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I remember a time when I seen Kofi Annan on television saying words almost exactly: "It is the view of this council, and that of the UN Charter that the invasion was illegal" This was in the context where he was speaking as the spokesman for the security council to the press.

I can find references to follow up interviews where he refers to the words he used in the statement but I cant find the statement he made (as SG) anywhere now. The last time I looked it up, it was easy to find and pro-war people at the time were arguing more that the UN are a big bunch of shits anyway, rather than claiming against the blatantly obvious that council declared the war to be illegal. Now that all references (at least on the internet) have seemingly disappeared, are we now looking at a winston smith type scenario (of 1984 fame) with regard to this. Mistakes have been made in that there still exists references to the fact that a statement was made, but the actual statement has been shipped to room 101 (as it were). I clearly recall this statement because I argued fervently over it, where people who could not deny that the statement was made tried the blind alley of making it look like kofi annan's "opinion", rather than the view of the security council as conveyed to the general public via kofi annan in his capacity as secretary general.

Can anyone find a reference to this statement. Not informal statements that refer to this formal statement, but the actual statement itself.

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—Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.41.91.45 ( talk) 16:13, 9 April 2010 (UTC) reply

This text was originally located at Support and opposition for the U.S. plan to invade Iraq. A complete history for the text may be found there. - Montréalais 05:05 Feb 16, 2003 (UTC)

War on Iraq? Why not War with Iraq? on is not NPOV. -- Zoe

Excuse me? It's quite obvious that Iraq will not declare war against the US anytime soon, isn't it? -- Eloquence 05:08 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

So what? It takes two sides to fight. Again I say, this is not NPOV. -- Zoe

"It takes two sides to fight." is not a valid argument in this case. The only countries at the moment to make war-like actions are the USA and GB. Even if Iraq is in breach of every UN resolution, that does not mean that they have declared war, or that they are indeed engaging in warfare. -- snoyes 05:11 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

Really? How many American and British planes have been fired on in the last ten years? How many Americans or British planes have fired first in that time period? -- Zoe

Sorry I can't give you any precise statistics on that. I do however know that SAM sites have been destroyed without provocation - in line with Shrubs preventative warfare doctrine that legitimizes war against someone/something if in some unspecified time in the future it may pose a threat to the interests of the USA. I would say that amassing a large army on the border of someone's country (akin to the cuban missile crisis) is a war-like act. And last time I checked the country surrounded was Iraq and not the USA or GB. -- snoyes 05:26 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

I really want to change this to something like ... "proposed Iraqi war" or something like that. -- Zoe

How about "war against Iraq"? - Hephaestos

Both War on Iraq and War with Iraq are POV.

• on means a one sided war waged against Iraq, which not everyone would agree with, they arguing that Iraq is the one triggering off a war by non-compliance with UN resolutions.

• with implies both sides fighting each other, with two sides 'deciding' to fight each other, which is equally POV, because you are then implying that Iraq wants to fight the US, and that Iraq is choosing to go to war, which is highly debatable.

One balance, I'd prefer 'on' to 'with', for it is one side that is doing all the war talk and moving its military into position, not two. JTD 05:21 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC) (paraphrased)

I can live with against - Zoe

If you want to push this, i'll concede to against. -- snoyes 05:28 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

Both against and on sound fine to me, and largely equivalent. -- Eloquence 05:34 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

It still doesn't feel right, but then both words bring with them perceptions of a POV agenda. A better wording might be [The UN Security Council and Proposed Iraq War]. It doesn't contain any word that in any way indicates a belief as to whether it is a 'war on Iraq' (which is the terminology used by those opposing war, who argue that one side (the US) is proposing a war not being sought by Iraq) or the 'war with Iraq' (which is the wording often used by 'pro-war' sides, implying a two sided conflict, with Iraq starting it through its failure to fulfil the UN requirements, and the US as the responder to, not causer of the conflict. As things stand, our title does implicitly take sides on whether it is a one sided or two sided conflict. Any observations? JTD 00:19 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

Well, "proposed Iraq war" works for me too; I was just suggesting something off-the-cuff that I thought would be acceptable to both the pro- and anti- factions. The main thing is to keep the wording as unbiased as possible. (At the risk of labeling myself, btw, I consider myself "anti-", and didn't see "war with" as being all that "pro-". In retrospect, I can see it being problematic as suggesting it's a "done deal.") But whatever works. If both sides agree, there's a good chance it's NPOV. (I might also add, most of the talking heads on FOX and whatnot, whom I consider to be "pro-", use the term "war on Iraq" almost exclusively.) - Hephaestos 00:51 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

Looks like you guys figured it out just fine, JTD! - 'Vert p.s. English is clumsy. (clumbsy?) Although.. "proposed" makes more sense, the date being Late Feb 2003 and not June... Also, why not Condense to or War against Iraq. The idea of the UN security council as a separate issue - apart from the Proposed war to disarm Hussein, Threats of war against Iraq US hostile actions against Iraq, US dominance of the Middle East chapter 11, Middle East tensions, Chapter 16, US Iraqui relations, ;;Arggh!!!

One problem is that 'war on Iraq' has two meanings. It could mean

• war on (the issue of) Iraq - a neutral meaning
• war (waged) on Iraq - which implies war waged, with the wager, the US, being the agressor.

It is a linguistic nightmare trying to use a title that will not be read in a way that is seen as offering a Wikipedia judgment on the validity or otherwise of the war. proposed Iraq war is totally neutral and interpretation-proof. It is 'proposed' but doesn't say by whom. It would be a war if it goes ahead, and if so the country at issue would be Iraq. I suppose if the war does happen, we are going to face a lot of problems over terminology to be used that is NPOV, because what seems NPOV to one person with one view of the conflict might not seem NPOV to an opposing view. As Stevertigo so correctly put it, 'Arggh!' JTD 01:24 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

I like proposed Iraq war better than war against Iraq. "Against" still has POV elements that implies an agressor. -- mav 05:57 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

Exactly - I think all the articles on what's to come belong on a " wikiprotopedia" along with all of the future presidents, kings, scienfic theories and knowledge that we yet do not have - including futre wikipedia software interface technology....

How about a top to bottom re-write of all of these articles? -:) === 'Vert===

In Favour of using 'Proposed Iraq War'

• JTD
• Zoe
• Tuf Kat
• Mav
• Hephaestos
• 'Vert (I think I'm interpreting your view correct, Sv. If I am wrong, just remove your name, JTD)

Want to keep 'War on Iraq'

Want 'World War III-The Invasion of Iraq'

• Susan Mason

no seriously

The Iraq Conflict

• Susan Mason

---

Not to make everybody upset, but a truly NPOV title would take the Iraqi POV into account, and they sometimes state that the war has already begun. Susan Mason

Except for the fact that this is a bogus claim. It is a historical fact that this proposed war has not begun. In fact, when it does begin, if it does, it will be covered by every news network in the world. NPOV titles don't include paranoid imagination used to justify anti-American propaganda. RK

Go stand in south-eastern or northern Iraq (along the Turkish border) and it will become overwhlemingly clear that an air campaign is ongoing. Also, the Pentagon has announced that US Special Forces have been operating inside Iraq for about a month. Sounds like a war to me. Oh, and when the US invades Iraq without a formal declaration of war, will u continue to call it the Iraq-War or will u instead call it the "Iraq Police Action" or the "Iraq Skirmish"? Susan Mason

As no-one opposed the proposed change (I sent messages around to everyone to had taken part in the debate, and left a number of messages on the summary asking for opinions) and everyone who did reply supported the change (except Susan, who wanted 'World War III: The Invasion of Iraq') I have made the change that had almost unanimous agreement. I'm going to start correcting the links now. JTD 00:28 Feb 25, 2003 (UTC) (paraphrased)

how about Iraq Conflict - certainly this qualifies as an ongoing conflict Susan Mason

Conflict is too ambiguous - it could mean anything. 'proposed Iraq' is the nearest thing to a NPOV title we all could come up with. And yes I know Iraq claims a war is already going on, but that is a POV. War for something like Wiki has to mean a formally declared, legally declared war, and no formal war has been declared, which is why the UN is debating this issue, to see if they can agree on a formal declaration through the UN system. Anyway Susan, this debate has been going on for days and days and days now. There have been messages flying around, notes on this page, a couple of summary notes left on the recent changes page, etc. It is a bit late now to want to go back to basics and start renaming everything again. We have been through at least three renamings, with rows over whether to talk about the 'war on Iraq' or the 'war with Iraq'. All sides rallied around 'proposed Iraq war' as the most neutral term, because it is proposed, would be a war and is about Iraq, and avoids the problems using a preposition causes over who is waging war on whom, whether it is a one-sided or two-sided war, with implicit POV meanings attached. JTD 03:52 Feb 25, 2003 (UTC).

---

Especially the analysis part of this article seems to me horrible POV (France, Germany and Russia are against the war because they like Iraq so much ...), and the analysis as well as some of the country statements are outdated, too. (E.g., Mexico didn't hint it will support the US; there was no UN security council majority in sight, even with the threat of freezing US developmental aid to some of the African and Latin American members etc. etc.). till we *) 16:25 Mar 24, 2003 (UTC)

I think the article was nicer to read with the sections for each country. That way the reader could click on the country he was interested in at the top and go there directly. Just because some countries had only one sentence should not mean that this should all be one big section. Get-back-world-respect 14:40, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

A couple of references.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/09/29/MN116803.DTL

"The French oil giant TotalFinaElf has the largest position in Iraq, with exclusive negotiating rights to develop Majnoon, a field near the Iranian border with estimated reserves of 10 billion barrels. Moscow has a $3.5 billion, 23-year agreement for several huge Iraqi fields that gives a lead position to a Russian oil consortium led by LukOil.

http://www.informationwar.org/articlesofinterest/iraq/oil_french_companies_april2003.htm "Certainly, until the war started, one of the firms that seemed most likely to get its hands on Iraqi oil was France's biggest company, TotalFinaElf."

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2002/08jim.htm

"During the 1990s, Russia’s Lukoil, China National Petroleum Corporation and France’s TotalFinaElf held contract talks with the government of Iraq over plans to develop Iraqi fields as soon as sanctions are lifted. Lukoil reached an agreement in 1997 to develop Iraq’s West Qurna field, while China National signed an agreement for the North Rumailah field in the same year (China’s oil import needs from the Persian Gulf will grow from 0.5 million barrels per day in 1997 to 5.5 million barrels per day in 2020, making China one of the region’s most important customers).(9) France’s Total at the same time held talks for future development of the fabulous Majnun field."

I once read that a new contract between France's elf Aquitaine and Iraq (in Euros, not USD) was due to come into effect on 1st April 2003, but cannot remember where. To me this explained the 'invasion' in March 2003. 144.136.192.32 ( talk) 03:51, 8 December 2012 (UTC) reply

This is my first time making an edit here on any wikipedia.org page. Excuse me if I do not do something up to par with the wikipedia standards. Under the section: Position of UN Security Council members, the opinions of all the countries are given. However, for the countries such as Russia, France the USA, there is additional information added which is not needed. Why is it included that Russia had a 4.7 billion dollar oil contract with Iraq? Or why is it included that a French bank was running the oil for food programme? If these facts are so important, than perhaps the fact that 46.2% of Iraqi exports came to the USA in 2000, according to the 2002 CIA World Factbook, the factbook in publication the year we invaded Iraq. I honestly feel this information should either a) be left out all together, or b) be placed in a seperate section of the page titled something to the effect of "Possible Influences on Security Council Member Decisions."

The 2002 CIA World Factbook is availble for download here: https://www.cia.gov/cia/download.html A simple google search for "world factbook 2002" will also return many results.

Please feel free to change my post to better reflect the standards of wikipedia.org, but please keep the general meaning behind my message intact. If I need to be contacted for any reason, my email address is anthron@gmail.com

Completely right, this is a page about the countries' positions on the war and not about what people speculate about what influenced those positions. Quite ridiculous to reason that it was French and Russian oil contracts that made the Council oppose the war when billions of people all over the world opposed it. Get-back-world-respect 12:41, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The analysis section uses loaded language which shows bias. This should be corrected. RickW7x2 ( talk) 20:04, 6 May 2013 (UTC) reply

It didn't seem immediately obvious to me which year this statement referred to:

"British public opinion polls in late January showed that the public support for the war was deteriorating. It had fallen from 50% to 30% by March."

At first, I thought this was current info, but then saw a previous statement said the events happened from 2002-2003. A date should include a year.

The bias is not necessarily from the countries trade and agreements with Iraq but more the UN itself. In the so-called 'Food-for-Oil' UN program the United Nations could not confirm the location of S12 up to $20 Billion dollars of funding provided by Iraq directly to the United Nations. An estimated 2-3,000 UN workers were being paid through this fund and if your individual job security it not an influence to your political opinion--then nothing is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.31.213.2 ( talk) 15:34, 21 August 2008 (UTC) reply

Powell's UN presentation to convince the Security Council was on 6th February 2003. Today's business news report that Singapore Air and Cathay Pacific were fined for fixing the price of freighting meat to 35,000 soldiers in Iraq. Contract date is given as 'January 2003' in both the Melbourne 'Age' newspaper as in online search results. This contract proves that the Iraq invasion was definite before Powell's UN presentation. Whether he was deceived by the advisors or deceived at his own volition only he knows. 144.136.192.32 ( talk) 04:01, 8 December 2012 (UTC) reply

So it is ignored when Iraq buys off 3 members of the veto-wielding security council members but trumpeted when the US buys off non-veto wielding members. What a fraud. 65.185.190.240 20:30, 16 February 2007 (UTC) reply

Where's the proof? And France opposed the war not from being bought by Iraq but by the opinion of their political leaders. Get your facts straight! 128.250.6.243 ( talk) 01:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC) reply

This entire article lacks one citation. Any edits without citations are subject to deletion as OR. Most or all of this article will be deleted if not supported. So, offer some. Raggz 06:24, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

You do not appear to understand the relationship between WP:OR and WP:CITE. Because text does not have a citation does not necessarily mean it is WP:OR, and does not mean that it is necessarily appropriate to wholesale remove it. It would be more appropriate to place the {{Unreferenced}} template at the top. Cheers, JCO312 21:32, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Well, a year later still no cites. It does violate wp:or so I need to delete it all. Feel free to work on it, get it into shape, but do not revert without reliable sources. Raggz ( talk) 06:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC) reply

(cross-posting to Raggz's talkpage) There are thousands of articles on Wikipedia without any citations. This does not mean that it is acceptable to just go and blank them, as that is a violation of WP:POINT, especially on an article which has been on Wikipedia for several years. Instead, options are to add {{ unref}} or {{ fact}} tags; delete any implausible information; propose a merge; expand the article yourself; and so forth. If you truly believe that the entire article should be deleted, add a {{ prod}} tag to it to propose a deletion. If no one objects in 5 days, the article will be deleted, with no muss and no fuss. If there is disagreement on whether or not to delete an article, you can file an article for deletion request. If there is consensus for the deletion, the article can be deleted that way as well. But do not simply blank existing articles. Thanks, -- El on ka 17:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC) reply

The first paragraph has a quote, "diplomacy has failed", but I cannot find a source for that online. It was said by Dubya's father in 1991 - http://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal91-846-25204-1109041 - and it appears in many newspaper headlines in 2002, but I cannot find it as a quote attributable to George W. Bush or Tony Blair with regard to the Invasion of Iraq in 2003. (Which is annoying, since I have wasted half an hour trying to find it so I could reference it in an essay.) SandJ-on-WP ( talk) 07:58, 2 January 2019 (UTC) reply

The first of the external links »UN & Iraq War« is broken.-- 193.170.135.160 ( talk) 12:24, 3 May 2010 (UTC) reply

There is no source for " When this camp was visited by a British journalist two days later, all that was found was a few dilapidated buildings and no evidence or signs of any terrorist activity, chemical or explosives. " If someone wanted to take that seriously there needs to at least be a source to go verify this information. I couldn't even find a trace of evidence to say that there was any proof of this on the internet. Please link or get rid of this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.134.56.251 ( talk) 18:38, 17 April 2011 (UTC) reply

Under the analysis section: "The story was carried by the European and Australian press, and served as a further embarrassment to the Bush administration's efforts to rally support for their illegal war." This sentence looks fine to me, until the second to last word. Personal ideas aside, this is a highly biased sentence. Can we fix it? 108.90.80.171 ( talk) 02:10, 2 September 2014 (UTC) reply

This article has a section in which it summarizes the 'positions' of each of the members of the UN SC at the time of the US proposed military action in Iraq. This list indicates the stance of 'Germany" although Germany was NOT**** a member of the UN SC in 2003. (ERROR ! NEED TO FULL RETRACT ! trying to 'delete' this ENTIRE comment but don't know how ! VERY SORRY !). The missing member state is 'Singapore" (Singapore was UN SC non-permanent member 2001 & 2002 ! MY BAD !!) Jthicks1152 ( talk) 23:11, 29 October 2017 (UTC)jthicks1152 reply

This article is missing any real data about the important resolution 1441 except mentioning it in links. It sounds like it tries to avoid the only hard fact relevant to the point. Thats like talking about cars without mentioning they drive with four wheel on roads. Crass Spektakel ( talk) 07:40, 15 March 2018 (UTC) reply

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html Victor Grigas ( talk) 16:22, 20 October 2021 (UTC) reply