Talk:Timeline of Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations/Archive 3

Cleanup, starting on November 5, 2010
This article has been tagged for a cleanup since November 2006. My contributions to Wikipedia have been almost exclusively in helping clean up articles that have been tagged for such action. Towards this end I seek articles needing cleanup, by month, and this one is the last one remaining from November 2006. There are none older on the cleanup list.

Observations before starting cleanup
After a first read of the article a few points seem to jump out. I figured I would write these notes here prior to starting the edits. Some of these observations are:
 * 1) The neutrality and accuracy of the article have both been disputed, per the banner at the top of the article.
 * 2) The article is not easily readable.  For example, there is one continuous paragraph that is composed of 1,746 words.
 * 3) There are currently 267 references (citations) in this article.

What this cleanup WILL NOT address

 * 1) POV/NPOV issues will not be addressed because these have either been addressed at length by the various editors involved in this article, or are still contentious.  I am not, nor wish to be, party to those discussions.
 * 2) The verifiability of statements that have in-line citations will not be double-checked.

What this cleanup WILL address

 * 1) The style, language, grammar, etc., of this article will be thoroughly edited per the Wikipedia Manual of Style, and to the best of my ability.
 * 2) Statements that appear to be original research and are unsourced will be deleted, per the linked policies.
 * 3) Text that has "citation needed" tags will be deleted, per the Wikipedia policy on dealing with unsourced material.
 * 4) Weasel words and similar language, if any, will be edited, per the Wikipedia policy on words to watch.
 * 5) Superfluous text will be edited, per the Wikipedia policy on clarity of writing.

Requests to other editors

 * Suggestions for cleanup: If you have suggestions as to how this article can be improved I would very much appreciate them.  I do request you, however, to place these suggestions here, on this talk page, so that they are readily accessible for any interested parties.
 * Adding content during the cleanup: I am not going to be able to clean up this article in one sitting, and it will likely take months many days, or even weeks .  If you wish to add new content, I request you to kindly wait till the cleanup is over and the tag is removed.  You could userfy that material temporarily.
 * Reverting edits: It would be very helpful if other editors do not revert edits while the cleanup is in progress. The reason is because going back-and-forth with edits and reversions will be counter-productive, and will simply make this task even more arduous.

Caveat: Of course, it is your privilege to edit the article whenever you choose to do so, but your cooperation would be very helpful.

Note about cleanup notes
Editor Wikispan has suggested on my talk page that I go slow with any edits so that other editors have time to review them. I am currently unable to anticipate the pace of this cleanup, but I do like this suggestion.

So, here is what I will do. Since each section in this article is composed of events in a calendar year, I will edit each section (i.e., each year) one at a time. Every time I edit a section I will write notes about the edit and place them in this section on this talk page. I'm sure other interested editors will find this to be a reasonable guide to any changes that are made.

- Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 23:53, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Lead section
- Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 04:34, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Removed the phrase "all but one now discounted, denied or disproven by the United States Government" because it did not have a reference (citation) and this text was misplaced where it originally was.
 * Added a "citation needed" tag. The tagged sentence needs a reference, otherwise it is POV and will be deleted after a reasonable time period (perhaps, 2-3 weeks from now).
 * Rearranged quoted material by moving quotes from the Senate report to the top, and Evan Kohlmann's comments next. Reasoning is: the Senate report is reasonably more important than opinion from an analyst.
 * The two quotes from the Senate report now have explicit citations to p.105 of that report. PDF link to the report is also now provided as a reference.
 * I do not like the final paragraph, regarding the reaction to the report. There is just one news link provided here in support of the assertion, which is made out to be a widespread phenomena.  Edits are still needed here.

1988
- Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 05:16, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Copy-edited the sentence for language, style, general wording, and accuracy.
 * Fixed the reference style.

1990

 * Trying out a new (typeset) style - each month/date becomes a sub-section under that particular year, which is a main section.
 * Used citation templates to ensure uniformity, and completeness, of references at end of article.
 * Split up the events of 2 August into two points, as a bulleted list.
 * Copy-edited some of the text.

The style edits are just a trial. If they look good, I will retain them throughout. If they do not look good as the edits progress, I will have to change them. Suggestions would be most welcome. - Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 09:37, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

1992
- Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 04:37, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Edited style of text.
 * Edited citation style - used appropriate template.
 * Note: Is the quote in this section taken verbatim from the book by Wright? There are spelling and grammatical errors in the quote, as it appears in this section, but I don't have the original source to verify.

1993
-Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 01:29, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Broke the large contiguous paragraph into a few smaller ones to help readability. Ensured that flow/continuity is not lost.
 * Introduced blockquotes for the longer quotations used in the section.
 * Made a few copy edits.
 * I am not completely happy with the look of this section, i.e., with the four bullet points. Perhaps there is a better style of presentation, with the text in the form of multiple paragraphs, but without bullets.  I'll revisit this (minor) issue at a later date once more cleanup has taken place.

1994
- Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 01:37, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Introduced blockquote.
 * Added a wikilink, and made one copy edit.

1995
- Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 05:13, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Introduced sub-sections, and bulleted lists within each sub-section.
 * Long quotations are in blockquotes.
 * Fixed styles of citations
 * Re-wrote the sub-section September, Sudan, to ensure neutrality of content per the existing references. (In confirmation - I did read and reflect on the linked sources.)
 * Have not yet touched the sub-section Salman Pak, Iraq. Hopefully will edit this soon.

1995 (the Salman Pak section)
- Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 07:30, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Lots of style edits - blockquotes, a bulleted list, etc.
 * Fixed styles of all references
 * Reorganized some of the content - grouped the various back-and-forth points by the stance they are taking, and saved the quote from DIA report for the end, i.e., as the "final word" on the matter
 * Wikified some text
 * Deleted some extraneous text that was unverifiable
 * Added two citation needed tags for some other text

1997
- Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 05:50, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
 * A bunch of copy and style edits.
 * Added more in-line citations (to the same Washington Times article).
 * Introduced a block quote and some wikilinks.

1998
- Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 01:22, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Lots of style edits, lots of blockquotes.
 * Fixed the styles of many references, and tagged one as dead.
 * Introduced many wikilinks.

2000
(Cleaned up 2000 before 1999) - Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 01:24, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Fixed styles of references, and provided citation for the statement that was previously tagged with "citation needed."
 * Created a bulleted list.
 * Removed the name of Salem an-Hazmi because it was unverifiable after a good-faith attempt. (It wasn't on or near p.159 of the 9/11 Commission report or in GlobalSecurity.org reference.))

1999
- Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 04:59, 30 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Fixed the styles of almost all of the references.
 * Deleted some text that was irrelevant to the discussion.
 * Lots of style edits, including the now-ubiquitous blockquotes.

2001
This section was slowly cleaned over several months after being userfied. -Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 04:15, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed many references (styles and actual citations too) but not all.
 * Inserted many "citation needed" tags.
 * Deleted some text that was not referenced, and finding references was impossible.
 * Created lots of bulleted lists, some of which are clearly excessive. The basic idea, however, is to improve the readability of 4,000 word continuous paragraphs - so this is just a start, style edits can be made next.

Suspension of cleanup (since restarted - slowly)
I am suspending my (very slow) cleanup until the prod initiated by editor Markdask is resolved. - Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 01:14, 12 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Cleanup is restarted since the prod has been removed by an admin. - Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 01:29, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Help needed
Due to commitments outside of Wikipedia, my attempts at cleaning up this article have ground to a halt. I hope I will be able to resume it in the near future.

In the meanwhile, however, it would be great if any other editors would like to pick up where I have left off. -Idunno271828 (Talk &#124; contribs) 02:26, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

Splitting the Article
Because this article is clearly too long, I propose splitting it into two or three new articles. At the least, it should be split to before and after the death of Saddam. I also think it is reasonable to split out allegations from before the "war on terror" began after the September 11th attacks. However, I am having trouble thinking of short, reasonable names for these articles. Andrew Keenan Richardson 19:49, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree; it might be best to have one page with links to each of the 2 or 3 new pages on it so that there is one timeline with multiple links? csloat (talk) 20:32, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Bin laden tape
This may or may not be true, of course, but globalresearch.ca is not a reliable source. What do other sources say? bobrayner (talk) 18:12, 11 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Looking at the RS Noticeboard, GlobalResearch is not a reliable source for contentious material or BLPs, but it's alright (with careful attribution) for non controversial topics. The translation was done by The Associated Press in any case. Other publications printed Osama bin Laden's remarks in full, including The New York Times. — TPX 20:17, 11 January 2015 (UTC)