations.

A subsequent US report by Rear Admiral William Fogarty, entitled Formal Investigation into the Circumstances Surrounding the Downing of Iran Air Flight 655 on 3 July 1988, received with skepticism by some, determined that Captain Rogers acted within the rules of engagement.

In 2004, Marita Turpin and Niek du Plooy of the Centre for Logistics and Decision Support, partially attributed the accident to an expectancy bias introduced by the Aegis Combat System and faulted the design and "unhelpful user interface" as contributing to the errors of judgement."

Independent investigations into the events have presented a different picture. John Barry and Roger Charles, of Newsweek, accused the U.S. government of a cover-up. An analysis of the events by the International Strategic Studies Association described the deployment of an Aegis cruiser in the zone as irresponsible and felt that the expense of the ship had played a major part in the setting of a low threshold for opening fire. On November 6, 2003 the International Court of Justice ruled that "the actions of the United States of America against Iranian oil platforms on 19 October 1987 and 18 April 1988 cannot be justified as measures necessary to protect the essential security interests of the United States of America." However, the case relating to the airbus downing, "the Aerial Incident of 3 July 1988, (Islamic Republic of Iran v. United States of America)", was dropped 22 February, 1996 following settlement and reparations by the United States.

Refdoc 13:15, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Similar incidents section

I don't understand the rationale for the "Similar incidents" section, listing "civilian airliners have been shot down after straying off course near protected airspace". Iran Air Flight 655 did not stray off course, nor was the airspace nearby "protected". I propose we remove this section, as it is not needed and confuses. Rwendland 22:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

That's probably for the best. Eleland 13:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Trivia section considered harmful

Yeah, I know that the Weddle/Thompson part at least is correct, but seriously who cares. 300 people get blown out of the sky and we're going to finish with Deep Space Nine trivia? Get real. This information just isn't relevant enough to be included in the article.

Eleland 18:50, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedias aren't written to be tasteful, they're written to be holistic. And while these are admittedly small mentions, they have reached audiences of millions, and that is relevant for anyone interested in Middle-East-related incidents' place in American culture. I cleaned it up format-wise, and think it should stay.Mdiamante 22:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree with "who cares" and that it is distasteful and not relevant except to squeeze in a wikilink to justify a show episode article. Not to mention the fact that it does not represent a worldwide view of the subject. I support removing it. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of Plot summaries. --Dual Freq 23:22, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm content to see this section go. Rwendland 01:19, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Compare with Korean Air Flight 7

Compare with this article with Korean Air Flight 7. Slightly different in tone. This one only "almost" caused an international incident! Paul Beardsell 15:20, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Someone's POV

I normally dont edit WIKI but for this flight. The ship did get duel Transponder codes. Of both an F14 and a Civil air plane. This happened because the the ship received the signal from a F14 on the ground at the airport. The captain held off firing until the last min. When some one said the plane was ascending other people mistaken them for descending which they thought it was diving down to fire. Everyone was so freaked out about what they thought was a threat to them they were taking fire after all. Even when the missiles were in the air they desperately tried to contact the plane so they could destroy the missiles in flight I have noticed that many people have just anti American views. It was a tragic accident The classified tid-bit was that the ship wasn't authorized to move north to see the Montgomery they brought themselves to the location without permission so they put them selves in the situation that lead to combat with out permission. The Vincent also followed the gun boats into Iranian waters by 4 KM. That is what was blacked out from the report

Another POV

Cut from article (near end):

The U.S. government issued notes of regret for the loss of human life but never admitted wrongdoing, accepted responsibility, nor apologised for the incident. Officially, it continues to blame Iranian hostile actions for the incident.

This was in the "Medals awarded" section. Its placement at the head of the section implies an argument that the medals were inappropriate.

I personally lean toward agreeing with that argument; I only question whether the article itself should make it. Surely there are sufficient numbers of critics out there we could quote. --Uncle Ed 12:50, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to put it under the Compensation section. Which itself I took as simply paying the families for our mistake, certainly no one meant to shoot down an airliner. (Given the situation at the time and Iran's behavior at the time though, apologies to the Iranian government would have been absurd.) Anynobody 22:35, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

The problem I have with this is that the phrase appears three times in the article. I think at that point, the article runs into objectivity issues. Vygramul 18:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Charges of anti-US bias

Admiral Crowe said:

The Newsweek article insists that the Vincennes' entry into Iranian territorial waters was "clearly in violation of international law." I take vigorous issue with that view. A warship acting in self defense has the right under international law to enter the aggressor waters to defend itself. That was the United States' legal view for as long as I was in the Navy. [2]

I wonder if Crowe's view of press coverage should be in the article. --Uncle Ed 13:09, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Crowe actually went further than this on innocent passage rights:

... you have the right to go into territorial waters, no matter who they belong to, if you’re conducting innocent passage, going from A to B. The warship enjoys that right as well as anyone else, as does a helicopter, if you’re not shooting at anybody and if you’re not doing something else harmful. You also have in the Straits of Hormuz a thing called a transit passage regime, ... Because the Strait, at its narrowest point, was 20 miles, you’re bound to be in Oman’s waters or Iran’s waters, one or the other. But to just go into Iranian territorial waters, there is nothing really illegal about that. If you go in there shooting at them and you have not been provoked, or you go in there to make trouble, or you do not do innocent passage, yes, that is illegal. ... Q: The question, of course, was the helicopter in Iranian waters, or wasn’t it, at the time that the gunboat fired at it? ... Admiral Crowe: Incidentally, even if it had of been, if it wasn’t firing at anybody, I don’t see what’s wrong with it being there. But it was not there.[3]

However Crowe wasn't very precise on the restrictions on a warship on innocent passage, which includes "Passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal State", including not allowing "any act aimed at collecting information to the prejudice of the defence or security of the coastal State", "the launching, landing or taking on board of any aircraft"; I suspect this means not running Aegis or using helicopter reconnaissance while on innocent passage.

I think we must be careful using primary sources here, which are usually pushing a line. Ideally we'd report reliable scholarly third party analysis, bad sadly this seems to be largely absent on this topic. Rwendland 17:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Hostilities

Were there hostile military actions going on thereabouts, in the weeks and days up to the 655 incident? If not, then it's puzzling as to why an American warship would shoot down a civilian airliner. If it was calm day, nothing else going on, and an airline takes off and heads toward the warship, this would not ordinarily be cause for alarm.

Was this the case? Or were Iranian gunboats harassing foreign shipping? Had Iranian naval vessels or military aircraft fired upon (or otherwise taken hostile action) toward US ships such as the Vincennes?

The arguments which seek to condemn the US naval actions do not seem to mention any of this.

Crowe, on the other hand, places the responsibility on Iran. He charges them with negligent (or wilful?) failure to coordinate their military actions with their civilian air control.

Just suppose there were heavily armed Russian (or even Iranian!) warships anywhere within 50 km of New York City, and an American plane was about to take off from JFK in the general direction of those foreign military vessels. If the American plane was shot down by the other nation's navy, wouldn't Americans tend to blame our own military for not telling air traffic controllers about the hostile military presence? And wouldn't Americans also blame the civilian authorities for not being proactive and FINDING OUT about the hostile military presence?

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to read a radar screen and see there's trouble brewing along the flight path. No mother would send her children to school along a normally peaceful street if she KNEW there was a riot going on there.

Anyway, when writing the article we should not adopt Crowe's viewpoint of course. But I wonder if it would help to mention that there is a CONTROVERSY over whose fault the incident was. --Uncle Ed 13:43, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure which article you read, Ed, but Iran Air Flight 655 does say things such as "On the morning of July 3, the Vincennes crossed into Iranian territorial waters during clashes with Iranian gunboats", which would be at odds with your "The arguments which seek to condemn the US naval actions do not seem to mention any of this."

The article gives a number of viewpoints on the incident which taken together would leave the reader to suppose there is some CONTROVERSY over the culpability of the US for the incident.

You seem to be raising a contributory negligence argument, along the lines of "if Iran was actively hostile to the US, then anything the US did should be forgiven or mitigated in that light", and a "it's the victim's fault" argument, that in essence civil aviation should have been shut down or rerouted because hostile US ships were in the area.

On the contributory negligence argument, it is reasonably clear from the article that Captain Rogers perceived a threat in part because his ship had been involved in skirmishes with Iran. However you, Ed, should be clear that the rules of war generally prohibit taking out civilian airliners even if the combatants are feeling somewhat twitchy.

As to the victim's fault argument, the US had given no indication that it was prone to firing on civilian aircraft; US ships had been in the area for some long time. The civilian plane was on a normal civilian route with a filed flight plan, correctly set transponder, and working radio set. With all of this in place, it is not unreasonable to fly.

Overall, your posting seems to be saying "please make further excuses for the killing of the civilians in this incident so that the US position does not look so bleak". Sorry bubba; no can do. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:17, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

CG image

I have a couple of problems with the CG image:

1. Looks mostly like a work of the imagination.
2. With the best will in the world, I don't think it is a good image.

Whereas if we were showing a plane with the wrong livery, then we should say so, and/or try to procure a more accurate photo, I'd prefer us to revert to the prior image. Thoughts? --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:19, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I concur. I'd prefer that there be no CGI images of this type for the same reasons. Perhaps a map of some kind would be better for the infobox, but no computer drawn aircraft images or ship images are needed since there are a number of real pictures of the ship and similar aircraft. --Dual Freq 12:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I think there's a point in having a (real) plane picture. The downing of the plane is the subject of the article, quite apart ere sfrom a graphical "they shot down what'!?!" reaction. But no image is, for me, preferable to the current one. I'd agree that a weel drawn map of the immediate area would serve well; a plane pic could be relegated lower in the article. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:35, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm uneasy on the use of artistic/CG images for historical events, because they might convey inaccurate info & on aesthetic grounds. I looked for Wikipedia policy on this, and I can't find anything directly applicable. The most relevant I found is Wikipedia:No original research#Original images, which says "Images that constitute original research in any other way are not allowed, such as a diagram ...". This specific image seems to suggest at least 3 inaccuracies:

1. One missile was fired (two were, 3 secs apart)
2. There was cloud-cover at the time (the 1988 Senate hearing has "The weather that particular day was clear, with 8 or 10 miles visibility.", and my recollection of photos of debris collection is that it was sunny)
3. The image is somewhat suggestive that the Airbus was at a lowish height (it was at 13,500 feet)
4. Missile launch angle (Missile Launching System is vertical launch according to Ticonderoga class cruiser article)

So I concur that it should be removed. Rwendland 13:39, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Removed. Nothing put in its place yet. I see we have no plane image right now. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:41, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

I changed it so that just the plane is shown, this way the livery is accurate. Guess I overreached with the others. Anynobody 20:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Locater maps

[[]] I've added a couple locater maps that could possibly be used. If someone can do better, be my guest. I'm not a huge fan of the CGI, what was wrong with a picture of a real Air bus aircraft? Does the livery have to be accurate? --Dual Freq 04:41, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

If you need an accurate map of the flightpath (route A59) to base on, there are detailed maps in the Iranian case to the ICJ[4] (pages 12, 20, 68, 80). One interesting thing from these maps was that IR655 was heading more directly for the Montgomery rather than the Vincennes. It would be nice if we could somehow create a detailed map from the US & Iranian info, which give precise positions of the ships and planes. Rwendland 12:51, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that the second map is adequate. I don't think a 100% accurate / heavily detailed map is needed as this is just a locater meant to depict the approximate path and general location of the shootdown. Any more detail would be guaranteed to be objectionable to one side or the other. The locater map would be similar to something found on a documentary and just serves to acquaint the reader with the area that the incident occurred in. --Dual Freq 04:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, well done, I agree the locator map is great. I wasn't being clear - I'm not arguing against it, just trying to give encouragement for a mapping hero to do a detailed one as well! Looking at the Iranian ICJ maps certainly helps understanding - I don't think they are Iranian POV, they plot the US/ICAO positions I think (other than the page 80 map which shows the Vincennes helicopter operating position as within Iran's internal waters, about 2 to 4 miles off-shore, compatible with the DOD statement "8-10 miles to the north of USS Montgomery"). Rwendland 13:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I've also created a map for review. I thought I saw somewhere that it was encouraged that labels in the image itself should be reduced as much as possible while main points should be discussed in the caption. I've reorganized the candidate maps into a gallery. Whatever map is chosen, using it in the infobox instead of a picture of the aircraft be it illustrative or a photograph seems backward. Anynobody 05:42, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Would be good to have the location of the Vincennes & Montgomery on map 3. There's also the issue of whether the plane was heading for the Vincennes. It was, according to something I've just read "slowly turning away" from the Vincennes ... I doubt the scale of the map could accommodate this, but it would be shame to mislead. We also need to be sure that nothing in the diagram is a work of imagination / supposition, if that can be done. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:36, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I can add them without technical difficulty, but haven't seen a source discussing that aspect. (I think it was heading right at CG-49 and was about 8 miles away with FF-1082 2 miles south of CG-49. The key word being think.) Anynobody 23:05, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

• 
  attempt at a locater map for this article. Black indicates intended path and destination / origin. Red symbol indicates area of downing, stated to be 6.5 miles east of Hengham Island (26°37.75′N 56°1′E). [1]
• 
  Another attempt at a locater map.
• 
  1. Bandar-e Abbas 2. Flight655 3. CG-49 4. Dubayy 5. 20 mile engagement zone set by Captain Rogers

Background - wholly inadequate

I don't have time to fix it now, but can I comment that the single sentence Background is wholly inadaquate. What are we supposed to make of it? Does it not - like the Hostilities comment above - suggest that, really, it's all Iran's fault. Might there be another side or two to the background? Was not the US supporting Saddam Hussain at the time? Does the US having had a big downer on Iran since their revolution have anything to do with their attitude and way of carrying on in the area? --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:41, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The US did indeed support Iraq in the war against Iran, and hasn't been overly friendly to Iran since revolution ousted the Shah. However the reason American ships were there was due to Iranian attacks against Kuwaiti/Saudi tankers. It's not all Iran's fault, but absolving them of all blame is ridiculous since CG 49 wouldn't have been there but for their actions. Anynobody 21:02, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

ffs. I'm not suggesting an absolution of blame; merely that the previous limp excuse for the US which formed the whole of the background was inadequate. The current edit is much better (though it could do with citations). It might also be reasonable to supply as background the information that the US supported Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war ... and this for me calls into question the use of the term "neutral" applied to Kuwait & Saudi. They certainly were not combatants but as US allies might not have been viewed by Iran as neutral. I think it is very important that the background is not written exclusively from a US/western perspective, but is genuinely neutral and balanced. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:18, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't defending what was there; It was inadequate. As to the neutrality of Saudi Arabia/Kuwait, you have a good point but not because they are US allies but because they supported Saddam with money, however for the purposes of this incident such talk would be too detailed (but not for Iran-Iraq War). Anynobody 05:50, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, a more detailed explanation should be relegated to the right pages, such as Iran-Iraq War. However we should not continue to call Saudi Arabia & Kuwait neutral, if they were not neutral, but merely non-combatant. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:28, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I do think the background context is highly relevant, but we do need it to be succinctly put. I've just come across a recent Naval Postgraduate School thesis [5] which covers this incident in its context really well, and might provide some appropriate info. For example it says "On April 29, 1988, however, the United States expanded the scope of the protection scheme, extending the U.S. Navy’s protective umbrella to all neutral shipping in the Persian Gulf. This decision divorced the American policy from its original limited objectives, increased the likelihood of further confrontation with Iran, and laid the groundwork for the destruction of an Iranian airliner by USS Vincennes (CG-49)" and in more detail "[the July 3rd] action would not have occurred under the original limited Earnest Will protection scheme, and it ended when the USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner, killing 290 people." Well worth a read - gives new insights. Rwendland 19:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Cause

The infobox says that the cause was Civilian airliner shoot-down. This accuratly describes what happened but not why, which is what the word "cause" means (The producer of an effect, result, or consequence.) If this seems unclear think of it this way; If one had to describe the cause of this incident, which would be more appropriate:

Event	Cause
Iran Air Flight 655	Civilian airliner shoot-down
OR
Iran Air Flight 655	Shot down after being identified as an Iranian warplane

I realize that the infobox's instructions for this data field say "type", but since the final product reads "Cause" shouldn't the information match? Anynobody 03:00, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

It should. But identified -> misidentified! --Tagishsimon (talk) 03:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

I do not know what happened in reality there and actually what we as wikipedians think is not much relevent. The change you make gives the US Gov side of story (which says it was an accident). Iran Gov side has a different view (for right or wrong but thats not to us to decide). Summary part should be NPOV meaning that we can't take side. We can only report the fact of the shootdown and not take a side on its cause.Farmanesh (talk) 04:05, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I am not clear enough. When you say "Shot down after being identified as an Iranian warplane" that implies that it was an honest mistake but the Iranian Gov side doesn't see it that way. They see it as a delibrative attack. I am not taking anyone's side here. But being NPOV means we can't put one's side of story in summary.Farmanesh (talk) 04:10, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Tagishsimon's point is most accurate, misidentified is actually better.

To address concerns regarding reporting what the US or Iran say, the views of each government is irrelevant next to what the sources say. The US said it was an accident, the Iranians said it was intentional, and the sources seem to say that it was worse than an accident but not intentional. (I'd say they called it a screw up.)

Wikipedia is set up so that POV is determined by reliable sources and not necessarily the subject's or editor's POVs. (Giving the subjects equal treatment just because there are two sides can easily become an unintentional POV error. None of the sources support the Iranian government's view that it was intentional. We can discuss the views of each government briefly in the article itself, but in the infobox only the sources should be reflected. Anynobody 05:57, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

The main problem with your point is that it would make the small area we have for summary a judging area. This is a disputed incident that seems you want to announce the US side of story the truth based on sources. We can enter looking into each source and see how reliable and independent they are from US influence but that seems to be what should be done in article and not in summary.Farmanesh (talk)

Actually that isn't a problem, since there is no guideline or policy saying infobox information must be a certain length. Once again, national perspective is irrelevant as we are supposed to go by the sources. (Saying that sources are influenced by being American is somewhat incorrect, as they are much more critical of the actions taken by CG-49 than the US government. Assuming they do not report it as an intentional downing of a civilian aircraft doesn't mean the source is biased against Iran.) Anynobody 21:01, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Iranian side

I noticed some disagreement over the inclusion of this:

Iranian airbus was over Iranian waters thus in Iranian territory as was the battleship so even if the plane was an F-14 it should not have been attacked.‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.›  Other than that navigations show the plane turning away from the battleship at the time it was hit. Deviation was later discovered to be caused by the warning gave to the plane on civilian frequency, by another battleship who was informed of the situation.‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› 

This could very well be the Iranian side, but it needs citation in order to stay in the article. (Plus CG-49 wasn't a battleship, so there is no reason to leave uncited and inaccurate info in the article.) Anynobody 04:38, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing it to here. I agree with need for citation, just I am saying we should give it couple of days with {{Fact}} being there. If nobody brings a citation, then we delete it. But it is not like we delete everything without citation on wikipedia immidiatly, do we?Farmanesh (talk) 16:11, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I understand why it might seem like a double standard to remove information needing citation when there are articles with {{fact}} tags which have been on them for months or maybe even years. However the idea isn't to leave uncited info on for a defined length of time, instead it is meant to indicate information which is not attributed and as such eligible for removal by anyone pending a source. If I come across such a tag, usually I'll remove the information unless I remember seeing it somewhere and can't remember the source. In such events, if another editor removes info I know to be correct but was without a source, I find a source and then add it to the article, rather than simply putting uncited material back into an article. Anynobody 02:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we are on the same page, except I wonder if there is any wait policy? Can we delete an uncited info just immidiatly after its addition or should we have a grace time?Farmanesh (talk) 05:28, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Never seen a recommended grace period, so I've been taking them on a case by case basis. For example, and this is not meant to criticize anyone's actions, I would have probably asked for the citations here before removing the text in question simply because it involved several requests at once and inclusion of another necessary POV. (I think it would also be good form to give a heads up on the talk page if one plans to remove new text right away, but that's just my opinion.) Usually you can remove on sight, just remember that some editors may not be very reasonable about it though. Anynobody 06:24, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems we have several good editors looking at the section and the easiest and quickest course of action would be to try verify the section —if not find outright citable sources. --Deon Steyn (talk) 06:59, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

biased article

Just face it. What Americans are saying is just nonsense. F14 is something else than an Airbus and each intelligent radar system can see that. Morover it was above the Iranian territory/ territorial waters. Americans knew what they did, they wanted to kill civilians. it is a very evident act of anti-Iranianism. An obvious TERRORIST act. AND please do not bring up stories as possible factors this or that. iranian side is no POV, these were facts on the ground and all journalists could see. There were dead bodies all on the Iranian territial waters. And what the BS is this POV? the FACT is that it was an Airbus.

All you gys are doing is as if Americans are innocent. Well the history proves otherwise. I have been to many countries and I should say that Americans are not like people here in Europe belive. They are not more racist or xenophobe than Europeans. Bt one thing is for sure: the level and extent of arrogance and ignorance and talking own wrongs good cannot be seen anywhere else in the world.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 00:53, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Re paragraph 1:Do you have any sources for this assertion?

Re paragraph 2:Whatever.

Anynobody 01:03, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

listen anybody. I am not a military journalist, yet you read in your own article what I said. Either they shoot deliberately and consciously an airbus= clear murder and terrorism 2- or one sees an airbus as a F14 which means that he is a retard (possible especially when one gets excited by movies like 300!!!!). choose which one you like.

And I do not understand why you do not want to get associated with anti-Iranism? every time I meet someone from US armed forces they rember me how much they hate Iranians. Be at least honest to your own sentiments--Babakexorramdin (talk) 02:12, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you're misunderstanding the operation of shipboard radar systems. At the time of the incident (and even today in 2007), there was no way for operators to determine what type of aircraft it was solely based on the radar returned signals. All they saw was a dot or blip on the screen, they couldn't see the airplane with their eyes and the radar gives them no photograph of a track, just a dot on the screen. So retarded or not, with that radar you only know range, bearing and speed, not what the blip is. Interpreting radar information is not as easy as you make it sound. --Dual Freq (talk) 03:02, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually another information the radar does give is range extent (in feet/meters). That is the range profile (a time plot of the rangecells) tells you exactly how long (meter/feet) the target is, assuming there is a LOS(line of sight), then it would been 100% discernible. Even if there is no line of sight(LOS), the azimuth extent (and the navy carriers have both pencil beam and wide beam antennas), and the Doppler spectrum (an airliner will have a very different spectrum than an F-14) can help in distinguishing between an aircraft fighter and a big airliner. The navy radars are fairly advanced (very high range resolution and cross range resolution) and if the operator knows how to work it (that is the if part), they should be able to distinguish between an airliner and an F-14. Although the Persian Gulf has a relatively high ducting effect, it should be noted that this airliner was flying at a normal height (way above ducting levels), so I don't think anything funky was going on. --alidoostzadeh (talk) 03:28, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

AN/SPY-1A does not appear to give the information you are describing, it does not say how big a track is. Unfortunately there was no way for them to determine how big the target was. What radar are you describing on an aircraft carrier? Had there been an aircraft carrier close enough, they could have sent an interceptor to visually identify the aircraft and the incident would not have occurred. --Dual Freq (talk) 03:47, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Of course the range resolution , pulse duration, the modes of the radar and etc. are probably classified. These radars have multiple modes. Some of the modes have range resolutions that can detect very small and weak objects. The radar you are describing is fairly advanced: [[6]] and can definitely distinguish between an F-14 and an airlines. Note: "## AN/SPY-1 radar variable sensitivity feature allowing radar sensitivity to be tailored to threat RCS, environment, and tactical situation." The RCS of a larger airline (assuming the target was integrated scan per scan as it should be) differs significantly from an F-14. Furthermore note this: additional moving target indicator (MTI) waveforms. The MTI is one way you distinguish between different targets since they have different Doppler bandwidth. Note that the green blips on the screen (which are really the centroid) have an approximate range and azimuth extent. They are not all the same. In the first scan, lots of blips can come up but the TWS (track while Scan) system should filter out a good portion of these blips for an acceptable false alarm. Over several minutes, when a target is tracked, its range and azimuth extent can be fairly determined. Specially with the advances modes of these Radars as well as the phase array antenna whose azimuth-beamwidth can be made very small (depending on the number of arrays which they are probably using a large number). I am not suggesting it was 100% intentional, but an average operator (and not even an expert) should definitely be able to distinguish a jet-fighter from an Airliner. So by putting a mediocre operator at work that probably lacked training and experience, there might be some grounds for accusation of fault. --alidoostzadeh (talk) 04:06, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

You're giving the radar a bit too much credit it was 1988 think of the computers around in 1988. At any rate, MTI is used to differentiate moving and non-moving targets, removing sea/ground clutter etc, it wouldn't tell the difference between an F-14 and an Airbus. Sensitivity and all that about the RCS of a target, determines the size of the target detectable, but does not mean that different sizes are given to the operator in a meaningful output. Certainly the RCS of the two aircraft types are different, but all it amounts to is a different amplitude of returned signal. Range resolution in this case doesn't tell the radar how long the target is, only how close two targets can be yet still be discerned as two targets instead of one. All the operators get from the radar is range, bearing, altitude, and speed. If you've read the Fogarty report it stipulates that all the radar data indicated the track ascending and flying a comair profile, but the crew members interviewed all thought it was descending on an attack profile. So even this basic information was misinterpreted. The secondary radar information was also misinterpreted adding a mode 2 reply to an aircraft that apparently was not broadcasting mode 2 SSR. F-14 ESM information was also improperly correlated to the airbus as well. But if we're just talking about the radar itself, there is no way it alone could tell the difference between an F-14 and an Airbus, at least not in 1988. After this incident there was research into jet engine modulation interpretation using a continuous wave radar, but that wasn't available at the time of this incident and I have no idea if that ever became usable in practice. You might also remember that aircraft were mistaken for missiles in the 2003 Iraq invasion resulting in a couple of friendly fire incidents. Those patriot batteries, also phased array radars, were much newer than the Vincennes radar, yet they still mistook a fighter jet for a much smaller missile. Battlefield ID was / is a big problem. --Dual Freq (talk) 04:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually MTI can distinguish different types of targets due to different Doppler broadening. Just like it distinguishes clutter from target. Perhaps not in 1988. Besides looking up in the air, there is hardly an clutter. So probably the operator was not using an MTI mode. But more importantly , the range resolution as you know defines the width of the range cell. The number of rangecells an F-14 occupies is much different than the number of rangecells an air-liner carrier occupies. The range resolution is the fundamental limit as you mentioned of distinguishing two targets. Hence each PRI of a radar has certain number of rangecells. That is say, the radar is operating at 2 - 40 Km, and its range resolution is a meter, than the number of rangecells is 38000. F-14 occupies much less number of rangecells than an airlines. --alidoostzadeh (talk) 17:30, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

As I said before, range resolution allows a radar to distinguish between two aircraft flying in formation and there is no indication to an operator that tells how long a target is. Besides that length would vary depending on the aspect that the aircraft was showing to the radar it would be difficult, especially given the computer hardware of the day, to maintain a database of aircraft lengths at different aspects and correlate each track with this database. In theory it may be possible to do what you describe, but in operational use, at that time, there was no way for Vincennes to distinguish between an F-14 and an Airbus. The fact that the mix up occurred is evidence of that. Had it been possible to distinguish the two with only the radar, this article wouldn't exist since the aircraft would not have been shot down. --Dual Freq (talk) 01:50, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure how advanced the rarar were, but if the airliner was coming almost LOS as the article claims, then the green blip should give the range extent. Specially over many scans of the radar, this could have been very accurate. Ultimately, you are correct, we are not sure how advanced the radar is. But since it is a US Navy radar, I am of the opinion that it would have told how many range cells the target is occupying and the range cell as mentioned is determined by the resolution which is again determined by the mode. --alidoostzadeh (talk) 04:09, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

the radar instruments were advanced and if there were any mistakes in interpreting it was all the Americans' fault. As basically everybody says they could know that it was an F14 and I remember Iranian TV said there were comunication between the airvus and the Americans (they found the black box). The war's context explains this US act very well, as the USA were supporting Saddam they shoot the airbus to send a message: "if you dont stop attacking my baby Saddam, we will unleash a bloodshed, look what we did, we will do more!" Same tactics were used by the Americans against Serbians and Vietnamese, and do not forget the native Americans. And are basically the same tactics were used by the British against Germany: showing your cruelty to deter the enemy!--Babakexorramdin (talk) 03:53, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

US government support for the genocidal Saddam is a low point of morality and George Washington, Franklin ..were turning in their graves. Now, pretty much the foreign policy is supporting governments that do ethnic cleansing. But the overwhelming majority of US people are simply awesome. --alidoostzadeh (talk) 04:08, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

You're both(alidoostzadeh and Babakexorramdin) trying to discuss events which do not have any direct relation on the shoot down of Flight 655 or should be discussed in the context of the whole Persian Gulf war. The US did support Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War, so feel free to go point that out there. Current US foreign policy is also not what this article is about, so to all that I say "whatever"... This article is about a series of events that led up to an engagement of a US AEGIS cruiser, in combat with Iranian fast attack boats, which shot down Flight 655.

the radar instruments were advanced and if there were any mistakes in interpreting it was all the Americans' fault. Indeed, that's pretty much what the sources say. The TAO, guy responsible for firing and such, used his computer monitor for sticky pads [7], making the issue incompetence more than anything else. Anynobody 06:05, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Your editing habit is not responsible. You only accept what certain sources say and neglect all the other. Also neglecting such basic facts that the plane had communications with the shooter, and they could know what it was, that the plane was on a routine line, that the plane was above Iranian territory and the US ship was in the Iranian territorial waters, that the plane diverted from its course after got warned. These are all aspects about which you do not like to talk, and of course the biased media did not want to. I remember at that time western media (and Arab media too), depicted it as a minor incident. Also how easily they forgot that USA supported Saddam in committing genocides.You do not even tolerate to hear why it could be based on anti-Iranian sentiments. I think you only will be satisfied if the shooter admits that he did it out of hatred for Iranians. For that matter the USA should deliver this guy to a non-Partizan international court - Which the USA obviously does not like- and I bet the guy would say that he is innocent and his "upperhands" ordered him to do so. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 11:21, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

At least two international bodies were involved. The case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was settled in 1996 after both sides reached an agreement. And the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) took no action against the US or any individuals. As far as I know, no one has been indicted by the Hague in this matter and since Iran settled their ICJ claim with the US, what "international court" would you like someone delivered to? The government of Iran has settled this matter with the US, what more is needed to resolve this matter? Is Iran calling for extradition of crewmembers for a trial? (No). Also, please cite a source for "the plane diverted from its course after got warned." --Dual Freq (talk) 01:50, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Babakexorramdin which sources am I neglecting? I don't mean to offend you by not accepting edits like this, but Saddam Hussein's support from America in the Iran-Iraq War should be discussed in that article not this one.

If you cite sources and discuss issues relevant to this article in your edits, they wouldn't be removed. Anynobody 02:25, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality disputed tag

What will it take to remove the POV tag? Please specify exact problems so they may be corrected, otherwise I see no reason to keep the tag, they are not meant to be permanent. --Dual Freq (talk) 22:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

It was placed by user:Babakexorramdin, protagonist in the argument above. She/He appears unwilling to provide references for any of his assertions, or to accept the referenced text that is there; apparently it does not fit his world view. I'm think we should not for long let an uncooperative editor hold the article to ransom; it doesn't work that way. --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tagishsimon, plus NPOV tags are really supposed to be followed up on the talk page for just this reason (what can be done to get rid of it according to the policy). Anynobody 05:31, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Neutrality

Mr Anyeverybody or something like this. We have had this talkj before. You are very agressive and irreasonable. You delte our edits and believe only your won arguments. Frankly I am fed up with your behavior as there is no way of constrauctive talk with you(r type). The least you can do is not remove the POV tag. You are simply are saying (As I completely know that you are an American military): "Well we have killed Iranians. And that's not a bad thing. We blame it on everything else but on ourselves. We only believe ourselves. Noi one has any rights to doubt our claims. Very very arrogant. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 11:32, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm not the only one removing your edits. However the reasons I have removed them in the past is because they are not relevant to the shoot down, which is what this article is about and even more problematic, they are not cited to a source. As it is, an edit like this is nothing more than you saying US support for Iraq during the war had something to do with the incident. (Which as I pointed out in the edit summary makes no sense without a source, how exactly does it "help" Iraq/Saddam to sink a small boat and shoot down an airliner? I'd of liked to been there for that planning session,
US general: Ok Saddam, today we're gonna take out an Iranian airliner and some small attack boats. This should allow your bogged down army to finally break Iranian resistance on the battlefield.
Saddam: Excellent, without small boats and air service to Dubai the Iranians have no hope for survival.

Honestly if we had wanted to throw our military against Iran back then, I really think we'd of done something else. Seriously, if your edits keep to the subject and cite a source I'd be fixing any grammar problems rather than removing them. Anynobody 04:13, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

To the Lizard Eagle

mr Lizard. It is not you who decides about what is POV or not. If you have sound arguments, which I doubt, then provide it. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 16:41, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah ah ah Mr/mrs Lizard. Now I see that. You were angry that we said that USA supported Saddam? Are you ingnorant or plain propagandaist? It is acommon knowledge that USA actively supported Saddam. Take it or leave it and in any case go educate yourself.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 16:46, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello, Babakexorramdin, and welcome to Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit! Yes, it is me who decides, along with everyone else. It's called "consensus". You might also have a look at WP:BRD to understand my approach to Wikipedia editing.

To address your point: yes, it makes me very angry indeed that you said "USA supported Saddam". It makes me very angry because it's very true. I despise men like Rummy and Dickhead who were involved w/ Saddam in the 80s. None of which has anything whatsoever to do with the tragic destruction of Iranian Flight 655. Also, I used the word "senseless" with intention; the sentence quite literally makes no sense. It has no proper verb / subject arrangment, what we English speakers call grammar. Please do no resort to personal attacks on me. The results will rarely be what you would like them to be. Eaglizard (talk) 02:27, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

USA"s support for Saddam was relevant for this crime

Of course USA's support for Saddam was relevant for this crime of kmassacre of civvilians. USA actively supported Saddam in the war against Iran. The whole fact that USA bombed Iran and entered Iranian territorial waters has to do with the Iran-Iraq war, in which USA supported Saddam. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 12:07, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

To the arrogant anti-Iranianists

the article is not neytral and is POV. They try to look the USA as iunnocent. You also delete my sourced editions. Very typical for a nation which has its mouth ful of freedom of speech. I think the only concensus is that we have two articles, you have yours with talking good killing civilians and other pro-USA+Saddam nonsense in it and we have ours which proves that USA coimmitted a crime.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 12:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The article may or may not be neutral. To a certain extent, that is to miss the point, Babakexorramdin. The questions at hand right now are a) whether your edits to the article improve it or not; and b) whether it will be possible to have a reasoned discussion with you. I must tell you I am sick to the back teeth of you telling the rest of the editors of this article that they are pro-USA & biased, and failing to hear what they are saying back to you: that some of your edits are misconceived or mis-executed.

The article as it was before your most recent edit appears to me to reflect the fact that there are two views: "According to the US government, an inexperienced crew mistakenly identified the Iranian airbus as an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter" and "However, the Iranian government has maintained that the Vincennes knowingly shot down a civilian aircraft." There is, too, the referenced subsection "Iranian government account" - short and in need of expansion - but clearly stating their view.

I fail to understand why you have removed one of the paragraphs, and will be adding it back again:

"The event generated a great deal of controversy and criticism of the US, particularly among Arab nations sympathetic to Iran's Islamic government. Most analysts, while stopping short of asserting deliberate homicide, have blamed US military commanders and the captain of the Vincennes for reckless and aggressive behavior in a tense and dangerous environment."

And I wish that you would engage in discussion about the relevance of the Rumsfeld photo. For what it's worth, having read various versions of the Background section from versions of the article over the past months, I would agree that there is room for a clear mention of US support for Iraq. However you do not help the situation by going completely off-topic with the emboldened comment approved Iraq's use of WMD, nor by digressions in the photo caption. I suppose you are seeking to build a circumstantial case, but tell you that it won't be accepted into the article. There are other articles which discuss the matters you're seeking to shoe-horn into this article.

The bottom line is: please engage co-operatively with other editors. I've read your talk page and see that others have raised the same issue with you in respect of your intervention in other article. Please learn that it is legitimate for people to disagree with you. Please be slower to assert bad faith, as you all to repeatedly & misguidedly do.

I'll await a response from you before reverting your edits, to show you a degree of courtesy, which I expect to see reciprocated by you. --Tagishsimon (talk) 15:04, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. Reverting the aformentioned text might be a sideefect of undoing privious edits. In other words they were not mine/ intentionally mine. I should add to this that Arab nations were /still are very hostiole to Iran. As I remember only some condemned it notably Syria. As I remember I have never deleted any editions. TRhe controversy began when anyeverybody deleted the anti-Iranian sentiment passage and kept on describing USA as innocent and the incident as a mistake. We dicussed however that Facts showed that the USA were at mistake and if they hypothetically saw mistakenly and airbus as an F14 still it is an act of agression because 1- USA violated the Iranian territorial waters, and it had bombed Iranian isdlands and oil platforms before, so it was a clearl act of war 2- There were communications between the airliner and the USA's Vincennes. 3- If USA denies such communications still the USA personel would have known that this airroute was used routinely by civilian aircraft 4- There were evidences that the airbus diverted from its route after warning. All these shows that the USA was at fault. The problem is that the biased editors here do not leave any room for dissent. It is only fair to enrichich the contaxt by showing that it was related to Iran-Iraq war in which the USA actively supported Saddam. WMD was put by someone else. My phrase was supporting genocidee. When observing such things and still aupporting the agressor and fighting the victim is a silent support for the committed crimes.

My diagareement regarding other edits on other pages have arised after similar attempts by anti-Iranianists. I do not tolerate anti-Iranianist agenda which unfortunately is pervasive among the Western and Arab media as well as some Panturkist circle. To be rough I combat intellectual fascism and roots of ethnic hatreds. There are plenty of other issues which I do not engage into discussion and accept the other's view. Take a look at my edits and you will see that I chose those nearly war situations exactly when there were systemtaic efforts targetted at Iranian issue by obscure persons. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 23:32, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's all very well, Babakexorramdin. But just as you do not tolerate an anti-Iranianist agenda, you'll find that wikipedia does not tolerate an anti-anti-Iranianist agenda, if you see what I mean. In short, we require a higher quality and edit, and more care on your part to work within established wikipedia policy. You can be assured that such policy is consistent with your avowed aims.

Let's look in detail at your two sets of edits in the last 24 hours: [8] and [9].

in the first edit you

1. Edited paragraph 1 - i guess it is a value judgement as to whether your version or the last is the better one. Seems to me like an unnecessary edit.

2. You deleted from para 2 the section starting "The event generated a great deal of controversy and criticism of the US,", and if I understand your explanation above, you're not aware of having done this. That is a pity, and shows insufficient care and attention.

3. You added (or reintroduced) the Saddam/Rumdfeld photo. The problem with the photo is that it has at best, very circumstantial relevance to the shootdown. It is the case that the US was supporting Iraq. It is the case that the fact of US support for Iraq must be considered relevant background to the shootdown. The question remains whether the fact of that support requires a four year old photo of a meeting. My view is that such a photo is relevant on a page discussing US support for Iraq. It is not relevant on this page. Even if we accept the case that the shootdown was deliberate, that meeting had little or nothing to do with the shootdown. Here the deal: images should have direct relevance to the article.

4. You added a lengthy caption to the photo. Whilst everything that is said in the caption may well be true, none of it has direct relevance to the shootdown. I'm not sure how many times I need to say this before you understand: you need to keep subject matter on any article page directly relevant to the subject of the article. Discussions of "support for WMDs" and "satisfaction with diplomatic relations" are not of direct relevance to this article.

5. You emboldened the section starting "This policy was coined..." Presumably you find the sentence of some especial relevance. You must understand that wikipedia does not use emboldening in this way.

in the first edit you:

1. Added the following sentence "USA was supporting actively Saddam in Iran-Iraq war and remained silent and implicitly approved Iraq's use of WMD against Iranians and Iraqi Kurds.". There are two or three problems with the sentence: 1) its grammar is hopelessly poor 2) it uses emboldening inapropriately 3) the second half of it - WMDs - is off-topic.

There are better ways to make sure that useful facts stick to wikipedia than you are employing. I would be very grateful if you would take the time to review each of the edits described above, and tell me whether or not, on second thoughts, you think the edit should remain. If so, please be so good as to say why. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Babakexorramdin, nobody is denying that the US supported Iraq during the war, we did. I've said that several times on this talk page myself. However the reason American ships were there was because Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, etc. were tired of their ships being attacked (this includes mines) and asked both the US and Soviets to do something. Which is what CG-49 was doing, guarding neutral shipping through the Straight of Hormuz.

US aid to Iraq is definitely relevant to the overall Iran Iraq war, and should be discussed there. Discussing it here is like discussing The Holocaust and Katyn massacre in our article about the Battle of Kursk. Yes the Nazis murdered millions of Jews, yes the Soviets murdered POWs, but those facts have little to do with what happened during a huge tank battle. Essentially you're talking about a broader issue than should be covered in this article. Yes the US supported Saddam, but also had a role as a world power to support countries not involved but affected. Making sure a tanker to China or a freighter from Brazil doesn't hit a mine or get attacked by fast attack boats has nothing to do with giving Saddam the recipes to WMD. I've never seen a source discuss the two on terms of overall US support, show me one and we can discuss how to include it. (I honestly doubt one exists because on a plane logic level, assuming the mission that day was to kill Iranian civilians, why stop at one jet? Early Ticonderoga class cruisers carried quite a few missiles.) Anynobody 04:38, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

(PS, didn't the war end like a month later anyway? Anynobody 04:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC))

• Hello Babakexorramdin. I spent over an hour rewriting the introduction to this article, and I don't appreciate the way you carelessly hacked it up without thinking about the changes I made. Please note that the changes I made to the introduction in particular were specifically designed to hilight the fact that this was a controversial and tragic military assault, because the older version made it sound like some sort of "accident" that happened to the US. Reading Flight 007, I could see that this article buried the lead (the fact of the shooting down), and also used some words that made it seem less dramatic than it was. I also noted that it generated controversy. Both of these edits were made for the whole purpose of making the article better for pro-Iranian readers, but you removed these changes. I don't think you are paying enough attention, my friend. Eaglizard (talk) 09:54, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Compromise proposal

Regarding the sentence Baba wants so badly to include, I think I have a compromise to offer: let's rewrite the sentence, and find a better place in the article for it, ok? I think the thing you really want to say is Because the US was actively supporting Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, there have been suggestions that this action was a deliberate retaliation by the US. And, I think this statement should be in the article! BUT there is one important thing: it doesn't matter if it's true, or even if it should be in the article. What matters is that some independent VERIFIABLE sources have actually made the suggestion. Just because you and I suggest it was retaliation doesn't mean anything; at Wikipedia we have to have verifiable sources for all information. Do you understand? You can add this information as soon as someone finds a good citation for someone credible who actually did suggest that it was deliberate retaliation.

I do hope this makes sense to you in particular, Babakexorramdin, because I agree with your motivation. But your behavior is completely unacceptable, and if you decide to start edit-warring and attacking me, you will soon find yourself in trouble here. If you continue to violate Wikipedia policies, you can and will face penalties, up to being banned from editing for good. Let's not let that happen, ok? Let's just work together for an excellent article about this terrible tragedy, alright? (Please read WP:No personal attacks and WP:Assume good faith to understand what you are doing that violates policy. Remember: these web-servers belong to Jimmy Wales, not you and me, and he makes the rules, not us.)

Oh, and a further note, the sentence in the lead that says "most critics blame" yada yada is a summary of the criticism sections as they exist in this article. Therefore, the {fact} tag is inappropriate there; if you have a problem with the way the article represents the actual criticisms, then change the article, and then make the intro reflect that. If you feel my added sentence does not accurately reflect the critics presented in this article, then change my sentence. But in general, the introduction of an article should be written as a summary of the article, and should not (ihmo) rely too heavily on citations, nor should it (imho) be tagged-up with nag tags. Eaglizard (talk) 09:54, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that your addition is a good one. IOf our American military editors here do not obscure the fact that 1- the American ship had violated Iranian territory 2- They were aaw3are of communications with the Airbus, 3- the route was a routine passaenger route that the American ship knew aand 4- that despite the fact that the airbus changed its route still it is attacked. This is a fair foprmula I think. And thank you for remainding me of yoiur editions., Sometimnes in the heat of discussion with the blatant chavinists one forgets the honest ones. Sorry again --Babakexorramdin (talk) 10:42, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with points 1, 3 and 4 - all of which are covered in the article. I'm not sure there's evidence the Vic knew of any communication with IR655 before firing. If that verifiable, it should certainly also be in the article. I appreciate your apology, thank you. I can't speak for the other editors since I've never "met" any of them before, but I assure you my only interest is that WP be an honest and well-written encyclopedia. Sometimes, because most of us editing here are Americans, some articles do have a subtle pro-US bias. But my experience say that it's mostly not on purpose, just human nature. In particular, I think the comparison to articles like Flight 007 can help this article keep on track; this was an equally horrible and inexcusable tragedy, and the US military does not deserve any special treatment when they f*ck up. Eaglizard (talk) 23:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

On the {{fact}} tag

Most analysts, while stopping short of asserting deliberate homicide, have blamed US military commanders and the captain of the Vincennes for reckless and aggressive behavior in a tense and dangerous environment. It was argued that neither Military Blunders Iran Air Shot Down - July 3, 1988 or the other cited source don't address this assertion. If you read the link, nobody says intentional murder was committed and it describes ...reckless and aggressive behavior in a tense and dangerous environment. As does the other source which among other things says: {{Captain Carlson added: "This event has to be put in its proper context. Less than two months earlier, half the Iranian Navy was sunk during operation Praying Mantis, and our government had been making strong statements about America's determination to protect neutral shipping...}} which to me also describes the general environment being operated in. Anynobody 01:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Evans makes a lot of 'weasel worded' statements without any actual accusations to avoid having to back them up with conclusive arguments. Weasel words are avoided on Wikipedia because they allow unhelpful editors to avoid having to back their statements up with references, and they are no more appropriate in articles referenced for far-reaching statements. John Nevard (talk) 05:47, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed we are not supposed to use weasel words in writing articles, however the guideline doesn't apply to the sources themselves. The Evans case study directly supports the idea that CG-49 was being reckless and aggressive. Anynobody 06:29, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

He never 'directly' supports anything. It's a pile of disconnected almost-kinda-intimations at criticism. You'd need a lot of '...'s in a quote of that article to get any quote out of it where he made any conclusion. John Nevard (talk) 07:40, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I have no opinion on this; I just want to say thanks to all of you who've been editing this article. I was really expecting a lot more fighting over the changes I made (which I felt were very necessary to make this article NPOV). I'm happy to see my expectations were unjustified. Eaglizard (talk) 23:18, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

John Nevard I mean no offense but have you read the whole thing? It begins by describing an incident the month before, showing Rogers aggressive tendencies. Then it goes into a pretty comprehensive account of what happened during the shoot down and the investigation afterward. (I've never actually seen a requirement/guideline that our sources must be conclusive either.)

Eaglizard you're welcome and thank you too :) Anynobody 01:03, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Anti-American echo chamber sites are not reliable, verifiable sources.

If the editors trying to add the quote attributed to the Newsweek article can add the context around the quote, and it shows that Newsweek believed that Bush's statement was made in relation to the Iran Air shootdown, that would be acceptable. That a bunch of sites copy 'omg bush is evel' quotes off each other does not make the quote relevant to the article. One of the less dubious sources added, quoting a book of quotes from quotes from speeches, seems to indicate that the quote in fact references whether George Herbert Walker Bush felt he should make apologies for American foreign policy, not whether he would prevent the US government making investigations with adverse conclusions for the US. John Nevard (talk) 02:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I've always figured this was a misquotation. I think I have found the original source of the August 1988 quote, and it says nothing about the Iran Air incident. I don't want to copy and paste the whole article, but the first part is the only part that mentions the quote, the rest is regarding the 1988 Campaign. Again, the entire article makes no mention whatsoever of Iran, or the shootdown and doesn't indicate he was referring to any specific incident.

“ Campaign '88/`I'll never apologize for the United States'

WASHINGTON - Vice President George Bush, stressing his patriotism at a meeting of his ethnic supporters, declared Tuesday he would never apologize for the United States regardless of the circumstances.

"I'll never apologize for the United States. Ever. I don't care what the facts are," Bush told about 200 members of his newly formed Coalition of American Nationalities, a group with representatives of ethnic backgrounds from about two dozen countries.

Bush attributed his indiscriminate support for the nation to his belief that the United States is "the only hope for freedom and democracy" in the world and that "no other country is strong enough to lead the free world."

The vice president said he and his ethnic supporters "speak the same language" of shared values - some of which are opposite from the views of Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis....

(JUDY WIESSLER, Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau (1988, August 3). Campaign '88/`I'll never apologize for the United States' :[2 STAR Edition]. Houston Chronicle (pre-1997 Fulltext),p. 6. Retrieved December 28, 2007, from ProQuest Newsstand database. (Document ID: 63779208).)

”

There are several other articles that indicate that this was a theme of his campaign.

“ Mr. Bush has attempted to stress what aides call broad themes, which have formed the core of his message to voters recently. In South Carolina, where he will campaign for three more days before March 5, he has been sounding general notes as he talks about a compatibility of values.

"I will never apologize for the United States," the Vice President declared recently. "I will stand up for her."

(Bush, a Cautious Front-Runner Again, Avoids Attacks and Personal Campaigning. GERALD M. BOYD, Special to the New York Times. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Feb 27, 1988. pg. 1.8)

”

It's pretty clear to me that he had used that phrase before as a campaign theme, and I seriously doubt he was referring to a July 1988 incident in February 1988 or in August 1988. --Dual Freq (talk) 04:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

According to Holly Sklar, "Bush had refused to answer a question about the U.S. Navy's shooting down of a civilian Iranian airliner in the Gulf on the grounds that he would "never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are." She cites Lewis Lapham in Harpers' November 1990 article, Democracy in America? Not only the economy is in decline. But these are both lefty sources, so they may have the same problem you identify with "anti-American echo chamber sites". George Perkovich of the Carnegie Center cites a later Lapham article for the same point.

Oh wait, here's TIME Magazine making the point, and it's even an online source: [10]

Already [Bush's] excessive jingoism has been banished, out of sync with the style he seeks to project. (Was it really George Bush who said, after the Vincennes disaster last July, "I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are"?)

The Los Angeles Daily News also says that Bush was "Commenting on the killing of 290 innocent civilians by the Vincennes" when he made the statement. (19 February 1989) A Washington Post article from 30 October 1988 seems to make the same point, but I don't feel like paying for it when it's already established.

It may well be that Bush was just not thinking straight, and he reached for a campaign trope when he should have been more sensitive, but that's not our call. I don't see any record of him retracting or amending the quote, so it stands. <eleland/talkedits> 05:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Well done, you've found a bunch of articles several months after the fact. What is needed is a citation from an actual article about the speech in question, (which I have provided). A transcript of the August 2nd speech would be even better though very unlikely to be found. All the articles you have linked seem to repeat the Newsweek August 15th 1988 interpretation which was from the perspectives section. It's not uncommon for a single quote to be misrepresented in a presidential campaign and it appears that the start of this particular misrepresentation was the Newsweek August 15 1988 issue. Interesting that it took two weeks for this quote to become controversial, but it was probably a successful attempt to distort a common campaign theme and apply it to a current event. --Dual Freq (talk) 05:48, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

This article, a post election wrap up article, doesn't mention Iran either. It also indicates this was a common campaign theme for Bush during the 1988 season, as does the above quote from Feb 1988. --Dual Freq (talk) 05:48, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

“ THE 1988 ELECTIONS MAN IN THE NEWS: George Herbert Walker Bush; A Victor Free to Set His Own Course. By GERALD M. BOYD, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES Published: November 9, 1988

The war, he has said, was in a way a wonderful time because we were young, and when you're young, everything was wonder. At 18, Mr. Bush was the Navy's youngest commissioned pilot. Shot down in a Pacific bombing raid, he became a decorated hero. The war helped formulate his view of America as a military power: clearly in the right, with no shades of gray. I will never apologize for the United States of America, Mr. Bush has said frequently.

”

Why does the Washington Post article hit for "Vincennes" and "Iran"? <eleland/talkedits> 06:18, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

When you say that, "What is needed is a citation from an actual article about the speech in question, (which I have provided)", you're going waaaayy off the rails. You're assuming that the other articles are all quoting an "actual article about the speech", and assuming that the article you found is THE "actual article about the speech." Actually, I don't know where you even get "speech" from, it appears to have been some kind of "town hall" style news conference. I certainly understand why you wanted better sources than Noam Chomsky et al., but they've now been provided. A front page article in TIME, and an article in the LA Daily News, are quite good enough! <eleland/talkedits> 06:22, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

The 267 quote book says "George Bush, speaking to Republican ethnic leaders in 1988 after the unintentional downing of an Iranian airplane." That statement is "true" in that he said "I'll never apologize for the United States" to the ethnic leaders and it was indeed "after the unintentional downing of an Iranian airplane", but even that quote book does not say he was referring specifically to the aerial incident when he repeated one of his common campaign themes. The meeting with "Republican ethnic leaders" occurred on August 2, 1988 and was characterized by the above article (which made no mention of Iran). Several other articles from AP for August 3rd describe the meeting with ethnic leaders, but none of them mention that quote or Iran. I'm simply looking the origination of this quote and the source that placed this in the context saying that Bush was referring to the aerial incident when he made that remark. As it stands the earliest source for this statement is the August 15, 1988 blurb in Newsweek perspectives column and the other sources point back to that. All other articles about the speech with ethnic leaders from the 2nd make absolutely no mention of any comments about Iran Air or Vincennes during the speech. --Dual Freq (talk) 15:26, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Here's what the Washington Post said about the speech with the Coalition of American Nationalities on August 2nd. Its very odd that they made no mention of the statement, but not surprising since the source of this quote was the single sentence in Newsweek Perspectives section, which appears to have placed the quote in the wrong context. --Dual Freq (talk) 15:40, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

“ Multi-Ethnic Salute; [FINAL Edition] Maralee Schwartz. The Washington Post (pre-1997 Fulltext). Washington, D.C.: Aug 3, 1988. pg. a.06

While Dukakis is trying to make the most of his Greek heritage and his fluency in Spanish, Bush's campaign is not ignoring ethnicity either.

His campaign orchestrated a multi-ethnic salute yesterday that included an Estonian American-"one of the last allowed to emigrate from Estonia to America," according to a campaign release announcing the event. Offering a preview of the GOP convention, Bush appealed to the conservative values that have drawn Italian Americans, Polish Americans and other Eastern European heritage groups to the GOP in the last 20 years. The Bush campaign is intent on keeping those white ethnics.

Bush told the crowd of several hundred gathered for the announcement of the "Bush '88 Coalition of American Nationalities" that even though he is a "WASP," and even though "I can't speak Spanish . . . I can speak our language of ethnic values and pride in the United States of America."

”

In light of this, I suggest using Newsweek as the source in this article, it was the original misquote and all the rest seem to have come from that. No sense using a CNN transcript from 15 years later. --Dual Freq (talk) 15:40, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to throw in another early (August 4, 1988) NYT online source, which uses the quote without mentioning IR655:

"I will never apologize for the United States of America - I don't care what the facts are," he told a group of Republican ethnic leaders in Washington this week, in the latest of a yearlong series of inept remarks. - Political Memo; Bush Appears in Trouble Despite 2 Big Advantages, By R. W. APPLE JR., SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES, Published: August 4, 1988 [11]

Doesn't give anything new, but could be an online ref. Rwendland (talk) 16:20, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

It is highly presumptive to decide that the media must have got it wrong, because the references from early August you can find online do not support the Iranair interpretation. We can't just arbitrarily decide that we know better than the sources; not based on fragmentary findings and unstated assumptions. This kind of half-assed sleuthing belongs in the blogosphere, not in an encyclopedia. <eleland/talkedits> 17:13, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Honestly the only way a debate over what Bush meant and whether he was being misquoted by the press can be engaged is if Bush himself said something about it. Think of it this way, assuming Bush said he'd never apologize in January 1988, after Iran Air 655 was shot down did he "take back" his assertion from January or apologize? Did he ever say Newsweek quoted him out of context? If not then it's understood that he stood by what he said before the incident. Making whatever context it was originally said not as much of a concern. Anynobody 00:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

January 1988 was before Iran Air was downed. He used that phrase a number of times during the campaign before and after the July 1988 incident. --Dual Freq (talk) 00:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, and that's my point. He says "I'll never apologize" before it happens, months later we shoot down an Iranian airliner and he doesn't apologize, Newsweek makes their quote, he says and does nothing. Therefore he meant what he said before it happened, he'd never apologize and didn't. Anynobody 00:59, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

RfC: "Never apologize"

Some sources state that George H. W. Bush responded to a question on the Iran Air shootdown by saying "I will never apologize for the United States of America, I don't care what the facts are." An editor believes this comment was taken out of context, and that the article should make clear that this was a pre-existing campaign theme. Others question the relevance and raise WP:OR#SYN objections. <eleland/talkedits> 02:02, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• I think the current version [12] has done a good job. It gives the context and sources well. Thanks guys for finding these new info.Farmanesh (talk) 02:14, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

• There is no synthesis to the statement. The fact of the matter is the Bush used the phrase frequently during the campaign, that's not disputable. I have provided three examples that prove this, one example was in January 1988, months before the July 1988 shootdown. There's nothing to synthesize since the new york times says it directly, "I will never apologize for the United States of America, Mr. Bush has said frequently."
  • Bush told the crowd, "We must never apologize for the United States of America." Bush Sidesteps Campaign Talk In the Bluffs; [Iowa Edition] C. David Kotok. Omaha World - Herald. Omaha, Neb.: January 30, 1988. pg. 1.
  • "I will never apologize for the United States," the Vice President declared recently. "I will stand up for her." Bush, a Cautious Front-Runner Again, Avoids Attacks and Personal Campaigning, Gerald M. Boyd, Special to the New York Times. New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: February 27, 1988. pg. 1.8
  • "I'll never apologize for the United States. Ever. I don't care what the facts are." ... Bush attributed his indiscriminate support for the nation to his belief that the United States is "the only hope for freedom and democracy" in the world and that "no other country is strong enough to lead the free world." Judy Wiessler, Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau (1988, August 3). Campaign '88/"I'll never apologize for the United States" :[2 STAR Edition]. Houston Chronicle (pre-1997 Fulltext),p. 6. Retrieved December 28, 2007, from ProQuest Newsstand database. (Document ID: 63779208).
  • [WW II] helped formulate his view of America as a military power: clearly in the right, with no shades of gray. "I will never apologize for the United States of America", Mr. Bush has said frequently. The 1988 Elections man in the news: George Herbert Walker Bush; A Victor Free to Set His Own Course. By Gerald M. Boyd, Special to the New York Times, Published: November 9, 1988

• There is no requirement for a source to be available online, but the NYT quotes are easily found from their free online archive and the rest can be found via newspaper archives, I used ProQuest, but I'm sure Lexis has it too. --Dual Freq (talk) 18:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

It is not synthesis to state that "never apologize for America" was a theme of G.H.W. Bush's campaign. That claim is well-sourced and verifiable. It is synthesis to state this in the context of the IranAir quote in lieu of a source making that point. <eleland/talkedits> 19:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

To leave out that it was a campaign theme is ridiculous since he made the statement at an August 2nd, 1988 Campaign function and used the phrase "frequently" as cited above. The connection with Iran Air is not needed since he said the statement regularly during the campaign and apparently reiterated that after the incident. To leave only the quote with and ignore that it was a campaign message and was used even before the shootdown makes no sense. --Dual Freq (talk) 19:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

How about a thought experiment. Let's say that an Iranian politician campaigns on the slogan of, "I'll get the tough things done." He is asked at a campaign stop, "If elected, will you expel all the Jews from Iran?" and he says, "I'll get the tough things done." Subsequently, he does not retract this statement or clarify that he is not in favour of expelling Jews. No sources connect his statement about expelling Jews to his already existing campaign slogan. Should Wikipedia make that connection on his behalf? <eleland/talkedits> 19:41, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

No need for a hypothetical since we have sources that apply the context to his campaign statements to "never apologize for the United States". The statement referenced in this article was made at a campaign function, he said it during his campaign before July, he said it during his campaign after July and the New York Times says he used the phrase frequently during the campaign. His quote did not occur in a vacuum, it occurred as part of the '88 campaign. It wasn't a press conference about Iran Air, it was a campaign function. --Dual Freq (talk) 20:10, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

We have sources which describe the specific "never apologize" quote as a response to the IranAir issue, making no mention of the broader campaign. We also have sources which describe the broad campaign theme of "never apologize," without reference to IranAir. Connecting the two is original synthesis. <eleland/talkedits> 20:18, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

So what is this? It mentions Vincennes, his campaign and the quote all in the same paragraph. Nothing to synthesis there either. --Dual Freq (talk) 20:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

“ In the aftermath of the Vincennes episode, President Reagan apologized to Iran and eventually approved payment of compensation to the victims. But Bush, who like Hynes came of age in World War II, instinctively identified with the crew members and captain on the Vincennes. He said he would not apologize for the incident. "I will never apologize for the United States of America!" he frequently declares in campaign speeches.

Nominees' Beliefs Grounded in 2 Views of America; Bush Is Motivated By Pragmatism, Noblesse Oblige; [FINAL Edition] David Hoffman. The Washington Post (pre-1997 Fulltext). Washington, D.C.: Oct 30, 1988. pg. a.01

”

I will never apologize for the United States of America

Perhaps it needs its own article. Then we can just reference it from this article & spare ourselves some pain. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

No need for that, the quote should not be used alone and a single well sourced sentence provides the context that is missing. --Dual Freq (talk) 17:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The edit war would seem to suggest that life is not so simple as you paint it. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed that last source provided before I restored the quote.

I still think there is absolutely no reason to link the IranAir "never apologize" quote to a campaign theme; the link appears to be verifiable, but virtually no sources consider it important enough to mention. However, if DualFreq insists on putting in a single line to the effect of "Never apologize for America was a common theme in the Bush campaign" I won't fight him over it. I still question the need to "cover for" Bush in this manner, which would never be done for an Iranian politician in a similar context. <eleland/talkedits> 17:51, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

None of the other sources want to include that context because it doesn't fit the template of their articles. I doubt that the Washington Post made a habit of covering for Bush and just because other sources chose to leave out the context does not excuse us to leave the context out as well. Most blogs (easily found via Google) use this quote are trying to push a certain POV and have no wish to provide the context as it would take away from their rants. Since this is a neutral encyclopedia we can not make that same mistake. If we are going to use the quote to be neutral we have to provide context. This version provides a well sourced single sentence that provides that context. I included the full quotes from each article hoping to prevent its removal, but the editor who keeps removing it does not seem to notice the citations or they do not want to accept the facts. Additionally they have not yet engaged in the discussion here to justify their actions. --Dual Freq (talk) 18:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. If you aren't willing to accept WP:NPOV fine, but don't use this talk page to go off on rants about how the liberal media is biased against you. <eleland/talkedits> 18:47, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I made no such rant, I pointed out the blogs that use this quote for their rants and responded to your question of the need to "cover for" Bush by pointing out that the Washington Post would not cover for him. As for WP:NPOV, I must have missed the part that said to selective quote former US Presidents and provide no context for that quote. I'm assuming now that this context is sufficiently cited, that it will be readded to the article without question. --Dual Freq (talk) 19:42, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, is there something I missed in those sources where it states that GHB's words are the official response of the US? At best, there was some sort of "meeting of foreign leaders", but it wasn't a speech, or probably even a press conference. I don't believe the vice president's words are commonly taken as binding statements of US foreign policy. This looks very much like an off-handed repetition of a campaign theme (which he no doubt regretted when it was hooked onto by the pundits), and I don't believe this quote has any bearing on the IR655 incident whatsoever. You could have a 3rd party stating that this quote was part of an atmosphere that contributed to the incident (if you had such a cite), but GHB's remark after the fact seems as irrelevant to me today as it surely did then. Notice that he always used the personal pronoun: "I will never apologize..." This is a personal statement, and as such has no relevance here. Imo.

More importantly, why does the Post source quoted above (by David Huffman) state that President Reagan did apologize for the incident, when the article says he never did? Is there a factual error in the article, or in the source? What was, in fact, the official US position on the incident? Eaglizard (talk) 22:48, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Type Bush "never apologize" Vincennes into google and you'll see the 100+ blogs that have latched on to this quote over the years. None of them bother to use any context at all because they are making various points and the proper context would ruin that. Pretty much the same reason a single editor, who still has not commented on this, has removed the cited context a couple of times in the last two days. Bush's role in this incident is not that he made this statement, but that he represented the US at the UN in this matter in mid July 1988. (And he didn't make this quote at the UN) The quote in question will never be removed from this article, and I'd wager its been removed and readded dozens of times since this article was created. There have been versions of this article that stated his quote represented US policy, talk about OR/SYN. --Dual Freq (talk) 23:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

As for Reagan's apology, he considered the letter of regret for the loss of life sent to the Iranian government immediately after the incident and offer of compensation as the apology, but I think others were/are looking for a more direct admission of guilt and apology. Regardless, I thought this matter was officially settled between the two governments in the mid-1990s when the ICJ case was dropped and there is no further action pending in international courts. --Dual Freq (talk) 23:28, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

An August 22 Time magazine interview with Bush quotes him explaining his "never apologize" theme, but the interviewer doesn't ask him about Iran or Vincennes. If it was such a controversial statement at the time, no respectable interviewer would omit that question. That indicates that its connection to the aerial incident was very weak at the time. It also doesn't appear to be a campaign issue used against him by his opponent. --Dual Freq (talk) 23:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

My point is that, unless he was making official US policy, then it doesn't matter what exactly Bush said, or when or where he said it in what context to whom. This article has no real interest in what GHB as presidential candidate had to say. If it does, then we need to include whatever Dukakis must've said on the matter, as well. But only the actions and statements of the United States are relevant in this article. Eaglizard (talk) 23:43, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't disagree with that statement. My point is that various parties will never allow the removal of that quote. Since it won't be removed, it only makes sense to place it in the cited context as it is very misleading by itself. --Dual Freq (talk) 23:59, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

The context cited in the Newsweek source (as well as the later reference to it on Paula Zahn) was in regard to flight 655. What's said in the Time article seems to reinforce that he literally meant he would never apologize for the United States. ...When I say I'll never apologize for America, I really believe that. And I believe that we are the most decent, fairest, most honorable country in the world. (Evidently he didn't think a decent, fair, honorable country makes mistakes) He didn't apologize for flight 655 and he didn't say that his "never apologize" statement didn't refer to it when Newsweek connected the two. Anynobody 01:09, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

So are you saying that the quote should be included, excluded or that one sentence of context should be added? I think Eaglizard is saying it really doesn't matter what he said. I'm saying that it will be readded to infinity if it is removed and that its important for an encyclopedia to note the context in which he used the quote. --Dual Freq (talk) 02:34, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I was actually explaining why I re-wrote the paragraph the way I did. Anynobody 03:04, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Context

Lets not forget that the context we're discussing here is Flight 655 and the US/Iranian governments various perspectives. When we discuss George Bush, we're talking about his actions in regard to how the US viewed the incident, not his campaign or its messages. (If this were his article, then the original context of the statement would be up for discussion.) Here the context should be more like, while the president offered a note of regret at the same time then vice president Bush said he'd never apologize for the United States.

Newsweek cited the quote in the context of this incident, if Bush felt he was being misquoted he'd of either corrected them or issued a statement saying something about its inaccuracy. If he had, that would be worth mentioning here too, solely in the context of this incident and not his campaign.

(Think about the implications of including such specific context every time a politician is quoted. It'd be the difference between saying "President Reagan called the Soviet Union an Evil Empire." and "President Reagan called the Soviet Union an Evil Empire after it shot down a Korean Airliner in 1983." I've seen his empire quote used in articles and papers not mentioning KAL 007, meaning we'd have to add the actual context every time.) Anynobody 23:03, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

As demonstrated by the media of the day, this quote was barely even mentioned by the Press in August. Only one sentence in the perspectives section. Have you seen the Newsweek perspectives section? It's not exactly the front page of the New York Times, is it? The rest of the articles mention the quote but not the incident. Bush certainly wouldn't demand a retraction for one of his campaign themes and the press would not question him about something he said all the time. Only years later has this quote been latched on to by others and removed from the context of the campaign. Its not appropriate for us to omit the fact that he said this all the time. I'm not going to retype everything mentioned above, but its very clearly cited that this was in the context of a campaign message and it is noteworthy to point out that he made this statement well before the incident occurred. --Dual Freq (talk) 23:19, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The basic problem with your argument is in this statement, Only years later has this quote been latched on to by others and removed from the context of the campaign. That is incorrect, in August 1988 Newsweek cited the quote in regard to the incident, which happened a month prior. (Newsweek's Perspectives sections are bound to be out of original context since they only use one or two quotes to sum up an issue. Essentially you are arguing to correct a source, which is original research unless you can cite a source which said Newsweek was misquoting Bush in 88, not references to the original context.) Anynobody 23:29, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I can say it any clearer than the numerous sources listed above. If you knew what the perspectives section was, you'd understand what I'm talking about. The context applied by Newsweek was virtually ignored by all other news sources of the same time period and appears to have generated no controversy during an election, in a time when one would think it would have. Regardless of that, the sentence you removed didn't say anything about Newsweek being wrong by using the quote in that section, it said "Bush used the phrase frequently[9] during the 1988 campaign and promised to "never apologize for the United States" prior to the July 1988 shootdown[10] and as early as January 1988[11]" All of which is relevant, 100% true, and every part is fully cited. --Dual Freq (talk) 00:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

To address your concerns, I know exactly what the perspectives section is. (FWIW I remember reading the one we're talking about.)

On to your points: The context applied by Newsweek was virtually ignored by all other news sources of the same time period (that doesn't matter, the fact that Newsweek reported it is all we need.) and appears to have generated no controversy during an election,(this doesn't matter either, the context isn't the 1988 election, it's the shoot down of Iran Air Flight 655.) in a time when one would think it would have.(With all due respect, because one thinks a controversy should have been generated in regard to an election has no bearing at all on the context of this incident.) I understand what I removed, it was an explanation of the fact he said it before the incident.

As I've been saying, that would have only been worth discussing if Bush had taken issue with what Newsweek said. Essentially it works like this:

• Before the shoot down: Bush says, "I will never apologize..."
• Airliner shot down.
• Bush says nothing.
• Newsweek cites Bush's earlier quote in context of shoot down.
• Bush says nothing. (He said he wasn't gonna apologize, he didn't)

If it had gone like this:

• Before the shoot down: Bush says, "I will never apologize..."
• Airliner shot down.
• Bush says nothing.
• Newsweek cites Bush's earlier quote in context of shoot down.
• Bush says Newsweek quoted him out of context and he is of course sorry for what happened.
  Then we'd be able to go into the whole campaign 88 thing.

Besides, is the fact that it was a campaign message somehow supposed to mean that he was actually sorry or otherwise that he hadn't meant some types of mistake? Anynobody 04:32, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I make no comment on your flawed logic listed above. However, there clearly no consensus to remove the cited sentence which I provided above and is 100% cited and relevent, yet you have removed it. There is no consensus to remove the quote itself even though it has been suggested that it is not appropriate in this article, which is neither a list of quotes or about Bush. Since neither have a consensus to be removed, why is the context sentence removed but the quote has not been removed? Since there is no consensus to remove the second sentence above, I intend to readd that sentence and expect that it will not be removed unless the quote itself has been removed. Thank you for your assistance. --Dual Freq (talk) 02:21, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

What's flawed about the logic? Bush says "I'll never apologize for the US, no matter what the facts are." then months later the US makes a mistake, like shooting down an airliner, and Bush subsequently doesn't apologize leading Newseek to cite said quote in the context of the mistake. As to consensus it appears that several editors believe the quote should be included without going into specifics not covered by the source (Newsweek) which made it relevant to the shoot down of Flight 655.

Honestly, the message Newsweek was getting out was supposed to be the US doesn't apologize not even for stuff like this. Anynobody 01:58, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Cold Hard Fact

• He did say it and it is referenced. Regardless of context it can be worked into the article. While he remains President, the erasure smacks of censorship...but he is not going to be around forever. Aatomic1 (talk) 19:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep in mind aatomic that we have to be really careful when dealing with living people. See: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons WhisperToMe (talk) 15:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Unnecessary

Going into the context of a quote, taken out of context by our source (Newsweek), is unnecessary and takes the focus off the media surrounding the shoot down and puts in on George H.W. Bush. To make an analogy; imagine an article about volunteering or public service quoting JFK the way we're trying to quote Bush. (Unnecessary part is underlined)

Imaginary article: Many world leaders have extolled the virtues and necessity for citizens to serve their community as much as it serves them. President John F Kennedy said: And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. He was speaking during his 1961 inaugural address where he touched on broader subjects like people working together to free the world. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. John F. Kennedy

Nobody is arguing about the sourcing for the extra additions, it's the relevance to Flight 655 that's in question. Anynobody 06:53, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Background - wholly inadequate

I don't have time to fix it now, but can I comment that the single sentence Background is wholly inadaquate. What are we supposed to make of it? Does it not - like the Hostilities comment above - suggest that, really, it's all Iran's fault. Might there be another side or two to the background? Was not the US supporting Saddam Hussain at the time? Does the US having had a big downer on Iran since their revolution have anything to do with their attitude and way of carrying on in the area? --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:41, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The US did indeed support Iraq in the war against Iran, and hasn't been overly friendly to Iran since revolution ousted the Shah. However the reason American ships were there was due to Iranian attacks against Kuwaiti/Saudi tankers. It's not all Iran's fault, but absolving them of all blame is ridiculous since CG 49 wouldn't have been there but for their actions. Anynobody 21:02, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

ffs. I'm not suggesting an absolution of blame; merely that the previous limp excuse for the US which formed the whole of the background was inadequate. The current edit is much better (though it could do with citations). It might also be reasonable to supply as background the information that the US supported Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war ... and this for me calls into question the use of the term "neutral" applied to Kuwait & Saudi. They certainly were not combatants but as US allies might not have been viewed by Iran as neutral. I think it is very important that the background is not written exclusively from a US/western perspective, but is genuinely neutral and balanced. --Tagishsimon (talk) 10:18, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't defending what was there; It was inadequate. As to the neutrality of Saudi Arabia/Kuwait, you have a good point but not because they are US allies but because they supported Saddam with money, however for the purposes of this incident such talk would be too detailed (but not for Iran-Iraq War). Anynobody 05:50, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, a more detailed explanation should be relegated to the right pages, such as Iran-Iraq War. However we should not continue to call Saudi Arabia & Kuwait neutral, if they were not neutral, but merely non-combatant. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:28, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I do think the background context is highly relevant, but we do need it to be succinctly put. I've just come across a recent Naval Postgraduate School thesis [13] which covers this incident in its context really well, and might provide some appropriate info. For example it says "On April 29, 1988, however, the United States expanded the scope of the protection scheme, extending the U.S. Navy’s protective umbrella to all neutral shipping in the Persian Gulf. This decision divorced the American policy from its original limited objectives, increased the likelihood of further confrontation with Iran, and laid the groundwork for the destruction of an Iranian airliner by USS Vincennes (CG-49)" and in more detail "[the July 3rd] action would not have occurred under the original limited Earnest Will protection scheme, and it ended when the USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shot down an Iranian airliner, killing 290 people." Well worth a read - gives new insights. Rwendland 19:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with that the background section needs to be rewritten or removed altogether. In its current form, the section violates Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:No original research by creating a synthesis of IRRELEVANT published material on Iran’s actions or reactions against Iraq`s financiers, serving to advance a position that Iran was ultimately to blame for the shut-down of Iran Air Flight 655.--CreazySuit (talk) 01:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)