Talk:Straw and Bush respond to Iran situation

Source?

is there a source for this statement in the article:

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intelligence agencies around the world and the International Atomic Energy Agency universally agree that Iran's true goal is to develop nuclear weapons.

Doldrums 11:27, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I also heard, maybe I am wrong, that the Government admitted to some kid of report in regards to this situation? Jason Safoutin 11:31, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I was wrong :) Jason Safoutin 11:33, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Doldrums, the source for the quote, is in the frist source, the New Yorker here. Although I do believe that Iran is developing them thats my POV. IMO, that statement you question, is a POV and IMO violates the WN:NPOV policy sourced or not. But thats just my opinion :) Jason Safoutin 11:38, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

POVs in articles are fine. The NPOV simply demands that the alternative POV (assuming there is one) is also presented. Dan100 (Talk) 14:09, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

the Introductory Statement to the Board of Governors by IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei on 6 March 2006, falls considerably short of the above claim. am editing accordingly.

Implementation of Safeguards in the Islamic Republic of Iran

The report on the implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran is before you. As you are aware, the Agency over the last three years has been conducting intensive investigations of Iran´s nuclear programme with a view to providing assurances about the peaceful nature of that programme.

During these investigations, the Agency has not seen indications of diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Regrettably, however, after three years of intensive verification, there remain uncertainties with regard to both the scope and the nature of Iran´s nuclear programme. As I mentioned in my report, this is a matter of concern that continues to give rise to questions about the past and current direction of Iran´s nuclear programme.

For confidence to be built in the peaceful nature of Iran´s programme, Iran should do its utmost to provide maximum transparency and build confidence. Only through clarification of all questions relevant to Iran´s past programme and through confidence building measures can confidence about Iran´s current nuclear activities be restored. This is clearly in the interest both of Iran and of the international community.

Doldrums 11:48, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

This bit is also pretty important: During these investigations, the Agency has not seen indications of diversion of nuclear material to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. so i added it. After 1000 person-days of IAEA inspections in two years in Iran, that's a lot better checked than many other countries - the total number of IAEA inspections is only about 10,000 per year for all countries inspected. So Brazil and South Africa and South Korea and Japan and Canada and so on also can probably not be 100% guaranteed by the IAEA not to have bomb-building programs. Boud 12:45, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

dismiss versus deny

IMHO the title of this is OK, but from the words cited for bush, he doesn't outright deny the claims that a nuclear attack is being planned - he calls it wild speculation, but that only means something like "you don't have evidence and i don't want to say it's either true or false, but i would prefer that you believe it's false". So "dismiss" is probably reasonable, but "deny" is too strong. He's lied enough as it is, he's still a good enough politician to avoid saying too many outright lies unless he's really cornered. So i corrected this, replacing the word "deny". but i'm not sure if "without actually denying it" needs to be there or not... i also added a bit of wikipedia background. Boud

Agreed - "the idea of a nuclear strike on Iran is completely nuts." Completely nuts, yes, but that's not the same thing as completely false, is it? We've seen them do a lot of completely nuts things after all. 136.159.71.113 20:11, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the point is that every possibility that can be planned, will be. That means that the US, UK, Israel, Russia, and a host of other capable counties will have plans for a nuclear strike on Iran. They will also, of course, have hundreds of other options to look at before that particular sanction. The point is, with suspicion around Iran building its own nuclear capability, these strike plans will be revised. It won't necessarily change their position in the list of options, but the paperwork will pass over enough desks that someone can photocopy and leak it. The resultant sensational story will sell eyeballs to advertisers, funny thing is I don't see any adverts on our main page. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 20:21, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

no dismiss or deny; only bable; will fix title. Yrtsihpos 02:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Saying what?

What does Straw mean when he says "They say that it is not on the agenda, but it isn't on the agenda."? Karen 15:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, whoever removed the "but it isn't on the agenda" part of the quote. I'm not sure if it's a mis-quote or he mis-spoke, but it reads better without that bit of confusion in there. Karen 04:51, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

You might be right but is it right to change in qoutations without backup of other/better sources than refered in the sourcelist? international 09:14, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

In this case, the way to do it would be to partially quote Straw and indicate the omission with an ellipsis: "They say that it is not on the agenda…." If the source had a source which indicated the listed source was misquoted, then we could list the more original source, too. He might have actually said it that way - it just caused me to pause while reading it and wonder what he really meant. Yes, it would be wrong to change the quote. If we knew his intentions, we could do this: "They say that it is not on the agenda… [and] it isn't on the agenda.". Quotes, especally, need to be sourced to attribute who heard who say what. This one's not such a big deal. I just thought someone might have read it differently from another source or could explain if it's some kind of colloquialism… Karen 18:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Article (in general)

• Title

• It would be fine at "Straw dismisses Iran nuclear attack plan", as that is the general focus of the article. The appending "Bush won't say for sure" not only is confusing (as it is talking about different professions), but it could be considered a POV statement.

• Article

• There are some issues with this article, namely the following paragraph, which adds a lot of "unnecessary filler":

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A former US intelligence official claimed that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is referred to as "the new Adolf Hitler" within the White House. Some military officials believe that Bush wants a "regime change" in Iran. President Ahmadinejad has previously disputed the existence of the Holocaust and at a conference discussing Zionism, he described Ayatollah Khomeini's statement that Israel as an occupying force in Palestine should be "wiped off the map" as "a wise statement".

May not be neutral, with the inclusion of snippets in random, short, unattributed quotes.

The attribution of those quoted sections is to "A former US intelligence official" - the former official's own words. The language used in the story doesn't insist the official is right, but tells us that the words quoted are only claims by an unnamed former official. If that's all we know, that's as much as we can state. If we omit this information, we're not reporting claims made about the situation from a possible reliable source. I'll agree that it would be nice to have the name, but I'm aware as a reader that it's as much as I'm going to know from what sources Wikinews has. Karen 04:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Name doesn't bother me. The quotes, however, are snipped in a suspicious way that may have been taken out of context - a full quote would take care of that suspicion. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 16:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Unclear attributions to sources:

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US aircraft flying from carriers in the Arabian Sea have been flying practice nuclear weapon missions within range of Iranian radar, widely seen as an effort to intimidate Iran.

"widely seen", standard operating proceedure - It doesn't take a military analyst to understand this one. Still, it's attributable to The New Yorker, who attributes it to the former official. That seems clear. Karen 04:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Mmm. Then it should be. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 16:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

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In the last few years Iran has been constructing a series of underground facilities to support its work.

Again, attributable to The New Yorker, who attributes it to "a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee." Karen 04:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

"Bush won't say for sure" would be incorrect, as highlighted in this quote:

"Bush won't say for sure" is nowhere in the story. Maybe that one was edited already? Karen 04:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Was in the title, seemed to have been fixed now. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 16:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

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"The doctrine of prevention is to work together to prevent the Iranians from having a nuclear weapon," he said. "I know here in Washington prevention means force. It doesn't mean force necessarily. In this case it means diplomacy. What you are reading is just wild speculation which happens quite frequently here in the nation's capital."

These are a few items that need to be fixed before this article is tagged with publish again. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 19:21, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

It's published again. I don't know if I've addressed the issues (ie., they're just not objectionable) or someone's fixed them for you (in which case it doesn't matter if they were objectionable), but if there's still issues left with attribution or all those quoted bits could use more copy-work, please make some edits or say so here so that you'll be heard. Karen 04:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems like most of them have been addressed. I'm still looking for a full quote from the official, though. Something about the snippets seems a little fishy. --MrMiscellanious (talk) – 16:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll agree with that. Half quote, half narrative isn't as good as a direct quote preceeding a short interpretive summary. The New New Yorker attributes it to a former senior intelligence official who attributes it to Bush and Whitehouse staff. That's a lot of chances to get it wrong. Karen 03:58, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki to update

• [[fr:Les gouvernement américain et anglais rejettent tout plan d'attaque nucléaire sur l'Iran]] to be replaced by [[fr:Les gouvernements américain et britannique rejettent tout plan d'attaque nucléaire sur l'Iran]]

Thanks. Hégésippe | ±Θ± 22:55, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. --Chiacomo ^(talk) 22:58, 13 March 2007 (UTC)