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Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence

The Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence (formally, the Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq) was the report by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concerning the U.S. intelligence community's assessments of Iraq during the time leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The report, which was released on July 9, 2004, identified numerous failures in the intelligence-gathering and -analysis process. The report found that these failures led to the creation of inaccurate materials that misled both government policy makers and the American public.

The Committee's nine Republicans and eight Democrats agreed on the report's major conclusions and unanimously endorsed its findings. They disagreed, though, on the impact that statements on Iraq by senior members of the Bush administration had on the intelligence process. The second phase of the investigation, addressing the way senior policymakers used the intelligence, was published on May 25, 2007. Portions of the phase II report not released at that time include the review of public statements by U.S. government leaders prior to the war, and the assessment of the activities of Douglas Feith and the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans.

Background
After the 1991 Gulf War, Iraq agreed to destroy its stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and dismantle its WMD programs. To verify compliance, UN inspection teams were to be given free access to the country. Over the next seven years, inspectors sometimes complained about non-cooperation and evasiveness by the Iraqi government. Iraqi officials in turn complained that some weapons inspectors were acting as spies for foreign intelligence agencies. In 1998, after a critical report on the Iraqi government's noncompliance was issued by UN weapons inspector Richard Butler, U.S. President Bill Clinton announced that he would launch airstrikes on Iraqi targets (see Operation Desert Fox). Butler evacuated his inspectors and the bombing proceeded. After the bombing campaign, Iraq refused to allow weapons inspectors to re-enter the country.

After George W. Bush became president in January 2001, and especially after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government increased its attention on Iraq. In the first half of 2002, a series of public statements by President Bush and senior members of his administration indicated a willingness to use force, if necessary, to remove Saddam Hussein from power. On October 1, 2002, the CIA delivered a classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) assessing the threat represented by Iraq's WMD activities. Three days later, CIA Director George Tenet published an unclassified white paper on the subject of Iraq's WMD capabilities. Over the next two weeks, a joint resolution authorizing the use of force was passed by both houses of Congress.

Over the next several months the U.S. conducted a diplomatic effort at the United Nations, seeking to obtain that body's approval for a new WMD inspection regime, and, potentially, for the use of force to overthrow the Iraqi government. The UN Security Council passed resolution 1441 on November 8, 2002, calling on Iraq to make "an accurate full, final, and complete disclosure" of its WMD programs, and threatening "serious consequences" if it did not comply. In the wake of resolution 1441, Iraq allowed UN weapons inspectors to return to the country. While the inspections were taking place, the U.S. continued to lobby the members of the UN Security Council to pass a resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force against Iraq. As part of that effort U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell gave a presentation to the UN on February 5, 2003, in which he detailed false intelligence gatherings provided by the Israeli government regarding Iraqi WMD. The USA was faced with the opposition of a majority of the Security Council's members, including Germany, France, and Russia, and afterwards abandoned the effort to obtain an explicit use-of-force authorization from the UN.

On March 20, 2003, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq, an action that led to the overthrow of the government of Saddam Hussein.

Over the ensuing year, U.S. and allied forces searched for evidence supporting the pre-invasion claims about Iraqi WMD stockpiles and programs. The lead role in this search was played by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), consisting of investigators from the U.S. Department of Defense and the CIA. Although scattered remnants of Iraq's WMD stockpiles from the time of the 1991 Gulf War were found, the ISG's final report concluded that Iraq did not possess significant WMD capabilities at the time of the invasion of Iraq. The ISG also stated that Iraq had intended to restart all banned weapons programs as soon as multilateral sanctions against it had been dropped.

As these facts were emerging in June 2003, U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, announced that the Committee, as part of its regular oversight responsibility, would conduct a "thorough and bipartisan review" of Iraqi WMD and ties to terrorist groups. On June 20, 2003, Senator Roberts and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), the Committee's vice chairman, issued a joint press release announcing that the committee would conduct a detailed review of the Iraqi WMD intelligence process, including the following areas:

 * the quantity and quality of U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs, ties to terrorist groups, Saddam Hussein's threat to stability and security in the region, and his repression of his own people;
 * the objectivity, reasonableness, independence, and accuracy of the judgments reached by the Intelligence Community;
 * whether those judgments were properly disseminated to policy makers in the Executive Branch and Congress;
 * whether any influence was brought to bear on anyone to shape their analysis to support policy objectives; and
 * other issues we mutually identify in the course of the Committee's review.

Investigation committee membership
The following nine Republicans were members of the Committee at the time the investigation was launched: Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Michael DeWine (R-OH), Kit Bond (R-MO), Trent Lott (R-MS), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), and John Warner (R-VA).

The following eight Democrats made up the rest of the Committee: Vice-Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Carl Levin (D-MI), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Ronald Wyden (D-OR), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Evan Bayh (D-IN), John Edwards (D-NC),  and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD).

Chronology
In the course of the investigation, Committee staff reviewed more than 30,000 pages of documentation provided by the intelligence community. The Committee requested that it be supplied copies of the President's Daily Briefs (PDBs) concerning Iraq's WMD capabilities and ties to terrorism, but the White House denied that request. An article by journalist Murray Waas has described a specific controversy over the PDB for September 21, 2001, which allegedly said that the US intelligence community had "no evidence" linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11 attacks, and "scant credible evidence" that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with al Qaeda.

Committee staff also interviewed more than 200 people, including intelligence analysts and senior officials with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Defense, and other federal entities involved in intelligence gathering and analysis. The Committee also held a series of hearings on the intelligence concerning Iraqi WMD and ties to terrorism.

On February 12, 2004, Senators Roberts and Rockefeller announced an expansion of the scope of the investigation. The new elements added to the investigation were:

 * the collection of intelligence on Iraq from the end of the Gulf War to the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom;
 * whether public statements and reports and testimony regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials made between the Gulf War period and the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom were substantiated by intelligence information;
 * the postwar findings about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and weapons programs and links to terrorism and how they compare with prewar assessments;
 * prewar intelligence assessments about postwar Iraq;
 * any intelligence activities relating to Iraq conducted by the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCTEG) and the Office of Special Plans within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; and
 * the use by the Intelligence Community of information provided by the Iraqi National Congress (INC).

On June 17, 2004, Senators Roberts and Rockefeller announced that the completed report had been unanimously approved by the Committee's members, and that they were working with the CIA on the issue of declassification. The completed report, with blacked-out text ("redactions") made by the CIA, was released on July 9, 2004. The report did not cover most of the new topics announced in the February 12, 2004, press release; instead, those topics were now to be covered in a separate report, to be completed later, covering "phase two" of the investigation.

Phase I conclusions
The 511-page report focuses much of its attention on the October, 2002, classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) titled Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction. The report includes 117 formal conclusions, as well as supporting discussion and background information.

General conclusions on intelligence relating to Iraq's WMD and ties to terrorism
The report's first conclusion points to widespread flaws in the October 2002 NIE, and attributes those flaws to failure by analysts in the intelligence community:

 * Most of the major key judgments in the Intelligence Community's October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, either overstated, or were not supported by, the underlying intelligence reporting. A series of failures, particularly in analytic trade craft, led to the mischaracterization of the intelligence.

Subsequent conclusions fault the intelligence community for failing to adequately explain to policymakers the uncertainties that underlay the NIE's conclusions, and for succumbing to "group think," in which the intelligence community adopted untested (and, in hindsight, unwarranted) assumptions about the extent of Iraq's WMD stockpiles and programs. The committee identified a failure to adequately supervise analysts and collectors, and a failure to develop human sources of intelligence (HUMINT) inside Iraq after the departure of international weapons inspectors in 1998. It also cited the post-9/11 environment as having led to an increase in the intensity with which policymakers review and question threat information.

Niger and the Iraqi nuclear program
Section II of the report discussed the handling of intelligence indicating that Iraq might be attempting to purchase uranium from Niger. The report examined the role played by former ambassador Joseph Wilson in investigating the issue, and the way Wilson's assessment was communicated within the intelligence community. It also discusses the process whereby references to Iraq's uranium-procurement efforts were removed from some speeches at the behest of intelligence officials, but left in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. The report concludes that prior to October, 2002, it was reasonable for the intelligence community to assess Iraq may have been attempting to obtain uranium from Africa.

Section III of the report discusses assessments of Iraq's domestic nuclear program. It focuses a significant amount of attention on the intelligence process that took place in the spring of 2001 regarding Iraq's attempts to purchase 60,000 high-strength aluminum tubes. The CIA concluded that the tubes could be intended for constructing centrifuges for a uranium-enrichment program (i.e., for a restarted Iraqi nuclear weapons program); analysts in the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense considered that to be unlikely.

The October 2002 NIE stated that Iraq appeared to be reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. The Committee's report concluded that this view was not supported by the underlying intelligence, and the report agreed with the opinion of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, expressed as an "alternative view" in the NIE, that the available intelligence did not make "a compelling case for reconstitution" of the Iraqi nuclear program. The committee reached several conclusions critical of poor communications between the CIA and other parts of the intelligence community concerning this issue.

Biological weapons, chemical weapons, and delivery systems
The sections of the report concerned with assessments of Iraq's biological weapons programs, chemical weapons programs, and delivery systems contain extensive discussion of the problem of inadequate "human intelligence" for intelligence gathering in Iraq. There is discussion of "CURVEBALL," an Iraqi defector who provided much of the information regarding Iraq's alleged mobile bioweapons labs, although much of the material in this part of the report has been redacted. The report concludes that the October 2002 NIE and other statements regarding Iraq's biological and chemical WMD and associated delivery systems were for the most part not supported by the underlying intelligence data supplied to the Committee.

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts told NBC's Tim Russert that "Curveball really provided 98 percent of the assessment as to whether or not the Iraqis had a biological weapon." This was in despite the fact that "nobody inside the U.S. government had ever actually spoken to the informant – except [for a single] Pentagon analyst, who concluded the man was an alcoholic and utterly useless as a source."

After learning the intelligence provided by Curveball was going to be used as the "backbone" of the case for war, the Pentagon analyst wrote a letter to the CIA expressing his concerns. The Deputy of the CIA Counter Proliferation Unit quickly responded by saying:

"Let's keep in mind the fact that this war's going to happen regardless of what Curve Ball said or didn't say. The Powers That Be probably aren't terribly interested in whether Curve Ball knows what he's talking about."

One area where the Committee found that the intelligence community's reporting accurately reflected the underlying intelligence concerned Iraq's retention of Scud-type ballistic missiles, and its development of new types of short- and medium-range missiles. In the case of the NIE's reporting on Iraq's development of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), however, the Committee found that the reporting generally was not well-supported by the underlying intelligence, and overstated what was known concerning the likelihood that the Iraqi UAVs were intended for use as a delivery means for biological weapons.

Colin Powell's speech to the UN
Section VII of the Committee's report focuses on the intelligence behind Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the UN on February 5, 2003. The report describes the process whereby the CIA provided a draft of the speech to the National Security Council (NSC), and then, at the request of the NSC, worked to expand the speech with additional material, especially regarding Iraq's nuclear program. The report also describes the subsequent review made by Colin Powell and analysts from the State Department with analysts from the CIA. In the speech, Powell said that "every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." Despite this, the Committee concluded that "[m]uch of the information provided or cleared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for inclusion in Secretary Powell's speech was overstated, misleading, or incorrect."

Pressure on analysts
The report partially looks at the question of whether pressure was brought to bear on intelligence analysts to get them to shape their assessments to support particular policy objectives. It recounts how Sen. Roberts made repeated public calls for any analysts who believed they had been pressured to alter their assessments to speak with the Committee about their experiences. The Committee also attempted to identify and interview several individuals who had described such pressure in media reports and government documents. The report says that the Committee did not find any evidence that administration officials tried to pressure analysts to change their judgments; however, an evaluation of the Bush Administration's use of intelligence was put off until "phase two" of the investigation. (Several Democratic committee members, although they voted to approve the report's conclusions, expressed reservations on this issue and Republicans also acknowledged that the issue of "pressure" would be examined during phase two; see below, in the discussion of the report's "additional views", for details.)

The October 2002 white paper

A white paper titled "Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction" was released by CIA Director George Tenet on October 4, 2002, three days after the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraqi WMD was released. In part, the white paper was a response to Congressional requests for an unclassified version of the information in the NIE, since that document was available only to a small group of lawmakers due to its classified nature. The white paper, although shorter and less-detailed than the NIE, was very similar to it in format and major conclusions. The Committee found that the white paper presented a significantly stronger characterization of the threat represented by Iraqi WMD than did the NIE, and that that stronger characterization was not supported by the underlying intelligence.

Iraq's alleged links to al-Qaeda
Several sections in the report examine topics relating to allegations of links between Iraq and terrorism. The Committee said that the intelligence community produced reasonable conclusions on this topic, although the Committee found gaps in the intelligence-gathering methods used (Page 350).

Much of the Committee's investigation in this area concerned the CIA's preparation and distribution of a document titled Iraqi Support for Terrorism. An initial version of this document was distributed to senior Bush administration officials in September, 2002; an updated version of the document was provided to Congress in January, 2003. The conclusion of CIA analysts was that although Saddam Hussein's government had likely had several contacts with al Qaeda during the 1990s, "those contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship." The CIA also attempted to determine the attitudes that Iraqi and al-Qaeda leadership held toward the possibility of working cooperatively with each other. The available intelligence in this area suggested that Iraqi and al-Qaeda leaders would be wary of working together.

The "most problematic area of contact between Iraq and al-Qaida were the reports of training in the use of non-conventional weapons, specifically chemical and biological weapons." Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been present in Baghdad, and Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaeda affiliate organization that identified itself as the "sworn enemy" of Saddam Hussein had operated in northeastern Iraq in an area under Kurdish control. There was no evidence proving Iraqi complicity or assistance in an al Qaeda attack. The report criticized the CIA for its lack of human intelligence resources in Iraq to assess the country's ties with terrorism during the time prior to 2002.

In terms of pressure on analysts, the Committee said that after 9/11, "analysts were under tremendous pressure to make correct assessments, to avoid missing a credible threat, and to avoid an intelligence failure on the scale of 9/11." The Committee concluded that this resulted in assessments that were "bold and assertive in pointing out potential terrorist links," and that this pressure was more the result of analysts' own desire to be as thorough as possible, than of any undue influence by the administration, for which the Committee said they found no evidence. Several Democratic members of the Committee said in the report's "additional views" that the question had not been adequately explored.

The report's "additional views"
The Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted unanimously to approve the finished report. There were, however, significant areas of disagreement, with those disagreements being expressed in the form of "additional views" attached at the end of the report proper.

Senators Roberts, Hatch, and Bond
In the first "additional view" attached to the report, Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS), joined by Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Christopher Bond (R-MO), presents two conclusions that Democratic members of the Committee were unwilling to include in the report, even though, according to Roberts, "there was no dispute with the underlying facts." Those two conclusions related to the actions of Joseph Wilson, the former ambassador who was sent to Niger in 2002 to investigate allegations that the Iraqi government was attempting to purchase "yellowcake" uranium, presumably as part of an attempt to revive Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The two conclusions were that the plan to send Wilson to investigate the Niger allegation was suggested by Wilson's wife, a CIA employee, and that in his later public statements criticizing the Bush administration, Wilson included information he had learned from press accounts, misrepresenting it as firsthand knowledge.

This additional view also discusses the question of pressure on analysts, and recommends caution in implementing reforms in the intelligence community.

Senators Rockefeller, Levin, and Durbin
Senators John D. Rockefeller (D-WV) (the Committee's vice-chairman), Carl Levin (D-MI), and Richard Durbin (D-IL), used their additional view to say that the report painted an incomplete picture, because the Committee had put off until phase two of the investigation the key question of "how intelligence on Iraq was used or misused by Administration officials in public statements and reports." Because of this, they said, "the Committee's phase one report fails to fully explain the environment of intense pressure in which Intelligence Community officials were asked to render judgments on matters relating to Iraq when policy officials had already forcefully stated their own conclusions in public."

Senators Chambliss, Hatch, Lott, Hagel, and Bond
The third additional view in the report is by Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), with Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Trent Lott (R-MS), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and Christopher Bond (R-MO). It focuses on the issues of information sharing and Human Intelligence (HUMINT), and rebuts the allegation of "pressure" contained in the additional view by Senators Rockefeller, Levin, and Durbin.

Other additional views
Senator Olympia Snow (R-ME) wrote in her additional view that the Committee's report revealed poor management and a lack of accountability in the intelligence community, and she called for strong reforms.

Senator John Warner (R-VA) used his additional view to defend the integrity and professionalism of front-line intelligence analysts, and to emphasize that "there was no evidence that anyone involved in reaching intelligence judgments for this NIE was subjected to any pressure from their superiors or from policymakers to alter any of their judgments or analyses."

The additional view by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), was critical of the Bush administration, saying it "did not fairly represent the intelligence."

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) was also critical of the Bush administration in his additional view, giving a list of public statements by senior members of the administration that misstated and exaggerated the underlying intelligence on Iraq.

Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) focused on the need for greater accountability for the intelligence failures identified in the report.

Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) used her additional view to argue for a number of specific structural and procedural reforms in the intelligence community.

"Phase two" of the investigation
At the time of the report's release (July 9, 2004), Democratic members of the committee expressed the hope that "phase two" of the investigation, which was to include an assessment of how the Iraqi WMD intelligence was used by senior policymakers, would be completed quickly. Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) said of phase two, "It is a priority. I made my commitment and it will get done."

On March 10, 2005, during a question-and-answer session after a speech he had given at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Senator Roberts said of the failure to complete phase two, "[T]hat is basically on the back burner." Senator John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), vice chairman of the Committee, made a statement later that day in which he said, "The Chairman agreed to this investigation and I fully expect him to fulfill his commitment.... While the completion of phase two is long overdue, the committee has continued this important work, and I expect that we will finish the review in the very near future."

In a statement regarding the release of the report of the presidential WMD commission on March 31, 2005, Senator Roberts wrote, "I don't think there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all regarding prewar intelligence. I think that it would be a monumental waste of time to replow this ground any further."

On April 10, 2005, Senators Roberts and Rockefeller appeared together on NBC's Meet the Press program. In response to a question about the completion of phase two of the investigation, Roberts said, "I'm perfectly willing to do it, and that's what we agreed to do, and that door is still open. And I don't want to quarrel with Jay, because we both agreed that we would get it done.  But we do have – we have Ambassador Negroponte next week, we have General Mike Hayden next week.  We have other hot-spot hearings or other things going on that are very important."

Moderator Tim Russert then asked Senator Rockefeller if he believed phase two would be completed, and he replied, "I hope so. Pat and I have agreed to do it. We've shaken hands on it, and we agreed to do it after the elections so it wouldn't be any sort of sense of a political attack. I mean that was my view; it shouldn't be viewed that way."

On August 2, 2005, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) released the text of a letter she had sent to Senator Roberts, saying, in part, "I am increasingly dismayed by the delay in completing the Committee's 'Phase II' investigation into intelligence prior to the Iraq War.... I stand ready to participate in this investigation in any way possible."

On November 1, 2005, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate minority leader, invoked a seldom-used provision of the Senate rules to place the body in a closed session. During a three-and-a-half hour discussion, agreement was reached on the creation of a six-member Senate panel to report by November 14 on "the intelligence committee's progress of the phase two review of the prewar intelligence and its schedule for completion."

On April 26, 2006, an article by journalist Alexander Bolton in the Congressional journal The Hill reported that Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) was seeking to further divide the phase two report. Under Roberts' new approach, the following components of the report would be released relatively quickly: pre-war intelligence assessments of post-war Iraq, postwar findings in Iraq regarding WMD and ties to terrorism, and the use by US intelligence of information supplied by the Iraqi National Congress. Two components of the report would be delayed: whether public statements before the war by senior government officials were supported by the underlying intelligence, and the role played by the Department of Defense's Office of Special Plans in developing the prewar intelligence.

A September 7, 2006, article by journalist Jonathon Weisman in the Washington Post reported that the part of the phase two report comparing the Bush administration's public statements about Saddam Hussein with the evidence senior officials reviewed in private would not be released before the November 2006 election.

Two volumes of the phase II report were released on September 8, 2006: "Postwar Findings about Iraq's WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments" and "The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress."

After Democrats gained a majority in the Senate during the 2006 midterm election, chairmanship of the committee passed to Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV). The former chair, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) left the committee; the ranking Republican and vice chairman of the committee is now Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO).

On May 25, 2007, the committee released a volume of the phase II report titled, "Prewar Intelligence Assessments About Postwar Iraq". This volume of the report includes seven pages of conclusions regarding assessments provided by the intelligence community to U.S. government leaders prior to the Iraq war. The report concludes that the intelligence community had assessed that establishing a stable government in Iraq would be a "long, difficult, and probably turbulent challenge," that Iraqi society was deeply divided and would engage in violent conflict unless an occupying power took steps to prevent it, and that the war would increase the threat of terrorism, at least temporarily. The intelligence community also assessed that a U.S. defeat and occupation of Iraq would lead to a surge in political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups, and that the war would not cause other countries in the region to abandon their WMD programs.

This volume of the report includes an appendix containing two previously classified reports by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) titled, "Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq" and "Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq", as well as a long list of recipients within the government of NIC assessments on Iraq. The appendix also contains a number of "Additional Views" in which different members of the committee comment on the history of the committee's work in this area, and criticize what they characterize as the politicization of that work by members of the other party.

Phase II of the report was publicly released on Thursday June 5, 2008 whether statements by US Government officials were substantiated by intelligence reports.

This was a bi-partisan majority report (10-5) and "details inappropriate, sensitive intelligence activities conducted by the DoD's Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department." It concludes that the US Administration "repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed." These included President Bush's statements of a partnership between Iraq and Al Qa'ida, that Saddam Hussein was preparing to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups, and Iraq's capability to produce chemical weapons.

The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen.Jay Rockefeller, stated in press release of report's publication "It is my belief that the Bush Administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by al Qa'ida as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. To accomplish this, top Administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and al Qa'ida as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11.  Sadly, the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses. While the report highlights many of the problems with the intelligence and criticizes the Bush Administration for its handling of the lead up to the war and its reasons for doing so, the report also supports in many cases that claims made by the Bush Administration about Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction programs were "generally substantiated by the intelligence".

"There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence. But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate."

The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen.Jay Rockefeller twice alleged that the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, or its former head Douglas Feith may have engaged in unlawful activities, Phase II of the report "found nothing to substantiate that claim; nothing unlawful about the "alleged" rogue intelligence operation in the PCTEG, nothing unlawful about the Office of Special Plans, and nothing unlawful about the so-called failure to inform Congress of alleged intelligence activities." The previous year, the chairman released a press statement claiming that it appeared that the office's were "not in compliance with the law." Yet, rather than pursue these allegations, Rockfeller decided to pursue an issue unrelated to the intelligence, and unrelated to Iraq. He pursued and inquiry of an exploratory meeting held in Rome in 2001 between two DOD officials and two Iranians. Writing for the Minority Opinion as part of the report it was stated that "After four years of making unsubstantiated allegations of unlawful activities, the calculus appears to be that proclamations of "inappropriate" behavior will generate the desired headlines focusing only on the caustic words, rather than the lack of substance behind them. We hope that these additional views will help redirect that focus to the evidence, or lack thereof."

Despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's telling her caucus members "that impeachment is off the table; she is not interested in pursuing it," Dennis Kucinich D-Ohio introduced a formal resolution to the House of Representatives in an attempt to impeach President George W. Bush from the White House. House Democrats unanimously voted to send it to a committee; a maneuver that essentially killed Kucinich's efforts.

title: Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence


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Concrete Island

Concrete Island is a novel by British writer J. G. Ballard, first published in 1974.

Plot introduction
A car accident leaves Robert Maitland, a wealthy architect in the midst of concealing his affair with a colleague, stranded in a large area of derelict land created by several intersecting motorways. Though surrounded by motorists and within sight of large buildings, Maitland is unable to escape the median strip and must struggle for survival. Along the way he encounters other inhabitants of the median strip, which he comes to call "The Island," including a teenaged sex worker who hides out in an abandoned air-raid bunker and an acrobat who became mentally disabled in an accident and now salvages car parts for bizarre shamanic rituals. He learns to survive by scavenging discarded food from littering motorists, and eventually comes to think of the island as his true home. Conflicts ensue with the other inhabitants and before long Maitland is struggling to determine whether he was truly meant to leave the island at all.

The novel heavily references Shakespeare's The Tempest, with its remote island setting, its stranded inhabitants, the belief in sorcery and its Caliban character, the unstable acrobat.

Adaptations
Ballard's papers at the British Library include his screenplay (1972) for Concrete Island (Add MS 88938/3/9).

In an episode entitled The Island from the cartoon show CatDog both characters are stuck in a dilemma identical to the protagonist in Concrete Island.

In 2011, Barcelona-based production company Filmax announced that it was producing a film adaptation of the novel. Scott Kosar was set to adapt Ballard's story, and Brad Anderson was to direct. Actor Christian Bale was announced as the main character. A start date has yet to be announced. Bale, who played the lead in Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Ballard's Empire of the Sun, apparently is no longer attached to the project.

In June 2013, BBC Radio 4 aired an hour-long adaptation by Graham White, directed by Mary Peate, featuring Andrew Scott as Maitland, Georgia Groome as Jane and Ben Crowe as Proctor.

title: Concrete Island


text: User talk:12.5.16.51

title: User talk:12.5.16.51


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Mets–Willets Point station (IRT Flushing Line)

The Mets–Willets Point station (formerly Willets Point–Shea Stadium station) is a rapid transit station on the IRT Flushing Line of the New York City Subway. Located near the Citi Field baseball stadium, it is served by the 7 train at all times and by the express <7> train during rush hours in the peak direction or after sporting events. This station is located near Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Willets Point, Queens, on Roosevelt Avenue between 114th and 126th Streets.

The station opened on May 7, 1927, as a local station named Willets Point Boulevard, with two side platforms and three tracks. It was rebuilt into the current layout of three tracks, two side platforms, and a center island platform for the 1939 New York World's Fair. The overpass to Flushing Meadows–Corona Park was rebuilt in the early 1940s. Ahead of the 1964 New York World's Fair, the original wooden platforms were replaced with more durable concrete slabs; shortly afterward, the station was renamed for the nearby Shea Stadium. After Shea Stadium was replaced by Citi Field in 2009, the station was renamed after the New York Mets baseball team, and a ramp was added to the Flushing-bound side platform. A connection to the proposed AirTrain LaGuardia people mover system was announced in 2015, but the people mover was canceled in 2023.

The station's peak use occurs during Mets games at Citi Field (and at Shea Stadium from 1964 until 2008), located on the north side of the station, and during events at the USTA National Tennis Center, on the south side. The side platform for Manhattan-bound local trains, as well as the island platform for express trains and Flushing-bound local trains, are in regular use. The side platform for Flushing-bound local trains is wheelchair-accessible but is only open during sports games and special events; the other platforms are not wheelchair-accessible.

Construction and opening

The 1913 Dual Contracts called for the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) and Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (BRT; later Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, or BMT) to build new lines in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Queens did not receive many new IRT and BRT lines compared to Brooklyn and the Bronx, since the city's Public Service Commission (PSC) wanted to alleviate subway crowding in the other two boroughs first before building in Queens, which was relatively undeveloped. The IRT Flushing Line was to be one of two Dual Contracts lines in the borough, along with the Astoria Line; it would connect Flushing and Long Island City, two of Queens' oldest settlements, to Manhattan via the Steinway Tunnel. When the majority of the line was built in the early 1910s, most of the route went through undeveloped land, and Roosevelt Avenue had not been constructed. Community leaders advocated for more Dual Contracts lines to be built in Queens to allow development there. The Flushing Line west of 103rd Street opened in 1917. The IRT agreed to operate the line under the condition that any loss of profits would be repaid by the city. In 1923, the BMT started operating shuttle services along the Flushing Line, which terminated at Queensboro Plaza.

As part of the Dual Contracts, the PSC would build the line eastward to at least Flushing. Three stations at Main Street, Willets Point Boulevard, and 111th Street were approved in 1921 as part of an extension of the Flushing Line past 103rd Street. Construction of the station and the double-deck bridge over the Flushing Creek began on April 21, 1923. The line to Main Street had been practically completed by 1925, but it had to be rebuilt in part due to the sinking of the foundations of the structure in the vicinity of Flushing Creek. Once the structure was deemed to be safe for operation, the line was extended to Willets Point Boulevard on May 7, 1927. The station's opening was formally celebrated on that date, coinciding with the opening of the Roosevelt Avenue Bridge for cars and buses. Until the Main Street station was completed, trains temporarily terminated at Willets Point Boulevard, where passengers boarded a shuttle bus to travel across the creek to Flushing. The Willets Point Boulevard extension was served by shuttle trains from 111th Street until through service was inaugurated on May 14.

The BMT used wooden elevated rolling stock, as the Flushing Line was built to IRT clearances, and standard steel BMT subway rolling stock were not compatible. Furthermore, because the Main Street station was underground, all elevated trains on the Flushing Line had to terminate at Willets Point Boulevard, as elevated trains were banned in subway tunnels. On January 22, 1928, the line was extended one stop east to Main Street. Afterward, Willets Point Boulevard was by far the least used station on the Flushing Line; it recorded 66,042 entries in 1930, whereas every other station on the line had at least one million passengers. After the Long Island Rail Road closed its Whitestone Branch to the neighborhood of Whitestone in early 1932, there were proposals to connect the branch with the subway at the Willets Point Boulevard station, but this did not happen.

1939 World's Fair
The site just south of the Willets Point Boulevard station was remodeled into Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in advance of the 1939 New York World's Fair. In December 1936, the IRT announced plans to expand the Willets Point Boulevard station to accommodate additional crowds for the World's Fair. The station would contain three platforms and four tracks, capable of serving 40 trains per hour in each direction. Expansion of the Willets Point Boulevard station, as well as the construction of an Independent Subway System (IND) line to a planned World's Fair station nearby, was seen as essential for World's Fair access. In January 1937, the World's Fair Corporation presented plans for the Willets Point Boulevard station's expansion to the New York City Board of Estimate, which voted to provide $650,000 for the project. The Manhattan Railway Company, which operated the IRT's elevated lines, opposed the planned expansion because it would put the IRT and IND in direct competition, but a federal judge ruled that the project could proceed.

Work on an overpass between the Willets Point Boulevard station and Flushing Meadows Park commenced in late 1937. Ramps and stairs were built from each platform to the overpass, where 16 turnstiles and a canopy were installed. Construction on the station itself began in January 1938, at which point the project had a budget of $494,000. The station had been revised to three tracks and three platforms. The center track and platform would be served by express trains that terminated at Willets Point Boulevard, while the outer two tracks would be used by local trains to Main Street. The IRT installed signals on the express track, which had previously been used as a storage track, and it built a power substation to allow for more frequent service. The IRT bought 50 World's Fair Lo-V subway cars in conjunction with these upgrades. World's Fair Special express trains began service on April 24, 1939. The fair opened on April 30, and 110,689 people entered the station on that day alone.

1940s and 1950s
The city government took over the IRT's operations on June 12, 1940. After the World's Fair closed in October 1940, the Willets Point Boulevard station continued to operate, serving Flushing Meadows Park. The overpass to Flushing Meadows Park was reconstructed in 1941. As part of a pilot program aimed at reducing traffic congestion in midtown Manhattan, a park and ride facility with 3,000 parking spots opened next to the Willets Point Boulevard station in November 1947. Many of the Willets Point Boulevard station's riders came from the park-and-ride facility and from United Nations General Assembly meetings in Flushing Meadows Park, but the New York Daily News said in 1949 that the station "serves practically no resident population".

The IRT routes were given numbered designations in 1948 with the introduction of "R-type" rolling stock, which contained rollsigns with numbered designations for each service. The route from Times Square to Flushing became known as the 7. On October 17, 1949, the joint BMT/IRT operation of the Flushing Line ended, and the line became the responsibility of the IRT. After the end of BMT/IRT dual service, the New York City Board of Transportation announced that the Flushing Line platforms would be lengthened to 11 IRT car lengths; the platforms were only able to fit nine 51-foot-long IRT cars beforehand. The platforms at the station were extended in 1955–1956 to accommodate 11-car trains. However, nine-car trains continued to run on the 7 route until 1962, when they were extended to ten cars.

At the end of 1949, the city proposed diverting several bus routes that terminated in Flushing, sending these routes to Willets Point Boulevard. The bus-terminal plan faced great opposition. Critics objected that business near the bus terminals in Flushing would decrease and that travel times from Willets Point Boulevard to points east would increase. Supporters of the plan noted the heavy traffic congestion on Flushing streets and the narrowness of the stairways at the Main Street station. Super-express 7 trains started serving the station in 1953, running nonstop between Queensboro Plaza and Willets Point Boulevard during rush hours in the peak direction. The super-express service was discontinued in 1956.

1964 World's Fair and Shea Stadium

In 1960, the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA) proposed upgrading the station in advance of the 1964 New York World's Fair, which was to be held at Flushing Meadows. The plans included rebuilding the walkway between the station and the park; the Willets Point Boulevard station would be the closest stop to the fair, since the World's Fair Line was not planned to be rebuilt. The NYCTA set aside $3.2 million for the expansion of the Willets Point Boulevard station and the nearby Corona Yard. Around the same time, Shea Stadium was built north of the Willets Point Boulevard station as a baseball stadium for the New York Mets. To make way for Shea Stadium, the Willets Point Boulevard park-and-ride facility was closed in 1962 and replaced with a 1,200-space parking lot south of the station. A direct ramp was built from the station to Flushing Meadows Park to accommodate increased crowds. The wooden platforms were also replaced with more durable concrete slabs.

With the opening of the World's Fair in April 1964, trains were lengthened to eleven cars, and the NYCTA bought 430 R33 and R36 "World's Fair" cars to provide this enhanced service. The station was renamed Willets Point–Shea Stadium. The "Willets Point" in the station's name is derived from the boulevard. The boulevard was named after the Willets Point peninsula at Fort Totten, 3 mi northeast. The area near the Willets Point Boulevard station became known as Willets Point during the 20th century.

One of Shea Stadium's parking lots, adjacent to the station, was expanded in 1978, becoming a park-and-ride facility with 1,500 spaces. In 1983, Donald Trump proposed erecting a football stadium within Flushing Meadows–Corona Park and have the city government renovate the Willets Point subway station; however, the stadium was never built. A floor mosaic at the station's entrance, depicting the old Trylon and Perisphere, was completed in 1998.

21st century

The MTA reintroduced express service to Manhattan at the conclusion of New York Mets weeknight games in July 2007. Super-express trains to Manhattan also started operating after weekend games in April 2008. The super-express trains run for approximately one hour after the game and only make three stops in Queens before entering Manhattan: 61st Street–Woodside, Queensboro Plaza, and Court Square.

After Shea Stadium was replaced with Citi Field in 2009, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority renamed the stop Mets–Willets Point, omitting the corporate-sponsored name associated with the current stadium. Citigroup had sponsored the new baseball field but did not sign a naming rights deal with the MTA. Had the naming rights deal been achieved, the station would have been known as Willets Point–Citi Field. In conjunction with Citi Field's construction, the MTA also spent $40 million to renovate the subway and LIRR stations at Willets Point, including $18 million on the subway station. The MTA repainted the station, replaced lighting, and renovated the platforms. A ramp to the northbound side platform was rehabilitated, making that platform compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). However, the other platforms remained inaccessible, prompting protests from disability rights advocates. Except for game days, the Mets–Willets Point station remained sparsely used, with 4,155 passengers on an average weekday in 2014.

Unbuilt AirTrain station
On January 20, 2015, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a plan to build AirTrain LaGuardia, a people mover running along the Grand Central Parkway and connecting the station to LaGuardia Airport. The project would have included a $50 million renovation of the Willets Point subway station, which would have become fully accessible. In May 2017, Parsons Brinckerhoff was hired to design the AirTrain; at the time, construction was projected to start in 2019. Transportation advocates criticized the plan as being overly roundabout. In October 2021, Kathy Hochul, who succeeded Cuomo as governor after his resignation, directed PANYNJ to pause the AirTrain project. The PANYNJ presented 14 alternatives in March 2022, and the AirTrain LGA project was canceled in March 2023 in favor of increased bus service.

Station layout
The Mets–Willets Point station contains three tracks and three platforms. From compass north to south, there is a southbound side platform, southbound track for Manhattan-bound local trains (internally known as track 1), center express track (track M), island platform, northbound track for Flushing-bound local trains (track 2), and northbound side platform. It is served by 7 local trains at all times and by <7> express trains during rush hours in the peak direction. The next station to the west is for express trains and  for local trains, while the next station to the east is. Northbound local trains normally open their doors on the island platform. The northbound side platform is used only during Mets games and events at the National Tennis Center, such as the U.S. Open. Some 7 local trains terminate at this station during the evening rush hour.

West of the station, there are switches between the local tracks, the express track, and the northern layup track to 111th Street. East of the station, switches allow trains on the express track in either direction to switch to the local track, but not vice versa.

Exits
On the south side of the station, a wheelchair-accessible ramp connects the mezzanine and the northbound (southern) side platform to a footbridge, known as the Passarelle Boardwalk, which passes over Corona Yard and connects to the Mets–Willets Point station on the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)'s Port Washington Branch, before entering the grounds of the National Tennis Center.

A wooden mezzanine is located underneath the tracks and platforms, with two ramps to the southbound platform and two stairways to the island platform. The north side of the station has a stairway, which formerly led to Shea Stadium but now leads directly to Citi Field's Jackie Robinson Rotunda. The mezzanine contains a station agent's booth, as well as a main fare control area with several turnstiles and an emergency-exit door. Typically, passengers enter the station through the main fare control area, but these turnstiles are deactivated during Mets games, allowing pedestrians to walk between the LIRR station to the south and Citi Field to the north without paying a fare. During Mets games, the ramps to the southbound platform and the stairs to the island platform are accessed by their own fare-control areas, each with several turnstiles.

Accessibility

The Mets–Willets Point station is generally not accessible to passengers with disabilities, except during sporting events, when the northbound side platform is open. In 2009, the MTA built a ramp from the south side of Roosevelt Avenue to the station mezzanine. The two existing ramps from the mezzanine to station level were modified to make them ADA-accessible; the work cost $4 million. The ramps are owned and maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

Some riders with disabilities were unhappy that the station was not made completely accessible during the station's renovation. By contrast, other New York City Subway stations that serve sports venues, including 161st Street–Yankee Stadium for Yankee Stadium, 34th Street–Penn Station at Seventh Avenue and Eighth Avenue for Madison Square Garden, and Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center for Barclays Center, are completely accessible. Northbound local trains open their doors on the side platform during games and special events only; the platform typically opens 90 minutes before an event and closes 90 minutes afterward. The southbound platform and the center platform are not wheelchair-accessible. Transit advocates also complained about the Willets Point station's lack of accessibility outside of game days; aside from Willets Point, only four of the Flushing Line's 18 stations in Queens were accessible.

A footbridge had formerly extended north over Casey Stengel Plaza, leading to a long, circular staircase with turnstiles at the bottom, bringing people close to Gate E at Shea Stadium. In 2008, the footbridge and turnstiles were removed and replaced with a wider stairway which is now situated at Mets Plaza, close to Citi Field's Jackie Robinson Rotunda. The arrangement of turnstiles in the mezzanine was also reconfigured to improve the post-game pedestrian flows and allow fans to use all ramps, whether they were using the subway or walking across the Passarelle Boardwalk to reach the Long Island Rail Road station or parking lots in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park.


text:
Talk:USS Pickerel (SS-524)

Untitled
I would like to confirm that USS Pickerel was renamed It.N.S Primo Longobardo after the re-commissioning ceremony at Charleston. I was the first Italian C.O. of the Pickerel and was also ComGrupSom III, i.e. commanded the group Pickerel and Volador (It.N.S. Gazzana Priaroggia). Cdr. Bruno Lepori, It.N. (ret.)

title: Talk:USS Pickerel (SS-524)


text:
Talk:Lenka Kotková

ISO-8859-1
I know, the title of this page should really be "Lenka Šarounová". However, the English, German, Dutch, Danish and Swedish Wikipedias are the only ones not to use Unicode (UTF-8); they are still stuck with ISO-8859-1. As described in Special characters (or better yet meta:Help:Special characters), non-ISO-8859-1 characters are unsafe in titles and even in the text itself. The S-caron (Š, Š, ) is $8A (%138) on Windows code page 1252 machines and is not ISO-8859-1. So I'm compromising by using it in the text but not in the title.

The references to Lenka Šarounová (in the asteroid lists), when used in the ISO-8859-1 Wikipedias, send Windows and Macintosh browsers (Netscape 7, anyway) to, whereas the UTF-8 Wikipedias go to  . See the difference?

Urhixidur 17:30, 2004 Jul 29 (UTC)

title: Talk:Lenka Kotková


text:
Jeremy Davies (exorcist)

Jeremy Ponsonby Meredyth Davies (25 March 1935 – 5 November 2022) was an English Roman Catholic priest and physician. Davies was a leading exorcist and co-founder of the International Association of Exorcists.

Early life
Jeremy Ponsonby Meredyth Davies was born on 25 March 1935 in Wimbledon, London to Idris and Elizabeth Davies. He was educated at The King's School, Canterbury.

Davies studied English literature at St Edmund Hall, Oxford and studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He graduated with a medical degree in 1967, then worked in Mission Hospitals in Guyana, Nigeria and Ghana.

He then became House Surgeon at Redhill General Hospital in Surrey.

Ordained ministry
Jeremy Davies became a Catholic in 1966 at the age of 31 when he was baptised at the church of St Charles Borromeo Church, Westminster (Ogle Street, London). He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1974. He served as a chaplain at Westminster Cathedral from 1974 to 1976, then as an assistant priest at St Mary’s, Chelsea from 1976 to 1979. During this time he became deeply involved in the Pro-Life movement and also spent time in Rome training as an exorcist. He established the annual Pilgrimage of Reparation and Prayer for the Sanctity of Life, centred on Walsingham, Norfolk, in 1984.

Father Davies was appointed exorcist of the Westminster Archdiocese in Great Britain in 1987. In 1993, he co-founded, along with Father Gabriele Amorth and four others, the International Association of Exorcists which now has hundreds of members worldwide.

From 1997 to 2005, Father Davies was parish priest for Puckeridge and Old Hall Green, Hertfordshire; on turning 70 in 2005 he became an assistant priest at Our Lady Help of Christians in Luton. In 2021, aged 86, he retired to Walsingham. He died at a care home in Fakenham on 5 November 2022.

Personal life and death
Davies died at Walsingham Priory on 5 November 2022, at the age of 87.

Quotes

 * On exorcisms: "There are people in need and the Church is dealing with the problem more effectively."

title: Jeremy Davies (exorcist)


text:
Talk:History of the Soviet Union (1982–1991)

Comments
Maybe you should mention the official date and the meeting of the three leaders Yeltsin (Russia), Kravchuk (Ukraine) and Shushkevich (Belarus) in the Bielaviezha forest (Belarus) and them signing the agreement that USSR ceases to exist. rydel 17:40, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

When did USSRs/Russias GDP start falling?
I checked that since the fall of the USSR Russias GDP (real) had fallen to 1/5 then rebounded to about 4/5. It's still hasn't recovered after 20 odd years. I checked some statistics and Russias GDP was falling since 1988 or so. So can anyone tell me when Russia or the entrie Union hit is peak real GDP? I have a feeling it may have been just before Gorbi took his place as head.

-G

Naked Bias
This article is not informative, in that it is written with a pronounced bias and opinionation as seen in American cold war propaganda. That is hardly in line with Wikipedia's policy, at least as I understand it - unless of course, Wikipedia is a mouthpiece for US propaganda, which I don't think it is. It should be flagged as disputed, until someone re-edits it properly. Meanwhile devilish ruses such as the "righteous" American propaganda, churned out especially during the Ronald Reagan years and by the Reader's Digest don't hold water anymore - not at least for properly informed people. It is far too late in the day for such deceptions to work anymore... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.56.30.129 (talk) 14:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

I have to say that I agree with the first entry here, yet not solely on this page but on every one of the WikiProjetct Soviet Union pages that I have seen so far. On all of them there are hints of American superiority and patriotism, and also those of Russian degradation. As stated, Wikipedia is not a “mouthpiece for American propaganda” nor should such bias be allowed. Most every page under the Wikiproject Soviet Union needs to be marked for clean-up and have the major opinionating articles extricated from them before they are marked as viable sources, or placed in an encyclopedia, for goodness’ sake, which is, by definition, utterly unbiased. Sec'qr-euin 19:24, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Where's the bias???

 * You should say what exactly is wrong here in your opinion. Just saying that it's "biased" and "propaganda" is just bla bla until you point to specific statements that you believe to be biased. So far -- I've browsed the article and it seems good to me. Lebatsnok 15:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

 * On the night of July 31, 1991 Russian OMON from Riga, the Soviet military headquarters in the Baltics, assaulted the Lithuanian border post in Medininkai and killed seven Lithuanian servicemen. This further weakened the Soviet Union's position, internationally and domestically. Here is the bias. First of all the Lithuanian "border posts" were illegal. The article fails to mention that. Plus that part of the article is not even logical. It implies that the majority of Soviet population supported Lithuanian secession. Where's the evidence of that? In the article about the American Civil War it doesn't say "President Lincoln's decision to use force against the seceding Southern States weakened the U.S. position internationally and domestically". So what's the deal here?--Auspx (talk) 04:10, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Does the fact, that young country, which has recently regained independence after occupation, has not yet defined borders with the neighbours in official treaties with them (although there were official borders between USSR members, but no formal border control) and therefore used official former border between USSR members, allows someone the right to come and kill people in the border post? I would like to see your reaction if some neighbour of yours would come and kill you because he disputes the fence you have built in your backyard. Even the statement that border post was illegal is questionable. And it is the fact that USSR - a union of countries, of which at least some were included to it against their own will - deteriorated its image in the international community by demonstrating inability to provide fair ground for democratic developments - by applying brutal force to the supposed citizens of the union which it tries to save itself. Pardon, but I do not see any bias here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.61.98.54 (talk) 20:19, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

 * Shouldn't be still mention more about the Baltics? Although Gorbachev was much democratic and competent than past leaders, things such as https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/while-rest-eu-mourns-baltics-recall-gorbachev-agent-repression-2022-08-31/ happened 2603:6011:9600:52C0:44ED:76A4:97AA:A7D3 (talk) 00:03, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

POV?
"Additionally, economic and military pressures of fighting the Cold War, particularly in matching Ronald Reagan's Star Wars program, bankrupted the inherently weak Communist system."

I'm not a communist, by any means, an anarchist, actually, but that seems very biased and I bet a communist would oppose that skewed attack. Lockeownzj00 00:24, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter what a communist would think, but it's a violation of Wikipedia's no original research policies, and that matters. Please go ahead and remove it. 172 04:24, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is so funny to read that about the country were I lived almost 40 years before move to USA. The author repeats propaganda stamps spreading over the government controlled mass media and developed to wash the brains of young Americans to keep them believe in what they want them believe until kids learn the other language. It's so shocking funny. Wow!

l noticed the same NPOV problem before I came to this talk page. I agree the communist system was inherently weak but to mention it in the article is not respecting NPOV. Martin-C 17:52, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Gorbachev was a Commie...
I think that the article implies - or I think it does - that Gorbachev's reforms were anti-Soviet to an extent. Far from it, it appears that he was trying to reform the Soviet Union, and preserve Communism, by introducing modernisation which would improve the state, and actually keep it going... In fact, in an international context, I can see parallels between his reforms and those of Reagan and Thatcher, which occurred at the same time, which were partially to preserve different political systems, but which also had disastrous economic consequences. --MacRusgail 00:49, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

 * You're correct. Strangely, but it seems that no one remembers now how Gorbachev's "reforms" started. In his first major speech given at '85 Victory day (May 9), he praised Stalin's leadership like no one had since the XX CPSU Congress of 1956. It was rather startling. Then, there were half-hearted measures on "speeding up" the economy ("ускорение"), combined with campaing against alcoholism, which actually turned to destruction of vineyards, halting of production but by no means of consumption of alcoholic beverages, though it nearly paralyzed Soviet finances (when school I worked for then had no cash to pay teachers' salary; no wonder: workers spent their money not on vodka bought in a store but on illegal samogon). ... He definitely tried to save the system, and collapse of the Soviet empires was uninteded consequence of his "reforms." --Barbatus 16:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

 * Wrong. --Mrdie (talk) 23:01, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

 * Sorry, read Gorbachev's memoirs. Gorbachev was a communist who thought that communism failed in the Soviet Union because the USSR never went through a truly capitalist industrial period (like it was supposed to according to Marx). His reforms were focused on building this period...then, much later, communism--or so the theory goes--would eventually break out and it would be smiles all around. Actually, this is the exact same logic why the Chinese Communist Party is allowing so much laissez-faire marketeering in China today.99.96.38.208 (talk) 20:39, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

 * Is that really a reliable source? Zeldafanjtl (talk) 20:45, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually it's a fraud.99.96.38.208 (talk) 20:41, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

The beggar photo
IMHO, the image is highly POV, unencyclopedic and unrepresentative. Perhaps out of hundreds images representing various facets of life in Russia of the period that one would be OK. But here we have only half-a-dozen, 4 of them of Gorbachev. ←Humus sapiens←ну? 10:06, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

 * Well, I haven't been to Russia or Ukraine for more than 10 years now, so I can't judge about the current state of affairs, but in the first half of 1990's, right after collapse of the USSR and its social services, it was a terrible sight everywhere ... not only your usual beggars, but clean-dressed elderly women looking for food in garbage. May be it is not relevant to the History of the Soviet Union per se, but it certainly was among very visible results of its downfall. --Barbatus 16:13, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

 * Firstly, the image of "post-Soviet Russia" falls beyound the scope of this article: 1985-91. Secondly, begging in Russia is less common than in some of the European countries, I think. Thirdly, there are shadowy commercial eneterprises who earn more by begging than private individuals. Fourthly, the begging used to be most widespread in downtown Moscow, where foreigners crowd the most. Fifthly, Russia is better off than other CIS members, so "begging in post-Soviet Ukraine" would make as apposite a title. --Ghirlandajo 07:34, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Non-sequiter from the front page:

End of the Cold War
As the Soviet Union was unraveling, Gorbachev and U.S. President George H.W. Bush declared a U.S.-Soviet strategic partnership at the summit of July 1991, decisively marking the end of the Cold War. President Bush declared that U.S.-Soviet cooperation during the Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991 had laid the groundwork for a partnership in resolving bilateral and world problems. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation claimed to be the legal successor to the USSR on the international stage.--anon

 * The article's current statement, referring to Dec. 1991, "The dissolution of the Soviet Union also ended the longtime Cold War" is inaccurate. The media, Gorbachev, Bush, and most others contemporaries regarded "the end of the Cold War" to have transpired by the end of the Malta summit in Dec. 1989.  By the time of the May-June, 1990, summit in D.C. there was a virtually universal consensus that the Cold War had ended.  Contemporary journalists, politicians, etc., did not describe the Dec. 1991 dissolution of the Soviet state as "ending the Cold War" because, for them, the Cold War was already over.  The article's current statement is based on the misconception that the "end of the Cold War" was coterminous with the end of the Soviet Union.--12/01/07 BW

 * Exactly, remember that the Gulf War was described as "the first post-Cold War crisis".Auspx (talk) 02:19, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Ok, I see your point. You are correct. Parsecboy (talk) 02:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Hidden inflation
"Hidden inflation" (in para on introduction of perestroika) is by its nature limited, so why foreground this among economic problems? Unless someone can give evidence to the contrary, I think this should be deleted.--Jack Upland 05:05, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Political instability in the Warsaw Pact countries
"Fraying amongst the members of the Warsaw Pact nations and instability of its western allies, first indicated by Lech Wałęsa's 1980 rise to leadership of the trade union Solidarity, along the western border accelerated, leaving the Soviet Union unable to depend upon its satellite states for protection of its borders."

While there can be no doubt that Poland was plagued by political instablity during the 1980s, the other Warsaw Pact nations remained largely stable and firmly in the grip of "normalization." The GDR remained under Honecker's control, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria were stable, reform was emerging in Hungary but at a caucious pace, and renegade Romania continued its emulation of North Korea. Political instability in these countries only publicly emerged after Gorbachev began advocating reform throughout the Eastern bloc. In addition to the Gorbachev-inspired waves of political reform, the USSR's renouncement of the Brezhnev Doctrine in 1988 signalled that Moscow would no longer support the Eastern European old guard. This pre-empted the rapid upheavals of 1989.
 * I disagree. Starting with Hungary in the mid-1980s, there was a definite resurgence in independent action on the part of the Warsaw Pact nations such that intervention that had marked previous uprisings were fundamentally unthinkable.  By the time the Berlin Wall fell, there was no Warsaw Pact any longer, with the various European states evolving past totalitarian regimes. The first signs that Eastern Europe could have anything other than a communist future were seen in the Gdansk shipyards.  Jtmichcock 02:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
 * The resurgence of independent action in these states only occured because Moscow not only tolerated it, but, in fact, encouraged such reform. By the late 1980s, the USSR had even gone as far as abandoning long-time slavish allies like East Germany's Honecker and Bulgaria's Zhivkov.  Gorbachev's tacit approval made it possible for regime change in these countries. See below.

Gorbachev and Eastern Europe

Charles Gati

From Foreign Affairs, Summer 1987

Extract:

The spirit of Mikhail Gorbachev?s "Moscow Spring" haunts Eastern Europe. While most people in the region?including members of various opposition groups?welcome the changes made and the changes promised in the Soviet Union, and hope for similar changes in Eastern Europe as well, most leaders worry about the likely repercussions. After all, it happened before that when Moscow sneezed Eastern Europe caught pneumonia. In the aftermath of the 1956 de-Stalinization campaign in the Soviet Union, reformist elements gained the upper hand in Poland and Hungary. Czechoslovakia?s 1968 "Prague Spring" followed Soviet economic reforms in the mid-1960s. But in no case did these Soviet-inspired changes last long. In 1956 reformism in Hungary turned into a popular revolution that prompted Soviet intervention, while the initial gains of the 1956 "Polish October" gradually disappeared. In 1968, another military intervention?"justified" by the Brezhnev Doctrine?put an end to Czechoslovakia?s economic and political reform movement.  In the past, then, while reforms in the Soviet Union proved to be manageable or even reversible, the pressure for change in Eastern Europe proved to be uncontrollable. Will history repeat itself? Will the winds of Gorbachev?s glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) reach Eastern Europe?and with what consequences?  With East European officials showing signs of aversion to starting Gorbachev-style reforms or accelerating existing ones, most of the region is out of step with the Soviet Union. While in Moscow criticism and self-criticism are in vogue, in East Berlin the party leadership reaffirms its own "correct course," past and present. In Moscow the rehabilitation of Nikolai Bukharin, an early proponent of more tolerant communist rule, is under way; in Prague Alexander Dubcek, leader of the 1968 Prague Spring, remains a nonperson under virtual house arrest. In Moscow the self-management of enterprises is under consideration; in Bucharest President Nicolae Ceausescu asserts that "real socialism" has nothing to do with self-management. In Moscow intellectuals are beginning to be allowed to give voice to their concerns; in Budapest-even in Budapest-the authorities threaten to close down the Writers' Union for having elected a leadership not to the party's liking.  True, the Polish and the Hungarian regimes can see in Gorbachev's initiatives an implicit approval of their own policies and ambitions. Yet even these two regimes, and certainly all the others, except Romania, prefer to praise "promising developments" in the Soviet Union without necessarily seeing them as a guide for their own course or undertaking similar initiatives themselves.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19870601faessay7850/charles-gati/gorbachev-and-eastern-europe.html

Confusing sentences
The following sentences taken from the section, 'The August Coup' makes no sense to me. It looks like the two sentences should be joined together with a comma after 'emergency', but as I have no knowledge on this subject I thought I'd bring it to more knowledgeable peoples' attention, rather than blindly try to fix it myself:

"On August 19, 1991, to prevent the signing of the union treaty by forming the "State Committee on the State Emergency." The "Committee" put Gorbachev (vacationing in the Crimea) under house arrest and attempted to restore the union state."

--Phileas 03:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Alcohol
The following section deleted:
 * The first reform under Gorbachev was the 1985 alcohol reform, which was designed to fight wide-spread alcoholism in the Soviet Union. Prices on vodka, wine and beer were lifted, and their sales were restricted. People who were caught drunk at work or in public were prosecuted. Drinking on long-distance trains and in public places was banned. Economically it was a serious blow to the state budget (a loss of approximately 100 billion rubles according to Alexander Yakovlev) after alcohol production migrated to black market economy.

It is an erroneous attribution. Antialcohol campaigns and price rising for vodka started already during Brezhnev. A a seasoned "alcoholic" from these times, I cannot stand this historical falsehood :-). People like me remember "Dazhe yesliu budet vosem, Vsyo ravno yeyo ne brosim! Peredajte Ilyichu, Nam i 10 po plechu!" ("pass over to Ilyich (i.e., leonid Ilyich): se can handle even 10 (roubles per bottle"). The numbers 2.87->3.62->5.12, well known to male population and were source a large number of jokes. But the real assault was by Andropov. I used to be a proud member of the All-Union Abstinence Society, created at these times, and I reverently keep the membership card, but no longer pay dues :-) mikka (t) 01:55, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Title change needed?
It seems that a better suited title to fit this page would be the one that many links use: The Collapse of the Soviet Union. This page is generally about the cause, effect, and affects of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Afterall, that is almost exclusively what this page is about. All links and chart names could stay the same, but I think it would be a more fittinf page title: 'The collapse of the Soviet Union'. That, or perhaps another page may be in need.

Too long?
I feel like this one is too long and should be split into several different articles, including the Fall of the Soviet Union. This is my first comment to an article, but I feel it's worth mentioning.Nashaii 00:14, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Please don't. The article is not long at all, considering the importance and complexity of the subject. 172 | Talk 01:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm no professor...
I'm no professor but i found this article informative i learned quite a few things from it. Travis Robinson 23:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Time Warps
I don't know about anyone else, but this article was confusing in its time spans. For example, Yeltsin took office on July 12, 1991, and yet Gorbachev was still in power for the August coup? Is anyone else even slightly confused here? 66.31.230.27 21:53, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

 * Yeltsin was the Russian SSR president, while Gorby was the the head of the Soviet Union, two different things. Parsecboy 22:49, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect information.
The Soviet Union's collapse into its original independent nations began in earnest in 1985.

That's wrong. Many of the Soviet Republics were never independent nations. Before the creation of the Soviet Union they were provinces in Imperial Russia. For example most of the present-day Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan were parts of Imperial Russia for centuries.

''To break Gorbachev's opposition, Yeltsin decided to disband the Soviet Union in accordance with the Treaty of the Union of 1922 and therefore to remove Gorbachev and the government of the USSR from power. This was seen as a forced measure to save the country from a complete economic collapse and was at the time widely supported by Russia's population.''

Totally wrong. Most of the people were shocked and surprised by the collapse of the USSR. It's true that by December 1991 Gorbachev's approval rating was very low, but this doesn't mean that the majority of the population in Russian SSR or the rest of the Union for that matter wanted the Union to be disbanded. --Auspx 05:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

 * They may have been part of Imperial Russia for centuries, but were they not independent after World War I? And, if we want to get technical, at various points before being conquered by Russia?

 * I don't mind your second argument though. I'm sure most people didn't think the USSR would ever collapse when it did. Parsecboy 09:56, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

 * After WWI some of the provinces (the Baltic States, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Finland, Eastern Poland) did become independent nations. However what the article here is implying is that all of the former Imperial Russia's provinces (which later became Soviet Republics) became independent nations before the creation of the Soviet Union. That's incorrect. I don't have the map of post-WWI Soviet Russia but I'm sure there never was a country called Ukraine, Belarus, or Kazakhstan before the Soviet Union was created in 1922. --Auspx 03:17, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

 * This discussion might be a little stale, but I'd like to point out the articles Ukraine after the Russian Revolution and Ukrainian War of Independence. There was, however short-lived, a Ukrainian political entity between the Russian Revolution and the creation of the USSR. Parsecboy (talk) 02:26, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

 * Ok I saw the post-WWI map of Soviet Russia and it looks like for a few years Ukraine and Belarus were independent. The Central Asian states that later became Soviet Republics are the ones that were never idependent nations before December 26th, 1991.--Auspx (talk) 05:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

 * This is an old conversation, but the above comment is wrong. See Alash Orda, Khorezm People's Soviet Republic and Bukharan People's Soviet Republic. 209.235.2.8 (talk) 16:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

Bankruptcy?
All this talk about 'economic problems' is just awful. What kind of problems? The article is just pap.WolfKeeper 23:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

How is it that this article doesn't mention the fact that the Soviet Union went bankrupt, due to low grain/food production and a burgeoning population and an inability to export goods due to poor quality and not producing anything that other countries wanted to buy?WolfKeeper 23:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

You know, the primary actual reason according to the guy that was the prime minister (forget his name) after the breakup that the union broke up isn't actually mentioned anywhere? WolfKeeper 23:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

 * You must remember, American conservatives do in fact edit wikipedia, and we all know the Soviet Union was defeated by Ronald Reagan, all by himself. Nothing to do with inefficiencies of the Soviet system. Nope. It was Ronald Reagan, telling Gorbechev to tear down that wall. And Star Wars. Parsecboy 23:45, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

 * If they can sustain such an argument in the face of WP:NPOV then hey, it probably really happened; but I doubt that they can. This article is strangely empty of real references.WolfKeeper 23:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

 * Please note that Reagan did support Afghan mujahideen by giving them stinger missiles which cost the US only 1 billion per year but cost the USSR 8 billion per year in losses. Additionally his reversal of past policies and new economic policies helped keep gas prices low which decreased the oil price and, ergo, reduced the amount of hard currency the USSR was able to bring in.  I realize that some people want to attribute the fall of the USSR to "Reagan and Star Wars" only, but there are others who actively deny he had any roll in the USSR's final days which is to ignore a large amount of the historical reality.  I would prefer to see some balanced viewpoints rather than the "Reagan-hate" or "Reagan-love."Millenium King (talk) 07:45, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

 * I think this article is in dire need of some drastic revision. Let's start by culling the unreferenced Cold-War mythos, eh? Parsecboy 23:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

 * I substantially edited the intro paragraph. Does that seem a little better? Feel free to edit away if you think it needs improvement. It's a rough draft anyways. Parsecboy 23:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The worst article ever.
It barely says anything about the Soviet Union. Please someone fix it. 90% of this article is about Gorbachev. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.83.104.78 (talk) 15:39, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Sneaky Vandalism?
In the section 'Aftermath of the failed coup' there is this phrase: "After the coup, the Soviet republics accelerated their process towards independence and racial extermination..."

Racial extermination?

What was an earlier version of that sentence? Perhaps replace 'racial extermination' with 'self-determination'?

I found the malicious edit from 24.63.20.125 on June 15, so removed the words 'and racial extermination'. Stanistani (talk) 07:52, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

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So Jimmy Carter defeated the USSR?
American bias, Pro-Democrat bias: The way this article reads, one might believe that Jimmy Carter defeated the USSR singlehandedly. He gets a full paragraph while Ronald Reagan only gets one sentence about how he "escalated tensions."

Reagan fought the Soviet Union by ending the policy of "containment," issued stinger missiles to the fighters in Afghanistan turning Afghanistan into what some historians refer to as a "Soviet Viet Nam." He reduced the USSRs ability to export oil into Europe, he fought rising oil prices (which began in the Carter administration, some might say, because of his policies). A decline in oil prices choked off the influx of money to the USSR. He raised US military spending to 7% of US GDP while, to keep pace, the USSR raised their spending to 27% of their GDP - also forcing them to freeze production of civilian goods at 1980 levels.

I am not trying to show a "pro-America bias" but these things are facts. If Carter gets a whole paragraph for his "efforts" at combating the USSR, Reagan should at least get a mention.

http://wais.stanford.edu/History/history_ussrandreagan.htm Millenium King (talk) 07:45, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

One of the main things putting stress on the Soviet economy was that, due to Reagan persuading the Saudi's to sell their oil at a cheaper price, the Soviets, due to the inefficiency of their production/distribution system, were unable to bolster their economy--or at least find the revenue to buy food on their own--by exporting Soviet oil at a profitable price. Why isn't this mentioned? BTW, I'm a liberal democrat, but that doesn't mean I don't think Reagan should get his due here, for trying to understand history through a partisan lens does a disservice to both the field and all humanity. This whole article is, quite honestly, more than a little bit amateurish. There are many factors in the fall of the Soviet Union, and, since history isn't mathematics where there is only one answer, shouldn't all the factors be mentioned? This article is a perfect example of why I tell my 7th grade students to only use Wikipedia for straightforward, nondebatable information, but for partisan issues like this, to stay far, far away (or, if they must, use a legitimate encyclopedia)!99.96.38.208 (talk) 20:47, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Name change
Wouldn't a name like "The collapse of the Soviet Union" be more fitting? Because this is what the article focuses on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.65.124.236 (talk) 19:42, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved. Jafeluv (talk) 06:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

History of the Soviet Union (1985–1991) → Dissolution of the Soviet Union — Hopefully, this will be a fairly straightforward move. This article's subject is the period (1985-91) in which the Soviet Union broke apart, out of which the contemparary post-Soviet states emerged. YeshuaD avid  •  Talk  • 21:13, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

 * Oppose The old name was more neutral, the new proposed name seems to be anti-Soviet, as it empathises that the CCCP came to an end. Ijanderson (talk) 21:55, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I've got nothing against the USSR or Communism in general; but the USSR did disolve in that period, and the proposed title is a much more likely search title than the current name. YeshuaD avid  •  Talk  • 23:03, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Ijanderson, in what universe is it "anti-Soviet" to "empathise" [sic] the fact that the Soviet Union did actually meet an inglorious and justly-deserved end? And YeshuaDavid, there's really no need to be polite toward that particular tyranny, one that murdered 20 million people, including plenty of your co-religionists. - Biruitorul Talk 18:09, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

 * Support; the article obviously surrounds the dissolution of the USSR, not just a generic history of the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1991. — \`C RAZY `( lN )`S ANE `/ (talk • contribs) 06:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Support. More likely search term. Jafeluv (talk) 07:18, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. Already a redirect, and dissolution of would be too specific a title and exclude other history of the period that was not related to the dissolution, I would think. 199.125.109.135 (talk) 19:16, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose and dispute first sentence. The breakup of the Soviet Empire may have begun in 1985 (although the events of 1989 were unexpected as late as the Rekjavik conference); the breakup of the Union itself did not begin until that year. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:01, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I've had no involvement in the writing of this article; I agree it needs to better written and better sourced. But this article does cover the decline and breakup of the USSR as evidenced by the article's content (see the Summary section's general tone). It's not a generic history - if you have a look at Template:Fall of Communism, the breakup of the USSR links here. YeshuaD avid  •  Talk  • 16:06, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

 * Oppose, if only because this would break up the pattern set up by History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917–1927), History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953) and History of the Soviet Union (1953–1985). We could call History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953) "Stalinist era", but we don't. - Biruitorul Talk 18:09, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Respectfully, leaving that pattern would significantly improve this series of articles. I'm aware that these pages originally split from History of the Soviet Union, and dividing the content by year is a good if basic method of achieving that goal. But as these articles grow more sophisticated they have to be allowed to develop more naturally. Compare History of the Soviet Union with History of the United Kingdom: rather than just holding a series of links, the UK article talks about different periods in British history. The article on the Victorian era could be titled "History of the United Kingdom (1837–1901)", the article History of the United Kingdom during World War I could be titled "History of the United Kingdom (1914–1918)"; however, the articles would be much weaker as a result.YeshuaD avid  •  Talk  • 12:16, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Victorian era works only because of Anglo-centric Western history, it was a uniquely long period of reign of a particular monarch, and it is used to refer to a time period even outside of the British context. We could rename all Soviet history articles to Leninist era Stalinist era et al., here the articles would be weaker as after Lenin and Stalin I'd venture people are less clear on who was on top when, nor were these periods long enough to be called eras. You can't take examples outside the norm and apply them to situations which do not correspond. In fact, Disintegration of the Soviet Union would be the name of the era, "dissolution" is what occurred when the treaty creating the CIS was ratified. V ЄСRUМВА  ☎  14:27, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you mistake me - I'm not trying to see every Soviet history article named after a particular person arbatarily, I'm requesting that this article be renamed "Dissolution of the Soviet Union", not "Gorbachev era" or something like that. You say this period is too short to be a named era, but the proposed article style would be similar to other articles about the decline of Communism; see Breakup of Yugoslavia for example. Also, I would be happy to see "disintegration" being used instead of "dissolution". <font color="Navy">YeshuaD avid  •  Talk  • 23:23, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

 * Oppose. The Soviet Union was not dissolving until 1990-91.  It may have been declining, decaying, or degenerating from 1985-1990, but not quite dissolving.  I would expect an article on "Dissolution of the Soviet Union" to include only the material in the section with that title.  —   AjaxSmack   00:46, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Please see my response to Biruitorul. Ideally, as I sort of hinted at, I would like to see the other articles in this series reorganised and some of the content on this page relocated to a more appropriate article. <font color="Navy">YeshuaD avid  •  Talk  • 12:16, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

 * Oppose. This period was not long enough to be a named era, and "Dissolution" is the wrong word in any event. <font style="color: #a12830; font-family:Verdana,sans-serif;">V ЄСRUМВА <font style="color: #ffffff;background-color:#a12830;"> ☎  14:27, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Oppose per AjaxSmack. The Soviet Union was not dissolving until 1990-1991. PasswordUsername (talk) 01:55, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Berlin Wall
This article doesn't mention the Berlin Wall once. Or Germany even. Bsimmons 666  (talk) 02:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

 * The role of the SU during the November Revolution is explained (to some extend) in the articles about the Berlin wall, the 2+4-Treaty and others. But I agree, it should at least be mentioned. We should also think about merging some of the information into one article about this topic since the reaction (or non-reaction) to the protests in eastern europe is somewhat the main difference to prague in the 50s. --84.177.46.177 (talk) 11:22, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Caption Change
"Barricade in Riga to prevent the Red Army from reaching Latvian Parliament, July 1991"

I changed this to "Soviet Army" considering it hadn't been called the "Red Army" since 1946. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.2.80.69 (talk) 16:54, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Minor change in title
Just as specified in the lead section, the said period refers to collapse of the soviet union. This is widely used around the world, and more suggestive title. The "Soviet Union" ceased to exist thenceforth, and the word "collapse" should not offend anybody. The title change is limited to just the word change from history to collapse, even period 1985-1991 is retained. Doorvery far (talk) 09:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

 * I reverted your move. This is controversial as seen in previous discussions and should be formally proposed at WP:Requested moves to gain wider input.  —   AjaxSmack   03:15, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

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