together, i'm so put in place the rules allow us to treat the local commons with the attention of deserves inside story on al jazeera. ah, i spoke with one global perspective. oh

hello there i'm the sounds. the attainder hall with the headlines here on out of their hundreds of thousands of israelis have taken to the streets and anger after prime minister benjamin netanyahu fired the defense minister. here i've galant, had criticized netanyahu's, proposed judicial overhaul, which has divided the country and prompted nearly 3 months of growing descent. israel's president is also called on the government to stop the process. united states is urging israeli leaders to reach compromise. now me on laws, military leader, men, men on flying has delivered a defiant speech on armed forces day. it's also the 2nd anniversary of a crackdown on opponents to the military leadership in which more than $100.00 protesters were killed. men unc lying seized power in 2021. after ousting the elected civilian government. good morning, the army will put an effort into full law enforcement entering clothing across the union to ensure the socio economic security of all citizens while pursuing these

goals. i'd like to remind that lawful actions will be decisively taken against the national unity government, meandra, and terrorist organizations, and some ethnic armed organizations sponsoring terrorism. thus, martial law is increasingly being imposed an important township that need to be controlled during the 2nd phase of the state of emergency. while alger there has been granted rare access inside me and for the 1st time since the crew of correspondent tony chang has moved from the capital ne p. 2 columns of almo tanks, artillery and up in the skies, attack helicopters and jet fighters flying past. while the rebels fighting against military rule really fear, they've been used indiscriminately over the past 12 months, in large numbers, division civilian casualties. but a message of defiance from senior general min on le, addressing the troops. he says these people are terrorists, they must be suppressed and defeated before democracy can be returned to me. now

south korea, as military says, north korea has fight to short range ballistic missiles into the sea, off it's east coast. it's the latest in a series of launches as a us aircraft carrier is set to arrive in south korea. japan says the 2 missiles landed outside its territorial waters. russia, meanwhile, has been condemned by the west after president that'd be written, announced that he would position tactical nuclear weapons and better. ruth. nature says it would be dangerous and irresponsible, and european union says it better. ruth could face more sanction. meanwhile, ukraine's upper region nuclear power plant still remains at risk and come under repeated shelling. the un nuclear watchdog chief is expected to assess the damage later this week. while a mass public transport strike is currently underway in germany, air rail and bus services have all ground to a halt. the biggest work out that and it comes after a series of failed talks with employers and recent weeks over wages. the strike is

expected to last 24 hours and could also disrupt transport services on tuesday. such and recovery crews are digging through flattened homes, looking for survivors in the southern us city. in the u. s. stage, i'm sorry, of mississippi us presidents are by them has to k to stage when margin see in the wake of the storms and tornadoes. federal funding has been made available to the hardest hit areas, at least 25 people, and known to have died. us vice president, common harris has arrived in donna, on the 1st leg of a week long trip to africa and she's the highest ranking official from the by then ministration to visit that region in recent months. so also travel to townsend and, and zambia. harris's trip will focus on economic development, climate change, and food security, holes of clothes in cuba, where vs had been electing a new national assembly. those legislators will then elect a president, it's expected to be the current president miguel diaz canal. there was no

campaigning leading up to this election and no opposition challenges. lebanon is facing a political and religious dispute over its official daytime hours. the can't take government has delayed daylight savings by month talks will now be moved forward. the end of ramadan and april, allowing muslims to break the daily foster alien. but christian authorities say they'll switch the time on the last sunday of march. well those, the headlines will have much more for you here on out there after the bottom line to stay with us. ah. ready hi, i'm steve clements, i have some questions. 20 years later was invading iraq, a major mistake, and should the us apologize, let's get to the bottom line. ah,

was strong support from the american public and both political parties. the u. s. government launched a massive invasion of iraq in 2003. it removed its president at the time saddam hussein and occupied the country directly for years. the official reasons were that iraq was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and was supporting al qaeda which had carried out the attacks of $911.00 on american soil. both of these accusations quickly turned out to be really false and the you and called the invasion illegal under international law. the iraqi people launched a resistance to the occupation and also fought each other in a bloody civil war. hundreds of thousands of iraqis had been killed since then. along with more than 4500 american troops and thousands of military contractors, millions of iraqis have either fled the country as refugees, or had been displaced inside their own country. now, 20 years later, the u. s. military is still there with a few 1000 soldiers, but was it all a historic wonder and what have the long term consequences of that war been for america and for the world. today we're talking with jonathan land,

a. the us national security correspondent for reuters here in washington, who holds a special place in us journalism history for his work back then, which we'll get to in a 2nd. and also retired army colonel andrew base of it. professor of international relations and history at boston university and author of washington rules america's path to permanent war. thank you both for joining us on this anniversary. and let me just start with you, dr. bass of ej. why did we go to war in iraq? and did america get anything constructive or productive from that engagement? well, the history to the 2nd question is emphatically know? ah, the answer, the 1st question i think becomes complicated. oh. and in the, the answer i have come to think is most important is that we went to war in iraq in order to show, to demonstrate that 911 didn't matter. and what i mean by that is that

the end of the cold war had given rise to a set of expectations, particularly prominent among american, the american elite. that we were the sole superpower. that history had reached its final conclusion that we were the indispensable nation. that our military couldn't be beat. and then the, the $911.00 attack seems to seemed at the time to say, not so fast. and i think that the, although there are a variety of considerations that mattered the most important, i think ultimately was that the da da georgia to be a, been a bush administration, was absolutely a determined to demonstrate that there was only one superpower in that american global primacy was secure. they expected a quick victory. they didn't get it. we ended up getting the, the dirty, ugly,

a costly war, that dough, that we all had to endure. let me ask you in just a quick follow up, andy. i'm just interested in the band wagging effect of why iraq afghanistan, i could understand iraq, i didn't, didn't see things coming into place. can, can you just share with our audience the sorts of pressures that were unleashed, and you worry about them being unleashed, again, in future cases like this? well, i'm way up here in walk whole massachusetts. so i don't to sort of feel the inside the beltway pressures that you're referring to, although i'm sure the existed and yeah, i suspected they exist. not, not to his great extent, but exist today to that. there is a, a bandwagon in an expectation that you need to get on board with regard to the biden administration's policy regard to ukraine. if you're not on board, you're in appeaser. ah, now that sort of

a one track mind thinking did not serve us well with regard to iraq, my personal judgment and that of the quincy institute. is it, it's not going to serve our interest on this occasion as well. jonathan lan day, when i was reading about that conflict before we had invaded and as things were building up, you were the 1st journalist i ever read that raise questions. serious questions and, and, and i'm just interested in what you saw of it. no one else saw, so i don't want to take full credit back then i was working for mcclatchy's. sorry for knight ridder newspapers, mom and i had we were a team warren strobe who's now at the wall street journal or editor john walcott. and joe galloway, the late show, galloway who eventually joined the team and, and essentially what happened was the following. i, i, i admittedly, was among those who believed the group think here in d. c. that of course,

saddam hussein was amassing weapons of mass destruction. of course, he was trying to develop a nuclear weapon. on september 12th, warren came back to the bureau and called us in called me into john's office and said, they're discussing at the national security council to push national security council . i'm afghanistan, but also iraq. and we looked at each other and said, iraq, why are they talking about iraq? and that led us into this very this years long a project of looking at what the administration was using as this justification for invading iraq. as you pointed out, at the beginning of the show, saddam saying was it massey weapons of mass destruction. and he had this tie up with al qaeda and that had to have been a state sponsor of 911. and of course it had to have been saddam and worn,

and i divided up the work i started looking at the weapons of mass destruction ah question. and quickly came to doing the journalism to the understanding that it was not a clear case that he was amassing weapons of mass destruction. he had been under the most rigid, most intense un inspection program up to that date. and there were a satellites and spy points watching iraq. and they were not uncovering anything, if in fact, what they were fighting was they are, they were either finding the remnants of these programs or they were learning that in fact he had gotten rid of these programs. and, you know, that took us into the, into this reporting project where we determined that the information and i call it information, not intelligence,

that the administration was using to justify the invasion to sell to the united, to the american people. was in fact, either bogus, exaggerated, or was cherry picked and that's exactly what came to be known. that in fact, they did not have this solid intelligence that they claim to have about him having about saddam. but in my own view, i always saw those people who wanted to invade iraq, iraq was a stepping stone to actually taking on a ron. and we had a lot of people that were part of that's who said that was the ultimate objective. but iraq proved but how do you see that? yeah, i mean, there, we remember the project for a new american century. i mean, they were looking at the audience. the project renewer can century was the center place of neo conservative or thinking at that time. right. and they were looking not just at iraq, of course they were major advocates for the invasion. but they were looking at other countries who either because they were amassing weapons of mass destruction or they were tied to terrorism. but,

but the irony in all of this is that the american invasion of iraq actually opened the door to iranian influence in iraq, a massive iranian influence in iraq. and it's, they still maintain that influence. and, and, and that is one of the consequences of this invasion. there are others, of course, we still have troops in iraq. there is a massive american loss of influence in the region. we've just seen china step in to mediate this agreement between iran and saudi arabia. to re establish diplomatic relations and on and on and on. you know, i go ahead, don't disagree with anything that has just been said. but i think to part i would, ed, is that in the wake of 911 important voices in our society

columnist for the new york times. people who worked in the office of the secretary of defense, people who were in the congress, not everybody, but a set of people needed a war. they needed a war as the way to respond to 911. and they, and, and part of that need reflected their absolute conviction that if we went to war, particularly against relatively weak figure, like saddam hussein in iraq, that we were going to triumph. we were going to, we were in a, when big wind quickly and, and, and scoop up all the chips. so the, the bush administration miscalculated on a variety of fronts. but the most tragic of those miscalculations was there absolutely unrealistic understanding of warfare and of how this particular war was

likely to unfold. are there consequences that have not yet been revealed from this decision we took 2 decades ago? well that they have been revealed, they just not have not been recognized. oh, i'll, i'll be guilty here. of vast oversimplification iraq gave us donald trump, if it weren't for the iraq war, and the catastrophe that it became, and the cost that we were obliged to to pay donald trump would never have become president of the united states. and, and trump isn't, you know, the sense of anger and aly ation, and alienation and division. that is such a, up, undermines our democracy and powerful ways. trump ism, would exist. that i think would have been nowhere as influential as it has become because of the iraq war doesn't really be living in paradise if the war hadn't

happened. but i think that in many respects, the most important negative consequences of the war are here at home in our democracy. one of the questions i have johnathan president biden was recently in poland. here's what he said. he roadways us, take his not just ukraine. is freedom, the idea that over a $100000.00 forces would invade another country after war since war 2 is nothing like that has happened? did the president, the united states, forget what, in fact, the country he now leads did in 2003. i can't say that i'm not a speech writer, but i would up point out that he but nonetheless, he said, nevertheless, he said that in a line i would someone say a lot of americans have a real problem with even flirtation with the fact that there was moral equivalence here or something went on, but a lot of the world doesn't see that where they saw the united states go in without

justification, particularly after the fact into innovation. iraq that it sees high will illegitimate. he had to point out that he was a supporter of the invasion right. of iraq. i'm talking about, but there, i, i, you know, i've spent a lot of time covering the war in ukraine as well. and i think ukraine is, is probably the war that the bush administration would have liked to have fought in iraq. i mean, the, the differences are fast. another words, the justifications, it least in ukraine, those, the administration can make those arguments has made the arguments about, you know, trying to prevent autocracy from spreading of authoritarianism from spreading in europe in ukraine, being the front line. and this is an argument that has found a support not just within the democratic party, but more, but it split the republican party. you can see the, the split between most members, republican members of the senate, and many in the house are supporting the war in ukraine. and, and,

you know, you have to point out that back in the day before the invasion of iraq, it was a minority of, of people on both sides. i don't remember any republican who opposed it, but i do remember some democrats who were very vocal about opposing the war and, and, and finding fault with the justifications that the administration was marching out . in fact, was one of those democrat that's who is then the header of the intel is senate intelligence committee, who is who, who, whose objections and, and arguments about we're not hearing anything new here, forced the administration to publish or to it's famous now famous national intelligence estimate on iraq's weapons of mass destruction, which ended up itself, was extremely problematic because they made arguments publicly that it did not make

in the classified versions. and, and the differences between what they were telling the public publicly about weapons of mass destruction in iraq. and what they were telling people who had clearances were, were vast. and i, i should just quickly point out that one of the differences between what's happened ukraine and what happened in iraq. is that the, i think the, the biden ministration looked at what happened in iraq, in terms of a, it's a getting up public support. and they were out in front, before the russian invasion de, classifying intelligence about russian intentions that proved to be accurate as opposed to what the bush administration did with its so called intelligence on iraq's w. m t. right. i think this is a fascinating talk about, i think one of the other things that unfolded at that time and we heard it from then president bush and people like honda. lisa rice is that the venture into a rock was going to spread democracy around the world,

was going to spread democracy on through the middle, middle east, that this was about democracy promotion. and if you're around the world today, jonathan land day, um, how does, what does democracy promotion translate to in foreign languages? in fact, this was an argument that was made, but particularly by the neoconservatives for a justify one of their justifications for invading iraq. because don't forget of someone we haven't brought into this discussion was the former, the late head of the iraqi national congress. ah, a ahmed chalabi who was there. so we used to see around town all the time. he was there and only weiss on in, in iraq and evasive which may not have found her if you spend a lot of time, andy, with the oc mcgraw but he was wondering, he want make it up to want to help her. but he was kind of the lynchpin in their, their strategy because he, there were 2 things he, he, he promised one that he was gonna a, bring them up. well,

3 things bring democracy on an established diplomatic relations with israel and allow the united states to put military bases in iraq. and this idea that by invading iraq, the united states could make the middle, we safer for israel and safer for democracy. i mean, if you look at it, the middle east today at that, that hasn't happened at all. and, and, and in fact, you could say that there's still a lot of backsliding as well backsliding in that regard. in the region. you know, and if so, so no, it, it, that did not happen. and, and that was one of the things we were we looked at as journalists, when we were doing our reporting, was this idea that, that they would be able to bring democracy to the, to the middle east. one of the things that we, we determined when we were doing the reporting is while they were planning the war . there were various parts of the us government, national security agencies who were sending in analyses warning that no,

this is not going to happen. and one of the things that could, could, in fact, very likely happen is, this is igniting this, this civil war, essentially between iraq, shia and sunni muslims. and that's exactly what happened. in fact, the, the, the now head of the cia bill burns, wrote a paper when he was head of the middle east, a bureau at the nearest bureau. it state called a perfect storm war warning about what would happen in terms of unleashing ethnic religious strife. and, and setting back a, you know, the possibility of democracy. that was one of the papers in what we were told was an 18 inch stack of analysis from various parts of the government that was never read in the white house containing all of these warnings. my question is on this is just coming back, is it? i think it's very hard. you know, when you watch,

you know, a lot of heroism among ukrainians, defending what's going on, fueled in part and supported by the west of, you know, are these conflicts, ones that have become defining for the west of certainly brought back nato? are they worth the effort enterprise or are they are slippery slope to much greater dangers? you talk in your article in foreign affairs about a potential su as moment, which i think a lot about is there a moment out there with the world just all of a sudden no longer sees the united states as a major factor in defining the direction of the world and it becomes significantly weaker just by the change in attitude. what are your thoughts about ukraine today given our experience in iraq? well, i think, i think that there's a were repeating this crucial mistake. we were just talking about the idiot, logical framing of the iraq war, particularly in neoconservative headquarters quarters. rather. you know this,

this is about freedom and democracy. we need to go to war to, to spread freedom and democracy in when we, when a all kinds of good things here happened. i'm sorry to say that the biden administration is sounding some of the same themes by, by framing the ukraine war as a war against autocracy for democracy. let me be very clear. you know, this is a war of aggression launch without any justification by vladimir putin. the resistance of the ukrainians is gallant and you know, you, you have to be impressed. but this is not in particular about freedom and democracy . it's about the geo politics of a particular region in, in asia. and i think if we, if we look at it, look at the problem through a geo political lens, then it becomes at least possible to begin envisioning an off ramp that will lead

to a diplomatic conclusion of the war. if we insist that this is about the survival of democracy in the 21st century, then it seems to me that the wars elected to go on for a long, long time. and that ain't good. let me ask you finally, jonathan, i'm given what we now know about the iraq war, who perpetrated it, how it was justified. does united states have to have some form of reconciliation process with the iraqi people? do we owe them something for what we've done to their history into the region, or do we simply walk away justified at the time we thought we were right here it's, i think that's a hard question to answer. but i would posit the fact that we have troops, several 1000 troops are still in iraq, not as part of an occupation force, but part of this ante, isis a coalition. they went in, there were, at the invitation of the iraqi government when isis took over

a great chunk of that, of that country. um and, and so is that a gesture also of how the united shades wanted to try it at least safeguard something of ah, what it created in iraq in terms of a having you know, the shia majority grab, more represented in the government than they horror under the, you know, saddam a minority sunni, i can't answer that. certainly they were put there because of this threat to that was caused by isis. right. you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's a great question. i'm not sure that i'm qualified to answer the andy. do we just ask you the same question here? we need to do something on behalf of iraq to, to reconcile. here's the answer. the answer is, steve, is we're america. and therefore,

we forget what we choose to forget and we live, we set aside any sense of obligation. think about vienna. we screwed up, we lost, we walked away. and we left the de vietnamese people wrestling with the consequences . because where america and this pattern of ear responsibility is very much part of our national, you know, behavior well, we will have to leave it there. that's a somber note on this 20th anniversary of the iraq war historian, andrew bass eviction journalist jonathan land. a thank you so much for your candor and for being with us today. great day. hi. so what's the bottom line? former national security agency director william odom once told me on a street corner here in washington that the invasion of iraq was, in fact, the biggest strategic mistake america had made in its history. it's true that america is still globally powerful,

deploying drones in tanks and sanctions and power around the world. but something definitely has changed after iraq. that war plan to doubts about the legitimacy of american leadership in the world made international law look like the law of the jungle and sheared off the veneer of superpower mystique. by showing the limits of american military force. america hasn't fully reckoned with the legacy of the iraq war, nor with the crimes committed, which were then used to ramp up recruitment by groups like isis and keep the cycle of violence going. in my view, iraq remains a significant black spot on the story of america's role in the world. but we have to remember history as it was not as we would have wished it to be. so that mistakes like this don't happen over and over again. and that's the bottom line ah, has worked out there in years since it's launch us a principal presented to and as

a correspondence with any breaking the story we want to hear from those people who would normally not get that voice is heard on an international news channels one moment i'll be very proud of was when we covered the napoleon wake of 2015, a terrible natural disaster on the story that needs to be told from the hall of the affected area to be then to tell the people story was very important at the time a with a.