tonight bringing us the context are amanda renteria, hillary clinton s former national political director and tom peck, political sketch writer at the independent. exactly 20 years ago today, us forces, with the uk and other allies, invaded iraq. the stated aim to rid the country s dictator saddam hussein of his weapons of mass destruction weapons that in the end were never found. it was part of the us s war on terror , started by president george w bush after the terrorist attacks of september 11th, 2001. let s remind ourselves those first moments of the war. on this day in 2003, the first raids were on the capital baghdad it was called shock and awe . it took the us just over a month to defeat iraqi forces and saddam hussain s regime collapsed. president bush declared iraq to be free. but rather than an end to conflict, it was the beginning of many years of bloodshed for iraq and the wider region. the failure to plan for the aftermath of the invasion led, in part, t
If you keep the kurds on site, and if you keep the kurds on site, and if you keep the shi ite on side, then you would have less trouble. well, the problem with that is that they thought of the shi ite as being represented by the islamic parties which were actually created and nurtured by iran. they are notjust the islamist parties. also, in iraq there was quite a large middle educated, secular. who were running the administration during saddam s time. they were disempowered. and all power was given to the islamist parties. that was a huge political mistake. extrapolated, that led