yeah but there was. a lot of pictures of the role that is to take about two. decades since saddam hussein's regime collapsed in iraq we speak to the u.s. soldier who carried out the symbolic toppling of the dictator is that you. pay still feels remote with escalating sectarian violence and fighting for resources we report from cool one of iraq's most dangerous places where people live in constant fear of attacks. and wiki leaks publishes over a million u.s. diplomatic cables from the kitchen in whistle blow during a song his latest project to open up global geopolitics. you're watching r.t. coming to you live from moscow. now arac is marking ten years since the overthrow

of saddam hussein when baghdad fell to the u.s. led invasion a decade on and the country remains unstable more than two hundred civilians have been killed and over eight hundred wounded in the past month alone a situation that many a tribute to america's presence in the country after a massive loss of life and no weapons of mass destruction found was it all worth it artie's marina porter spoke to one man who had very different hopes on the day iraq's leader was toppled. exactly ten years ago a u.s. marine from new york city made international headlines for his actions in baghdad edward chen tied a large noose around a massive statue of saddam hussein wrapped the face of that statue of an american flag before that monument was eventually toppled right now i am joined by mr chen for a one on one conversation on thank you for speaking with parties and i know you're welcome ten years have passed since that that that moment where you essentially

became a symbol for the u.s. occupation and invasion in iraq you were twenty three at the time when you climb that statue what you know about the iraq war now that you do know that all are me when i know those ten years longer than we expected. to still struggling to rebuild their country to have a stable government climb that statue of saddam hussein and wrap the face of the satchel in an american flag looking back on your actions do you think it was the propre thing to do us as a foreigner coming in invading a country climbing the statue of a man who was the leader of that country and wrapping the face an american flag. maybe you know iraqi civil war suit as a symbol walking. you know but you know my reasons are the reason why we didn't know was was really. when iraq for. over

a month. far got to bury the old and i would be more going to rule them all to go home to i found i was with one of those who have a seat on a flight for so long the reason we do just to show the kind of sounds i want to push on a country is just the way of spur of the moment what you know about us foreign policy now that we didn't know that we're no we're not to be told people about this because times are hard so you know. you there just come out so that the public will go to war. to be able to control the oil without every job of course nothing is going to come out and and how many people are going to sign up to risk their lives exactly where to most every day we do what we're told and. we hope that you know that you know this right says i mean you know it's we're going to last word there you know we're going to fight but he thinks the war was for i personally think

it was for. us to know how good a foothold there it's in the civilized region and i don't believe. you tell me that it was for you to love isn't that mass destruction souls lives lost is the thing that worked. today there was still no weapons to be found you don't know be we weren't there was through. free a country of a dictator yes but if there was a reason that there's a lot of dictators in the world that used to be taken out to it was part of the reason i look for the right reasons and because how can i not in a way. to reach a. conclusion is not worth justify. it or chen thank you very much for. another iraq war veteran m.e.h. told r.t. that washington's main reasons for getting into the cold flaked were financial. my job i was actually i was a public affairs specialist in the military that's their name for

a journalist my role was to basically make the war sound really wonderful to those of us who were fighting it to keep morale of course i knew that saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction because i had been involving the news coming out of that and following the reports and i knew it wasn't you know really about liberation as soon as i saw the huge mess that we made of the infrastructure in iraq and the fact that still to this day corporations that received these j. enormous contracts to rebuild iraq's infrastructure still haven't done that and they don't even know where the money has gone i believe that the war affectively whisper of oil because big oil efficiently american oil. has really ever really been the main picture. well the stability promised by nato forces is nowhere to be

seen in places like kook attacks and bombings have increased in the oil rich city center of ethnic and political tension over resources in the disputed area many iraqis say they still feel unsafe and the country freed from saddam's dictatorship . reports. the iraq war is supposed to be over but these pictures tell a different story chaos and confusion the aftermath of yet another deadly blast here in kirkuk. this oil rich city has been described as a raucous a symbol for the country's most intractable woes escalating violence the conflict among ethnic and religious groups and the fight over iraq's resources. getting there was our first challenge a group of kurdish soldiers had agreed to take us in both baghdad and the kurds lay claim to care coop and are sparring over control aside from the danger those

entering from the kurdish side need special permission to get past the iraqi checkpoints we inhabit. roadblocks and concrete barriers define the new iraq checkpoints like this one are a dominant feature of life and they are everywhere aside from the house they're also frequent target of attacks for us and is a blatant visual reminder of a country still very much at war. inside your coop we drive quickly to avoid danger we're told to look out for black b.m.w. apparently they've become a favorite for iraq's insurgents who didn't pick the best day to come to roadside bombs exploded here earlier that morning around the same time that baghdad was rocked by a series of deadly blasts but kirkuk has been a flashpoint for years now and in the city center it's clear that life doesn't stop just because of the threats we were expecting empty streets but people continued to go about their business as normal vendors seemed busy families did their shopping beneath the surface there are scars today kirkuk continues to be an incredibly

dangerous place. after the city without the help of a military escort residents here say that attacks could happen at any time in any place in fact it's not really safe to stay here for too long so let's get inside. we need car want to his family there kurds who say they're happy that saddam is gone but their fear of political repression has been replaced by fear of the unknown. you know. we don't know who the enemy is when the next bomb go off but it's a daily for years we've gotten used to it you know i do small things to feel safer like driving with all the car windows down that way if there's a blast at least the glass was heard. such precautions didn't help sixty year old mahmoud who says that a decade of war has ruined iraq he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a bomb blast went off injuring his leg for him daily life has become a painful struggle for the body and. i guess what benefit did the your bring

democracy only explosions shootings and kidnappings people should feel free to go out and come back safely where is that i can leave but there's no guarantee i'll come back a lot of the soldiers. no it's not about the sectarian differences unfortunately it's book the black the oil and behind us or oil is the hidden interests of politicians pawns in a political game playing with their livelihoods and lives for conflicts not of their own making the iraqis we met didn't hate their neighbors or care about who controls the oil just like fall they simply want the peace of mind of knowing they can go out and return to their loved ones alive to seek out r.t. kirkuk iraq. the us attempted to rebuild iraq following the two thousand and three invasion spending billions of dollars on various reconstruction projects medical

worker doctor basie says that while america has invested heavily into iraq it's intentional use of dangerous weapons is left severe lasting effects across the country. it's clear that though the u.s. folk of their help provided to iraq after the invasion notably reconstruction education and investments their so-called help resulted in the use of weapons banned by article fifty three of the geneva convention it prohibits any kind of weapon which if used where there is war can affect the areas environment climate and water resources things that occurred in one nine hundred ninety one and then in two thousand and three are true catastrophe that all types of munitions were used including dispenser weapons bosphorus ammunitions depleted uranium and chemical weapons all these types of weapons were used intentionally and on a mass scale in iraq this testing out of weapons had disastrous effects in terms of environmental contamination not to be compared even with hiroshima. this is by no

means an exaggeration this is not my opinion you can look up human rights watch and world health organization reports on the internet radiological monitoring held on the international level points of radioactive contamination of southern central and even northern areas of iraq and despite repeated calls and all the reports published by iraqi scientists the us turned a blind eye on the issue. now wiki leaks is rolling out more revelations when we come back between million diplomatic cables published by jean which a glimpse into america's foreign policy a few years.

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welcome back being ensconced in the ecuadorian embassy nine months hasn't stopped using a song whistle blowing mission he's unveiled what's called on the wiki leaks website containing i have a one point seven million u.s. diplomatic cables from the nine hundred seventy examines what is in the documents which was the most significant geopolitical publication. they've released a massive new database of u.s. diplomatic cables that date back to the one nine hundred seventy s. so this was a time when henry kissinger was u.s. secretary of secretary of state and a lot of the cables are either two or from him now judy and a son says that although the documents are all material what wiki leaks have done is they've made it very user friendly so it's

a big database you can actually go in and you can search through these cables we can weeks of even made an interactive map that sites how many times each country is mentioned in these cables practically every single country in the world is in there now according to julian assange the us administration can't be trusted with controlling its own history so he's had to come along and do this controls the president controls and he controls the past controls the future and that is because of the vital role that history plays in deciding our interpretation of what is happening in the world the period of the one nine hundred seventy s. in diplomacy is referred to as the big bang this is when the international order came to be the most incriminating cables are likely to be the ones that reveal the relationships that the u.s. administration had with some very dictatorial regimes back in the one nine hundred

seventy s. we've got franco's spain pinochet's chile the genter ruled greece they're all known to have committed appalling crimes with the support of the american administration and perhaps the most illustrative quotation within this huge release of cables comes from henry kissinger himself now he's quoted as saying the illegal we do immediately the unconstitutional takes a little longer in a conversation with a turkish from a separate official now so many critics that's one line that will. speaks volumes about us foreign policy and we've already seen reports actually that site wiki leaks saying that the vatican may have collaborated with the us in supporting the pinochet coup in chile which we all know saw a very bloody regime come to power there is already a scandal in india over the release of the new cables as the late prime minister rajiv gandhi may have been a middleman for

a swedish company trying to sell weapons to india there are also unconfirmed reports that cables are going to reveal that under cia orders the swedish secret police was spying on its left leaning citizens these reports are yet to be confirmed and there is another very big scandal where there are unconfirmed reports that unreleased cables are going to reveal that call built the current foreign minister for sweden was in fact an informant for the cia from the nineteen seventies for many people the way in which they revealed the giufà let's see of us foreign policy will be very illustrative of the way that u.s. foreign policy may be functioning today so on the outside we've got a lot of talk about human rights and democracy but behind closed doors and in these private cables it looks to be like a much more complicated and often darker situation. and to give you an update

sweden's foreign minister is denying reports linking him to the cia saying they are part of a smear campaign which will quickly fall apart while since it was declassified the data gathered in project a used to be virtually inaccessible hidden between secrecy and complexities judean the science described it or thanks to wiki leaks it is now easily available and will give you a quick demonstration to show that is the case go to their web page and click on a public library there and then just type in the topic that you're searching for we're going to type in the words chile and they will bring up thousands of documents and you can then refine your search in this case will choose handing restrictions notice which actually implies no distribution and that will bring up issues like arms sales and military assistance and also training you can you can sort all sorts of stuff out by using this sort of search engine from the date in the subject and also from the state department that is involved so there is plenty

here to get stuck into with wiki leaks spokesman chris huntington has told kevin zero in how the u.s. should be thankful for the great job that they've done. because this is dedicated to bringing historical records to the public attention when there is an attempt to keep them hidden although these documents have been declassified excuse dreamy difficult to approach them and assess them in their current format only in the national archives so what we did was to regard it as a gather with help and publish them in a searchable database a very robust database merge them with the two hundred fifty thousand u.s. diplomatic cables that we publish under the cable gates and extremely important to have results in front of me chris what kind of response from expect from washington i mean as you said these are not strictly speaking classified anymore but you've kind of collated them all together to make them easier to get hold of is washington

talk i'm certain of their neighbors well i haven't heard of any response from the earth or here in washington of course they should be very pleased that we are doing the job that they should be doing themselves so maybe you should apply for some funds and continue mission work from the us government and they should actually focus on one engine and supporting over a concert of continuing of this unprecedented. attempt to prosecute julian assigns and all the members of that we can use team well critics argue that wiki leaks is getting soft with its case and your cables which date back decades and have been declassified by the government and so not much of a leak really so why is this publication so significant let's discuss it with r.t. contributor afshin rattansi in london afshin thank you very much for your time that is the first question i mean why is this sounds describing this is a breakthrough with these cables aren't exclusive to wiki leaks. you know the newspaper i began my journalism career the guardian has already said these cables

show that wiki leaks well is it even needed anymore do we need wiki leaks at all that's strange because this morning british people woke up to the dulcet tones of henry kissinger himself talking about how he loved mrs thatcher after death of course in the past twenty four hours these are incredibly relevant cables they weren't able to be searched and the mainstream media doesn't like what wiki leaks is doing which is dedicated as far as. anyone interested in journalism i think would would say is the powerless against the powerful these were documents that were very hard to they were unwieldy how do you actually search this it's all very well the government releasing cables but how do you actually search and actually collate and actually find things out from a lot of adobe p.d.f. files which it's difficult to search through and we must remember of course fifty five thousand cables are reclassified temporarily by the george w. bush administration and some of those are in this trove. some of these documents

i'll be talking to relate back to the nine hundred seventy s. what do they reveal about us policy. well. one doesn't have to doubt why the united states doesn't want these cables searchable because they detail very clearly a horrific time in u.s. foreign policy one must remember india china over a long period friend france britain the united states involved in indochina in a way that killed six million baps people over quite a long period and this particular period these cables relate to seventy three to seventy six talk about cambodia about allow these are the areas where henry kissinger the secretary of state and his national security advisor was key in advancing the united states government to murder so many people and of course we know about the torture. people are really talking here about because that is

a great friendship with general pinochet these are stories that reverberate even today and. what we have to do is look at egypt for instance because the ramadan more than the seventy three years and just role in trying to squawk that off to try and destroy arab unity and we're living with those consequences today and actually i mean just a couple of minutes you can print out a few cables i.t.t. excelsis. excels is a defense company that exists today it was spun off from the i t t corporation and here there are cables explaining the united states funneling of money to fascist parties and in the run up to the death of the democratically elected government of mr again day in chile and of course his death or nine eleven but hundred seventy three i can look project k. is hardly going to cause is it a reaction like the outcry that sparked the collateral murder video showing the u.s. helicopter attacking civilians in iraq the man who leaked the private bradley manning

he could spend the rest of his life in jail kidney is whistleblowing worth it do you think. sorry his whistleblowing worth it i would actually just greatly there we can't tell whether it'll have the same impact as the so-called collateral murder video because there will be research as out there who knows unemployed journalists out there will be able to find out stories and correlate the facts that come out in these cable releases with other facts to reveal other elements of us foreign policy that has to do we didn't know as to bradley manning more than a thousand days of course in jail he was tortured even hillary clinton's state department spokesperson resigned over the torture of p.j. crowley doesn't mention that much it's very difficult to even comprehend how bradley manning has survived and we must also remember how the media tries to destroy the reputations of people related to this case obviously they tried to

destroy the reputation of julian assange. destroy the reputation of wiki leaks but they said bradley manning was kind of going off the rails i can understand that maybe there is something in u.s. military training because he was able to cope with that long time incarcerated and tortured by the united states government for revealing to the world what the united states has done him much more recent times to people and their abuse of the united states constitution i'm sure he believes to this day that what he did was worth it and certainly that's what confidants say about his fascinating stuff we could talk for many hours about this but thank you afshin we have run out of time that r.t. contributor afshin rattansi in london. and you can keep up with all the revelations from wiki leaks at r.t. dot com we explain why you're in the sun because it is probably the most significant geopolitical publication that has ever existed and you can also join

our online discussion. nice more world need north korea is why. orning foreigners to evacuate from neighboring south korea in case war breaks out the latest escalation of threats from the country japan wall has deployed missile interceptors around tokyo as a precaution against possible north korean ballistic missile tests the us earlier upped its military presence in the region causing pyongyang to step up its own rhetoric and what's building into one of the worst crises in the area since the korean war in one nine hundred fifty three. elsewhere a six year old man has gone on a deadly shooting rampage in a village just south of the capital all of his thirteen victims were neighbors and relatives and one was a young child the suspect then attempted to shoot himself and his wife they are now both in hospital belgrade police say the man had no prior criminal record and that the motive for the killing is unclear. syria has rejected the u.n.

secretary general is chemical weapons probe team which is awaiting deployment in cyprus it was initially invited by syria to investigate the march the nineteenth attack near aleppo but banking millions reported suggestion of a supplementary nationwide probe has brought the mission to a stark holt syria's foreign ministry says it's too similar to the u.n. back to iraqi nuclear weapons accusations which concluded with the notorious america led invasion. and u.s. officials have begun notifying the lawyers of hunger striking prisoners in guantanamo bay as to whether their clients are being force fed inmates at the notorious detention camp have been refusing food for over two months now putting their lives at risk in a defiant protest official say forty two inmates are now involved but their lawyers insist the real figure is more than three times higher the hunger strike began after detainee detainees korans and personal items were allegedly mishandled.

the dark side of the world's finances is in focus next in the kinds of reporting. you know i always try to stay clear of falling into the trap of fake outrage on this program people love to come on t.v. and be angry over this and angry over that just to fill air time but trust me sing obama signing into law with that wacky lobster like way he has of writing the bill marked the month santo protection act well it does not put a smile on my face that's for sure not only does this bill effectively bar federal courts from being able to halt the sale or planting of g.m.o. seeds and crops no matter what the health concerns are according to ib times but the bill was also written by senator roy blunt who's gotten sixty four thousand dollars for his political campaign pain from the g o giant monsanto itself so

that's what it costs to allow companies to possibly poison millions if not all americans with risky and unproven g.m.o. technology sixty four thousand dollars that's not even enough to buy a decent house sixty four thousand dollars is chump change well citizens of america now you know how much your lives are worth in washington but that's just my opinion . max kaiser this is the kaiser reporting no this past week in the u.k.

the chancellor of the exchequer george osborne suggested that welfare benefits were in some way responsible for turning a man into a mass murdering child killer who killed six of his children by arson this episode that has a reporter we f. the same as quantitative easing in decades of sponging off the taxpayer turned banks into bloated yobbish addicks and has our indulging them with immunity from justice for fraudulent misselling of derivatives and interest rate rigging turned bankers into serial wealth confiscated as unable to pass a single dime on the street without wanting to steal it and mass murdering arsonists burning down financial markets around the world why why why just because just because they stacy heard what was happening was happening much happens day to herbert apparently that's what happens when you become a welfare bum you just want to burn down things yes right in the city of london you get a few nickels in your pie.