Talk:Gulf War/Archive 3

Name change from "Gulf War" to "Persian Gulf War"
The page was changed to "Persian Gulf War". This is POV, even though most people are not aware of it. Persians and Arabs dispute whether the Gulf is the "Arabian Gulf" or the "Persian Gulf". To call the war the "Persian Gulf War" instead of the "Gulf War" transforms the neutral title into one that adopts the Iranian/Persian POV. It is telling that the user who appears to have done the move, Mani1, is from Iran.

Please note that this Gulf naming issue is so controversial that wikipedia even has a page devoted to the controversy! Dispute over the name of the Persian Gulf Why allow the nasty fighting over the Persian Gulf page to spill over onto this one? The best thing to do is restore the NPOV "Gulf War" title.

Kaltes

Just leave it at Gulf War and stop playing with it. I dislike the name (IMHO Liberation of Kuwait would be much better), but it is the name the media used, so we are pretty much stuck with it. Gadget850 13:53, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Created Naming the Gulf War; hopefully this will clear this up and stop the name changing. --Gadget850 20:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

But do you know that the internationaly recognized name for this body of water is Persian Gulf? Even its the name used by State Department and the CIA. For example President Bush always calls it Persian Gulf War. Just pay attention next time you hear his speech. Thanks. --69.153.59.169 08:45, 23 October 2005 (UTC)Hooman Hedayati


 * This article should not be about the name, but the events. We have a whole new article where this particular issue can be discussed.  As I noted before, I personally don't like term Gulf War, but this is the name the Western media commonly used.  I think the term is about as neutral as we can ever get, but it will not satisfy everyone.  --Gadget850 22:22, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Casualties (dispute)
In 8 Casualties, I beg to dispute the official numbers cited as arab casualties; the Arab contingents had about 40 killed, and France lost 2 men. I was told by (Arab)people at the time that State Controlled Arab media downplayed the number of casualties to avoid public backlash. If it is impossible to verify the actual count may I suggest that it could be mentioned that the numbers are disputed due to lack of media accuracy? --The Brain 06:53, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)
 * Sure, if you can present some sources discussiong the issue the text will be modified. - SimonP 07:33, Jan 24, 2005 (UTC)

The following segments, in the casualties segment, is absolutely wrong, and POV:


 * 1) 1. "Iraqi casualty numbers are highly disputed. Some claim as low as 1,500 military killed, some 200,000. Many scholars now believe a number around 25,000 to 75,000."

We have reliable evidence on casualties now. This information was posted and the source given credit. Posting up outdated speculation is wrong for 2 reasons: (1) it distracts the reader from the facts by claiming that 'many scholars' continue to believe a laughably high, false, extremely inflated casualty estimate, and (2) this information is extremely POV, since inflation of Iraqi casualties was a tool by war opponents to condemn the Coalition for overkill and needless murder. In other words: the inflated statistics are propoganda coming from questionable sources. Lastly, ambiguous claims such as "many scholars now believe" need to be backed up with evidence. I was unable to find any sources to verify this claim, and I think this claim is just more propaganda coming from anti-war types. Wikipedia has no credibility is it is allowed to be used as a tool for those who seek to revise and distort history.

If there is (non-debunked) evidence (and I strongly doubt there is) backing up the POV claim above, provide it. Otherwise stop inserting this POV fiction into the article.


 * 1) 2. "The number of military wounded is equally unknown. 71,000 Iraqis were taken as prisoners of war by US troops. Estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths range from just 100 persons to 200,000 excess deaths as a result of the war."

Any number for civilian deaths given that exceeds the number put forth by Sadaam's government, 2,300, is not credible. The Iraqi government's own number is a celing, not a floor. Don't even mention bogus 'estimates' unless they can be verified and cited. Otherwise you could just be making up anything.


 * 1) 3. "In addition, the aftermath of the war led to conditions that produced many more deaths in Iraq. For instance, Iraq was bombed with over 300 tons of depleted uranium, a heavy metal that some believe increases the risk of cancer (although this is hotly disputed). The rate of cancer Iraqi children after the war increased four-fold. The sanctions that were imposed after the war have led to roughly two million deaths, half of them children. And U.S. and British jets continued to bomb targets in and around the no-fly zones in Iraq on roughly a monthly basis from the end of the first Gulf war right up to the second."

So the editor was telling us how disputed and controversial casualties were in order to insert wildly inflated 'estimates' then in the next paragraph, the DU issue, which is VERY controversial and in fact has very little support, is presented as the gospel truth. No one sees the obvious POV agenda behind this? Who was in control of statistics regarding Iraqi children post-war? The Sadaam government. Who was doing everything possible, including waging a ceaseless propaganda campaign, to defeat the sanctions? The Sadaam government. Yet this paragraph is absolutely silent of the glaring credibility issues behind the supposed 'facts' it references.

Also, there needs to be some citation for dubious, controversial statements like "sanctions that were imposed after the war have led to roughly two million deaths". Not only is this exactly the Sadaam propaganda I mentioned earlier, it is provided here as facts without any citation or reference to the source. That is sloppy heresay. provide the sources AND the counter-arguments, or drop it altogether and stick with the neutral source I provided.

The DU issue should be on a seperate page, and the supposed Iraqi civilian deaths from sanctions should be on the sanctions page, NOT the war page. Kaltes 04:42, Jan 30, 2005 (UTC)


 * I've long felt the casualties are one of the weaknesses on this page, being extremely poorly sourced. So, toward that end, I'm going to start gathering some sources:

Human Rights Watch says:


 * "we are reasonably confident that the total number of civilians killed directly by allied attacks did not exceed several thousand, with an upper limit of perhaps between 2,500 and 3,000 Iraqi dead. These numbers, we note, do not include the substantially larger number of deaths that can be attributed to malnutrition, disease and lack of medical care caused by a combination of the U.N.-mandated embargo and the allies' destruction of Iraq's electrical system, with its severe secondary effects (see Chapter Four)."

It should be noted that HRW says that the Iraqi government gave higher figures (though roughly in the same order of magnitude) for directly killed than Kaltes says.

This is only a small start; we should really do much better in documenting casualty figures. Regarding indirect deaths: this information is important, too, but we should be careful to label what each measurement means (is it direct or indirect, over what period, compared to what, etc.) DanKeshet 05:10, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you DanKeshet that there is some dispute with the numbers, although within a far more reasonable range than was found in the article before my edits. Your source falls within this reasonable range. Thus far I have found the PBS Frontline web site on the Gulf War to be the most comprehensive information source on the subject, especially since most of the information there is more up to date, and consequently is more reliable than what people thought back in the early 1990s. The casualty statistics are a perfect example of this, because there was a lot of unsupported speculation about casualties both before and after the war. I recall a prediction that the Coalition would suffer ~50,000 casualties, which was made before the war, to be a good illustration of the magnitude of the error of these speculations. Of course we all know how inaccurate that prediction was, but many people continue to falsely believe that the Gulf War was an Iraqi bloodbath, which is simply not true.

Of course I do not think that PBS Frontline is a perfect source, and I would love to see the addition of more sources. I do think PBS Frontline is perhaps one of the most neutral sources on this particular issue. I do not know why they would be in error given the Sadaam government's casualty figures. Perhaps these figures were revised downward? This excerpt from your link sheds a great deal of light on the civilian casualties issue:

"In contrast to the statistics issued during the war by government officials, Iraqi doctors provided more modest figures in post-war interviews with visitors and journalists about the number of civilian casualties treated during the war, shedding some light on the extent of injuries from the bombing in Baghdad, though not in other parts of the country. Doctors at Yarmuk Hospital, Baghdad's second largest hospital and a major surgical facility, reported that approximately 600 "war victims" were treated at the hospital. The director of Yarmuk Hospital told members of a visiting U.S. group that, in addition to those injured in the bombing of the Ameriyya air raid shelter in Baghdad, about 1,000 civilians were treated during the war and that between 150 and 200 of them died. According to one member of the U.S. group, the doctor later revised his estimate downward to between 100 and 150 dead. In a subsequent interview with The Washington Post in June, he said that he was not allowed to release statistics about the number of people who had died at the hospital during the air war."

The Depleted Uranium issue is another example. I have yet to see a single shred of evidence backing up these claims. Even the most basic understanding of radiation and DU are all that is needed to understand that claims of extensive radiation damage from DU are essentially fictitious. In fact, DU (and all heavy metals) would be more dangerous chemically if ingested/inhaled. Given the science, I am highly skeptical of these claims and I would like to see something solid to back it up. Perhaps someone could provide such a source. If not, and if people want this information included, the sources should be identified and the flaws in their reasoning (the other side of the story) should be pointed out.

Finally, I don't have a problem with including the "aftermath" casualty information, as long as both sides of the story are told. After the war, Sadaam focused on defeating the sanctions regime and the Iraqi government released a lot of propaganda to further this goal. Civilian hardship, particularly children, was the centerpiece of this campaign. The problem with such statistics are twofold: First, the numbers themselves are very much in doubt, and Second, actual attribution of these deaths to "sanctions" is speculative at best. Sadaam routinely killed large numbers of his own people, so are we really supposed to believe that when large numbers of Iraqis died at the same time Sadaam was spending many billions rebuilding his military, and many billions building a network of extravagant mosques and palaces, that these civilians died because Sadaam couldn't easily sell Iraq's oil?

Kaltes 23:10, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)


 * My understanding is also that Uranium, in natural or depleted forms, is far more dangerous due to toxicity than radioactivity. Unexploded shells and bombs are a more serious threat to civilians than residual DU, I would estimate. Nvinen 10:41, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * "Uranium-238 becomes DU, which is 0.7 times as radioactive as natural uranium. Since DU has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, there is very little decay of those DU materials." . That's a long half-life. You could probably live in a house made of DU, with furniture made of DU, and not have any measurably higher risk of illness than anyone else, as long as you don't gnaw at it or lick it.
 * "In any event, the chemical toxicity greatly overrides any radiological concern." Nvinen 11:58, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Why the hell did someone feel it necessary to include "holla at yo boy" in the article? I can't edit it out for some reason.
 * Because they're dumb. Someone else fixed it already, apparently. Nvinen 10:38, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

peace dividend, blum
The view that the Iraq War stopped defense cuts and froze talks of a "peace dividend" is common across all political stripes. (See, for example, .) The analysis that it was a purpose of the Iraq War (from the US perspective) is a pretty standard bit of leftist analysis. See it at Zmag by Noam Chomsky and Michael Albert, at Deep Blade by Eric Olson. (These sources are just from ten minutes of google-searching.)

If you don't want to source it from Blum, source it from Chomsky and Albert. But this is not an idiosyncratic analysis specific to Bill Blum; it is a common analysis representative of a share of the population. DanKeshet 19:49, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm a bit busy at the moment, but I've considered the peace dividend stuff, and my plan for bringing it back is: add "slowed cuts to US military budget" to the consequences, because that's pretty much universally agreed. Add James Webb's "pentagon budget drill" quote from the op-ed in the NYT, along with Chomsky & Albert's article in Z-mag there in the consequences, as a parenthetical, that some people believe(d) that this was one of the driving factors behind the Bush administration's policy.  Leave out Blum altogether, for now; Webb and Chomsky are more notable names anyway, easier for people to identify whom the demographic who made these kinds of statements were.  DanKeshet 05:48, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Casualties (revisited)
My apologies if this has been discussed before. I have a question about the casualty figures, which only cite the Keaney study -- why is the Daponte study (which estimated 205,000 deaths during and immediately after the war, with I believe a during-war-only casualty figure much higher than the Keaney study) excluded? Someone made comments earlier about a much lower casualty figure being "laughably" high, but I don't see any evidence refuting the Daponte estimates (other than that she may have been attacked politically for having done the study). Does the Keaney study specifically refute Daponte's figures or somehow build on them? I also think any discussion of casualty figures should mention the postwar casualties that are most directly attributable to the war itself, such as those who died as a result of deliberate targeting of the Iraqi water supply. I think the sanctions and the dispute over how many died as a result (and how many as a result of Saddam's corruption of the sanctions regime) should have its own page, if it doesn't already. --csloat 06:48, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sources not capitalized for a reason?
I notice that a lot of the sources are a new paragraph. Why do they say "source" and not "Source"? Turnstep 15:34, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't believe that this is not an encouraged format. Footnotes and endnotes seem to be the way to go. Rmhermen 15:46, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism?
In the first paragraph of Ground War, the second sentence reads

US forces pulled plows along Iraqi trenches, burying their occupants alive.

I'm not disputing that this happened (although some evidence should be provided), however its placement within the paragraph (the flow is completely disrupted by it) suggests that, at best, it was added by someone with a POV.


 * It definitely isn't "vandalism", and it might just be an example of a horrible tactic of war. I don't know enough about the ground campaign to say that this was a critical component that deserves such primary mention, but that might be the case. Step one, bury Iraqis in their trenches. Step two, push on. Etc. Graft 03:33, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * This did happen, according to credible reports, and stipulated by most of the mainstream media at the time (as well as by most Gulf War scholarship I am aware of). It probably was not a "critical component" of the ground campaign in any military sense, but it certainly was critical in terms of political perspectives on the conflict and on American tactics.  I don't think the inclusion of this fact is POV here, and in fact I think it is an important part of history (in that many made a big deal out of it at the time), though the above poster may be right that it should be in a different place. --csloat 08:00, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I now agree it isn't vandalism. However it does read odd where it is (and why mentioned that tactic and not others?), and it is discussed in more detail further down, so maybe just remove this sentence? (sorry didn't sign my original comment) --Ewan 23:33, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Guys could you stop back and forthing on that sentence? Please discuss why you are adding the text in the fashion you are and lets try to find a resolution. --Ebralph 22:35, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Blum
Obviously, not well enough formatted, but that "(Blum)" was a reference to where the information came from. I'll insert a proper footnote tomorrow, if nobody beats me to it. DanKeshet 07:40, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Coalition
Someone should make it a little clearer who were in the coalition before "Air Campaign". Someone who knows, and can write, and isn't me.

Request for documentation
I have been searching for NPOV information documenting Saddam Hussein's claim that Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraq's oil fields. I have not been able to come up with such documentation, yet this is a claim often repeated.

Also, the only people who claim that April Glaspie somehow provided tacit approval for an invasion are those people who wish Saddam Hussein was still in power.
 * That second claim is certainly false. As to the first, it may be TRUE, but not necessarily meaningful, since slant-drilling is not an uncommon drilling technique anyway.
 * Anywho. I'm convinced that a lot of propaganda detritus remains from the first Gulf War, which seems to have been about as truth-filled as this recent invasion of Iraq was. At any rate, it was alleged that Kuwait was slant-drilling, though never proven; let's leave it at that. Although I'm uncomfortable with the fact that other things (e.g. who started the oil fires) don't get similar scrutiny because the U.S. makes these claims. Graft 14:31, 27 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Went through lexis-nexis. There's an AFP story from 2000 (Iraq renewed their slant-drilling claims) where a Ba'ath spokesman says:
 * "The theft of Iraqi oil by Kuwait is not new," Saad Qassem Hammudi, a senior member of the ruling Baath Party told Agence France-Presse.
 * "It is a fact established in Iraqi documents and reports since 1990", when Iraq invaded the emirate after accusing it of taking oil.
 * Hammudi said Kuwaiti Crown Prince Saad al-Abdallah al-Sabah "recognised the theft in 1990 during negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait in Saudi Arabia, " preceding the invasion.
 * "The differences between the two were only over the amount of crude stolen," he added.
 * Unfortunately I don't know what happened in Jeddah.
 * Santa Fe International is the company (owned by the royal family) alleged to have done the slant-drilling. There's an old article interviewing one of their employees who says they only had vertical wells drilled, as far as he knew.
 * I haven't seen any Kuwaiti denials. Graft 15:11, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Request for documentation regarding State Dept. list of state sponsors of terrorism
It was my understanding (perhaps erroneous) that the main obstacle to removing Iraq from this list, and hence to legally providing aid to the regime, was its support for Abu Nidal, who (and which) was expelled from Iraq to Syria in the early '80s. Most references I have found place this action as November 1983, but the article places the removal of Iraq itself in 1982 (when aid was not forthcoming). The Abu Nidal article somehow places the move to Syria in 1981. The Wikipedia articles of 1981, 1982, and 1983 do not mention either of these events.

Is there anything reasonably objective source (and not the ad hoc claims of a blog or minor website) which states when precisely Iraq was taken off the list, preferably a mainstream news item or a State Dept. report itself?


 * Iraq was removed from the list in Mar. 1982 (although some sources say Feb. 1982).  Abu Nidal was ejected from Iraq in 1983.


 * To provide a bit of further clarification, it is true that it was perceived that something had to be done about Abu Nidal in order for Iraq to receive aid, but the U.S. took the first step. It removed Iraq from the list first (with an eye towards collaborating with Hussein), and then more than a year later, Saddam Hussein promised Rumsfeld he would expel Nidal in exhange for the U.S.'s support.  Unended 04:21, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I was attempting to allow the article to reflect these nuances. --TJive 06:32, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Information regarding Germany's role during the war
This article makes it rather clear that Germany could not formally participate in the coalition against Saddam Hussein, even though it did participate in certain activities under NATO auspices (with ally Turkey--in other words, deterring a potential conflict under allowed conditions and performing no role in expelling Saddam).

"There was no dispute about the fact that, in the political circumstances, and in view of the provisions of the German Basic Law, no German army units could be despatched to join the allied coalition, in other words, to take part in military operations outside the NATO area. However, the fact that leading exponents of German policy had nothing to say, temporarily leaving the international image of the Republic in the hands of a noisy minority which was critical of the allies, was surprising and indeed damaging to Germany. What was expected of Germany concerning participation beyond its borders, was not just measured in terms of the possible. That level of participation was taken as read, and was indeed provided, and in no small measure, ranging from the provision of German territory for coordination centres for supplies to the Gulf, to the delivery of massive quantities of weapons and materiel and, after some discussion, the payment of considerable sums of money."

It goes on to mention German minesweepers though they did not perform a combat role and came after hostilities had ended.

Therefore there is a discrepancy not only between the two previously existing statements of this article, one which says both Germany and Japan were not part of the coalition (since edited to refer solely to Japan), and the other a mention of Germany in the official coalition; there is a discrepancy between the current article and the seeming realities of German foreign policy at the time. Is there a solid reference to the precise construction of this coalition which would most reasonably resolve the manner for the purposes of inclusion in this article? --TJive June 30, 2005 03:35 (UTC)

This portray is a bit slanted in favor for Germany as being supportive of the war. The amount of people in Germany refusing to join *any* war unless the territorial integrety has been violated is quite large - based on history - which explains the stance it takes today even more so, now that a more left leaning party is in power. I have always hated the silent majority bull sh** from any party. If people don't voice, they don't care enough. I also have no recollection of that stance being damaging to German intrests at the time, especially under the impression of reunifaction. Indeed at the time most were probably very happy that the Germans didn't become active because many feared a reunited Germany. It's good that passage has been dropped but I couldn't resist my piece of mind here either. --Ebralph 22:43, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

While Germany did not send any troops, they did provide equipment. I particularly recall the Fuchs (Fox) NBC recon vehicle. Gadget850 09:22, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Nuclear Reactor?
I just ran over a sentence in "Air campaign": ''About one third of the Coalition airpower was devoted to attacking Scuds. In addition, it targeted facilities useful for both the military and civilians: electricity production facilities, nuclear reactors , telecommunications equipment, port facilities, oil refineries and distribution, railroads and bridges''. I wasn't aware that Iraq had a nuclear reactor. AFAIK the last one they tried to have built by a French company was bombed by Israelis in 1982. Kann someone please verfiy? --Ebralph 09:32, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Research reactors. See the Wash Post, Jan 21 1991, "U.S. Claims Iraqi Nuclear Reactors Hit Hard; Saddam Minimizes Losses, Shows Off POWs" by Rick Atkinson and Ann Devroy. First line: "Allied bombers have "thoroughly damaged" Iraqi nuclear research reactors while virtually destroying the country's air defense radar network and most of Iraq's Scud missile launchers, the commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf War said yesterday." Apparently the only time an actual working reactor has been bombed (Osirak was merely under construction in 1981). Graft 16:27, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Craig Fuller
What's the dispute over this sentence: "The head of Hill and Knowlton's Washington office was President Bush's former vice-presidential chief of staff, Craig Fuller"? Is it a fact or not? If so, it appears relevant. Unended 21:05, July 30, 2005 (UTC)


 * The "dispute" was actually just between a sockpuppet of another user who was deleting any edits I happened to make. However, it was initially inserted by an anonymous user with no citation.  I do not find it relevant, however, unless someone has actually suggested that this person used their position to unduly influence the actions of the company.  If claims made by the organization were exaggerations and propaganda that can be described without playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon.  --TJive 23:57, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

Technology
This section seems rather unbalanced. MIM-104 Patriot performance is well detailed in it's own article. Abrams, Bradley, MLRS and Copperhead, Hellfire, Apache were just some of the systems that were used in combat for the first time. LORAN was actually used more than GPS (at least in 1st Cav), because GPS was issued so late- maps were already marked up in degrees for LORAN, where GPS used UTM. This could potentialy fork to a new article. Thoughts? Gadget850 14:33, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

The article is getting an edit warning about the size. Because of this and the items noted above, I propose a split to "Technology of the Gulf War". Thoughts? --Gadget850 15:41, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

many good articles get size warnings though I think a technology of the gulf war article might be worthwhile, Bwithh 15:59, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Technology during World War II looks like a good model, --Gadget850 02:07, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Military awards
This section is pretty much US centric, and could be tightened up to their main articles. Any info on awards for other coalition forces? Or; even for Iraqi forces. Gadget850 14:33, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Dead Kuwait Liberation links removed. Does someone else want to try and find new links? 20 September 2005

I found a few references, esp British, will work that up soon. Awards are not really central to this article: I am considering creating another page. --Gadget850 02:51, 2 October 2005 (UTC) Done! --Gadget850 18:16, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Air Campaign losses
I was just reading the page on the Mig 25, and was surprised to read that Iraq claimed an F/A-18 during the Gulf War. I didn't know that the allies had lost any planes at all (I assume this is the one plane alluded to in the "air campaign" section). Were any other allied planes lost? Can someone add some details about this, and perhaps about Iraqi losses? -Lommer | talk 05:09, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
 * See Fixed-Wing Aircraft Combat Attrition which shows all losses and damaged coalition aircraft. This F/A-18 is the only dogfight loss but there were a larger number of anti-aircraft losses. Rmhermen 23:35, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Disputed
How many countries in the Coalition, and at what point in the Gulf War timeline?

There are conflicting statements out there on how many countries were in the coalition, how many of these actually committed forces and vagueness about how this number changed over the course of the conflict timeline:


 * CNN has the number at 34
 * This Arab media site has the number at 36
 * The US conservative thinktank, the Heritage Foundation puts the number at 38, citing a July 1991 DoD report to Congress
 * This Arab anti-Gulf War polemic page has the count at 31
 * This BBC news report has Bush Snr. praising the 32 nations of the coalition
 * This article from the UK's Hutchinson encyclopedia (which is actually a published reference book) says there were 28 countries.


 * There are also claims that there were as many as 39 countries - including this authoritative seeming table from a US Institute of Medicine report on Gulf War Veterans' Health that includes countries which did not contribute troops (perhaps they contributed equipment or landing rights etc. etc.).
 * There are also claims that there are as few as 19 (perhaps at the beginning of the war? but then to correspond with the bbc report of bush's comments, 13 countries would have had to join in during the actual war?!).
 * This US General Accounting Office report says that 25 countries contributed ground forces, 23 contributed naval forces, and 14 contributed air forces

Can anyone cite a *definite reference* for this? Bwithh 13:11, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Probably depends on how you count them, I doubt we will ever get anything definitive. For example, that table shows Japan with 0 troops: they did send equipment though. However it does not show Germany, which also did not send troops, but did send equipment. That same table shows the Phillipines, but I am not aware of their involvement. Perhaps we need an article Coalition Forces in the Gulf War detailing participation by country. This article is getting rather large as it is. Perhaps a statement of "as many as xx countries" with a reference to the sister article? I don't see that there should be an edit war over this. --Gadget850 13:48, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I think a separate article is a good idea, plus a note about the confusion over the correct figure. It's strange that there isnt a definite number given by a widely-accepted source though. I decided to edit the number back to 34 in the main article, as this is the number claimed by CNN, the media organization most associated with the 1991 Gulf War (and given that a large part of reputation was based on its reporting of that conflict). But I'd be happier if there was an official, preferably UN-based, accounting of the number. Bwithh 15:26, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

"The number of countries participaiting in the consortium depends upon the source referrenced . Variations may in part be due to the difficulty in determining what level of participation constitutes being a member of a coalition versus sending aid or trading with an ally. Estimates include: An Arab anti-Gulf War webpage-31 ; CNN -34 ;   an Arab media site-36 ; the Heritage Foundation-38 ;  US Institute of Medicine report on Gulf War Veterans' Health-39." We could certainly include all the others, but I thought this was a good sampling to inform the reader that various sources have used various figures.Johntex\talk 23:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Bwithh, thanks for tracking down these great references. I changed the lead-in to the article to say "approximately 30" and I placed this text as a note:

Take a look at Participants in World War II. --Gadget850 02:08, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

This article needs a photo for the air campaign section
Given that this war was overwhelmingly a story of US/Coalition air power, it seems strange that there are 2 pictures of land forces on this article, a picture of the campaign map for land force movements, and even a picture of a US navy ship, but there are no pictures of air forces. perhaps someone can find a suitable picture? Bwithh 17:09, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

now added three photos!! Bwithh 21:43, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Good work. - SimonP 22:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)