Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rumours of the death of Saddam Hussein (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Zero references = goodbye. Max Semenik (talk) 09:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Rumours of the death of Saddam Hussein
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This article is about rumors of Hussein's death even though it is well-known how he died. It is thus an indiscriminate collection of unfounded rumors and no longer has sufficient significance to be included on Wikipedia. The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 21:48, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep or Merge to an article about Hussain. US government spokesmen said that they thought they had killed Hussein with bunker buster bombs dropped on his palaces, then later by bombing and destroying a restaurant full of people they thought to be his inner circle. Perhaps the article should be recast as attempts by the US to kill Hussein by bombing. Such attacks and news conferences about the occasions times the US thought they had killed him is far from indiscriminate information. References for US government officials thinking they killed Hussein by killing the people in the restaurant in Mansour:"the betting in the Pentagon's executive offices is that the Iraqi dictator lies dead under a pile of rubble in Baghdad, according to defense and intelligence officials." USA Today, 2003 Ref for numerous civilians killed by the Mansour assassination attempt: "a young woman's severed head and a small boy's body were pulled Tuesday from a smoking crater.." "For the second time in the war, coalition forces were wondering whether they'd gotten their man." "..US-led forces first attempted to kill Saddam with an opening salvo airstrike in the beginning of the war.." AP, 2003. There was general coverage of rumors of the death of Saddam in 2003: "Growing belief that Saddam is dead," Sidney Morning Herald, April 2003. Cites intercepted Iraqi communications, Guardian, July 2003: mentions previous claims Saddam was killed, when his sons were reported killed.Edison (talk) 22:00, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I think some of the information could easily be included elsewhere, but I can think of no circumstances where this would be a valid redirect so a merge would be inappropriate, in my opinion.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 22:27, 8 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep It's a topic of intrinsic worth and interest. If, however, someone does a good enough merge, I would be happy to see a redirect. But for now, why not use summary style and have a link from Death of Saddam Hussein? --Uncle Ed (talk) 22:46, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment I believe a similar rationale for removal can be used as the one used in this discussion. WP:NOTNEWS applies in addition to WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Anything about failed attempts to kill Hussein can be covered within reason under the article about Saddam Hussein, but a redirect would not be a logical move as there is no obvious redirect. Who is going to search for rumors about his death, when it's already known how he died?--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 23:34, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, I don't know; maybe the same people who would look the premature obituary of Mark Twain? See List of premature obituaries, in which I have now linked the present article. --Uncle Ed (talk) 23:53, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Your argument does not work because I am pretty sure no one issued an obituary for Saddam. These "rumors" are really just speculation about him being killed in some attack that we know actually failed. If we had an article about the various times every dictator/terrorist/combatant was reported to possibly be dead there would be lots of WP:NOT clutter all over Wikipedia.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 00:12, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 23:52, 8 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete or redirect: wholly unsourced (as of time of this !vote) article giving WP:UNDUE weight to since-refuted WP:SPECULATION. No indication whatsoever that such WP:TABLOID journalism is notable. Do not merge, as there is no WP:Verifiable material (let alone material that does not fail WP:NOT) to be merged (though itt may be appropriate for a short piece of new material to be added to Saddam Hussein on the basis of sources listed here). HrafnTalkStalk(P) 05:07, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment The preceding claim is incorrect, since sources were identified above. AFD participants are expected to read what has been written previously in the AFD before claiming there are no references. Refs just have to exist in order to satisfy WP:N and WP:V; they do not have to be included yet in the article. Wikipedia is not on deadline; it is a work in progress, and any refs found during the AFD can be added later.As for "since-refuted speculation," the article never claims that Hussein was actually killed by the US assassination attempts in 2003, only that US officials and US media floated statements about how he had probably been killed by specifically directed US bombing attacks, just as they floated rumors that another enemy, Bin Laden, had been killed when they used a cruise missile in Afghanistan to assassinate some random and innocent tall man, Daraz Khan, who was collecting scrap metal in February 2002. This article might be re-aimed as "US Attempts to assassinate Saddam Hussein" to preserve the notable information about policies, attacks, and the bystanders who were killed, along with the rumor-mongering intended to increase public support for the administration's policies. Edison (talk) 14:45, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * It was a war. Of course there were attempts to kill Saddam. WP:NOT means we should not create a new article on random attempts at it, unless they are of lasting significance. A few unsuccessful bombing raids are not of lasting significance for a separate article. Some much shorter mentions of those attempts already exist in numerous articles. The most that would be reasonable is to expand on the mention of those attempts in other articles.--The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 17:17, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * My main arguments are below. But the Thirty Years War was a war. Of course there were battles. But this does not mean that we apply WP:NOT to delete articles on those battles. And, both in modern wars and in the Thirty Years War, what people believed about what was happening in the war can be as relevant to the progress of the war as individual battles. PWilkinson (talk) 20:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. The article as it stands certainly does not meet current Wikipedia standards, but is a good example of a fully acceptable Wikipedia article of eight or nine years ago, when most of it was originally written. In themselves, these are not valid reasons either for deleting or keeping the article. What matters is if the article can be edited to meet current standards - it can. Ironically, one useful resource is actually buried in the article history - until late 2006, the article contained a sizeable "External Links" section (see, for example, this version of the article, from 2004), all or almost all of which still look like reliable sources today. The article can certainly be improved - citing what can be cited from reliable sources (identified so far or still to be found), adding relevant new material from these, deleting material that can't be reliably sourced after a bit more searching, attempting to add depth to the article by searching for later critiques of the rumours and associated news management (probably but not necessarily from academic sources), possibly even (after further discussion on the article's talk page) restructuring or renaming it. But, as such improvements can be carried out, these are reasons for editing the article, not deleting it. PWilkinson (talk) 20:42, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete - nine years on, this article looks basically like trivia. Yes, it's true that there were rumours that Saddam had died before he was captured; yes, those rumours received press coverage and sources can still be found. But does that make this a notable subject for an article? I'm not convinced it does. In general, 'rumours of X' is a poor basis for an article: see e.g. Articles for deletion/Rumors about the September 11 attacks (2nd nomination). There are exceptions: we have a couple of similar articles to this one about Osama bin Laden, Location of Osama bin Laden and Osama bin Laden death conspiracy theories. But comparing this article with those two makes it obvious how little there is to say about Saddam by comparison. Given that he was only 'missing' for a period of nine months between the start of the war and his capture, rumours about his status in the meantime just don't seem to me to have any great historical importance. A summary of this article might be appropriate in the background section of Operation Red Dawn, but it doesn't need its own article. Robofish (talk) 13:39, 15 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete - Completely unsourced amalgam of ephemeral rumors. No lasting historical import. Carrite (talk) 16:32, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Iraq-related deletion discussions.  —The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 17:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. The Devil&#39;s Advocate (talk) 17:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.