Mission accomplished?

0:00There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns. The ones we don't know we don't know.

0:14Noel King:During the war in Iraq, America's leaders sometimes sounded uniquely stupid. I'm confident that our troops will be successful, and I think it will go relatively quickly. But you can't count on that. Weeks rather than months. It was eight years. It's tempting when he talks about Iran to see that kind of stupidity and short-sightedness in President Trump. But what he threatened today is something else. A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again, Trump wrote on Truth Social. People have been comparing Trump's war in Iran to the war in Iraq. Is that legit? Today on Today Explained.

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1:32If your identity is stolen, we'll fix it guaranteed. One last big number. Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast for the threats you can't control. Terms apply. This is Today Explained. My name's Dexter Filkins, and I'm a writer for The New Yorker magazine.

1:52Noel King:Dexter was based in Iraq from 2003 to 2006 and wrote the aptly named and award-winning book The Forever War. You covered the war in Iraq extensively starting in 2003. We're at a moment in history where some smart people who remember Iraq well are saying that the war in Iran is making them feel like a kind of deja vu. What do you think? Is any of this familiar to you? Well, what I would say from the top is that war by its nature is unpredictable. And this war is still going on, unlike the Iraq war. And it will undoubtedly go in a bunch of different ways that nobody predicted. But when the war started, the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 % of the world's oil flows, was open.

2:49And it's not open now. And so, you know, we can we can tally up all the all the great accomplishments of the American military. But but the but the fact remains, the overriding fact is that the strait is closed. It's hard for me to imagine a way in which the United States can leave until it's open in some way. And so in that way, it feels in that way, it does feel a little bit like like Baghdad in 2006.

3:15Noel King:We know that a lot of our listeners were children when the war in Iraq started, and so they don't actually have a good sense of what happened. Let's start this way. Why did President Bush start pushing to go to war in Iraq in the first place? Well, you know, I'd say it's been attacked on 9-11. It was a it was a terrible day. We have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers. Oh my God. Oh my God. That looks like a second plane. 3 ,000 people dead in New York. Many, many people dead at the Pentagon of Washington. And so there was this kind of overwhelming sense that we were under attack from people that, you know, we didn't even know where they were from or where they were.

4:02I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you.

4:10And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon. And so first we went to war in Afghanistan. That looked like it was over very quickly. The United States, supported by many nations, is bringing justice to the terrorists in Afghanistan. And then we kind of looked around and said, wow, there's this really bad guy, Saddam Hussein, in Iraq. And he's causing a lot of problems and he's invaded his neighbors. Let's get rid of him, too. The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime's own actions, its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror.

4:57And the tragedy of the Iraq War, of course, is that it was never connected to 9-11. Not in any way that anybody could see. But we went in anyway. We were kind of in the country. I mean, it was in this kind of deeply paranoid state. And we'd been traumatized. And so it was like, well, we can't have that happen again, another 9-11. And Iraq and Saddam Hussein had tried in the past to develop nuclear weapons. I mean, we knew that. They had tried, they had various secret programs to develop biological and chemical weapons. But we had thought, you know, that those things had been dismantled. The Iraqi government will hand over to UNSCOM their full, final and complete declaration on Iraq's past biological weapons program.

5:50And I want to say that I welcome that. But then there was this kind of lingering suspicion that Saddam was trying to build what they called weapons of mass destruction, which is to say nuclear weapons, biological weapons, chemical weapons that could wreak havoc on the United States. Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant who has already used chemical weapons to kill thousands of people. And so there was this kind of great fear that, oh, my God, what if we didn't get it all? What if there's some secret place deep underground where they're making all, you know, they're making this stuff again?

6:30And that was the driving fear.

6:33Noel King:So there was intelligence that suggested all of this, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That seemed to contribute, as I recall, to a sense in the country that like, OK, yeah, we got to do this now. Where did we get the intelligence that Iraq had WMDs? Well, I would frame it a little bit differently, I'd say. Go ahead, please. I'd say we didn't really have very solid intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. We had, I would say, hints and emanations and second and third hand reports. But we didn't have the smoking gun and we didn't have the photo of the secret lab where they're making this stuff.

7:17And the world of intelligence is you don't always get the photo. You don't get the smoking gun. So it's people kind of trying to make connections. And again, everybody was kind of utterly paranoid at the time. And so the intelligence people, they were under a lot of pressure from the White House, from the Bush White House at the time, to basically give an answer that comported with the White House's fears. And so the Bush White House kind of took that and ran with it, basically, and said, OK, we're not going to sit around and wait to be attacked. This is good enough. Even though it's not conclusive, it's good enough.

7:58and we're going to war.

7:59Noel King:All right. So the U.S. becomes convinced that this war is a just war and a good war. We're going to do it. And then what did it actually take to get us into it? Where did Congress fit into all of this? Well, that's a really good question because it was very different. If I could take one step back and say, you know, if we all had a copy of the Constitution in front of us, it would say Article I, which is the powers enumerated to Congress, Congress has the power to declare war. The president does not. The president is the commander in chief of the armed forces, but Congress has that power. And that's in practice.

8:38It hasn't worked out that way. But in the Iraq war, you know, Bush went to Congress and said, I need a resolution to go to war and to use force. Members of both houses, both political parties have deliberated with care and they have spoken with clarity on behalf of the American people. We will face our dangers squarely. So it wasn't a formal declaration of war, but it was basically, I mean, it was pretty much of a blank check to do what he needed to do. And so there was this kind of sense of buy-in, you know, that basically Congress was on board. And so that is conspicuously missing from this war.

9:20You know, President Trump went on his own. He didn't ask Congress. He didn't ask him for a declaration. We didn't have a debate in Congress. We didn't have we didn't even have a speech to the American people about it until the president on his own decided to launch this. And I think that that's the biggest difference is that Trump is alone with this war. It's his.

9:43Noel King:What about our NATO allies at the time? So I recall there being a fight over France and we started calling them freedom fries. We opened up our menu and the word French just took us and grabbed us. So all of a sudden we decided, you know what we're going to do? We're going to change our French fries to freedom fries. And there was a sense that, like, our allies did not have our back. But what was the real story about what was going on when the U.S. made this decision with our NATO allies? Well, I think at the time our allies were not convinced. And they weren't convinced of either the wisdom of going to war in Iraq or the evidence that showed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

10:26France's distinct distaste for war continues to infuriate the United States. If military action proceeds without a new resolution of the Security Council, Canada will not participate. They stayed out largely, not entirely, but largely. And I just want to say, because a lot of people are angry at NATO right now and saying, how come you haven't helped us? And it's like, well, they did help us. And in Afghanistan, you know, when the United States got attacked on 9-11, all the NATO countries came to Afghanistan to help us. And a lot of them took a lot of casualties, like, you know, President Trump was trashing Denmark.

11:04Denmark lost a lot of people in Afghanistan and a lot of dead and wounded up for us. And so we forget that. But when Iraq came, the allies said, look, this isn't a good idea. We can't really tell from this intelligence what's up and what's down. We don't want to do this, basically. Now, the big exception were the Brits. There were some others. But the British said, look, you know, we're your oldest and closest ally and we'll join in. I know this course of action has produced deep divisions of opinion in our country. But I know also the British people will now be united in sending our armed forces our thoughts and prayers.

11:44Noel King:All right. So in March of 2003, we invade Iraq. The slogan we heard at the time was shock and awe. This is shock and awe, Tom, for the population of Baghdad. Shock and awe. And there was an idea that like we would win really quickly. We had a very strong military. Iraq was kind of a mess. What actually happened? How did the war proceed? Well, this is the most shocking part of the war. And I was sort of there on the ground, and I remember the feeling of, holy cow, how could we be so stupid? And what I mean by that is, so we did. The United States, the military just raced in. It took, I don't know, 21 days or 20 days, and took down the Iraqi government.

12:35Piece of cake. We hardly had any casualties. Tanks and armored vehicles drove past the wreckage of Iraqi tanks, largely unopposed. Just in the last few moments, a U.S. Marine tank with a large chain has pulled the statue of Saddam Hussein down. And then what followed was anarchy. Baghdad, August 19, 2003. A massive truck bomb destroys UN headquarters at the Canal Hotel. And the reason why it was the anarchy was in part because there was no plan for the day after. So they had basically planned to destroy the Iraqi government, but no one had basically made a plan for what to do after the government was destroyed.

13:20And so, you know, Iraq is a really broken, traumatized country, and it just flew apart.

13:35Noel King:Dexter Filkins, as Iraq was flying apart, the U.S. declared mission accomplished. What we were thinking, coming up next.

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17:08This is Today Explained.

17:12Noel King:Today Explained is back. Dexter Filkins is back. Dexter, let's remember this. President Bush claimed to have won the war in Iraq. About six weeks in, he gets on an aircraft carrier. Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States. He's got this banner behind him that says mission accomplished. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen and Iraq is free. What was the moment you were in the region, you were on the ground. What was the moment for you it became clear that the mission had not been accomplished? Well, it was clear. The moment we got the U.S. military entered Baghdad, and it's, I think, let's see, I think the anniversary, it's April 9th, 2003.

17:59So we're just, we're close to that anniversary. The anarchy and the chaos and the looting and the bloodshed began immediately, immediately. So by the end of the day, after the U.S. military marches in triumphantly into the Capitol, by nighttime the Capitol is on fire. About 45 minutes after those Iraqi civilians tore down that statue of Saddam Hussein, these Marines found themselves in the middle of a firefight. And there's total anarchy. And so when President Bush, you know, got, you know, flew in on the aircraft carrier and said, you know, mission accomplished. I mean, it was it was absurd then.

18:41But then then, of course, it became kind of a cruel joke because the anarchy that we witnessed in the Capitol that day just spread far and wide across the country and engulfed the country and stayed that way for a very long time.

18:55Noel King:What allowed it to keep going? I like that you say the anarchy. I mean, I hate that it happened. But yes, the anarchy starts in Baghdad and then it spreads. And there's a world in which, OK, the U.S. is there. We've got good troops. We've got good weapons. And so we just win. But that's not what happened. What was happening in Iraq with Iraqis that this just kept going on and on? Well, I think the important thing to consider is that it's not enough, it's never enough. And you could say this about the Iran war. You know, the U.S. military is really good at what they do. And what they do is, you know, destroy their enemies.

19:32But that is not enough necessarily to make a just and lasting peace that will endure and that will, say, allow the United States to leave. And so the United States had, you know, plenty of firepower, lots of guns, lots of, you know, great weapons. But it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to hold the country together. And so, again, this was a, you know, this is a very traumatized country that had been kind of torn apart in many different ways, including by its own government for many, many years. And so all these things kind of spilled out in front of us. But the overwhelming fact was that the United States military, after it destroyed the government, was unable to keep order.

20:19And until you can have order, you can't really have anything else. You can't build anything that will last because you have to have order and you have to have calm. And again, it took many, many years for the United States to figure out a way to make that happen.

20:37Noel King:By the time we pulled out of Iraq in 2011, how had the region changed? Like, what did that war do to the Middle East? Oh, God. Well, the Iraq War was, it was like a magnet for every lunatic. And I mean it, every lunatic in the, not just in the Middle East, but across the world. And so it was drawing people from, particularly from across the Islamic world, into the country to fight the Americans. The early months of the war appear to be a swift and stunning victory as the old regime melts away. But al-Zarqawi is waiting in the shadows. Zarqawi, born in Jordan, is the most capable terrorist in Iraq today.

21:21And so it became this kind of self-sustaining firestorm. And so you could hear, you could see the propaganda. You could hear it on loudspeakers. Come to the fight. Come and fight the Americans. And so we got ourselves into this kind of terrible situation where we saw ourselves as the saviors. But many people across the region saw us as invaders and as occupiers. And so it took a long time to sort that out, too.