Talk:Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq

Initial comments

This text was originally located at Support and opposition for the U.S. plan to invade Iraq. A complete history for the text may be found there. - Montréalais 05:02 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

Public relations is now defined as a part of the U.S. plan to invade Iraq since information warfare (some say 'ontological warfare') is part of all modern warfare. A link to this 'public relations plan' should be added to the U.S. plan article.

The new top level article Iraq crisis, 2003 now lists all potential and anticipated impacts that have been mentioned in various articles and by various news sources. There are a lot of these, and this article will get quite long. It seems clear that this is now a global crisis not just a specific U.S. plan - North Korea, UN Security Council, weapons inspectors' role, etc., are all now involved, and role of NATO and UN are being questioned by all sides. This is a much bigger thing that it was.

One important impact is credibility of the US government and of the UN and of photo and audio evidence itself. Powell's PR speech at the UN Security council backfired when it was revealed he was using sources from the UK that turned out to be a repudiated grad student paper. Also credibility of photo sources is now widely and openly doubted everywhere in the world, not just in the Arab world - Blix said as much when he told Powell he wasn't so interested in satellite photos that couldn't be validated on the ground. Then there is the Office of Strategic Influence spin, role of the Internet, etc.

Also, the peace movement is playing such a major role now in forming opinions that it is listed in the see also list as another major player.

The reason was that saying either 'war against Iraq' or 'war on Iraq' was taken to contain potentially POV meanings.

War against Iraq could mean US war against Iraq with implies Iraq war against US - ie, a two way war, which is seen as POV by anti-war side, because they argue it is the US that is unilaterally pushing for a war that no-one in the middle east or indeed the rest of the world wants.

War on Iraq could mean US waging war on Iraq, which suggests unilateralism, which is contrary to the pro-war analysis, which argues that the US is reacting to Saddam's failure to obey the UN.

I know news agencies all over are debating this very point. Is the term they are using implicitly suggesting one POV rather than absolute neutrality? (Some stations have stopped using the words 'on' and 'against' (and 'with') for this very reason, or are using both, with 'war on' and 'war against' being used in successive graphics packages.)

This was discussed on the [UN Security Council and . . . ] page and it was almost unanimously agreed that using 'proposed Iraq war' was the most NPOV term, because it didn't implicitly reach a judgment on who is doing what, just stated three words that are all accurate - it is proposed, it would be a war, and it involves Iraq.

It might make sense to apply this abolutely NPOV variation to all the pages on the issue, such as this one. Any observations? JTD 04:38 Feb 26, 2003 (UTC)

False Public Perception

According to a Harris Poll released July 21 found that 50% of U.S. respondents said they believe Iraq had the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003. This was reported in numerous news articles, such as The State (http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/15215272.htm) and The Washington Post (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/offbeat/2006/08/do_you_believe_in_wmd.html). PJ 06:54, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

alleged brutality by Hussein's childrenn

About the time that Hussein's sons were captured, several storys appeared about their brutality, eg torturing iraqi athletes who performed poorly. These stories always seemed to me slightly over done - any comment ?

Well, not so much the athletes one. Many nations, even nations where you may have quite a bit of freedom (as long as its not against the Government), use athletes in this way. Torture if they dont win by a certain amount, if they leave (either the nation or training) they arrest them and their families. That sort of thing. As for Saddams sons, mostly it was that they were in charge of departments that killed rebels or tortured them for information, but alegations of rape seem to be that one of his sons had the habit of when out and asking a woman to have sex with him he would have her arrested if she denied him and sometimes rape her anyway.

This, while ridiculously horrible even for Saddams sons, was very exagerated. It was usually in private parties or from women he met personally, rather than "picking them off the street" like the US presented. 119.11.14.103 (talk) 03:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC) Harlequin

NPOV Dispute (Yes, ANOTHER One)

The sections “Orchestrated deception campaign” and “Manufactured Evidence” are strongly biased; Secondary to it’s rehashing of tired old “Bash BUSH” propaganda is, most tellingly, THIS LINE “For example, on at least 532 occasions top Bush Administration officials stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or was trying to produce or obtain them, or had links to al Qaeda, or both. These statements were demonstrably false.” Within this, the claim that these statements were “demonstrably false” is, itself, demonstrably false; Besides the belief held by many that Saddam did have these unfound “mobile chemical weapons labs” (which have been compared to an American mobile methamphetamine labs) is the undeniable attempts by Saddam to ensure a perception that he had them amongst his own people. To say that BUSH, et el, were “lying” when they claimed these things did exist is pure propaganda. The sections must be stripped. 152.121.19.13 (talk) 20:24, 17 April 2010 (UTC)A REDDSON

I've added it to the NPOV page. The link to the discussion is currently here: Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Public_relations_preparations_for_2003_invasion_of_Iraq--Padenton (talk) 14:20, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Orchestrated Deception Campaign

"...top Bush Administration officials stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or was trying to produce or obtain them, or had links to al Qaeda, or both. These statements were demonstrably false.”

Looking at all the latest evidence - is it not clear that this statement is demonstrably true? To say that Bush, along with Tony and his mates, were lying when they claimed these things did exist, far from being "pure propaganda", is now seen as a simple Statement of Fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.83.107 (talk) 11:37, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Merger and proposed restoration

FYI the discussion about merging this article can now be found here: Talk:2003 invasion of Iraq/Archive 8#Merger proposal. The discussion was between 3 user from 18-19 March 2012; it involved 4 posts (including the initial "Merger proposal" post) and then discussion was abandoned. There was no consensus about merging the article into 2003 invasion of Iraq versus into Rationale for the Iraq War. If this article's content was merged to 2003 invasion of Iraq, it is now gone (there isn't even any mention of Suskind). This justifies restoring this article.  selfworm^Talk) 21:00, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Mass deletion of information

A lot of information was removed in this edit. The edit comment says "stick to simple exposition of fact and not blatant POV from any side , Suskind should get only one mention - and MSNBC stated it was 'Suskind's opinion' , entire article appears to be POV SYNTH at best" but this comment does not justify all of the content that was removed (at most it justifies removal of only some information). I propose that the article be restored to its state prior to this mass removal of information.  selfworm^Talk) 21:00, 30 January 2022 (UTC)