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NPOV

This artcle is written with an anti-US bias and needs to be deleted or changed in a big way to make it neutral. 86.171.33.78 (talk) 12:43, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear this opinion. Please believe my intention has been to be NPOV. Have patience, this is a young article. The pre-1917 involvements are less popular than the post 1917 interventions.

How do you think the article can be improved? I can suggest, as a beginning, that expanding and adding detail to the the WWI and WWII sections would make the article appear less "anti-US"?

My research interest is more in the "small wars" that most people tend not to know about, but I'd invite you to help by expanding the section on the "large wars" which, not coincidentally, are the wars Americans are most proud of.

Also remember that the "event summaries" are taken from the pre-existing articles-- if you find bias in the summary, that might just be because of earlier authors had bias. --HectorMoffet (talk) 13:21, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't see much of anything NPOV in this article. Nevertheless, one wonders why we need so many articles on U.S. actions to "preserve or remove foreign governments": From Covert United States foreign regime change actions to Open U.S. regime change actions to United States involvement in regime change to United States support of Authoritarian regimes to articles for CIA activities in every country on Earth--and now the template you made! Clearly, some of these pages must be deleted or merged.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 15:51, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Nice article. It can be expanded,fir starters you have left out the CIA/MI5 coup against the Iranian government in 1953.Zrdragon12 (talk) 21:04, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Good catch, TheTimes, on Open U.S. regime change actions, I hadn't seen that one. It's just a stub, unfortunately, and a good candidate to be merged into this article. Please know I'm not working on this subject because I have some anti-american "ax to grind"-- 1917 was LONG time ago in a very different world, and documenting that era has nothing at all to do with trying to make any point about the US of the 21st century. --HectorMoffet (talk) 23:45, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

86.171.33.78 or others, I'm still very eager to dialogue about what you perceive as anti-american bias and how we can fix that. Americans spread their form of government evangelically-- they fight wars to bring democracy to nations with autocratic rule. The US has a unique global role, with far more interventions than most nations, but it's not anti-american to point this out-- the US is proud of its foreign policy, especially during the past century. Listing the extend of the interventions doesn't mean to imply any "judgements" about them at all-- not in my mind at least. --HectorMoffet (talk) 02:35, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

This page looks to me as a POV fork of United States military deployments... My very best wishes (talk) 22:30, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

It's horrible that you guys deleted the old version. that's censorship. I think it should come back. Google search "Covert United States foreign Regime change actions" and you'll find the saved back up

I don't know who "you guys" are, and also by the way, you don't need to google the title to see the previous versions of this page, there is literally a history section for exactly that. - SantiLak (talk) 04:38, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Nation State?

The section on the Civil War suggests that the U.S. became a nation state after the war; there is room for discussion here, but "nation state" is a widely-misused term, and one that I do not think is appropriate here. The term is often used as a synonym for "state" or "country," but is something quite a bit more specific. In usual practice, a nation state claims to be the sole home of an ethnic or linguistic nationality (e.g. France, Hungary, Japan). According to Benedict Anderson, the U.S. could conceivably be a "civic nation," which is bound together by tradition and culture, but I think it's quite a stretch to suggest that the U.S. as a whole, even in 1865, was ever really a nation state. Immigrant groups that are culturally and linguistically unassimilated, indigenous populations, and widely-divergent civic views (especially between the North and South) make it difficult to call the U.S. a nation state in any true sense. Schnabeltiere (talk) 15:28, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Whether it is a "nation state" or not, the civil war really has no place in this article. - SantiLak (talk) 00:24, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Article needs overhaul

This article contains a lot of great information, but suffers from a number of problems. First, the article is missing a substantial number of regime change actions in the latter half of the 20th century. Second, the article lacks a meaningful lead. Third, the article could benefit from greater structure, listing each regime change action as a subheading with an item line in the contents. Fourth, the various article problem tags have been present for years without ever apparently being addressed.

I think that if problems 1-3 are addressed the problem tags can be removed. I'll work to achieve this. -Darouet (talk) 17:24, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Iran material

Hey TheTimesAreAChanging, I don't understand your removal, and am making a post here so you can explain more. I appreciate your watching these articles and helping keep quality high, but you arguments for removal of the Iran material didn't make sense to me:

• WP:UNDUE is a nonsensical argument for removal because regime change is the topic of this article. Of course efforts to destabilize Iran are WP:DUE, and well within the WP:SCOPE of US involvement in regime change broadly.

• The current status of groups previously supported by the US has no bearing on material presented here. What's important is their status in 2003.

Comments would be helpful - Darouet (talk) 22:32, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

The claims about MeK have always been transparently false to anyone with actual knowledge of the topic, and bear no resemblance to U.S. policy. See, for example, former CIA officer Clare M. Lopez:

"The last offensive operation the MeK conducted against the Tehran regime was in 2001, more than a decade ago. The group relinquished its weapons to invading American forces in 2003 after its several camps in Iraq were bombed, unprovoked and without a single shot fired in self-defense, by coalition planes in fulfillment of a U.S. government pledge to the Iranian regime to do so in return for a promise from Tehran of noninterference in Iraq. A sixteen-month investigation by U.S. diplomatic and intelligence agencies followed, in which every one of the approximately 3,400 MeK members was personally investigated, DNA-tested, and found innocent of any crime or terrorist activity. Each person then signed a statement renouncing the use of violence. In 2004, the U.S. government therefore pledged protection to these now unarmed civilians under the Fourth Geneva Convention."

The claims about Jundallah have only been more recently debunked, though they were never based on strong evidence. See Foreign Policy:

"Buried deep in the archives of America's intelligence services are a series of memos, written during the last years of President George W. Bush's administration, that describe how Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as American agents. According to two U.S. intelligence officials, the Israelis, flush with American dollars and toting U.S. passports, posed as CIA officers in recruiting Jundallah operatives—what is commonly referred to as a 'false flag' operation. The memos, as described by the sources, one of whom has read them and another who is intimately familiar with the case, investigated and debunked reports from 2007 and 2008 accusing the CIA, at the direction of the White House, of covertly supporting Jundallah—a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization. ... The report then made its way to the White House, according to the currently serving U.S. intelligence officer. The officer said that Bush 'went absolutely ballistic' when briefed on its contents. ... The debate over Jundallah was resolved only after Bush left office when, within his first weeks as president, Barack Obama drastically scaled back joint U.S.-Israel intelligence programs targeting Iran, according to multiple serving and retired officers. The decision was controversial inside the CIA, where officials were forced to shut down 'some key intelligence-gathering operations,' a recently retired CIA officer confirmed. This action was followed in November 2010 by the State Department's addition of Jundallah to its list of foreign terrorist organizations—a decision that one former CIA officer called 'an absolute no-brainer.'"

The FBI did cultivate sources within Jundallah—which continued even after the CIA barred the most minimal contact with the group after the 2007 Zahedan bombings—but this was intelligence-gathering, not an attempt at "regime change." See The New York Times:

"Current and former officials say the American government never directed or approved any Jundallah operations. And they say there was never a case when the United States was told the timing and target of a terrorist attack yet took no action to prevent it."

Indeed, contradicting earlier reports, it seems Pakistan captured Abdolmalek Rigi and sent him to his death in Iran with U.S. support. Quoting Foreign Policy again:

"Rigi was turned over to the Iranians after the Pakistani government informed the United States that it planned to do so. The United States, this officer said, did not raise objections to the Pakistani decision. Iran, meanwhile, has consistently claimed that Rigi was snatched from under the eyes of the CIA, which it alleges supported him. 'It doesn't matter,' the former intelligence officer said of Iran's charges. 'It doesn't matter what they say. They know the truth.'"

I hate to break it to you, but Seymour Hersh is a liar.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:04, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

TheTimesAre, your comment about Seymour Hirsch reflects personal animus. Even if it were true, as WP editors we would not be qualified to evaluate. Your citing of sources denying American involvement with Jundulla appear to be OR--given conflicting reports we don't decide "the answer." We as WP editors are not in the "truth" business but in the RS-supported information business. In this vein, I added your "False Flag" allegation and the source you cited. --NYCJosh (talk) 02:57, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that your sources are outdated, undue, and borderline fringe. Lawrence Wilkerson has devolved into a conspiracy theorist nutjob promoting everything from the infamous "Grand Bargain" with Iran myth to the claim that the Ghouta chemical attack was actually perpetrated by Israel. Alexis Debat has been exposed as a conman, causing ABC to delete many of his articles. Seymour Hersh's widely discredited account of the bin Laden raid is the most vivid illustration yet of his tendency to fall for propaganda hoaxes—and the U.S.-led invasion of Iran that he kept predicting would happen any day now during the last few years of the Bush administration never materialized. Your copy/paste text is so old, it even omits the fact that MeK is no longer a designated terrorist organization! Look, Josh, we both know you're a 9/11 truther, JFK assassination truther, conspiracy nut who thinks the CIA is behind everything bad that happens—and, to you, everything is "disinfo"—but Foreign Policy says these old stories are "debunked." Do you have any more recent sources to the contrary? Better yet, do any of your sources even say that these alleged U.S. actions were designed to overthrow the Iranian government in favor of a Jundallah or MeK regime (if not, this is all POV-pushing synthesis)?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 03:25, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

@TheTimesAreAChanging: I am reading the sources you've linked. -Darouet (talk) 06:26, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

TheTimesAre, don't appreciate your ad hominem attacks against me and they are inappropriate on WP. This is WP, not a presidential campaign : ) You don't know anything about my personal views or politics and anyone who does knows that your "charges" are ridiculous and false. More important, even if I were a birther conspiracy theorist and a serial sex abuser, it would be irrelevant to my WP contributions (or my ability to run for president, apparently). I'll return the substance later.NYCJosh (talk) 14:14, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

No? Some of your edits suggest otherwise: "U.S. planned attack against Afghanistan ... before 9/11" added to the 9/11 conspiracy theories page is probably not the best example—it's actually one of the rare occasions where you were playing with facts and not with fantasies, though it is pure WP:OR since nowhere did your source make the "inside job" connection—but then there's edits like the following to John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories: "According to the theory of the assassination that claims that elements of the U.S. government military and/or intelligence apparatus were reponsible (sic), the assassination was actually a coup, which succeeded in installing a new president with a foreign policy different from JFK's."; "Reserchers (sic) who for years had called into question the Warren Commission's finding that a lone gunmen was reposible (sic) for the assassination, and had posited a conspiracy theory, felt vindicated by the House report" (based on acoustic evidence that has, of course, since been discredited; also note the weasel words such as "researchers"). The more important point, however, is that your entire career on Misplaced Pages has been devoted to conspiracy theories—whether you would recognize them as such or not—and if you really believe even a fraction of your own allegations against the "Great Satan"/"Evil Empire" America, the cognitive dissonance required for you to support Clinton over Trump must be absolutely staggering.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 18:30, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

1. Lawrence Wilkerson as "conspiracy theorist" who accepts the "grand bargain with Iran" hypothesis. (a) Wilkerson, like many State Department officials in 2003 according to the first source you cite (the WP page about Wilkerson), and like Senator John Kerry, was inclined to push for exploratory negotiations on the purported Iranian offer. There appears to have been a genuine difference of opinion among senior US policy makers as to how to interpret the Iranian document and whether exploratory negotiations were called for by it. (b) In any case, neither he nor Kerry are "conspiracy theorists." You can't just call everyone you disagree with a "conspiracy theorist" and hope they go away. (c) Even if Wilkerson, Kerry and the State Dept officials were wrong in 2003, or even if Wilkerson alleged that some operations in Syria may have been "false flag" (as your Foreign Policy citation does with regard to Jundullah), this does not disqualify Wilkerson from being a sound RS per WP when cited in an RS news source on an unrelated issue.

2. Debat. ABC news has not retracted the story I cited. The key information from the ABC story I added to the page, Jundullah raids into Iran and terrorism operations there, Jundullah's Al Qaida and drug ties, Jundullah receiving training and support from the US, etc. are sourced from US and Pakistani intel sources, not (just) from Debat. In any event, as WP editors, it's OR for us to try to go disqualify the ABC News story by attacking individual sources identified therein, so long as ABC News stands by its report.

3. Seymour Hirsch is a legendary American journalist whose often groundbreaking reportage has been featured in The New Yorker and other media outlets for decades. He continues to be featured in The New Yorker and elsewhere to this day. You may dislike him or what he writes. But you should keep personal animus about him and about me to yourself--this talk page is about a WP article, not a place to vent or to explore your own theories about the world. Hirsch and the New Yorker are first-rate RS.

I won't dignify your repeated ad hominem attacks by responding. It's amazing that you claim to know so much about my personal views, you ignore my decade-plus contributions to a host of WP articles, and can even divine how I plan to vote next month. I request that you delete all personal attacks and apologize for them forthwith.NYCJosh (talk) 19:08, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I removed the Debat quotes from the Jundullah paragraph and made it more succinct in view of TheTimesAreChanging's allegation.--NYCJosh (talk) 01:12, 17 October 2016 (UTC)

No, I'm sure you'll vote Stein. It's not like New York's a swing state. The question is, what if it were? Chomsky endorsed Clinton in swing states. That just seems bizarre to me, assuming Chomsky actually believes the U.S. is "the world's leading terrorist state." How could Trump be worse than that?

I reiterate: Your sources are old and widely discredited. This entire matter is WP:UNDUE and WP:SYNTH. In the same way, Hersh's account of the bin Laden raid is clearly WP:FRINGE—even if Hersh has broken other major stories (such as the CIA's "Family Jewels," which were given to him by DCI Colby), and even if you happen to believe it.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 19:23, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't agree with TheTimesAreAChanging at all re:Hersh, but I'm not going to re-instate this material until I've had time to read TheTimesAreAChanging's provided sources (I began but am quite busy right now). I would not be opposed to excluding it, or substantially modifying it by having it radically shortened and adding TheTimesAreAChanging's refs, until you both (or I, if I am involved) have time to consider sources properly.

It's really hard to know about clandestine activities of governments and spy agencies - by design - and so we rely on journalists, academics, confidential sources, etc. After a review of all sources we might decide to remove the Iran material, or keep it all. More likely, I'm guessing, we'll need to indicate what various sources (journalists, officials, etc) have said, contradictory or not. -Darouet (talk) 21:19, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

@Darouet: Don't stop with my sources. Read NYCJosh's "source" for the claim that the U.S. tried to use the MeK to overthrow the Iranian government. What actually happened is that—at Iran's behest and without provocation—the U.S. attacked the MeK's camps following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, disarmed the group and cleared all of its members of involvement in any terrorist activity, forcibly relocated them to Camp Ashraf, and then pledged itself to the protection of these now defenseless civilian dissidents. After the U.S. withdrew from Iraq, the MeK were abandoned to the tender mercies of Iran and its Iraqi allies, which is precisely what NYCJosh's source discusses: "'They can't just leave us unprotected,' said Zanjani, a former MEK tank commander. 'The Iranian regime is waiting outside at the door for us. They will kill us.'" As indeed they did—MeK members have been repeatedly massacred, doubtless as Iran apologists and/or useful idiots like NYCJosh were hoping for all along. Where does NYCJosh's source mention "United States involvement in regime change"?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:32, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Hey Times, sorry if I can't get involved right now - I'm a little busy. I read your Foreign Policy article, and found it compelling. Began re-reading Hersh's piece but don't have time to continue. -Darouet (talk) 03:10, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

TheTimesAre, if the book you have at page 550 says Washington "completely rejectss" that could be added as a source. It may be official denial. It may a denial of Israeli involvement. It does not negate the fact that several sourced, including your Foreign Policy "false flag" source, support the fact that agents who seemed to be American were doing this stuff with Jundullah. Again, we as WP editors are not here to judge who is "right" but to present information based on RS (even if there is some tension between them). Oh, and please get off your hypothesized understanding of my personal political views and let's just stick to the job (editing WP). It's unbecoming of a WP editor. I am asking for the fourth time. --NYCJosh (talk) 19:56, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

TheTimesAre, just today you have deleted three (3!) entire paragraphs that I had added to this article. That is not a good faith attempt to build this article! If you have a legitimate issue with a figure or factual content, feel free to discuss it here on talk page. I and others can then weigh in. For example, you deleted a paragraph that had over 8 different sources because you alleged that a UNICEF source's findings were "propaganda" and that I mischaracterized a NY Times article. Even if that were so, and you haven't identified the mischaracterization or provided any evidence of such propaganda, what about the rest of the paragraph and the other sources?! Please be specific with any criticism, citing WP rules where appropriate. Attacking me as someone who supposedly tends to favor peace is insufficient support for any deletion.--NYCJosh (talk) 20:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Structure

I think we should give these different interventions their own, proper subheadings so that these can be seen and navigated from the navbar below the lead. -Darouet (talk) 17:37, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Agreed.--NYCJosh (talk) 19:41, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Kuwait/1991 Gulf War

This is a section I added about the Gulf War, which mentioned that after the US-led coalition liberated Kuwait, it restored the same rulers. This entire paragraph was removed with the explanation "No consensus to claim that expelling Iraq from Kuwait constitutes 'regime change.'" It seems to me completely obvious that removing an occupying foreign power and installing a regime, even if it's the old regime, is regime change. What do other people think?--NYCJosh (talk) 20:03, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Full protection, 1 week

After observing that the recent history of this article consists mostly of "undo" edits and other reversions, I have fully protected the article. The stability of an article shouldn't suffer due to a content dispute. Please work it out here.

If the parties in dispute agree that protection wasn't warranted and should be lifted, I'll gladly remove it. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:59, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Amatulic. Please see my comment today to TheTimesAreChanging, above, regarding his deletion just today of three entire paragraphs I had added, each with multiple sources.--NYCJosh (talk) 21:16, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Scope of article

NYCJosh obviously wants to fatten up this article with loads of WP:COATRACK material copied and pasted from around Misplaced Pages, much of which has been deleted elsewhere because it is so laden with WP:POV. Per WP:BRD, if there is no consensus, there is no change. So I will continue to revert any WP:UNDUE material NYCJosh adds to the article until there is consensus for his changes (while not removing Jundallah yet, because Darouet believes it may belong with modification). Because two editors cannot achieve a consensus between themselves, and this page receives relatively little traffic, the best solution would be a series of RfCs regarding whether or not particular incidents are within the scope of the article. I have already made my case on Jundallah and the MeK. Below, I briefly respond to two new additions proposed by NYCJosh:

• Restoring the Kuwaiti monarchy: The expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait seems to be the very opposite of "regime change" (though I admit it is relevant to the criticism that America has a foreign policy). Per NYCJosh's comment above, I removed the entire "Gulf War" section. (The "Vietnam War" section should also be removed, as it was North Vietnam that successfully sought to conquer South Vietnam, not the other way around.) The change NYCJosh proposed was: "After liberating Kuwait, the invading militaries restored the same Kuwaiti despotic family as rulers of the country."

The US organized a coalition to invade Kuwait with the aim of removing Iraqi rule from Kuwait. That's pretty clear regime change. After successfully doing so, the US-led coalition installed the same despots as were in charge before the Iraqi invasion. That too is pretty clearly regime change. What's the counter-argument? That a Kuwaiti could have slept from July 1990 until April 1991 (assuming he was not woken up by the repeated wars) would have been cognizant of no regime change? The US govt was clearly directly "involved in" (directly caused, actually) two successful regime changes in Kuwait. --NYCJosh (talk) 17:15, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

• Iraq sanctions: Few if any of NYCJosh's sources connect the UN sanctions on Iraq with "United States involvement in regime change," the supposed topic of this article. His text is a POV-pushing WP:COATRACK from Sanctions against Iraq, based almost entirely on original research primary sources and activist groups like FAIR. Moreover, claims of mass death resulting from the sanctions have been long-refuted, particularly after several UN-sponsored studies taken after the fall of Saddam's government proved that the previous infant mortality figures for South/Central Iraq were inflated by more than a factor of two, and that no disparity between the decreasing infant mortality rate in Kurdistan and the supposedly increasing rate elsewhere existed. (I assume NYCJosh knows that the figures in question did not come from UNICEF, but from the relevant Iraqi government agencies, because Saddam's government—unlike the Kurds—barred independent experts. He might be surprised to learn that the biggest children's health problem in Iraq prior to 2003 was childhood obesity.)

The paragraph I added clearly supports the notion that the sanctions against Iraq were an effort to remove the Saddam government. Just read my first two footnotes: NY Times and United Press International. Here are the first two sentences of the NYT source "President Bush said today that the United States would oppose the lifting of the worldwide ban against trading with Iraq until President Saddam Hussein is forced out of power in Baghdad. His statement, along with earlier remarks by the White House spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, indicated strongly that the United States has decided to try to drive Mr. Hussein from power through a postwar policy of economic strangulation." (Emphasis mine.) What's the counter-argument? TheTimesAre wrote "few if any of ...sources connect the UN sanctions" with US regime change. All I need is 1 source! I provided two. The fact that he could not be bothered to read the FIRST sentence of my FIRST sources, or read it but still wrote what he wrote and deleted the entire paragraph, shows a lack of good faith in editing this article. This lack of good faith is corroborated by (1) his repeated deletions of many of my contributions (that's why the administrator had to step in this week to stop the edit war), (2) his repeated personal attacks me notwithstanding my repeated requests that he stop (see section on Iranian material, above), (3) his wild accusations (see section on Iranian material, above) against respected American senior officials like Lawrence Wilkerson (see above) and legendary American journalists like Seymour Hirsch in an attempt to discredit my contributions.--NYCJosh (talk) 17:15, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

On another level is the following:

"The CIA directed a government sabotage and bombing campaign in Baghdad between 1992 and 1995, including targets such a crowded movie theater, which killed many civilians, and a schoolbus, which killed children."

NYCJosh previously added this material to United States and state terrorism, even though the cited New York Times article says nothing about "state terrorism," meaning the inclusion was pure OR (trivially, one must also note that United States and state-sponsored terrorism would have been a better fit). Perhaps it isn't OR here, but the implication that civilians were definitely targeted is a blatant misrepresentation:

"Iyad Allawi, now the designated prime minister of Iraq, ran an exile organization intent on deposing Saddam Hussein that sent agents into Baghdad in the early 1990's to plant bombs and sabotage government facilities under the direction of the C.I.A., several former intelligence officials say. ... The Iraqi government at the time claimed that the bombs, including one it said exploded in a movie theater, resulted in many civilian casualties. But whether the bombings actually killed any civilians could not be confirmed because, as a former C.I.A. official said, the United States had no significant intelligence sources in Iraq then. One former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was based in the region, Robert Baer, recalled that a bombing during that period 'blew up a school bus; schoolchildren were killed.' Mr. Baer, a critic of the Iraq war, said he did not recall which resistance group might have set off that bomb. ... But one former senior intelligence official recalled that 'bombs were going off to no great effect.' 'I don't recall very much killing of anyone,' the official said."

• Bomb and sabotage campaign in Iraq is arguably undue, too, because it resulted in no change of regime and "was a test more than anything else, to demonstrate capability"; however, it could be relevant background information for a section on the CIA's role in the failed 1996 coup against Saddam Hussein.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 21:43, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Editors are welcome to this add this material (or other portions from the sources provided) to any other WP page they believe is appropriate. As far as THIS article is concerned, the NY Times source that is linked above says:

One former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was based in the region, Robert Baer, recalled that a bombing during that period blew up a school bus; schoolchildren were killed.

A paragraph later it says: "Other former intelligence officials said Dr. Allawi's organization was the only resistance group involved in bombings and sabotage at that time."

So it's clear that the bombing was orchestrated by the CIA, and confirms the targets and that people were killed in them, all according to CIA officials.

The bombings alone produced no regime change in Iraq but what was the purpose of the bombings? Why are bombings like this perpetrated by a foreign power? The article tells us: "Evaluations of the effectiveness of the bombing campaign varied, although the former officials interviewed agreed that it never threatened Saddam Hussein's rule. (Emphasis mine.) Had it been effective, it would have threatened his rule. So removing Saddam was the goal, even if that goal was difficult to attain at that stage.

An attempted foreign regime change action still merits mention in this article. Together with the "strangulation of the Iraqi economy" by the sanctions (see my first NY Times article), the bombing campaign was part of a coordinated effort to topple Saddam.--NYCJosh (talk) 17:15, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

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