BIG TALK: The Iraq War PART TWO

Production. Before we start today's episode, we would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we're recording today, the Gadigor people, and pay our respects to elders past and present. Hi, I'm Hannah. And I'm Sarah. Welcome to Big Tour.

Big talk deep dives into the big news stories that you've heard of but you don't know all the serious and salacious details about. We revisit the most shocking headlines of the past that have shaped the world we know today. And today we're looking at the Iraq War, part two.

Yeah, so if you haven't listened to part one, this is gonna be super confusing. So maybe go back and listen to that first. Yes. But let's do a bit of a recap on what we learnt from the previous episode in in case you happen to be listening to these. A few days apart, a few weeks apart, or if you're just like, say that again more simply.

Last episode began with why Iraq Matters Now. As we've been watching recent US actions in Venezuela, the comparisons to Iraq have increased. Language of liberation and defiance of international law, as well as conveniently energy-rich regions. There are important differences though in strategy and legality, such as at least in two thousand and three, the US tried to contort itself into legal justifications at the United Nations. Whereas there's really none of that right now. No.

To understand Iraq, we had to go back to the man at the center of it all, George W. Bush. Uh we went all the way back to the two thousand election against Al Gore. which was chaos and how after a night of too close to call headlines, it came down to Florida. The presidency was decided by just five hundred and thirty seven votes. There was confusion over the infamous butterfly ballot, partisan officials overseeing recounts, and the fact that Florida's governor was Bush's brother, Jeb.

all fueled the controversy. Ultimately the Supreme Court halted the recount and declared Bush president, then bizarrely said that this should not be used as a precedent. Many analysts still believe a full recount could have changed the outcome. The episode explored why this matters now and how the Bush v. Gore really showed that courts could decide elections and that really is a lesson that Trump absorbed. And weaponize. Then 9-11 happened and everything changed.

Nearly three thousand people were killed when Al Qaeda hijacked four planes, crashing them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. For those who lived through it, the trauma was immediate and defining. For Bush, it transformed him overnight into a wartime president. In landmark, September 20th, 2001, speech to Congress. Bush demanded the Taliban hand over Al Qaeda and framed the attacks as an assault on freedom itself.

From this emerged the Bush doctrine, a global war on terror that blurred the line between terrorists and the countries that they live in. The message to the world was blunt. You're either with us or with the terrorists. Australia was firmly with them. Afghanistan came first. The Taliban were ousted quickly, but the mission dragged on for two decades.

Bin Laden wasn't killed until twenty eleven. Australia didn't fully withdraw until twenty twenty one, and within weeks the Taliban were back in power. Trillions of dollars, tens of thousands of lives, and the country ended up where it started. The human cost for Australian veterans has been devastating with hundreds dying by suicide.

Back in the US, we looked at how fear shaped civil liberties. The Patriot Act massively expanded government surveillance powers, allowed for monitoring, detention without charge, and warrantless wiretapping, as well as Guantanamo Bay, which held hundreds. thousands of detainees outside of the legal system. Bush then widened the scope again. In his two thousand and two State of the Union, he named the axis of evil, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. But that worldview led directly to the Iraq invasion.

Saddam Hussein was undeniably a brutal dictator, and the invasion rested on three core claims spreading freedom, alleged weapons of mass destruction, and the supposed links to Al Qaeda. In March two thousand three, Saddam's statue fell. Many Iraqis celebrated and Bush prematurely declared mission accomplished aboard an aircraft carrier. A moment that would age catastrophically. And that's where we left it. A moment that looked like a victory before everything unraveled.

Okay, so that optimism didn't age well, but what actually was about to happen? Well, it wasn't peace, but a power vacuum. And even with Saddam gone, Iraq didn't smoothly transition into democracy. Instead, sectarian violence just exploded. And let's just pause to explain what that is properly. So sectarian violence refers to conflict that happens between different subgroups, sex.

sects within the same religion. So while they're so while they might share the same holy book or basic prophets, they have deep-seated disagreements over leadership history or how the faith should be practiced. Part of the unrest was the divide between the Sunni and the Shia Muslims. You've probably heard of this divide before because it's the most significant split in Islam. They share core beliefs, they worship the same God, they follow the same holy text.

But the split stems from a disagreement over who should lead the Muslim community after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. So over centuries that disagreement involved into differences in doctrine, in leadership, in political power, in religious authority. Globally, Sunnis make up about eighty five to ninety percent of the world's Muslim population. The Shia make up around ten percent, but form majorities in countries like Iran, Iraq and Bahrain.

Now under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was ruled by a Sunni minority, even though the population was majority Shia. So when Saddam fell, it was as if decades of suppressed tension erupted. And so both groups vied for control, not just politically, but but violently. Yeah. You know I love a timeline. Um, so let's go through a timeline, how this invasion ultimately unfolded over the years. There's a lot of information, so hopefully this just makes it make a little bit more sense to follow.

So if we look at April two thousand and three. That is when the US first took over control of Iraq, branding their influence as the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was initially headed by a retired US general. May 2003, this retired U.S. general, his name was Bremer, then signed an order disbanding the Iraqi army and intelligence services. Hundreds of thousands of trained, armed men were suddenly unemployed and furious.

At the same time, another order purged all of the Ba'ath party members, which was Saddam's political party, from government roles. Together, these decisions dismantled the state and removed any existing security structure, which obviously led to further unrest. June two thousand and three, violence had coalesced into organized resistance. So Saddam's sons, which was Uday and Kwase, were killed by US troops in Missul.

Still Saddam himself remained at large. July 2003, the US appointed an interim governing council with promises to hand sovereignty back to Iraq the following year. August 2003, Unrest and violence continued. An example of that that I read was a suicide bomber driving an explosives-filled cement truck, destroying the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. It killed 22 UN staff.

And um pretty much immediately after that, the UN withdrew most of their personnel. At this point, even international institutions st were starting to recognize truly how unstable Iraq had become. Then finally, and this was December two thousand and three. Saddam Hussein was found hiding in a hole on a farm near where he grew up. He was betrayed by tips from his family members and his former bodyguard.

Paul Bremner, who was the, you know, was in charge, announced it to the world with the now very famous line, ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Arafis in the room when he said that, like erupted in in cheers, and for many this had been a moment that they had waited decades for. But as the Guardian later wrote, Saddam's capture was ultimately just it was a bit of a it was a blip in a way because

It was the first in a series of we got him moments the that US officials would celebrate only to find themselves deeper in the conflict. And I think the reason I'm saying that is it's it's like Removing one man didn't fix the country. And the war that was supposed to bring freedom ended up tearing the country apart further and costing hundreds of thousands of civilian lives and destabilized the region and reshaped foreign policy, global politics, as we know it.

Then comes the shock of 2004, the year the central justification for the Iraq War, weapons of mass destruction, collapses. Oh my god. So the very beginning of 2004, the Bush administration concedes what Critics have been saying, right? The extensive stockpiles of chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons in Saddam's Iraq, they didn't exist. What the fuck?

That's actually like that's like just hold that. So yeah. The man literally leading the search, former top US weapons inspector David Kay, says to Congress. Something like again, rare and devastating in politics. We were almost all wrong. These are not the moments that get the coverage they need. I I mean sure at the time it probably did. I don't remember, but like this is not something that I feel I'm familiar with. It's very rare to see the propaganda politician

But really t how wrong do you have to be to have to say a line as plainly as that? You know, Trump never would. And a presidential commission later concluded that not one bit of the pre war intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction panned out. Not one bit. And that's the moment where the war stops being controversial and starts being existentially troubling. I wanna talk about what are the two broad interpretations of how the fuck that happened.

If you were to look at the sympathetic interpretation, you'd say intelligence is murky. It's imperfect, trauma of nine-eleven, the US government reasonably, if tragically, misread the evidence. In a post-911 world where the cost of being wrong felt catastrophic, decision makers wanted action. They felt the public wanted action, right? But the view that I I would say I hold, and I think the critical view that a lot of people hold.

is that there's no evidence to support that explanation beyond the words of, you know, Bush's administration, the officials as part of that. And given what we know now about cherry picked intelligence, exaggerated claims, this sustained campaign and, you know, war on fear, like this propaganda machine. why should people take them at their word? Especially when we consider the fact that the administration was selling the war. For a long time before fact supported it.

Yeah, that is actually an insane part of this. And a a men an Australian mention, former intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie, who's a current MP. My f I I'll always remember Andrew Wilkie in my childhood because he was one of the indies that formed government with Julia Gillard's minority government. And y even figures like Colin Powell later acknowledged that the public case for the war didn't match internal doubt.

Andrew Wilkie, who is Austral one of also one of Australia's most famous whistleblowers, this MP now, he was the one who resigned in protest of Iraq. I believe he was the only intelligence officer to do this in Australia, the UK, the US. He called out John Howard for lying to the public about weapons of mass destruction, ignoring the evidence, and essentially said the push for war was driven more by a desire to support the US alliance than a genuine threat.

Th you know what? Like I don't agree with a lot of Andrew Wilkie's politics. Like, you know, I I don't know too much about his electorate or like what he represents, but That is the kind of person that should run. The kind of person that stands up to government from their position, that resigns in protest of something like in that I really have a lot of respect for the principled nature of that to be the only one arguably to do it. Also, crazy. So Joey who said

Uh across from me now. He is the Secrets We Keep podcast, and it would have come out early, early Jan, but he actually did. An entire interview with Andrew Wilkie. about exactly the whistle blowing on on the I on the Iraq war. And I was like, tell me, tell me about him. And he was like a really nice guy. Like seemed really chill to talk to. Yeah. Um, but that's kind of insane to interview him. I just think like w that that is something that We kind of sometimes lose.

Australian stories in these bigger stories, but that's quite a significant one as well. Well, yeah. He also has continued to campaign for stronger whistle blowing protections and federal anti corruption commissions. So it is it's so worth talking about. But I also want to look at the other, like if we're if we're going, okay, there was no weapons of mass destruction, there's a chance. Definitely a trance. Th they knew that from the start. So what really were the other reasonings for the US?

invading. And of course, like you're probably listening and you're gonna be like, this is oversimplified. I know, I know. But like this is we're trying to make sense of this as quickly as we can. Look, one of the the leading reasons for this is The US wanted to make an example out of Iraq. You know, uh there was an Al Jazeera article that I read that I think put this really succinctly.

And they kind of pointed out that a quick, decisive victory in the heart of the Arab world would signal to other regimes that they didn't like, you know, Syria, Libya, Iran, North Korea. that America is powerful and not to be fucked with. They didn't say that. That's not a tri quo, but like that was the gist of what they were saying. And that this was about re-establishing American dominance.

In fact, months before 9-11 even happened, the US sec Secretary of Defense was already openly talking about how ousting Saddam Hussein would, and I quote, Enhance US credibility and influence throughout the region, and demonstrate what US policy is all about.

Like that's before nine eleven. Yeah. The second part is the oil argument, which we have alluded to throughout this before, and I know this feels very familiar to right now, but Iraq has the fifth largest oil reserves in the world, and many critics argue that access to those reserves and control over global energy markets was always part of the calculation. Was oil the only motivator? Probably not. No. Was it irrelevant? Also, probably not. Third point is that.

Nine eleven wasn't just tragic and traumatic and obviously shaped so many of the fears and perspectives that we have today, but it was also humiliating for US intelligence and security. As Al Jazeera put it, you know, Afghanistan was not enough. They said, it was simply too weak a state, as prison bullies know, a fearsome reputation is not acquired by beating up the weakest kid in the yard.

Even Donald Rumsfeld, that was that, you know, the Secretary of Defense on the evening of 9-11 reportedly said, We need to bomb something else to prove that we're, you know, big and strong and not going to be pushed around by these kind of attacks. That's a lot. It's also interesting to note that in two thousand and two, conservative commentator Jonah Goldberg, coined what he called the Leiden Doctrine, and that was named after neoconservative historian Michael Leden.

The doctrine goes like this. Every 10 years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small little country and throw it against the wall to show the world that we mean business.

Obviously again, this is so oversimplified. That is not that is a fantastic quote. Yes. Yeah, it's a simplification. But Iran's not like these are powerful count like they're they're not in line with the US, but these are powerful countries. Like anyway, I do think that that framing and state of mind, I think, speaks to a lot of the other reasons the US was interested in this. So this is the question that still haunts Iraq.

Did the US really start a war, one that cost trillions of dollars and killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, destabilize the region, and helped give rise to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, just to prove a point? And if that's even partly true, then the weapons of mass destruction justification starts to look less like a tragic error and more like a convenient excuse.

Even Bush officials have occasionally like w let the mask slip. In two thousand and six, Douglas Feith, often described as one of the architects of the Iraq war, said The rationale for the war didn't hinge on the details of this intelligence, even though the details of the intelligence at times became elements of the public presentation. I like I get it, crazy to be able to have that direct quote.

Let's also jump back into the timeline now. So we need to go to March of two thousand and four, when Iraq was struggling, Al Qaeda had launched a coordinated wave of suicide bombings, targeting Shiat holy sites in both Baghdad and Kabbalah. Hundreds of people were killed. These attacks were designed to inflame sectarian hatred, to turn Sunni and Shia communities against each other. And, you know, coexistence feels impossible to achieve in these circumstances, these created contexts, right?

In April of two thousand and four, a month later, this is this is a tough month because this is when really the moral flaw, if there was one, from the US, like completely drops out from beneath them. Evidence of prisoner abuse inside the US run Abu Ghraib prison became public and the photos were just like simply undeniable. These detainees were stripped, hooded, stacked, humiliated.

Kenneth Roth, who's the executor who's the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said The brazenness with which these soldiers conducted themselves, snapping photographs and flashing the thumbs up sign as they abused prisoners. suggests they felt they had nothing to hide from their superiors. Mm-hmm. These photographs, you know, th they show US soldiers smiling, posing, laughing with, you know, naked Iraqi prisoners Who was stacked in a pyramid or positioned committing simulated sex acts.

mistreatment that amounts to torture is a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions. It's a war crime. And seven US soldiers were eventually convicted and jailed for torture and abuse. But you know, the damage was done for many Iraqis and for much of the world. Abu Ghraib became the moment the rhetoric of liberation and freedom just completely collapsed. Like the moral high ground, the invasion claim, you know, was it was gone. In June 2004, the US made like a sudden, almost a panicked move.

Two days ahead of schedule, the US handed sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government, and on paper, Iraq was returned to Iraqi hands. But what about what was happening in the US? Because 2004 was also an election year. And, you know, we have mentioned this already, but like Somehow, George W. Bush was re-elected in November. Again, like it's hard for you know, for us who didn't really live this, we weren't in the state like

It's hard to understand it. And I also find it like it's interesting because the US economy had been limping really since the two thousand and one recession. Employment, um, especially in manufacturing, was still hadn't recovered. And the Iraq war was visibly deteriorating. And look, to be fair, economics is complicated and leaders aren't always directly responsible. But historically speaking, a bad economy plus an unpopular war. doesn't usually bode well for someone

running again and yet Bush won. And a lot of that is to do with the power of post nine eleven fear, national security framing, and like the absence of a convincing alternative leader carried him through. But at the same month as him being reelected, the situation inside Iraq worsened again. So the country's most prominent Sunni political group, which was the Iraqi Islamic Party, withdrew from the interim government.

The Association of Muslim Scholars called for a boycott for the upcoming elections in Iraq. Fighters seized three and then fighters seized three of the current leaders relatives in Baghdad. The message was clear. Political progress was losing legitimacy among Sunnis at a terrifying pace. By December 2004, Shia politics consolidated. So there was twenty three Shia political groups that formed the United Iraqi Alliance ahead of January 2005 elections.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Islamic Party formally pulled out of the election race altogether, arguing that violence in large parts of the country made a free and fair vote impossible. When the elections did go ahead, Up to eight million Iraqis voted in what was hailed as the first free democratic election since Saddam's removal. But the results revealed the depth of the of the fracture. So the United Iraqi Alliance won a majority.

Kurdish parties came second, but much of the Sunni population stayed home. Yeah. So a new democracy had technically been born without the participation of a huge portion of the country. As part of the transition, a new constitution was drafted as well, and that was followed by a national referendum. So if we jump ahead to September two thousand and five now,

After weeks of bitter negotiation, the constitution was endorsed by Shia and Kurdish leaders, but unsurprisingly rejected by Sunni representatives. Protests then erupted across the Sunni areas. The constitution ultimately passed anyway, and the Iraqis returned to the polls to elect a parliament. Following that, the Iraqi transitional government was replaced by the country's first permanent post-Saddam government.

Lotta context in there, but essentially it's like showing this Shia Sunni divide and how this was kind of making it possible to have this like democratic processes, even though clearly they're trying.

But now we're in two thousand and six, right? And there's a trial and conviction of Saddam Hussein. In November, he was finally convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging. His trial was televised and watched by millions globally. In the south of Iraq, many Shia Iraqis poured into the streets celebrating. In Sunni areas north of Baghdad, militant groups vowed to have revenge.

President Bush said that Saddam had finally received the kind of justice he had denied the victims of his brutal regime. That message, though, didn't land like cleanly. A video later leagued showing Saddam being taunted and abused by his executioners in the moments before he died. Again. He sucked, obviously, but it's just still weird to kind of engage in the kind of behavior you're accusing others of. Yeah. Yeah.

By this point, analysts were also quite openly acknowledging and stating what was deeply uncomfortable, Iraq had now become a haven for terrorist leaders. Complete backfire. Yeah. And and that matters because before the invasion, Iraq hadn't been, right? They hadn't been a hub for this global jihad. Under Saddam, it was actually largely secular and hostile to groups like Al-Qaeda. The invasion did the opposite.

With foreign jihadists flocking to Iraq, they transformed the nature of the anti US Iraqi resistance. Budding insurgents went there to gain combat experience and effectively network. Former French defense official Alexis Debat contends that jihadist seek to turn Iraq into what Afghanistan was before autumn of two thousand and one. It's so fascinating to sit on that for a second because you know

The invasion of Afghanistan to be able to do you know, that whole equating the country with terrorism or terrorists based on what happened at nine eleven. Like you could understand how things got there. I'm not s agreeing, but you can understand that process. Iraq was biting off more than you can chew in a way for US officials and it completely backfired. And then created double like created the problem again for them. Well yeah, and it's also like they l they didn't have the evidence.

They like this intelligence like ignorance here. And also they relied on demonization narratives and this kind of like. lumping of Middle Eastern countries together and that like citizens wouldn't kind of notice or question or understand the region enough. The irony is not lost. Yeah. By the end of two thousand and six, you know, we have three thousand American soldiers killed.

more than twenty thousand wounded, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, and again the financial cost of the war, which they you know, Bush had kind of promised to top around 60 billion had ballooned past 200 billion. And there was no end in sight. And and this is also the year that the tide truly turned on Bush politically and culturally. My only understanding of Bush for a while was um when I was a kid, was because I loved Pink's song, Dear Mr. President, which is about George Bush.

Can we mention the the the chicks, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks? They were absolutely publicly canceled because in a I think at a live performance, they said, We're ashamed the president's from Texas. Oh yeah. And they were called they were like pu publicly so cancelled to say we're ashamed the President of the United States is fantastic. They don't know what they're talking about. I think they are the ditzy twits. These are the dumbest the dumbest bimbos with due respect I have seen.

So not only at this stage was the war objectively a disaster, but Bush's second term consisted of scandal after scandal. Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of staff was indicted for perjury. The House Majority Leader was then indicted for violating campaign finance laws. They are huge stories in themselves that I'm like putting in sentences, but like massive news. Side note, you should watch Vice.

On Netflix. Yes, I have Dick Cheney. It's um it's Christian Bale. It plays Dick Cheney. Oh good and is one of the like I love political films, obviously. It's fantastic. It the And the way Cheney puppeteered. No, this the whole point is basically like

Bush wasn't in charge, Taney was. It was like is basically the argument. Yeah. Yeah. And actually we should say that because obviously when we talk historically about that Bush was in charge, but like Dick Cheney, that's a puppet looking at you. That's a puppet master. Yeah. Then came Hurricane Katrina. Uh and and Hurricane Katrina, the management of that was a failure at state, local and federal levels. And

It wasn't just bureaucratic, it was it was moral. Like thousands of mostly black Americans were left without food, without water. They weren't evacuated. They weren't evacuated for days. The images that came from Hurricane Katrina exposed deep racial and economic divides in the US again. And in a way, sort of. Shattered this idea that this government could protect its own people, let alone rebuild a foreign nation. Add to that rising petrol prices.

ongoing war footage and the collapsing sense of competence. And by the 2006 midterm elections, voters handed the Democrats majorities in both houses of Congress. Nancy Pelosi also at this time became the first woman speaker of the house. Crazy to reflect on as a timeline, right? And I think what's also fascinating, when I was deep diving into some old articles, there were articles even from 2001 where journalists saw This coming in a way? There was a New York Times article.

from October of two thousand one that warned that the US was already losing the public relations war in the Middle East and drew direct comparisons to Israel and Palestine. Noting how photos and images and footage of Palestinian children dying made it harder for the US to sustain moral authority or sell its war on terror narrative. And Iraq only really amplified that problem. Like this liberation rhetoric is really hard to convince people when what was happening in Palestine at that time.

I also want to talk a briefly about how public opinion in Australia was changing as well. So if we bring it back home in two thousand and six, Australia was in a bit of a split screen reality. So the economy was booming. And Howard was celebrating ten years in power, yet the Iraq war was becoming a massive political milestone. By 2006, the lack of weapons of mass destruction, obviously no longer a theory, a settled fact, and that was like plastered on the front page of the Herald.

Almost seventy percent of Australians believed that John Howard then misled them for his case for war. Another poll found that 91% of Australians surveyed in 2006 believed the war had worsened the relations between the West and the Muslim world, and 84% felt that it had actually increased the threat of terrorism rather than reduced it. When it came to Howard, the most significant shift in his fight to stay in power came at the end of 2006. And that is when the Kevin 07 effect.

started to t take over. And that's and then Kevin Rudd took over as the leader of the Labour Party. And immediately after Rudd's takeover, Howard's 16 point lead vanished. The Australian public Really wanted a a a new generation and one that wasn't tied to the Iraq invasion.

Kevin O seven, John Howard lost his seat in Peter Dutton fashion. Except he was one of the longest standing prime ministers in Australian history. Like that night in two thousand and seven was a huge change of the nation. Yeah. Like when we talk about this like ABC reference, like a split screen reality of like what Australia was like, that change is it's huge.

By two if if we just return to the timeline now, by 2007, the US and the global economy was tipping into a recession. The housing bubble burst. The banking system was on the brink of collapse, and in Iraq civil unrest surged again. Bush responded by sending more troops in what was called a surge.

Again, like this is this the wrong response repeatedly, digging heels in deeper. That September, the White House delivered a brutal report to Congress. Iraqi leaders had failed to meet half of their key political and military benchmark. Progress had been made on just nine of the eighteen goals. And these major failures included oil revenue sharing, which was one of the few mechanisms that could have eased these sectarian tensions that we were speaking about. So

Two thousand and seven also became the deadliest for US soldiers. It was a it was about nine hundred killed. This is the highest annual toll of this war. And the total number of the Australian service members who died during the Iraq War is four. Yeah. Which I I think that's interesting to know because I do think this is a common part of the confusion. Uh, but not a single Australian soldier was killed by enemy fire or direct combat during the Iraq conflict, which is

you know, uh quite a contrast to the Australians killed during Afghanistan. One in in the in the wider war on terror. But yes. But wait. We are finally jumping to two thousand eight.

A little bit of Obama optimism is um is upon us. Hope, etc. Barack Obama had a very convincing win in two thousand eight against McCain. McCain was in uh uh was a prisoner of war during Vietnam. He was. Yes, he was. Yes. And Obama was uh you know, a big part of his election was on the promise to end the war. Uh and within six months, US troops were pulled out of all major Iraqi cities with a plan to withdraw completely by two thousand and eleven.

But by then obviously the damage was well and truly done in Iraq. The war had fractured the country so badly. that it produced a wave of splinter groups. Al Qaeda and Iraq then rebranded itself as the Islamic State of Iraq, later expanding into Syria and becoming ISIS.

Years later, though, Iraqi and US backed airstrikes would claw back territory, and by twenty nineteen, ISIS had lost around ninety per ninety five percent of the land it once controlled. But still the human cost was staggering by 2020, more than nine million Iraqis had been displaced. And and and there's a figure of between

Two hundred and seventy five thousand and three hundred and six thousand people who had been killed in war related violence. Education systems collapsed, academics fled, entire generations grew up amid instability. And despite everything, despite Saddam gone, despite elections being held, constitutions written, troops withdrawn, there still isn't peace.

And there are still unresolved questions about the legitimacy of the invasion and, you know, the lies that justified it. That is a way to end it, right? Like I think it's one of those Topics right where we're seeing it bleed into so much current discussion of Trump and that like l the lim the limitations or lack thereof of power. But the way that propaganda is used to justify massive movements and

how people are unable to reckon with something they once believed once new evidence is presented, right? Yeah, I think I think what I found really interesting about this and especially when linking it to and reflecting to the reflecting on the modern days and what we're seeing right now. It is this multiple truths can exist at once. And I think we can talk about the moral and emotional fallout or reasonings of something like this, as well as the fact that we are largely at the whim of these.

leaders that have their own agendas that aren't at all to do with moral. Yeah. And it's like they they can't they coexist the reasonings and you can't talk about one without talking about the other. But a lot of why these leaders have done this is not because they cared about helping, genuinely helping.

The people of Iraq. It it's just that for so long the US and m so many Western nations have been very good and the media has been very good at framing everything as like which team are you on? It's this like ultimate patriotism binary thinking, as we've said in today's episode.

And it's it's that thing of like, when did we feel that those were only ever the two options? You know? And it's it's it's a really hard truth to reckon with after so much propaganda and so much media, you know, misinformation for so long. But Thank you so much for listening. Um, I'm sure there is more to it um that we could cover in another seven parts. Seven parts, genuinely. But I hope this was somewhat helpful. to see it kind of laid out chronologically. Yeah, thank you for listening.