How to Sell A w*r: The George W. Bush Story (2025)

[bunniefuu]

(dramatic music)

It was 7am and I was on a

run and I got a call from my

mom and she said,

you got to turn on the TV.

There are planes flying into buildings.

It's complete chaos.

All I can remember was just looking

at the TV set in complete shock.

(dramatic music)

We couldn't figure out

in the beginning what

was happening, whether or not it was an

actual t*rror1st attack,

whether it was an accident.

But as more planes

were flying into buildings,

crashing into the Pentagon, it became

clear that the US was under attack.

(dramatic music)

So we're going to

see what we can do.

We're going to do our best.

This is only a few weeks after both

of us retired after 20 years of service.

But still in our hearts,

we're firefighters.

Now nothing like this had ever happened on

American soil and the scale

was absolutely unprecedented.

And so you've got this sense of

fear and confusion and vulnerability.

You know, not only in New

York, but all over the country.

Every American was

scared for their own safety

at that point, because

it wasn't clear whether

or not there were going to be more

planes flying into buildings,

whether or not there

was going to be some

use of biological weapons.

The t*rrorists did exactly

what they wanted to

do and that was to create terror.

And you've got to remember

those attacks happened

right in the heart of

the financial district

of New York, which some people regard

as basically the capital of the world.

And that world changed in an

instant when those planes hit.

Another plane come in and all you hear

was this rumbling, people was crying,

people was jumping out the window.

They was waving, like trying to like

say, help me, like you see their arms.

And then you saw the man jump down

and he just, everybody was jumping.

It was crazy.

I remember one of my family members

said that she could see a man and a

woman holding hands,

jumping out of the building.

She could even see his tie.

(dramatic music)

It's terrible.

Unbelievable.

I didn't think something

like this could happen,

especially in New York.

I'm sorry for all the people

that lost their lives there today.

It's very sad.

Makes you wonder what

our intelligence community is

doing, you know, to have

something like this happen.

How can this happen?

What do you think

it'll do for the psyche of

New Yorkers and the

psyche of America too?

I think it's more important the psyche of

America than the psyche of New

York, because this is world-reaching.

It's not just the city,

it's around the world.

It's going to, I don't think anything

will ever be the same again.

(dramatic music)

Americans have many questions tonight.

(dramatic music)

Americans are asking,

who attacked our country?

An atrocity which America insists

tonight will soon be avenged.

The evidence we have gathered all points to

a collection of loosely affiliated

t*rror1st organizations known as al-Qaeda.

Bush agreed that the US needed to invade

Afghanistan, that there

was no doubt about this.

But what was also put on

the table was to invade Iraq.

So this is what the neocons do.

They look at 9-11 and they go,

great, we can use this as an opportunity

to get what we want done.

The United States of

America will not permit

the world's most dangerous

regimes to threaten us

with the world's most destructive weapons.

It turns out we were all wrong,

probably, in my judgment.

And that is most disturbing.

You know, why were you

manipulating intelligence?

Why were you exaggerating the threat?

Is this part of a broader strategy

to reshape the Middle East?

Did you lie about

WMDs to get your way?

And I think they adopted a lot of

information that was at the time viewed as

very weak and they viewed it as fat.

The t*rrorists know that the outcome in the

w*r on terror will depend

on the outcome in Iraq.

And so to protect our citizens,

the free world must succeed in Iraq.

The public are going to trust what their

governments tell them, and

their governments have also

got to create this atmosphere

of suspicion around S*ddam.

You would have to be, let's face facts,

pretty confident to have said in the build

-up to the Iraq w*r, S*ddam

definitely does not have WMDs.

The jury was still out.

But the problem is that the US and

the British were saying,

he's definitely got them.

There were no weapons

of mass destruction, that

these were all lies, that these were all

mistruths that were peddled by the

neocons in the Bush administration.

Get ready to read

these words the fast way.

Get ready.

- May.

- Yes, May.

- Get ready.

- Cape.

Yes, Cape.

- Get ready.

- Cane.

Yes, Cane.

- Get ready.

- Pain.

Yes, Pain.

Boys and girls, you're going

to read these words again.

So at the very moment of the attacks,

the American President George W.

Bush was in Florida, in Sarasota, and he

was at this little elementary

school listening to

the kids, you know, do some

sort of reading or performance.

Okay, get ready to read the words

on this page without making a mistake.

Everybody tell me what

this part of the word says.

Rob.

Yes, Rob.

When Bush was reading

to these young children

this book, he was

actually being filmed, and

it was able to catch his reaction to

finding out that America

was under attack, and

he looked completely

in shock and devastated.

(dramatic music)

Bush's kind of response is

kind of, it's almost a bit surreal.

It's a bit strange.

He just sits there very

calmly, just listening

to the kids, and then he's told about

the second hit on the second tower.

(dramatic music)

Please ensure all cell phones

and pages are off at this time.

Thank you.

(dramatic music)

(applause)

Ladies and gentlemen, this is

a difficult moment for America.

(dramatic music)

Today, we've had a national tragedy.

Two airplanes have crashed

into the World Trade Center

in an apparent t*rror1st

attack on our country.

One of its most famous

landmarks destroyed, thousands

dead, and America is under siege.

(dramatic music)

At the time of the attack, d*ck Cheney

is the American Vice President,

and he's in the White House.

Now, he moves very, very quickly to the

secure underground bunker

beneath the White House, and

he is watching as the situation escalates.

The issue was that for an hour, from

9.30am to 10.30am, Cheney was not

able to really communicate with anybody.

He went into one of these deep bunkers

that had been built during the Cold w*r

that had been equipped with all kinds of

technology, and he was essentially

on his own to make decisions.

Many people felt that he

actually massively overstepped

the mark, giving an order for fighter jets

to sh**t down any hijacked airliners.

I have spoken to the Vice President, and

to conduct a full-scale

investigation, to hunt

down and to find those

folks who committed this act.

Cheney had said that he had spoken to

Bush and that he had gotten his approval

but there is no official record of this.

So a lot of people feel that Cheney

is massively exceeding

his brief as Vice President.

The President is not

incapacitated, so there's no

reason why Cheney has to

assume the role of President.

They're trying to save your

life, that's what they thought.

I don't need no shade,

I don't need no shade.

You can't help nobody right now.

Terrorism against our

nation will not stand.

May God bless the victims,

their families and America.

Thank you very much.

So the neocons, that is

short for neoconservatives,

and they regard themselves as a new

form of right-wing politician, if you like.

And their key policies is that they're very

hawkish, they're very

pro-fighting wars overseas, and

they like intervening in

other countries' business.

The neocons believed in a much

more aggressive foreign policy.

They believed that the U.S. needed to

not just contain communism but actually

spread democracy around the world.

In particular, they were

focused on the Middle East.

Neocons tended to see the world in very

black and white thinking,

in evil versus good,

in sort of binary style of thinking.

And so you've got figures like d*ck

Cheney, who's the American Vice President.

You've got the Defense

Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

Actually, the most fervent

neocon was Deputy Secretary

of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

He had written a paper in 1992 outlining

a new American foreign policy that would be

much more aggressive in

the Middle East in particular.

He did not like the fact that the elder

Bush had left S*ddam Hussein in power

after the Gulf w*r.

Now, you know, these individuals have

massive amounts of influence over Bush.

They make him look like

a kind of puppet president.

Bush may have a fairly good steer on

domestic policy, i.e. stuff

within the United States.

But when it comes to foreign policy, it's

these guys who look like they're in charge.

(dramatic music)

Make no mistake, the

United States will hunt

down and punish those

responsible for these cowardly acts.

In many ways, the 9-11 attack was

a kind of gift to the

neoconservatives because

this sort of provides an excuse for them

to push their agenda

for Middle East reform.

I mean, they've long

wanted to topple S*ddam

Hussein, who is the dictator in Iraq.

Up until this point, Iraq was not an

ally of the US, certainly, but

there wasn't any reason to invade.

On the very day of the attack, on

9-11 itself, Donald Rumsfeld says to one

of his aides, you know,

let's go and hit Iraq as well.

Let's not just, you know,

concentrate on Bin Laden.

Let's concentrate on S*ddam Hussein.

Donald Rumsfeld tells an aide, we need to

look for connections of how

Iraq was involved in 9-11.

You know, we can k*ll

as many birds as we like.

You know, the world's

sympathy is going to be with us.

And Rumsfeld very quickly

capitalizes on the situation.

This was an unprovoked

attack on absolutely innocent

people and thousands and thousands of them.

There is no justification for it.

It's a product of insanity.

It's the insanity of terrorism.

And we have to do something about it.

We have to do something about it as

a nation and we have to do something

about it as a city in

the way we react to it.

Do you feel you're sending

a message to the t*rrorists?

We are sending a message to the t*rrorists.

The message is a simple one.

You're not going to stop us.

We promoted 186 people from

the fire department yesterday.

Today the stock exchange opens.

Before you know it, while we're still in

sorrow, you're going to see

the buildings start rising again.

I'm going to fix you, I'll

confiscate the camera.

There was documentation of accounts

with millions of dollars and

highly confidential documents.

It looks as if you wouldn't think anything

like this could have happened

unless there was an agreement.

Oh, fantastic.

I want you all to know

that America today, America

today is on bended knee in prayer for

the people whose lives were lost here for

the workers who work here,

for the families who mourn.

This nation stands with the good people of

New York City and New

Jersey and Connecticut

as we mourn the loss of

thousands of our citizens.

So four days after 9-11 on September

15th, Bush and his team were meeting to

discuss their response.

Bush agreed that the U.S. needed to

invade Afghanistan, that

there was no doubt about this.

But what was also put on

the table was to invade Iraq.

At this point, Bush didn't shut it down,

essentially said that he was open

to discussing it more in the future.

Good afternoon.

On my orders, the

United States military has

begun strikes against

Al-Qaeda t*rror1st training camps

and military installations of the

Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

On October the 7th,

2001, you have President

Bush formally announcing

the start of what is

known as Operation Enduring Freedom.

Typically, the Americans give

these operations really literal names.

And that marks the U.S.'s

military intervention in Afghanistan.

That is a direct response to 9-11.

Today, we focus on Afghanistan,

but the battle is broader.

Every nation has a choice to make.

In this conflict, there

is no neutral ground.

If any government sponsors

the outlaws and K*llers

of innocents, they have become

outlaws and murderers themselves.

Bush is saying, listen, you know,

we're not just targeting the t*rrorists.

We're also going to target the

regime that is supporting them.

And we're going to go in and we're

going to turn things upside down.

We are going to

get rid of that regime.

And we're going to put in a new

government, basically, of our own making.

In other American wars,

enemy commanders have come

to doubt the wisdom of taking on the

strength and power of this nation and the

resolve of her people.

The Americans know that

the Taliban are providing

safe haven for Bin Laden, who had

organized the 9-11 attacks, and lots of his

followers.

I expect that somewhere in a cave in

Afghanistan, there's a

t*rror1st leader who is at

this moment considering

precisely the same thing.

(speaking foreign language)

Osama bin Laden was the

founder and leader of al-Qaeda.

And that's this very

sort of loosely arranged

militant Islamist group, which

were responsible for planning

and executing the 9-11 attacks,

and also many, many other attacks.

They were able to help the Taliban to

control 90% of Afghanistan as they were

taking over the vast

majority of the country.

Because he wants to

basically establish a kind

of global Islamic regime,

or a caliphate, as it's known.

And he sees the United States as the

primary enemy, the primary obstacle.

I don't blame anybody

other than Osama bin Laden.

He has brought nothing but

death and terror wherever he goes.

Now he's bringing it to

the people of Afghanistan.

Beautiful as they look from up here, the

snow-capped peaks of Afghanistan

present a problem for US forces.

Because this environment

is almost certainly hiding the

world's most wanted man.

Down there somewhere is Osama bin Laden.

America's decided on its enemy.

The wanted posters are out for Afghan-based

Osama bin Laden, and the people

here back military action to get him.

But I can assure the American

people, I am determined.

I'm not going to be distracted.

I will keep my focus to make sure

that not only are these brought to justice,

but anybody who's been

associated will be brought to justice.

Those who harbour t*rrorists

will be brought to justice.

This crusade, this w*r

on terrorism, is going

to take a while.

And the American people must be patient.

The US-led coalition that goes into

Afghanistan is tremendously successful.

Within three months of the US invasion of

Afghanistan, the Taliban had collapsed.

They have kicked the Taliban out.

They've installed Karzai

as the Afghan leader.

And they've done this through

airstrikes, a massive ground as*ault.

It is basically a tremendously

successful operation.

The Taliban was forced

to leave the country.

And they found a home in Pakistan.

The problem is, how

do you stay in power?

How can you keep this country stable?

And as the Americans are going

to find out, that is very difficult.

We've never let up on

Osama bin Laden from day one.

We've actively and

aggressively pursued him.

We've captured and k*lled

thousands of al-Qaeda,

various places around the world,

and especially in Afghanistan.

We'll continue to very

aggressively pursue him.

And I'm confident,

eventually, we'll get him.

The advantage seems to be his.

But before this year is out, the

Americans have vowed to find him.

The US defense secretary

said special forces were

hunting Osama bin Laden,

despite obvious difficulties.

It's not a bottle that you can cork.

It's a large country

with a lot of borders.

One has to be realistic.

I think we'll find him, either

there or in some other country.

But you don't know where

he is, and you can't find him.

We have not found him, but

we can find him, and we will.

And he and those who he leads will

be held accountable for

what happened last Tuesday.

He's on the run, if

he's running at all.

So we don't know whether he's in

a cave with the door shut, or a cave

with the door open.

We just don't know.

There's all kinds of reports

and all kinds of speculation.

But one thing we know is that he's

not in charge of Afghanistan anymore.

On the 28th of December 2001, you've got

President Bush giving a

speech at his Texas ranch.

And he's standing next

to General Tommy Franks,

who is the commander of US Central

Command for the whole Afghan invasion.

It's basically a speech

all about the frustration

the Americans are feeling that Osama

bin Laden has not yet been captured.

And he alluded to the fact that while he

hoped that the year would be peaceful,

he was realistic and he

didn't think that it would be.

And so while I hope that 2002

is a year of peace, I'm realistic.

But then he goes into the ranch with

Franks, and it's there that Bush then says

to Franks, OK, we're going to turn

our attention somewhere else now.

We're going to look

at going in to Iraq.

In November of 2001,

Secretary of Defense Donald

Rumsfeld was informing

General Tommy Franks that he

needed to start the

planning for the w*r in Iraq.

This took place during the Afghan

w*r and without the public knowledge.

(dramatic music)

I think those who

would anticipate that it's

sort of in quickly and out quickly in

Afghanistan would not be pleased.

Although the US have been focusing on the

w*r in Afghanistan, you

have got the neoconservatives,

men like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz.

They've been pushing for

military action in Iraq for years.

The neocons wanted to

invade Iraq because they

wanted to completely

transform the Middle East into

a sea of liberal democracies that were

more pliant to the US administration.

Their desire to invade

Iraq is very controversial.

But if you were going to defend them,

they would say, look, we want to have

a democratic, stable Middle East.

We don't want these

dictators like S*ddam Hussein

helping to run the show over there.

We want to get rid of these guys.

You know, we want to have

a world which is democratic.

It has equal rights for

women and so on and so forth.

So this is what they would say.

But in order to achieve that, they've got

to come up with some pretty remarkable

excuses as to why they really want to go

and invade Iraq as well as Afghanistan.

Now, the issue, of course, was that the

regimes in the Middle

East were fairly authoritarian

and there wasn't really

any movement domestically.

There wasn't any bottom-up

movement to change that.

So they did the best that they could

to try to pinpoint Iraq being involved in

the planning of 9-11, even though

there wasn't really any evidence of that.

Now, Afghanistan is sheltering t*rrorists.

It's a completely legitimate

place for the Americans

and their allies to go

and wage some w*r.

Iraq is not sheltering t*rrorists.

So what do the neocons do?

What's the excuse they come up with?

What they say is S*ddam Hussein has

weapons of mass destruction or WMDs.

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful.

And so were we.

They never stop thinking about new ways to

harm our country and our

people, and neither do we.

(dramatic music)

So in January of 2002, Bush gave a

State of the Union address that is often

known as his access of evil speech.

Our second goal is to prevent regimes that

sponsor terror from threatening

America or our friends

and allies with weapons

of mass destruction.

And it's during that

speech where he introduces

this whole concept of the access of evil.

Now, those are three countries.

Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.

And the whole purpose of the speech is

to highlight the perceived

global threat by those nations.

The Iraqi regime has

plotted to develop anthrax

and nerve gas and nuclear

weapons for over a decade.

It was in this speech that he starts

using the words weapons

of mass destruction and

starts to warn the

American public that Iraq

is pursuing WMDs, and that Iraq poses

an enormous threat to U.S. security.

That they're destabilizing the

world, and they've got to be dealt with.

And so that speech is setting

the stage for an invasion of Iraq.

The United States of

America will not permit

the world's most dangerous

regimes to threaten us

with the world's most destructive weapons.

We have now no choice.

So we will act.

And our determination in acting is total.

We will not let up or rest until

our objectives are met in full.

At the time, the British government is led

by Prime Minister Tony Blair, and

he is a real key ally of George Bush's.

And he is fully supportive of Bush's stance

on Iraq, even though there was very

widespread public opposition in the UK.

So Prime Minister Tony Blair of the UK

was really in lockstep with the Bush

administration about invading Iraq.

He never really wavered

in his support, while

other European allies

were far more critical and

wanted more information,

wanted more proof, and were

really hesitant to support

any kind of invasion of Iraq.

What this latest t*rror1st outrage

shows us is that this is a w*r.

Its main battleground is Iraq.

We have got to make sure we defeat

these t*rrorists, the former

S*ddam people in Iraq,

and we must do that because that is

an essential part of

defeating this fanaticism and

extremism that is k*lling innocent

people all over our world today.

So what the government in the UK

is trying to do is to say, S*ddam is

a direct threat to British lives.

And this is a way of trying to justify

an invasion and trying to justify why

the British support Bush.

Here's why Iraq is important in this.

Because in the end, their case, which is

based on dividing

people, the Arab world and

the Western world, the Muslim world and the

Christian world and other

religions, their case is

that we are in Iraq to suppress Muslims,

steal their oil, to spoil the country.

Now, we know, you know,

that all those things are lies.

So there was a memo that was leaked

by the British that showed that the US

was actually planning

to invade Iraq well before,

and that they were using and cherry-picking

facts in ways that

could justify an invasion.

The joint press conference showed

their shared mission to eradicate evil.

But if President Bush has the power in

this relationship, Mr Blair showed

himself to be its most powerful advocate.

It will not be a w*r against Iraq.

It will be a w*r to liberate Iraq.

What we see now is this kind of process

of fear-mongering the public to make

them support the idea

of a w*r against Iraq.

The choice is not ours,

it is S*ddam Hussein's.

If he will not disarm voluntarily,

we will do it for him by force, and his

regime will join the Taliban

in the dustbin of history.

So the Bush administration

engaged in a great

deal of fear-mongering to shape the view

of the American public that Iraq was

acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

This started with Vice

President d*ck Cheney going

on television in August

of 2002 and basically

lying to the American

public that S*ddam Hussein

had acquired weapons of mass destruction.

Simply stated, there is

no doubt that S*ddam

Hussein now has weapons

of mass destruction.

There is no doubt that he is amassing

them to use them against our friends,

against our allies, and against us.

Even Condoleezza Rice

and others in the Bush

administration, you know, using

imagery of mushroom clouds

to say that, you know, there could be

a nuclear attack, and everyone

knows what a mushroom cloud signifies.

And then in February of 2003, Secretary of

State Colin Powell famously

spoke in front of the United Nations.

I remember him actually

bringing these cylinders that

supposedly were evidence

that Iraq had a nuclear

program, that this was ample

evidence that they posed a huge threat.

Indeed, the facts and

Iraq's behavior show that

S*ddam Hussein and his

regime are concealing their

efforts to produce more

weapons of mass destruction.

The world's got to kind of

believe the Secretary of State.

Why wouldn't you believe him?

He's a kind of decorated

general, a very authoritative figure.

And unless we act, we are confronting

an even more frightening future.

S*ddam Hussein is a

homicidal dictator who is

addicted to weapons of mass destruction.

You would hear the words weapons of mass

destruction, WMDs,

repeatedly used in the media.

The words weapons of mass destruction was a

key phrase to trigger Americans to be more

worried about Iraq than

they might normally be.

The government was going on and on and

on about them, saying this is the

primary justification for invading Iraq.

You know, S*ddam has got these WMDs.

They could threaten the US.

They could threaten its allies.

We cannot wait for the final proof, the

smoking g*n that could come in the form

of a mushroom cloud.

The world is going to be a lot,

lot safer if we get rid of S*ddam,

because in doing so, we'll also get rid

of the threat posed by his supposed WMDs.

It is clear, however,

that if left unchecked,

S*ddam Hussein will

continue to increase his capacity

to wage biological and

chemical warfare and will

keep trying to develop nuclear weapons.

You've got this constant

harping on that post

9-11, the world's completely changed.

It's much more dangerous.

And in order to protect US lives,

what we've got to do is go into the

Middle East, go in hard, take down these

regimes and install new

democratic cosy allies.

As dawn broke over the Arabian Sea, the

carrier Abraham Lincoln

was being replenished.

Helicopters winching aboard

supplies of bombs and ammunition,

food and fuel for a conflict

many on board believe is coming.

Which is why below deck,

President Bush's speech

was being followed intently by sailors

too young to have yet experienced w*r.

The t*rrorists know that the outcome in the

w*r on terror will depend

on the outcome in Iraq.

And so to protect our citizens,

the free world must succeed in Iraq.

(dramatic music)

S*ddam, you know,

he's an evil, nasty dictator.

You know, he has people ex*cuted.

He has people tortured.

Those that worked with

S*ddam said that he's

either going to make you a

millionaire or he's going to k*ll you.

There was just really no

middle ground with him.

He uses chemical weapons.

He wages w*r on his neighbour, Iran.

He either provided you with all kinds

of goods and luxury and co-opted you or

the next day he could chop your

body up, put it in a body bag and

deliver it to your wife.

He intimidates his population,

surveillance, secret police, you name it.

He famously held a series of trials where

he announced all of the traitors in the

room and then forced those that

were remaining to execute these traitors.

(dramatic music)

He is a classic dictator.

And he tended to want to surround himself

with those without expertise,

without bravery, without experience,

rather than surround

himself with people who he

viewed could threaten

his own political survival.

But he's also thinking, I don't just

want to be kind of head of Iraq, I

want to be head leader

of the whole Arab world.

I mean, he is nothing if

not completely ambitious.

And so this is why he

starts the Iran-Iraq w*r.

It goes on for eight years and ultimately

results in stalemate with hundreds

of thousands of deaths on both sides.

And this is why he invades Kuwait in

1990, which is why he becomes the kind

of public enemy number one for so many

in the United States, because

Kuwait is a friendly country.

And S*ddam is wanting to take

Kuwait because he wants its oil.

He's literally just trying

to steal another country.

S*ddam Hussein and his sons

must leave Iraq within 48 hours.

In March 2003, Bush

issues this public ultimatum

to S*ddam Hussein,

right, you leave Iraq within

48 hours, two days, or we

are gonna go in with our forces.

You are gonna face military action.

Their refusal to do so will result in

military conflict commenced

at a time of our choosing.

The Americans are firm,

uncompromising, and they're not

gonna wait for more UN sanctions.

They're gonna go it alone.

They don't care about the UN anymore.

Seven days after the phone call,

parliament supported military action.

And the following day on March the 19th,

the Iraq w*r started.

You've got the US, you've got the UK,

you've got a whole coalition of allies, and

their goal is simply to remove

S*ddam Hussein from power.

And you've got this intense

aerial bombardment of key targets.

And that is known as shock and awe.

And actually, you know,

it really is shock and awe.

They are absolutely decimating

all these military targets,

all these governmental targets

in Baghdad and elsewhere.

So the Iraq w*r was a

disaster for S*ddam Hussein.

He had completely

neglected his army because he

had coup-proofed the regime

and created these parallel militaries.

These parallel militaries,

in turn, were smuggling their

weapons and sending

them off to Saudi Arabia.

I mean, you know, the Iraqis

don't put up any defense.

And frankly, why would

they really bother when

you've got the mightiest

nations in the world

turning up on your doorstep

and just kicking your door down?

There's nothing you can really do about it.

Hussein would surround

himself by really those who

were just completely incompetent,

who were sycophantic, who

were often using in their

communication about how

the military was performing

sort of this flowery

language that they were performing

so well with the spirit of a warrior.

And for S*ddam, that was what mattered more

than actual genuine military strategy.

Then the ground invasion starts and

basically Baghdad falls within three weeks.

Together, coalition forces

are advancing day by day

in steady progress against the enemy.

Slowly but surely, the

grip of terror around

the throats of the Iraqi people is being

loosened and S*ddam Hussein will

be removed no matter how long it takes.

The U.S. military was able to quickly

overwhelm the demoralized Iraqi forces.

At the same time, S*ddam

Hussein's spokesman, Tariq

Aziz, was claiming

that the battle was going

well, that Iraqis were

doing better than ever.

But by April of 2003, S*ddam

Hussein's statue was toppled.

Into the very heart of Baghdad, U.S.

tanks and troops finally arrive,

spelling the end for the Iraqi regime.

The stars and stripes have come to town.

S*ddam Hussein's reign of terror is over.

So nearly three weeks after this w*r

began, U.S. forces are now coming into the

center of Baghdad.

This is what regime change looks like.

What's it like being in

the middle of Baghdad?

It's kind of crazy.

Pretty good warm welcome from everybody.

Good luck.

- Stay safe.

- Thank you.

The president's rule is no more.

Years of repression and brutality

have been brought to a close.

Will you bring his statue down?

(crowd cheers)

At first, they tried to knock it

down using a sledgehammer.

The Americans brought in a tank

recovery vehicle to finish the job.

Then, the moment of

history, the moment S*ddam's

regime could finally

be said to be at an end.

(dramatic music)

Baghdad falls quickly.

S*ddam Hussein's statue has toppled.

This is the beginning of

years and years of chaos.

And what's more, where is S*ddam?

(dramatic music)

It's on May the 1st, 2003, that you

have President Bush delivering his now

notorious mission accomplished speech.

And he's on board this

massive aircraft carrier,

the Abraham Lincoln,

and Baghdad has fallen.

And behind him is this huge banner

that goes, mission accomplished.

Now, he actually didn't

use the words mission

accomplished, but that was what

a banner behind him was showing.

And during this speech, he claimed that all

combat operations in Iraq were complete.

Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.

In the battle of Iraq, the United

States and our allies have prevailed.

The w*r's been won.

We've done it in three weeks.

Job done.

We're in charge.

The world is safe.

We've won.

Because of you, the tyrant

has fallen and Iraq is free.

(dramatic music)

But of course, you know, this is

massively arrogant or hubristic.

You know, that banner becomes this kind of

symbol of irony and miscommunication.

Because he wanted a big photo op, he

was wearing a military b*mber

jacket and he was on an aircraft carrier.

And he wanted to use this as a

sign that his administration

had been incredibly successful

in its conflict with Iraq.

While these are powerful images for his re

-election campaign next

year, Mr. Bush knows that

declaring victory would

be somewhat premature.

After all, S*ddam

Hussein still has not been

captured and the weapons of mass

destruction still have not been found.

Mission accomplished

speech was one of his regrets.

Because the mission has

not been accomplished.

In fact, it's barely even been started.

It was ironic.

The w*r in Iraq was nowhere near over.

In fact, there would be years and years

and billions and billions

of money spent and

many troops would die in the aftermath.

We have got years of

bloodshed ahead of us.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

One of the first things the Americans are

doing after they're now in control of Iraq

or they think they're in control of

Iraq is to go out looking for weapons of

mass destruction because

obviously that's the reason why

everybody's gone in and invaded it.

But by the time that Bush came to

power, Iraq was really a shell of its

former self and they really didn't have the

financial strength to build

or the technological ability

to really build an

effective nuclear program.

And they start turning

up every petal, every

stone going to every

factory and what do they find?

Nothing.

There are no weapons

of mass destruction in Iraq.

This is a huge, major embarrassment

for the US and our allies.

Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is

about to come before the commission

and is certain to be questioned about the

Bush administration's alleged

fixation with attacking a country

with no Al-Qaeda connection, Iraq.

The Americans and the British kept

saying that S*ddam has definitely got WMDs.

Okay, we haven't found them yet but what

are the chances of him not having them?

It was kind of relying on an

enormous amount of trust.

The public are going to trust what their

governments tell them and

their governments have also

got to create this atmosphere

of suspicion around S*ddam.

US really didn't have

any concrete evidence that

Iraq was pursuing weapons

of mass destruction, that

it was pursuing nuclear weapons or that it

had the technological ability

to make much progress in this.

You would have to be, let's face facts,

pretty confident to have said in the build

-up to the Iraq w*r, S*ddam

definitely does not have WMDs.

You know, the jury was still out

but the problem is that the US and the

British were saying

he's definitely got them.

David Kaye, the man America

sent to Iraq to find weapons

of mass destruction,

returns to Capitol Hill today

to deliver the news the

government didn't want to hear.

So in 2004, David Kaye, who was a part

of the Iraq survey group, famously noted

in front of the Senate that the US had

very poor intelligence, that they got it

all wrong.

It's clear we've got a problem now.

But the man who searched in vain for

those weapons told ITV News it would be

better to acknowledge a

huge intelligence failure.

To be honest, I don't think anyone thought,

I certainly didn't think, it would

take this long to find them.

I mean, this is a crucial moment.

This man knows what he's talking about and

it's now that the world

finally realises that

the pretext for w*r has

effectively been a lie.

It turns out we were all wrong,

probably, in my judgement.

And that is most disturbing.

Have you found any

weapons of mass destruction?

I've barely found lunch.

This report comes out in 2004 and that

even confirms that S*ddam

had actually destroyed his

WMDs in the 1990s and there had

been no active programmes since then.

There were no weapons

of mass destruction, that

these were all lies, that these were all

mistruths that were peddled by the

neocons in the Bush administration.

So as a result, it was very easy

for critics to go, right, well there are

no WMDs, you had a pretty good idea

there weren't any WMDs, so why did you

go in?

Why were you manipulating intelligence?

Why were you exaggerating the threat?

Did you go in because you want

American control of the Middle East?

Did you go in because you want oil?

Is this part of a broader strategy

to reshape the Middle East?

Did you lie about WMDs?

To get your way.

(dramatic music)

Weapon of mass destruction

ain't never been found

Homeland Security, please

lay your weapons down

By 2007, public support for the

w*r in Iraq had really dwindled.

In fact, a vast majority of Americans

wanted US troops to come home and some 60

% were in agreement that the

w*r in Iraq was a huge failure.

This is George Bush and the Queen

as you will not see them in London this

week, riding in an open

carriage, surrounded and

protected by anti-w*r demonstrators.

This was the closest George Bush and his

entourage have come

so far to the protesters

who object to his state visit to Britain.

Anti-Bush activists were running

towards the Queen Victoria Memorial.

They hoped their cries would carry to the

apartments where the Bushes are staying.

The government told us

that there were weapons,

there were some weapons ready to be

used within 45 minutes and there was such a

threat that we not only had to

invade Iraq, we had to do it then.

Before dusk, there'd been

22 arrests according to

Scotland Yard, none

under anti-terrorism laws.

(people shout over each other)

The Prime Minister, he says, has until the

end of the summer holidays, just seven

weeks, to come up with proof of WMD or

he should resign.

The UK and US leaderships wanted to justify

military action on the basis of weapons of

mass destruction and

so they talked them up.

Now we hear them talking them

down because they haven't found them.

(dramatic music)

Information is what

the British public and the

United States public as well as the world

need with reference to why we went

into this w*r and where, if any, are the

weapons of mass destruction.

Well, I think the surprise about this

report is there really are no surprises.

We've taken virtually

another 12 months and about

800 million US dollars to come to the

conclusion where we were last October.

We're here to report to President Bush that

we found his weapons of mass destruction.

They weren't in Iraq.

They're located in Britain

and in the United States.

S*ddam and his delusional

state had every intent

of recreating weapons of mass destruction.

The physical and social

infrastructure of Iraq had

so decayed into a vortex of corruption and

utter incapability of reproducing large

amounts of weapons of mass destruction.

So no, there was no imminent threat.

The anti-w*r movement

has taken to the streets.

These neocons like the American

Enterprise Institute believe

in freedom, the freedom to lie, the freedom

to cheat, the freedom to exploit a false

democracy of which our

country is foreign victim.

(dramatic music)

Once again, the Hawks

are back in the ascendancy.

Just a week ago, President Bush sought to

dampen the frenzy of speculation on Iraq.

So on November the 8th, 2006, US Secretary

of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he resigns.

There's been so much criticism

regarding what's been going on in Iraq.

This was at a time when public

support for the Iraq w*r was really low.

There was very low morale.

There was very little support

for the neocon policies.

Blame for poor planning,

mismanagement of the w*r,

lack of proper planning

for the post-S*ddam phase.

Then you've got all the abuses carried out

by Americans on

prisoners at a prison called

Abu Ghraib in which prisoners are tortured.

A suitably somber Mr Bush engaged in what's

become an almost daily act of contrition.

People, there will be a full accounting

for the cruel and disgraceful

abuse of Iraqi detainees.

This isn't looking like, you know, the West

being a nice, democratic,

respecter of human rights.

This is just basically a complete c*ck-up.

The president reeling

from his first full-blown

scandal, though still

determined to stand by his man.

You're doing a superb job.

You are a strong secretary of defense and

our nation owes you a debt of gratitude.

Yet behind the show of

unity, divisions festering.

d*ck Cheney pressing

for Rumsfeld to stay, an

aide to Condi Rice

claiming she wouldn't mind

if he went, though she's denied it.

I must say that it's been the highest

honor of my life to serve with the

talented men and women of

the Department of Defense.

They will remain in my prayers always.

Thank you.

Now, throughout all this

period, back in Afghanistan,

you've got bin Laden still in hiding.

The US invaded Afghanistan

with the aim of capturing bin Laden.

And though they were

able to control probably

about 90% of Afghanistan by December

of 2001, in a famous battle in Tora Bora,

which was bin Laden's stronghold,

he somehow mysteriously escaped.

And why haven't they found bin Laden?

That was one of the primary reasons for

going into Afghanistan,

was to not only dismantle

the country being used as a safe haven

for t*rrorists like al-Qaeda, but also

you've got to capture the head guy.

You've got to capture bin Laden.

It was definitely a source

of embarrassment for

the Bush administration

that they were never able

to capture bin Laden, given that that was

one of the main objectives

of the invasion of Afghanistan.

Now, you could say that this is a

complete failure of the Bush

administration to find him.

But the truth is, it is very, very

difficult trying to find one man in a

country like Afghanistan,

which is chaotic, it's mountainous,

and besides, bin Laden may

not even be in Afghanistan at all.

I believe the proper use of power by

America will make the

world more peaceful, America

more secure, and as

importantly, people more free.

I call upon all nations to do everything

they can to stop these t*rror1st K*llers.

Thank you.

Now watch this drive.

It's obviously very

easy to be cynical about

why the Americans went into Iraq,

but they weren't the only nation going in.

The British and other nations

also supported the American forces.

The U.S. wanted to go to w*r with

Iraq because there was all kinds of

business potential deals

to be made, there was

all kinds of lucrative economic

opportunities, and because

Iraq had oil, and it was one of

the big oil producers in the world.

We flew up to the Ramallah oil field

this morning, west of

Bashar, where about 60

% of Iraq's oil is produced.

The army cares about its PR and the

story they wanted

reported was the speed with

which this oil field was

secured, with very little damage.

They felt that it would be better to

have a more pliant

democratic style leader in

power than S*ddam Hussein, who

they viewed as a menace to U.S. stability.

I genuinely feel that

the motivation for going

in was a sincere

neoconservative belief that the

way to make the world safer is to

go into these countries,

invade them, and install

democratic, friendly governments.

The neocons were

accused of wanting to rebuild

Iraq because this would

be profitable for them,

profitable for their relationship

with oil companies, and

profitable for the reconstruction

company Halliburton, which d*ck

Cheney had been on the board of, but

was no longer officially on the board of

once he became vice president.

The facts are the vice

president's company that

he was CEO of, that did business with

sworn enemies of the

United States, paid millions

of dollars in fines for providing

false financial information.

It's under investigation

for bribing foreign officials.

The same company that got a $7.5

billion no-bid contract.

Halliburton was accused

of overcharging the U.S.

for these contracts.

Some $60 billion or so was the amount

that they overcharged the U.S. The rule

is that part of their money is supposed

to be withheld when they're

under investigation, as

they are now, for having

overcharged the American taxpayer.

But they're getting every

dime of their money.

And at the same time, other companies that

were engaged in private

security were earning, I

mean, billions, billions

and billions of dollars.

So for the neocons, this was

this one big business venture.

Who could have possibly

envisioned an election in

Iraq at this point in history?

Even if we're going to be kind to

the neocons, this is just simply a very,

very flawed way of trying to

conduct international politics.

What we've learned from

Iraq, and what happened

afterwards, is that actually what you do by

trying to, you know, get rid of these

dictators is that you end up

destabilizing these countries even more.

And you create an even more deadly and

evil kind of breeding

ground for violence and

terrorism and extremism than you did

under even someone like S*ddam Hussein.

So you're getting rid of a bad guy,

but you're replacing him with

hundreds of thousands of bad guys.

To most people, there was really only one

response, which would have

been to invade Afghanistan

and to deal with al-Qaeda.

But instead, the U.S.

got distracted by Iraq.

And this came at a really critical

time when the U.S. was starting to really

gain headway in

Afghanistan, when there was a

chance for stability in

Afghanistan, when there was

a lot of troop deployment there.

At this very critical time, the U.S.

is diverted.

Its military, both troops

and just attention, is

diverted into Iraq, which

then created a hotbed

for terrorism, which had

not even existed before.

And this is the problem.

So I think that the

neoconservatives were arrogant.

I think they were naive.

I think they genuinely

believed that regime change

was the way to make the world safer.

They were wrong.

But given the situation in Iraq right

now, achievements will be a hard sell.

This week alone, at least 300 people

were k*lled in attacks by insurgents.

Most recent figures show an average of 87

attacks each day, the

highest number so far.

And then there's the

growing hostage problem.

More than 100 foreigners

have been taken hostage

in the last six months,

and 30 have been k*lled.

At the moment, at least 26 foreigners are

still being held, including a

Briton and two Americans.

(dramatic music)

So there was a huge

cost of the w*r on terror.

Financially, it cost $8 trillion.

That is a big number.

And that's including all those

military operations, reconstruction

and aid, and also care

for veterans afterwards.

But it also led to some 4.5

million deaths indirectly, if you

look at all the conflicts that took place.

900,000 people died in the direct

conflicts in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

38 million people were displaced.

You've got huge displacements

of millions of people.

Something like 4 million Iraqis

were displaced in that w*r alone.

And so this sparks this

kind of global refugee crisis.

And because of poor policies

concerning nation-building

in these countries in

which the Americans and

our allies went into,

what you are fomenting

is instability, and an instability

which can be exploited by t*rrorists.

The w*r on terror was

aiming to eliminate terrorism.

But what it really did was help generate

more t*rror1st groups than

ever before in the Middle East.

An immoral w*r was thus waged.

And the world is a great deal

less safe place than before.

The invasion of Iraq

instigated the formation of

al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was the

most brutal of the al-Qaeda franchise.

And from that would

emerge the Islamic State.

And so as a result, you get, you

know, organizations like

!sis starting to come to

prominence in places like Iraq.

Which would then be wrecking havoc in not

just Iraq, but also in Syria and

would prolong the Syrian civil w*r.

Because, you know, they have got a

chaotic system which they can feed off.

So the w*r on terror

is partially successful,

but ultimately, in the long term, it

also creates lots more terrorism.

So if you're trying to

weigh it up, it's very difficult.

(dramatic music)

You clearly argue, which is now quite a

familiar argument, that the

Bush administration was intent

on going after Iraq, regardless of what

the truth was about the 9-11 attacks.

What do you believe was

the right response to 9-11?

What should they have done?

I would have responded in the same way

that it was a highly

devastating criminal attack,

but it's a t*rror1st attack

at the end of the day.

We have a very good means.

We have good intelligence.

There was no need to build up and

militarize this planet in response to 9-11

and call it a huge, as Bush did,

what was the words he used?

A tremendous battle, monumental

struggle between good and evil.

I mean, come on.

The United States chose

a different path with Bush.

It decided that the laws and the treaties

that exist between countries

did not exist for them.

And that we had the right to arrest or

go after anybody who was a t*rror1st.

But the definition of terrorism

has been extremely clouded.

And as we know, there's

a lot of lawsuits out there.

So the United States essentially

behaved like an outlaw.

Weak and insecure

people hardly ever say sorry.

It is large-hearted and

courageous people who

are not diminished by

saying, I made a mistake.

President Bush and Mr. Blair

would recover considerable

credibility and respect if they were

able to say, yes, we made a mistake.

If you ask who won the w*r on

terror, there's no simple answer.

I'm sorry.

I mean, on one level, you could say,

yes, the Americans did get rid of some

bad guys.

They did get rid of the regime in

Afghanistan, the Taliban regime.

You know, they did get

rid of Osama bin Laden.

They did really denude

al-Qaeda's capability for

creating more t*rror1st

plots on United States soil.

Getting rid of S*ddam

Hussein, he wasn't a nice guy.

Maybe it was good

that he was got rid of.

But when you start looking

beyond those immediate

kind of wins, you look at Afghanistan now.

It's now ruled by the Taliban.

Hold on. I thought we

got rid of those guys.

Iraq feels a bit more stable.

But there were years and years and years

of insurgency and instability

and hundreds of thousands

of deaths and displacement

of civilian populations.

So I think you have to say there

were some short-term victories.

But in the long run, yeah, it's hard to say

that the Americans won the w*r on terror.

And in fact, it's still being fought

and will be fought for decades.

So who won the w*r on terror, a w*r

that lasted decades, cost $8 trillion, saw

almost 1 million people

die in direct conflict?

No one.

(dramatic music)