The Iraq War, 2003 - Professor Vernon Bogdanor 

It's just that the lies are more obvious on this subject

poor you. pffft.

Me too, Blair set in motion all the horrors that now befall Britain

cry harder

I totally agree with you. The professor's assessments, in all his lectures are, balanced and informative.

@@candyman5912 VERY evenhanded; if the objectors to the war were as civilized as this man, then I think society would be a ton better off; back in 2002, 2003 the ones angrier by far were the objectors; now, I just call war objectors peacemongers and call myself a warmonger because I don't care-those anti-war treat their cause as religion, and utterly despise those that disagree. I used to be more civil, but civility in these times get ya trampled.

You must not know much about it.

@@davidchunkyonion Never said I did. The normal news media coverage in the US was pathetic in the extreme. What links do you recommend?

@@danielgregg2530 Look for "Neglecting Intelligence, Ignoring Warnings" (A chronology of how the Bush Administration repeatedly and deliberately refused to listen to intelligence agencies that said its case for war was weak). ... I like professor Bogdanor very much, he is a decent scholar, but in this lecture he totally omitted that the intelligence on WMD was fabricated by Bush's administration - means they told lies and they did know it (at least Cheney, who was quite active in the war). And of course, this fact sheds quite different light on all the case.

You a fan of propaganda and lies?

This guy seems rather biased and he supports the iraq war.

He did have those weapons and used them, google the Anfar campaign and learn something please

Overall, I see your point. But to compare the US’s use of atomic weapons in a worldwide protracted war against a relentless enemy known for human rights abuses just as bad as the Nazis (torture, castration of POW’s, mutilation of corpses; brutal experiments on Pacific Islanders and Chinese civilians; initiation of military force at Pearl Harbor that resulted in civilian casualties as well as military personnel, etc…) is not the same as an unhinged dictator who invades neighboring countries and genocides groups of people within his own national boundaries is not the same. The US’s use of the atom bombs absolutely brought Japan to its knees, despite what self-aggrandizing charlatans like Oliver Stone might imply. Am I saying the US is wonderful? Of course not. Every powerful nation has its stains-even nations that have never reached any sort of zenith have committed more brutal atrocities. But some people simply hate the US so much that they have a tendency to engage in mental gymnastics to find false equivalency between, say, the US and North Korea, for instance. No nation is absolutely free, but there are massive degrees of difference between the amount of individual liberty, allowance for dissent, minority rights, standard of living, quality of life, infrastructure, and so on than there is under unhinged despots. Would Saddam Hussein or imperial Japan have done more in diplomatic efforts to avoid war than the US? Or would they have used nuclear weapons with even less or perhaps no provocation had they discovered the technology first?

The plan was to destroy Iraq and create a failed state, the plan was a success

​@@leahcimolrac1477 the use of nukes was a huge crime against humanity. It was committed as an experiment and justified with propaganda.

We have never used ILLEGAL nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons in war. You leaving out an essential thing called international law dude. And we don’t use chemical weapons like Sadam did. He genocided people with them.

This is not a serious academic setting xD

cry marxist, cry

If only peacemongers felt the same remorse over Biden's push to end the war in Afghanistan, making Afghanistan a haven for terror again, not that peacemongers care-they're too self-righteous to do so. Look at Bden's press conference lies leading up to the fall of Kabul, and then let's see you get huffy over lying, nasty warmongers. Peacemongers LOVE lies. (When convenient.)

How does Blair profit? I have not heard this before m

@@johnmiller9302 Largely through the charities he set up under the umbrella of the Blair Foundation, as a paid Middle East Envoy for the UN, EU, USA and Russia. Advisor to the Chase Manhatten Bank and the Zurich Financial Services. Advice to third world governments on a pro bono basis. Public speaking, $250,000 for a 90 minute speach. Estimated wealth $120m.

@@MrDavidht thank you!!

This is just a post hoc rationalisation. I agree with the prof.

Love your analogy but in fairness I think it's simplistic and works only in hindsight. Saddam had indeed used chemical weapons in the past and was anything but repentant or cooperative toward inspectors. Not saying I support the war but trying to understand it's complicated origins.

It is a silly standard to say "he disagrees with me, therefore he must be impartial". He made his conclusions clear at the start and substantiated those throughout. He made no attempt to hide his reasons or reasoning for reaching those conclusions, and it is worrying that his academic integrity is called into question for him merely committing the sin of coming to conclusions you disagree with.

@@HPretor it's not that his conclusion is different but the fact that he fails to mention the suspect nature of the intelligence, especially in light of fairly well substantiated arguments that it was presented a certain way due to political pressure and influence. However, his greatest sin was the cavalier attitude with which he dismissed the UNSC. The fact that he attaches surprisingly little value to their failure to obtain from the UNSC a resolution authorising the war is truly appalling. The Security Council is the bedrock of a rules based international order and to violate the Charter in such a blatant manner was truly despicable as it destroyed whatever legitimacy the institution had. Decades from now this failure to comply with the UN Charter will be cited as the beginning of the demise of the UN - much like America's decision not to join the League of Nations effectively ended that organisation's chances of succeeding. Exceptionalism begets exceptionalism.

Iraq wasn't liberated, it was genocided

As a warmonger, I have never found anyone inside academia try to give both sides a fair shake before, but this guy has. Kudos to him.

Even-handed, more like slight-of-hand? Just because someone might look and sound the part, does not always mean that they are

@@antispindr8613 What do you mean friend? as a demonized warmonger, I wanna know.

@@Noitartst If are you a true war-lover, a not just having a little fun with people, then should you not be willing to accept a degree of came back? Also, do you not understand that he might be a clever sounding, but fake, 'expert'?

Perhaps his US controllers slipped up?

Does his voice sound American to you

Yeah, only a million or so deaths and a the creation of a failed state, totally worth it

that issue was built in to the UN from it's inception after ww2. the security council can individually dismiss and veto anything even if every other nation on earth agrees with it. that's the flaw. it was exposed long before 2002 and exploited by all major members.

Maybe compared to the Battle of the Somme.

He’s talking about the initial invasion

At the end of the day, was not the British Army defeated? Did they not come to a deal with the war lords - allowing them to leave?

He's really off here ignoring the fact that the west was allied with Saddam Hussein until the moment he invaded Kuwait (which America tacitly endorsed by not objecting beforehand). Plus apparently Bogdanor had never heard of PNAC. The neocons wanted to Invade Iraq going back to the mid nineties. Weak lecture.

Such a rich fantasy life you have.

Are we meant to care about Israel?

Punk

He really failed here. Poor research and analysis. Makes me question prior lectures by Bogdanor.

Who was

@@Patrick3183 Not some guy in a cave hooked up to a dialysis machine

I wish people would qualify their statements when they put this idea of "no WMDs" out there. Yes, there was intelligence prior to the war, but it was going both ways, and it was not as clear cut as you are making it seem. That is why Frank Harvey managed to produce an interesting counterfactual analysis that suggests that a Gore administration would have been equally likely to push for war against Iraq, in his book "Explaining the Iraq War", given the information available and his statements (and those of his likely administration picks) prior to the war. There were also questions revolving around the reliability of the U.N. inspections regime. They were not getting full cooperation from the regime as was required. It was known that Saddam Hussein maintained an active concealment program. Kofi Anan wanted Rolf Ekéus (a diplomat with a proven record of inspections in Iraq after the first Gulf War) to lead the inspections, but this was vetoed by France, China and Russia (all allies of the Hussein regime), who wanted Hans Blix instead. Hans Blix incorrectly certified Iraq free of WMDs twice in the 80s and 90s. Ekéus relayed the story of how, during his time, he was offered (repeatedly), throughout his inspections after the first Gulf War, a bribe of 1.5 million dollars to change his report by then Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Azziz. It further seems that Saddam was using oil-for-food money to bribe inspectors. Both in Iraq after the first Gulf war and the discovery of Libya's nuclear program, the inspectors were surprised at the progress that had already been made. Prior to the conflict, France asked for a month's time before discussing the option of war. However, after that month, Iraq would have been placed (for one month) as the chair of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament ("the world's only permanent multilateral disarmament treaty negotiating body", and the "world's sole forum for [nuclear] disarmament") because of a "purely automatic rotation by alphabetical order". For the same reason, joining Iraq as co-chair for the session would have been Iran. Likewise, the U.N. Human Rights Commission elected Libyan ambassador Najat Al-Hajjaji for that same year, despite concern about the country's poor record on civil liberties and its alleged role in sponsoring terrorism. After the war, the Iraq Survey Group found that, although no stockpiles of WMDs were found, Saddam maintained a program consisting of trained personnel, undeclared facilities (including a prison laboratory complex possibly used in human testing for biological agents) and equipment, allowing him to develop new biological or chemical weapon stockpiles within 3-5 weeks, removing the need to maintain a stockpile (the hardest part of this would have been acquiring the trained personnel). It was also found that the Iraqis had tried to buy long range missiles off the shelf from North Korea, in clear defiance of the agreement they had with the U.N.. Chemical weapons (in degraded state) were actually found in 2005/06 (including several hundred missiles), which were then purchased by the CIA under Operation Avarice to keep them off the black market. In 2014, it was reported by the NYT that U.S. troops had been exposed and injured during the disposal and destruction of 4990 abandoned chemical weapons. So it's just flat out wrong to say that there were no WMDs in Iraq - though most of these seem to have been pretty degraded. Some of Iraq's chemical weapons may now be in Syria. As for nuclear weapons, it's true that Iraq never had nuclear weapons, but it was known that Saddam Hussein was in possession of 550 tons of yellowcake uranium, which were finally moved to a secure location in 2008. U.S. officials, including President Bush, also had cited British intelligence documents indicating Iraq may have tried to buy another 500 tons of uranium from Niger, but the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) said the documents were fakes. According to Professor Norman Dombey, Saddam had enough ore to make 100 nuclear missiles. An Iraqi bomb design based on 16 kilograms of purified U-235 was also found by U.N. inspectors. Yellowcake uranium is largely inert, and you need to enrich it to make weapons out of it. After the war a gas centrifuge that could be used for uranium enrichment was found buried under a rose bush in the garden of an Iraqi scientist, Mahdi Obeidi, who later wrote a book about his ordeals called "The Bomb In My Garden". Obeidi indicated that there were at least 3 more such instruments buried in other locations, to be used once the sanctions had been lifted. Obeidi also points out that it is very difficult to interpret the signs that a country is working on WMDs. For example, American analysts believed that the Iraqis were working on a nuclear centrifuge because they were acquiring high tolerance aluminum. However, according to Obeidi, these were used for rockets. An American wouldn't use expensive high tolerance steel for rockets, but an Iraqi engineer, who's life depended on the rocket working well, would. Saddam Hussein maintained the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission for years, but the scientists were doing completely unrelated research. Obeidi states that this was Saddam's trying to maintain his delusion that he still had a nuclear program. Obeidi further makes the point that the credible fear existed that Iraq's nuclear scientists might defect or sell their knowledge to the highest bidder, the black market making it ever easier to acquire the relevant technology and raw materials. And then there is the fact that the regime itself declared that it had further stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction (mostly chemical), but could not show the inspectors any evidence that it had destroyed them. These weapons may or may not have existed. It is not clear whether Saddam himself would have known that he no longer had WMDs, because in all likelihood no one would've dared deliver him bad news. Alternatively, he may have known he didn't have any, but would not admit to it because his reign was based on fear. The Iraq Survey Group stated Saddam deceived his own army and the best intelligence agencies in the world into believing he still had WMDs because he believed none of his enemies would dare attack him if he had WMDs. It further suggested he believed the U.S. and the coalition that threatened to go to war against him if the U.N. resolutions were not met were bluffing. So I think this "we found no evidence of WMDs in Iraq" meme is at best simplistic, and probably flat out misleading.

He is bending over backwards to be as objective and unbiased as possible. It's clear that you are strongly against the war and you are entitled to your opinion. But your criticisms of the supposedly 'biased' nature of this lecture are extremely thin.

And I feel the same way and have replied in kind. Thanks for corroboration, Glossypots. I much admire professor Bogdanor, despite his strong partisan bias, otherwise. Here, however, I fear he perpetuates the "big lie" Hitler so much espoused, rather than the cause of rational, wide field, understanding of the sort that enlightens all--both fans and opponents..

@@jellekastelein7316 ekeus by the way supported the allegations of the united states, hardly a neutral person suitable that position. the amounts of chemical weapons found through that cash for weapons program were fake, old and of dubious origin. some were from syria. there were no meaningful amounts of WMD much less usable. this far fetched explanation you are giving just shows how dishonest these allegations were because remember that the claim was that iraqs WMD posed an immediate risk to the united states so that they had start a war and had no time to clear things up.

We'll said. This lecture is highly discrediting.

Read: "Prof didn't agree with me and my views so I'm out!!!" Childish

@@StuartTheunissen he did not only disagree. he found the professor to be onesided and superficial.

The problem was anterior to Sadam, and the responsibility for the entire dilemma is far more perplexing than ca be resolved by a simple minded, not to say closed mind. It may be avoiding the issue to admit that there are such cases when the choice is not between right and wrong but between two perspectives of a problem both of which are predicated on assumptions which are erroneous and both of which have ultimately no ethical resolution. Professor Bogdanor was giving a lecture not a verdict, and that is the task of an historian. You should not expect every historian to share your opinions, perspectives and notions. Your opinion is tantamount to a denial of intellectual integrity. The fault of every extremist, terrorist, ideologue and dictator cleaves to your opinion ,and Sadam was one of those. How does one stop such people? The world's problems are full of people of your persuasion ad they are destructive when they have power. Congratulate yourself that you do not have power and I shall congratulate the world that another such as you is free to comment rather than having power to compound mischief.