Talk:Stephen F. Hayes

Untitled

the show was Funny, but ... deleted a section referencing the recent jon stewart smackdown of Hayes on the daily show. Really not appropriate ... Killtacular 05:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Shady Side, Maryland

Seems to be where the vandalism is coming from; there or West River. Where are the Weekly Standard offices again?

I'm just askin'. ;) --csloat 11:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

"Misuse of Wikipedia as a platform to espouse "hypothesises" and "theories" with no basis in fact is not to be tolerated.--MONGO 08:22, 10 November 2006 (UTC)" Words of wisdom applicable to Hayes. - F.A.A.F.A. 07:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Pretty sure the tone of the below is inappropriate for an article.

"Hayes has explained away the contradictions of Cheney saying during the first Gulf War that toppling Saddam Hussein's government would trap the US in a quagmire and his enthusiastic support for it today as being due to the fact that "9/11 changed everything!" It's not completely clear if by "everything" he means that up is now down or whether or not 1+1 still equals 2."

Who wants to delete it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.243.173.218 (talk) 16:57, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

9/11 Changed Everything

I'm removing the following text from main space:

"Hayes has explained the contradictions of Cheney saying during the first Gulf War that toppling Saddam Hussein's government would trap the US in a quagmire and his enthusiastic support for it today by claiming that '9/11 changed everything.'"

It's problematic because Cheney was a signatory to the principles of the Project for the New American Century, which sought global hegemony (the group advocated invading Iraq long before 9/11). This could be fixed by saying "Hayes has attempted to explain the contradictions of Cheney..." or something similar, and noting why his explanation is unsatisfactory. smb 06:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

References

DriveEliminator edits

The objective of the edits in May 2008 on Stephen F Hayes are to correct some inaccuracies (it previously stated the Feith memo was based on leaked intelligence. In the former state it could have been written by a left wing blogger one sided. The current version presents factual information on the points of controversy concerning his writings. ---- —Preceding unsigned comment added by DrivelEliminator (talk • contribs)

I reverted those edits; this is a biography page, not Stephen Hayes' personal soapbox. See WP:SOAP and WP:UNDUE. I have no objection to correcting inaccuracies but you did not do that. You censored accurate information (the Feith report was in fact based on leaked intel; the Pentagon even issued a public statement about that) and then you filled the page with original research analysis of Hayes' articles on this topic, most of which are not notable. You also severely skewed the POV so that the whole page has become a defense of Hayes' claims, which every mainstream source (not to mention several independent investigations by the FBI, CIA, State Department intel, DIA, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence) has refuted. I have no objection to adding some of Hayes' responses to his critics, but this is not the place to detail his discredited theories of a Saddam/AQ conspiracy. csloat (talk) 07:05, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

DrivelEliminator> Ok, we will go point by point one at a time. On the issue of the Feith Memo. That was not based on "leaked intelligence" it was written by a group formed within the DOD that had direct access to classified information. It was Hayes's article in the Weekly Standard that was based on leaked classified information (the Feith memo). The the Feith memo was in fact "the classified information" that got leaked to Hayes. Hayes did not write the Feith memo.

Further just some comment

The revisions hardly changes the POV. Other than correcting the leak issue (see above), the existing points and counter points were not altered (some were repositioned for continuity). Every Hayes assertion I added included the appropriate and complete refutations you have mentioned above.

Yes this is a biography page on Stephen F. Hayes, who is notable as a key protagonist in a politically charged drama. It should not be a soap box for him, but also not one to trash the guy either. That is who he was (an aspect anyway).

The Feith memo is one early aspect. The section on a trivial matter concerning Zarquawi's leg has inaccurate detail and is misleading (I will get to that later). But to include that, and not discuss his assertions about a meeting between Atta and the IIS in Prague, which was a big deal at the time, is inappropriate for a biography.

Hayes wrote his articles and book in the 2003 to 2005 time frame. The refutations of his assertions came out later, and not definitively until Sep 2006. In between there was tremendous controversy within which Hayes was a sentinal figure. His biography should reflect who he was, not be a soap box for the Iraq - Al Qaeda acedemic deconstruction. Granted, to reflect who he was his assertions can't be made without the appropriate refutations.

Again this is a biography, so the articles I included are notable because he wrote them, and they continued and fomented the controversy. They may not be notable in an acedemic analysis of the Al Qaeda - Iraqi ties, but they are notable in a discussion of Hayes and his role as that controversy unfolded. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DrivelEliminator (talk • contribs) 17:48, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

(1) The Pentagon complained that it was leaked; that is enough for me. We publish what is reported in reliable sources here, not the unique interpretations of random Wikipedia editors. Nobody said Hayes wrote the Feith memo -- there's probably a good reason it's called the "Feith" memo.

(2) You did water down the refutations that were there in the article. I think the article still pays too much attention to this point but you added a lot of soapboxing by Hayes on an issue that really is tangential to his biography page. I think it's ok to include his concerns about an Atta Prague meeting too as you suggest, as long as we put in the fact that nobody today still believes such a meeting took place (or, at least, that is the conclusion of every intel agency and organization that looked into it). But I just wonder how much back and forth we need on this issue -- it shouldn't take up 70% of the article as it did in your revision.

(3) Hayes' assertions were definitively refuted as early as he was making them -- true, the Sept 2006 SSCI report put a big nail in the coffin of these arguments, but they really just summarized the conclusions of the Intel community, conclusions of the CIA, FBI, DIA, and other investigations into the subject that go back to 2002 and earlier. Hayes was vocal about his opinion during the 2003-5 period, yes; in fact, he still to this day apparently believes he was right all along -- look at his response to the Pentagon's latest conclusions in the so-called "connection." So while Sept 06 might have been a turning point for some folks, it certainly wasn't for Hayes.

Anyway if you want to try again I will try to work with the text that you add rather than just reverting it, but I really don't think it's appropriate to make over half the article about a couple of essays he wrote for the Weekly Standard. csloat (talk) 20:52, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

DrElim> DrEm> Anyway, let me thank you for being willing to work with me and for being open and objective. I am very familiar with the details of this subject.

The subject of the Iraq/AC ties is now a historical matter, and is certainly an area of acedemic interest that still has legs (ie Iraq Perspectives Project etc.)

The only relevance this subject has to this article is that he was probably the most prominent public domain proponent of a coalition (in and out of government) of Neo Conservatives challenging conventional wisdom on the subject of Iraq/AC ties and this became a massive national controversy. Certainly that he wrote columns for the Weekly Standard and Authored three books is what gets him in Wikipedia. But the fact that he was one of the most prominent private sector figures (the public outlet for the challangers inside if you will) of a raging controversy within the US intelligence community, I think is also something we have to capture some how.

So the question for me was/is how do we capture that aspect of who the man is. The current article delves down into one significant point of the controversy, but also gets into a lot of innocuous issues like Zarquawi's leg, and the Bill Moyers thing. Two aspects I don't see the significance of - for his bio.

Second I agree entirely that the article should not be random editors on a soap box, and that is my objection to the hayes bio article present state. My interest is to properly and objectively capture significant aspects of who the man was (and still is), and what has made him prominent. I also believe his Bio should be devoid of a political POV, for or against. But I am also very particular about the accuracy of facts presented.

I started a new section in the discussion to focus on my concerns and objections to what is written in the bio on the Feith Memo.

Objections on present wording about Feith Memo

Let me try again on the Feith Memo.

This is what the article says now and abaout which I have an accuracy issue..

 :The so-called Feith Memo was based on leaked intelligence, which the Defense Department subsequently rejected as "inaccurate,"

You mentioned the DOD statement. To understand my objections we need to disect that.

First if you look closely at the DOD statement it says in the first sentance as extracted below..

News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate.

To write that sentance in shorter form;

News Reports that DoD confirmed *new* info [with respect to...] are inaccurate.

They are basically saying the Feith memo does not contain anything "new". So reporting in the press that they have confirmed something "new" is not correct. What needs to be understood about this statement is the first sentance is part of a Rouse. I'll get to that in a bit.

The statement then goes on to say..

"A letter was sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Oct. 27, 2003, from Douglas J. Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, in response to follow-up questions from his July 10 testimony. One of the questions posed by the committee asked the department to provide the reports from the intelligence community to which he referred in his testimony before the committee. These reports dealt with the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda."

The above says who wrote it and why, as well as the subject matter.

What needs to be understood is there is much more going on here.

The Neo Cons at DOD who leaked the Feith memo to Hayes, followed up with this statement to confirm and lend credance to the points he made in his article. The DOD statement reads to me like a Trojan horse. In the beginning there is an inane reference to inaccuracy in the media, and at the end it has the obligatory leaking is bad, but in the middle it says and that the Hayes colunm publishing items from the Feith Memo contains the considered product of the intelligence community provided with their permission and agreement.

This is what they were really trying to get out and the reason why the statement was produced in the first place. The whole thing about correcting New reports that "New info" being inaccuarte "it is really old stuff" is a clever and very creative device used so they can authenticate what they leaked.

The letter to the committee included a classified annex containing a list and description of the requested reports, so that the committee could obtain the reports from the relevant members of the intelligence community.

The items listed in the classified annex were either raw reports or products of the CIA, the National Security Agency or, in one case, the Defense Intelligence Agency. The provision of the classified annex to the Intelligence Committee was cleared by other agencies and done with the permission of the intelligence community. The selection of the documents was made by DoD to respond to the committee’s question."

Then it says in the next sentance..

The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions."

This is saying; See, See, See like we said above in the first Sentance this is all nothing new by the DOD, because while it is very real, it is the work product and raw reports of other agencies (not the DOD) that BTW they said we could send to the Intelligence committee.

So this sentance and the first are all a rouse on a nonsensical issue, only to create a reason to state what was in the middle.

VP Chenney has been accused of leaking classified info to the press and then go on TV and refer to it - in an effort to make his point on what ever, with out himself revealing publically classified info. This DOD statement reads to me like another form of the old leak and then talk about the leaked info trick.

So what we have in our Hayes bio article is way off the mark. Hayes was the mouth piece in a high stakes play to shape public opinion on the Iraq/AC subject. The DOD statement was a device to reinforce what Hayes said in his article.

Also it relates that the state of understanding in the intelligence community as late as Oct 27, 2003 was not at all decided in terms of Al Qaeda/Iraq ties. The Feith had lots of details much of which was proved inaccurate, but at a much later date.

Sorry to be so long winded this time, but I just want you to understand the nature of my objection to the sentance saying the DOD issued a statement saying the Feith memo was based on leaked Intel and is inaccurate. That is just not true.

I'll propose something to replace it later. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.240.220 (talk) 02:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is the place for a hermeneutic exegesis of a DOD memo. If you think there is a significant difference in our interpretations, let us quote it verbatim and keep our interpretations out of it; I think some of your points are hair-splitting (e.g. the placement of the word "new") to come up with a novel interpretation. It is not appropriate for the article to say that Hayes was a mouthpiece in a DOD play or that the DOD was trying to do the opposite of what everyone concluded it was doing -- you may believe those things, and you may even be right, but that is original research that is not appropriate on Wikipedia. If you have articles from reliable sources interpreting the DOD's memo in this manner, it might be relevant on an article about the Feith memo but it still doesn't seem that relevant here. If you have a reliable source concluding that Hayes was a pawn in Cheney's chessgame or whatever, that would probably be relevant here - but I'm looking above and all I see is your interpretation concluding that. It's not OK for Wikipedia to even mention your or my interpretation given the original research issue. Finally, you are also wrong that "the state of understanding in the intelligence community as late as Oct 27, 2003 was not at all decided in terms of Al Qaeda/Iraq ties" -- by then both the CIA and DIA had concluded that there was no evidence of ties between the two forces. The public may not have been made aware of it, and certainly they went and did more investigations, but they forwarded their conclusions to the Bush Administration and the SSCI (who eventually published their reports in 2004 and 2006). But the definitive CIA conclusion was reached in January 2003 (this was later confirmed in a separate report in 2004). The material in the Feith report was known by the Intel community to be largely inaccurate when the report was made public; that's why so many in the intel community were disturbed by its release. If your only objection is that the memo was leaked intel (and not "based on" leaked intel), I think we can make that adjustment easily without all the other changes you suggested. Cheers, csloat (talk) 03:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

DE>I didn't mean to imply my deconstruction and interpretation of the DOD Statement on this 'discussion' page be put in the bio.

I'm content in terms of the Feith memo objection to redo the sentance to make it accurate. The "based on" aspect is one, the other is the DOD statement is saying the content of the Feith memo is inaccurate. The DOD "inaccurate" reference was to "News Reports".

BTW - Do you know if the Feith memo and more importantly the annex is available in the public domain anywhere? Not that it should go in the Bio. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.240.220 (talk) 08:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I thought you earlier wrote that the memo and the annex were one and the same? I don't know of a link to the memo itself but Hayes' article about it quotes it extensively. I seem to recall the memo being posted on Pat Lang's site but I haven't seen it recently and that could be totally wrong. Anyway I'm not sure I agree with your interp of the DOD press release but if we quote it directly it won't matter which interpretation is correct. csloat (talk) 08:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Changes on section dealing with Feith memo

Here is the existing Text

A major source for the articles and book was a memo from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to the U.S. Congress on 27 October 2003.[3] The so-called Feith Memo was based on leaked intelligence, which the Defense Department subsequently rejected as "inaccurate," noting that the information leaked "was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions."[4] Hayes published a commentary on the Defense Department's response.[5]

They also said:

"Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal."

The following is proposed

In the first sentance just add the word "leaked" before the word memo. Then just put in the DOD statement.

A major source for the articles and book was a leaked memo from Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith to the U.S. Congress on 27 October 2003.[3]

The DOD issued the following statement about the Feith Memo on Nov 15, 2003[4]

DoD Statement on News Reports of Al Qaeda and Iraq Connections

News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee are inaccurate.

A letter was sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Oct. 27, 2003, from Douglas J. Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, in response to follow-up questions from his July 10 testimony. One of the questions posed by the committee asked the department to provide the reports from the intelligence community to which he referred in his testimony before the committee. These reports dealt with the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

The letter to the committee included a classified annex containing a list and description of the requested reports, so that the committee could obtain the reports from the relevant members of the intelligence community.

The items listed in the classified annex were either raw reports or products of the CIA, the National Security Agency or, in one case, the Defense Intelligence Agency. The provision of the classified annex to the Intelligence Committee was cleared by other agencies and done with the permission of the intelligence community. The selection of the documents was made by DoD to respond to the committee’s question. The classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions.

Individuals who leak or purport to leak classified information are doing serious harm to national security; such activity is deplorable and may be illegal.

76.118.240.220 (talk) 19:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

And the DOD statement will need to be better formated to look like the original. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.118.240.220 (talk) 20:00, 20 May 2008 (UTC) DrivelEliminator (talk) 20:10, 20 May 2008 (UTC) Also to note a clarification; The existing Article would continue with

    :Hayes published a commentary on the Defense Department's response.[5] 

DrivelEliminator (talk) 20:30, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

To Clarify again..

After the DOD statement it would proceed as follows..

Hayes published a commentary on the Defense Department's response.[5]

Hayes gave this verdict on the Feith Memo:

DrivelEliminator (talk) 20:38, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Don't you think that's a bit much to quote from the DOD statement? I think the way we originally had it, the memo was summarized. Perhaps we can just quote the relevant parts if the summary is inadequate for some reason? I'm not trying to nitpick, but it seems silly to take up half the page with a DOD memo about Feith that doesn't even appear on Feith's page. csloat (talk) 23:36, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, how about if we compromise with the first and fourth paragraphs?

DrivelEliminator (talk) 01:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Seems a lot better to me, what do you think? csloat (talk) 01:19, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

The whole thing would definately be a bit much, Paragraphs 1 and 4 do it.

Any reason to hold off updating the article as discussed?DrivelEliminator (talk) 01:33, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Some minor formatting changes for the article proposed

Change the order of two paragraphs to improve the flow. In the existing the first paragraph delves into the 9/11 aspect in June of 2004, and the second paragraph goes back to the Feith memo in late 2003. If we reverse the order it will hang together better.

Existing

The arguments raised by Hayes about the Saddam/al-Qaeda relationship have been mostly discounted; they have been rejected by almost all counterterrorism experts and intelligence analysts, as well as by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and by the Bush administration itself. What Hayes called "perhaps the government's strongest indication that Saddam and al Qaeda may have worked together on September 11,"[7] for example, has been described by some other analysts as a mere confusion over names that sounded alike.[8]

Former head of the Middle East section of the DIA W. Patrick Lang told the Washington Post that the Weekly Standard article which published Feith's memo "is a listing of a mass of unconfirmed reports, many of which themselves indicate that the two groups continued to try to establish some sort of relationship. If they had such a productive relationship, why did they have to keep trying?" And, according to the Post, "another former senior intelligence official said the memo is not an intelligence product but rather 'data points ... among the millions of holdings of the intelligence agencies, many of which are simply not thought likely to be true.'"[9]

Proposed

Former head of the Middle East section of the DIA W. Patrick Lang told the Washington Post that the Weekly Standard article which published Feith's memo "is a listing of a mass of unconfirmed reports, many of which themselves indicate that the two groups continued to try to establish some sort of relationship. If they had such a productive relationship, why did they have to keep trying?" And, according to the Post, "another former senior intelligence official said the memo is not an intelligence product but rather 'data points ... among the millions of holdings of the intelligence agencies, many of which are simply not thought likely to be true.'"[9]

The arguments raised by Hayes about the Saddam/al-Qaeda relationship have been mostly discounted; they have been rejected by almost all counterterrorism experts and intelligence analysts, as well as by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and by the Bush administration itself. What Hayes called "perhaps the government's strongest indication that Saddam and al Qaeda may have worked together on September 11,"[7] for example, has been described by some other analysts as a mere confusion over names that sounded alike.[8]

DrivelEliminator (talk) 20:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

This change makes sense to me :) csloat (talk) 23:36, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Implemented DrivelEliminator (talk) 01:46, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Original Research issue with sentance starting as The arguements raised by Hayes

The following Sentance does not meet Wikipedia standards for a living person's bio.

The arguments raised by Hayes about the Saddam/al-Qaeda relationship have been mostly discounted; they have been rejected by almost all counterterrorism experts and intelligence analysts, as well as by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and by the Bush administration itself.

I'm not raising an issue of accuracy. The problem is; it is a very broad based sweeping statement, taking a point of view on the authors "arguements" and is unattributed. Hence whether true or not it constitutes original reseaach, and perhaps a problem with WP:NPOV - as is.

I don't have a good solution. Best I can come up with is a pointer where Leiken makes statements similarly as sweeping, and Guaratna makes statements. But it was in the text of a lengthy symposuim (like reading War and Peace) to get to the references.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/Read.aspx?GUID=30B099F2-0C06-4BC0-AD25-6258BD40E184

It might be better to quote them or some one else saying x,y,z intelligence agencies have concluded etc.

I haven't removed it but that should be considered unless a replacement or appropriate attribution can be made. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DrivelEliminator (talk • contribs) 05:15, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I think quoting Gunaratna and Leiken on the matter would be a good solution, or at least referencing them. csloat (talk) 09:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

How is this;

Robert S. Leinken, a Director at the Nixon Center and Senior Fellow at The Brookings Institute cited the 9/11 Commission Report’s conclusion that they had found “no evidence [of] a collaborative operational relationship.” [between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime] and the Senate Intelligence committee Report’s finding that the CIA’s conclusion [of the same] was “reasonable and objective.” in an article he published for In The National Interest.

He further stated at the Symposium: The Saddam-Osama Connection sponsored by Front Page Magazine “These conclusions echoed the judgment of virtually every outside expert and government authority.”, then provided similar quotes from Jack Straw, British Foreign Secretary, Kenneth Pollack, the former NSC and CIA point man on Iraq, as well as French and Spanish Magistrates heading investigations into Al-Qaeda.

DrivelEliminator (talk) 23:23, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Albeit with a little more formatting DrivelEliminator (talk) 23:26, 21 May 2008 (UTC) Done

Duh - I corrected spelling of Leiken's name

DrivelEliminator (talk) 18:24, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

References

Issue with source in Zarqawi section

The Antiwar.com article is inviolation of Wikipedia standards for a Biography of Living Persons WP:BLP.

See WP:QS sources that rely heavily on Parsonal Opinion See WP:SPS Blogs.. largely not acceptable. Should never be used as 3rd party sources about Living Persons See WP:SELFPUB violates item 2, so long as it is not contentious The author of this calls Hayes a Nobody, Hack, and characterizes Hayes's POV as "Risable".

Under Wikipedia guidelines I have excersized immediate removal of the source - prior to discussion. DrivelEliminator (talk) 18:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Note the Zarqawi section is double sourced, and the Media Matters source remains..

DrivelEliminator (talk) 18:15, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Bill Moyers dispute

The opening sentence of this section is: "In 2002, Hayes also gained some attention with a piece exposing former PBS host Bill Moyers as a journalist, activist and financier of left-leaning public affairs bias."

"Hayes also..." also what? We are categorically stating that Bill Moyers was "exposed"? As a journalist? This section, if even noteworthy, is terribly written and should contain 3rd-person citations rather than consisting almost entirely of statements made by Mr. Hayes himself. It should also not make the conclusion that Moyers was "exposed" as this, that, or the other. 98.16.158.7 (talk) 01:45, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Paul

Describing allegations as false

To maintain a neutral point of view, should this article describe the Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda link allegations as "false allegations" or should this be omitted, or softened to "disputed allegations"?

I agree that we should be careful around this kind of language, insofar as as this is an article about a person. However, the sources on both articles seem to support the consensus (at least among the US intelligence community) that Hayes' claims are unsubstantiated by evidence.

Omitting "false" on the grounds of neutrality runs the risk of creating a WP:FALSEBALANCE, i.e. tacitly implying that the claims hold water, something the body of this article disputes. Hesitantly, I think "disputed allegations" would be better? RoxySaunders (talk) 06:12, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

All RS clearly say it is false. To insist on "disputed" is WP:FALSEBALANCE as it makes it appear as if there is some kind of active debate about the veracity of the claims. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:28, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

I thought this was the case. Without substantial evidence supporting that the allegations are not false, they should be called "false". I was swayed into believing this issue was more controversial, because I did not initially recognize that the two editors warring for this change were actually just one person. The status quo is fine and should remain as-is. RoxySaunders (talk) 16:48, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

Fairediting (talk) 16:33, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

And

False is wrong and you uneducated rubes know it

Please provide a reliable secondary source labeling editors as "rubes". ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:03, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I changed the wording on this but it was reverted. I would argue that "promoting the false claim" very strongly implies a knowing lie. See https://www.collinsdictionary.com/submission/20749/false+claims . There's no question that the connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda did, indeed, turn out to be unfounded, but as this is a bio of a living person, we should shy away from anything that could stray into POV, even by implication. The most NPOV way of writing this would be something like "promoting the claim that the Saddam Hussein regime and Al Qaeda had an operational relationship, which was later determined to be false." Korossyl (talk) 23:32, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

"False" does not mean "Lie". "False" leaves the intent unclear, which is exactly what we should do. The claim that Saddam and Al Qaeda had an operational relationship was known both to baseless and false when Hayes made the claim. Your edit, which is WP:OR, falsely claims that it was only known later. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 13:05, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything to support that the timeline is nearly so cut-and-dried, or that I'm somehow performing OR here. I'm looking at Saddam_Hussein_and_al-Qaeda_link_allegations, and there were ongoing investigations of the link up through 2007 (or even 2008, if you count the Senate report). Going back to 2004, when Hayes' book appeared, the Senate's Pre-War Report outright DOES talk about interaction between them. I think the best we can say is that, *at the time*, there could still be good-faith arguments made.

False doesn't mean "lie," correct. But "false claim" does carry an implication. See my source, above; or even the fact that there is a US law called the "False Claims Act." I'm not saying that anything in the article is factually untrue -- he claimed it, and it did turn out to be false -- but that the phrase itself is a loaded one. If this is WP:BLP, then I think our commitment to a "high degree of sensitivity" should lead us to use language that is as free from even the appearance of bias, if there are two formulations of the same sentiment that are equally true. Korossyl (talk) 20:17, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

No, the claim was shoddy and baseless at the time. Hayes was not making tentative assessments on his own and weighing things on the balance of probabilities, but was working with the Bush administration to mislead the public and make outlandish claims ("there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans"). The claim that "there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans" is just a straight-up falsehood. He regurgitated propaganda handed to him by Douglas J. Feith who spearheaded an effort to lie to the public about Saddam-Al Qaeda links. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:23, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I think it's misleading to readers in the extreme that we present Hayes's coordination with the Bush administration and brazen falsehoods on the subject as having been some erroneous and tentative assessments that later turned out to be untrue. Claiming in 2003 that there was no doubt whatsoever that Saddam and Al Qaeda had an operational relationship was false then and it is false now. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:26, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I punted the issue to the Fringe theory noticeboard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Stephen_F._Hayes_%E2%80%93_Saddam_Hussein-Al_Qaeda_relationship Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:34, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks. Korossyl (talk) 02:30, 27 October 2021 (UTC)