 Hello, you're watching Daily Debrief, your daily news analysis show brought to you by People's Dispatch. Now normally we do three segments of news from around the world, but today is a special episode. Today we're going to be talking about one of the most momentous incidents, momentous events of this century on its 20th anniversary. It's been 20 years since George Bush, Tony Blair and their allies after a prolonged campaign of lies led a coalition of willing countries into Iraq in a brutal invasion. Twenty years later the impact still continues. Millions dead, millions displaced. The international order suffered a huge blow. There's a new Cold War which also maybe emanates from that period. We'll be talking about all this with Prabir Prakash. Prabir, thank you so much for joining us now. This is an issue we can probably talk for hours on this, but within the limited confines of this show, you know, how would you sort of, let's first take the region because the whole of West Asia has never been the same since that period. So much has happened. So how would you first maybe take a look at how that region has really sort of changed? What has been the impact of the war on the region itself? Well the first is of course the fact the triumphalism with which the US forces entered Iraq, they could make the whole region any way they wanted and they had the position they felt after the world had become unipolar of the 90s, Soviet Union had disintegrated, Russia was weak, the various oligarchs were in power, the Putin had taken over in 1998 I think. It still was a phase in which Russia was seen not to be a player. So therefore the US felt that they had a unique opportunity to remake the world as it pleases and 2001 the attack on the World Trade powers meant that the United States, in United States the people would rally behind the wall. So if you remember they did the 14 day military operations in Afghanistan taking over Kabul and was 14 or 18 days they took over Kabul and declared victory. But there I was really not an Afghanistan and it was really to the World Trade Towers which led to the attack on Afghanistan. But really there I had always been on Iraq and deciding that Saddam Hussein and Iraq would be a very good target to start remaking West Asia. In fact there is a famous map which are the countries which will be attacked. If you remember General Wesley Clark talks about this map that he saw and that map is quite interesting because the country's name were indeed attacked. So in this Iraq was the key one because they felt that Saddam Hussein could be deposed off very quickly, militarily they'd win very easily and after that they could make Iraq any way they wanted. It will pay for itself because Iraq had enough oil and therefore it will be a win-win that Iraqi people would welcome them that was their vision of what Iraqi people would do and it will be an easy war. I don't think they ever thought of what the consequences of the war would be or if their calculations go wrong then what would happen. The first thing is let's look at the American people and the media. The media knew that this whole claim on which the war was being framed was wrong. The yellow cakes, Niger yellow cakes that they were buying uranium possibility of converting it to weapons grade uranium buying this yellow cake from Niger. That story was known to be false within the CIA, within the US military establishment, within the foreign policy establishment. Yet it was being pushed by Cheney and it was being pushed by Bolton who was the hawk within the establishment at that point and also let's not forget the role of Tony Blair, the UK foreign minister who also got his intelligence agents to prepare a report just for as a particular group within the US intelligence agency also prepared the report saying all this is we're going there weapons of mass destruction are continuing weapons nuclear weapons as well as chemical weapons. All this was the lie that was sold. The point again is the American people bought it and even world over there was a belief that Saddam is really very bad therefore getting rid of his not so not such a bad thing for rest of the world nobody wanted to or let's put it this way people really didn't want to support somebody like Saddam Hussein to use chemical weapons in Iran. His litany of sins are quite large. So given that it was it was surprising I was surprised by two things how well the lie was sold to particularly the American people who even today a large number of belief that not only the Saddam have weapons of mass destruction they believe that actually US forces and the United Nations found weapons of mass destruction after the war both of which we know to be wrong. So that is one thing. Secondly the belief that you could sell lies forever is not too wrong if that is so because this is the domestic audience they could sell that lie and maintain it until today at least to large sections of its people. But what was the unintended consequences? Winning the war was the winning the war was easy but it didn't lead to victory because the resistance had sprung up getting rid of Saddam was the easy part. Running the country was something that what the old colonial powers were successful in doing the neocolonial power of the United States which militarily much stronger than obviously Iraq and the governments but it was unable to run the country and the fact that they didn't really know anything about Iraq its history the fact that there is no foreign office in the United States capable enough of understanding the region except what they thought the region was all of this of course led to the unintended consequences the rise of Iran as a much bigger influence in the region remember the line the war that was fought on Kuwait it was preceded by the war that Iraq fought against Iran and in fact Iraq was backed by United States and all the weapons of mass destruction the chemical weapons that the West talks about were chemical weapons supplied by UK and the United States to Iraq and that we all know in fact the argument the joke that was there was of course they know weapons of mass destruction that Iraq has because the supplied it okay so those were the issues that that that I think took the American people by surprise and also the American policymakers by surprise because honestly it has been a disaster of two kinds one is the Iraq became ungovernable the Iraqi resistance there which was nationalist plus the Islamist plus the old bath forces which still had some allegiance to Saddam Hussein dismantling the civil structure as well as the military the army was disbanded all of it meant there were guns there were people who could use guns and you just handed it over resistance over to them so all that means Iraq could not be governed and the Americans though they lost very few number in overthrowing Saddam the long aftermath of that they lost many more trips and in fact whatever you may see the American television media even Netflix all of that today shows you how much of heat that American forces took in Iraq because that's the only thing you see in the media even today okay that how Americans liberated Iraq and great cost to themselves and it really talks about the resistance afterwards so I think for the West Asian politics it was the a huge self-defeating goal that the United States did because it weakened the supporting structures they had built over a period period and it meant that failing to remake it remake it means that it led to all kinds of other forces coming up which of course has been a huge blow to the region itself to the people Iraq is still you know splintered the still is really the fissures in society which they opened Shia versus Sunni which actually under Saddam had almost did not exist identities were there but they really didn't fight each other like the way they did separating into different parts of the country Shia area Sunni areas all that the sectarian conflict was really created by the United States over there and then of course the Shia forces which were close to Iran they become much more powerful so I think all of that of course ISIS also emerges also because the United States worsened the issue with the interventions in Syria and Libya which you know just they kept repeating those mistakes only in greater dimension is that I think that's the other interesting part what brings up ISIS in that region and you're quite right it starts really in Iraq and in fact as you know again American sources have talked about how they initially let ISIS forces grow in order to build pressure on the Iraqi government to keep American troops and also tow American line you see when Americans tried to quote and could remake Iraq the issues that they instituted were very clear one is what kind of laws essentially neoliberal laws put in place oil will belong to whom they thought the American oil companies except they couldn't govern Iraq that was the problem to still have but what it opened itself to was resistance of all kinds and they thought that since the ISIS is a force which is growing that is the one which they had a tacit shall we say understanding about letting them grow is there something more to it did they use directly their resources to bolster it I'm not getting into that because they are this would be much more trajectors but there's no question enough evidence that they allowed it to grow thinking it will put a pressure on the Iraqi government and that will help them to then come back at least be there much longer and therefore this resources will continue to be available so that was one part of it secondly they also saw this as a very important instrument against a secular government to the bath government in Syria and therefore these forces were used in order to attack Syria as well and then the Saudis who today may back off from that the Saudis the Qataris the and Turkey as you said he quite rightly they all played a role so all of these forces where Turkey actually we have to demarcate a bit from this because Turkey of course wanted territorial you know access to that region and thought they will get a chunk of it but the the while they did support but they supported all kinds of forces against the central government in Syria but the ISIS forces were nurtured really from Iraq and the move from Iraq into Syria so this was much more under age under the ages of the United States and even today there is a good 30% of Syria under a de facto American control which they're saying tribal forces and so on which essentially mean they are the remnants of the ISIS Al Qaeda etc forces which aligned with the United States that that's also the area which has oil it's also fertile area but the American intervention therefore continued in this form in the region the net result is it has weakened the United States in that region over a period of time 20 years down the line you can see US does not have the kind of credibility it had and it does not have the political ability to intervene in the region that it had so slowly you see the erosion of the United States and I would say the critical start point of that is actually the Iraq war absolutely and like you said today we have a situation where even such a long-term traditional ally like Saudi Arabia is at logger heads a bit with of course there are more reasons like the Ukraine war much so much but a lot of it also stems from that moment where I think the US really lost it's what it claimed to be this force which could create democracy that was its big narrative to create democracy to create the rule of law and that example it sort of cited across the world completely crumbled in Iraq from 2003 onwards well you know they have always sided with also the most anti-democratic leadership of countries Saudi Arabia of course be a prime example of that but I think you must also see in this the strategic issue that they United States they thought about as oil the oil is not a strategic resource necessarily for only the United States they saw if they control the world's oil and the exportable surplus was seen to be of course a big part of it was in West Asia if we take this into account this Carter doctrine essentially says that the oil resources of this region is of strategic interest to the United States so effectively what I keep on saying that our oil is under their sand is basically the Carter doctrine this means that the energy resources of the world particularly in terms of oil and gas is going to be controlled by the United States this was the basic understanding they had now look at it this way you break up Iraq and you are not able to control it you attack Syria you are not in control of it you already tried to isolate Iran hoping there will be a color revolution there didn't happen Saudi Arabia well you wanted to back one crown prince against another and that that palace gave you lost it ever seemed to have regained grip on that again so that's how they're apia all of it is coupled with the fact that increasingly the United States is no longer a major trade partner of most of the countries in the world 80% of the countries today 70 to 80% shall we say the primary trade partner is China not the United States which is not so in 1990 for example or 2000 so this is a huge strategic shift that has taken place so essentially the world's resources which were under the control of the United States essentially hydrocarbon resources oil and natural gas that is something which today is slowly slipping away of course Russia is one of the major exporters as well but then as well as another exporter they're both under sanctions Iran is under sanctions so three major oil producers are under sanctions economic financial sanctions given all of that what happens is that this region does not therefore want to become come under the umbrella of the United States Turkey is asserting its independence relative independence even being a member of NATO Saudi Arabia would like to distance itself and be able to play a more important role is willing to now price its oil and also Chinese currency one so all of this means that there is a sea change taking place 2003 you know the interesting part of it for me I had gone to United States few months before the war is how the media accepted the narrative in totality today even today the United States media accepts whatever USS in totality the Ukraine war for example but the point is the credibility of that messaging of the United States or UK or of Western European countries G7 etc you can see that credibility is no longer there large parts of the world doesn't believe in that and I think the break in that really comes with the Iraq war it was so blatantly done only the American people at least and I think the polls show that 42% of the American people were fine believe the WM these were found in it right okay forget whether they were there or not but they were found by the American troops over there I think that kind of grip that American media had on the world in terms of what people believed or didn't believe even though their grip on media has only strengthened okay new technology and sophistication is saying it strengthened despite of that the belief is the belief is no longer there and I think that's a huge change that has taken place and I think Iraq war and its aftermath though didn't obviously lead to emancipation of the Iraqi people from American grip even now America is very much in Iraq what it did it has weakened its ability to convince the people of its stories anymore so I think that is the what the Iraqi people have paid as a price the region pays as a price but I think rest of the world at least now has a clearer picture and Americans say any of these things people think well it could be right but it could also be wrong thank you so much for being like you said while a large percentage of people work and winced there were hundreds of thousands who also in the US in many other parts of Western Europe protested I believe that is on Saturday there's going to be another big protest marking 20 years and in fact trying to remember some of those lessons and use it to the Ukraine war and try to point out some of the issues you talked about as well so thank you so much and that's all we have time for today we'll be covering more of these issues including the marches we talked about in the coming episodes of daily debrief keep watching people's dispatch