The Iraq War
1. REGIME CHANGE
BBC2 (not Scotland), BBC2 HD 9pm - 9:59pm
Repeat: BBC2 Scotland Tomorrow 11:20pmThe latest attempt to put the events of ten years ago into perspective begins with a taut, blow-by-blow account of the build-up to the Iraq War. It’s sturdily made, by the team who produced other definitive series such as The Death of Yugoslavia and Iran and the West. Major players (Tony Blair, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, generals, intelligence chiefs and so on) give an insiders’ draft of history, a self-exculpating account from the corridors of power.
In the case of Iraq, the key question we want to know is how world leaders came to believe Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. “It’s a slam dunk, Mr President,” Cheney recalls the head of the CIA claiming of the intelligence, though it was anything but. Meanwhile, a general from the Republican Guard recalls how Saddam told them, “After destroying the American forces, your mission is to go to Palestine and liberate Jerusalem.” The general laughs, “This was a fantasy! A dream!”
1/3. New series. Three-part documentary in which senior figures involved in key decision-making before, during and after the Iraq War explain the logic of their choices. The first episode begins in January 2002, when the war on terror was just four months old. Saddam Hussein's former intelligence chiefs join leading US, British and French politicians - Colin Powell, Tony Blair, Jack Straw, General Petraeus and Dominique de Villepin - and Iraq's post-war prime ministers to offer an authoritative account of the tense build-up to the conflict, when members of the Bush administration turned their attention to deposing the Iraqi dictator, having recently helped overthrow the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
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