Talk:Iraq War

Casualty Table
Per the above section, it sounds like it may be useful to migrate some of the infobox fields into the article body. The existing section solely examines Iraqi casualties. Therefore, I propose the addition of a subsection entitled Casualty Overview and, in it, three tables of the form: There would be one table each for Coalition, Iraqi, and civilian casualties. This would allow us to make a single, high-level figure for the "Casulaties" section of the infobox, provide more detail in a piped link, and also direct the reader toward the article on casualties if desired. We'll also need to revamp the citations currently used in infobox; currently it's a lot of tabulation of values with bare URLs, which I think we can do better on. Thoughts? EducatedRedneck (talk) 15:30, 23 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Looks to be a good place to start. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:52, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Alright, since I got that encouragement and no objections, here's a first stab at the Coalition Casualties Table:

Something I didn't know how to categorize was this category in the coalition forces part:

Some problems with this table: As mentioned above, the sources are a mess. I suggest we put in the casualties section each of those year-by-year figures, summing to a total, and put each year's reference there. Then the table can make do without a reference, as it's only summarizing the article body.

I also note that some of the "sources" are, aside from being bare URLS, just links to Google Docs. We'll have to look more closely and purge the ones which aren't reliable.

Thoughts? EducatedRedneck (talk) 00:30, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for this. Two thoughts: (1) I'd be hesitant about taking too much out of the infobox; we should probably end up with more than "a single, high-level figure for the "Casualties" section of the infobox" (depending on exactly what you mean by that). (2) This work ought to take account of Casualties of the Iraq War and vice versa. Furius (talk) 11:36, 26 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the feedback! In order, (1) That's valid. I was thinking the casualties in the infobox would have something like, "Coalition-allied: X killed, Y Wounded", "Iraqui-allied: M killed, N wounded", and "See " in a similar grouping to the current infobox. Is that still stripping out too much detail? (2) I agree emphatically. When I get more time, I might see about gathering some legitimate sources from that article to replace some of this mess. EducatedRedneck (talk) 14:59, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * It looks like (2) will probably be a two-way process, so I applaud you for the undertaking! On (1) I agree that killed and wounded is enough. I think it would be important to keep the Iraqi security forces and Awakening separate, but that coalition and contractors can probably be merged, and that we should probably retain "detainees" on the insurgents' side. "Documented deaths from violence" can probably be reduced to a single range. "Statistical estimates" is tricky; getting rid of them entirely seems wrong, but the range of different estimates is so huge (151,000-1,033,000) and that range represents some very different methodologies. Furius (talk) 18:43, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I took a look at the Casualties of the Iraq War article, and oh boy. It also has some majorly messed up citations. I think you're right that it's going to be a two-way street. Given the subject matter of that article, I'm thinking I should start refining that one first, have the more detailed discussions there, and once we have some presentable sections, copy (with attribution) them over to this article. @Furius, would you be willing to take a look from time to time? I'm still pretty new at this, so I'd appreciate an experienced editor's eyes on it to help me avoid mistakes.EducatedRedneck (talk) 14:10, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, these kinds of specific current event articles are often this. I'm absolutely happy to act as a sounding board as you improve the article (it's actually quite important that articles like this be reliable), but note that I'm in no way a subject expert, so it might also be worth dropping a line to the relevant wikiproject from time to time. Furius (talk) 16:17, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * (what you say about your planned approach is very sensible, imo) Furius (talk) 16:18, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

My question is this: If the United States wanted to show Saddam Hussein we were not playing games, isn't it sufficient that we went to war with him in the Gulf War "Operation Desert Shield August 1990-January 1991" and "Operation Desert Storm January 1991-April 1991"? There were also numerous airstrikes against Iraq from the time he threatened George Bush in January 1993 onward. The No-Fly Zone should have been enough to keep the Iraqi military in check, since Saddam was effectively unable to invade either Kuwait or Iran. The Coalition War against Iraq also never officially ended, since in the United States you are an Iraq War veteran if you served in the Gulf War, the No-Fly Zone conflict, or the Invasion of Iraq any time between August 1990 and the present. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.242.176.66 (talk) 16:59, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

What the hell is wrong with the infobox now?
Who thought it was a good idea to oversimplify the infobox and remove most of the insurgent groups that were involved in the fighting? Somebody needs to reverse these changes. 78.170.229.162 (talk) 16:48, 1 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Why? Slatersteven (talk) 16:49, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

Something wrong with CS1
Again, fixing a dash on an eISSN parameter in a citation causes an error message. Achmad Rachmani (talk) 11:46, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

"Second Persian Gulf War"
Greetings, @Swatjester. To avoid confusion, we should stick to the more widely recognized name, "Iraq War". In case you were unaware, the Iran–Iraq War was known as the First Gulf War, while the Gulf War of 1990–1991 was in fact also known as the Second Gulf War. If we were to follow this naming convention, the Iraq War should be called the "Third Gulf War", but that term isn't widely used. This inconsistency is the issue at hand. Omitting this WP:FRINGE name entirely might be the best solution to address this problem. Skitash (talk) 10:55, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I disagree, I think it is more widely known as the Iraq war. Slatersteven (talk) 11:00, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I strongly disagree with that. The WP:FRINGE claim here is in fact that the Iran-Iraq War is widely known as the First Gulf War, which is really isn't. That claim is completely unsourced in the Iran-Iraq War article, and sourced only to a single Iraqi journal article in the Gulf War article. It's not widely used otherwise, and I've never seen it used outside of Iraqi or Iranian sources. In contrast, the phrase "Second Gulf War" *is* widely used worldwide to refer to the Iraq War. So if the purpose is to avoid inconsistency, the actual change should be removing the fringe naming from the Iran-Iraq War article, not this one.   ⇒   SWAT Jester   Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 14:04, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
 * If there's not going to be any further discussion, I'll be re-introducing the "Second (Persian) Gulf War" alternative name here -- the Gulf War article already attributes the various alternative names adequately enough so I'll see if there's any language that can be cribbed from there to improve the presentation of naming history here. ⇒   SWAT Jester   Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 22:22, 13 July 2024 (UTC)