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Consider This from NPR

Lessons from Iraq, as Trump teases attacks on Iran

Consider This from NPR

NPR

Society & Culture, News, Daily News, News Commentary

4.15.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2003, the U.S. launched a war in Iraq based on what turned out to be bad intelligence about weapons programs, then spent years mired in a conflict with no clear end.

Today, President Trump is threatening to bring the U.S. military into another Middle East conflict. As with Iraq, the justification for a potential attack on Iran is the alleged threat of a nuclear weapon.

We talk to journalist Steve Coll, author of The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq about how this moment echoes the run-up to the war in Iraq and how it differs.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Before Donald Trump became President Trump, he was a candidate in a very crowded Republican primary.

0:07.3

And one way he stood out during his 2016 campaign was by bluntly attacking President George W. Bush

0:13.8

for launching the Iraq war, like in this CBS News debate.

0:17.5

George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty. We should

0:22.2

have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East. Trump criticized the war, but also

0:28.0

Bush's justification for the war. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There

0:33.2

were none, and they knew there were none. Bush did argue to Americans and to the world that Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi dictator,

0:40.2

was building weapons of mass destruction, and that the U.S. needed to stop him.

0:44.6

Here's Bush talking about Iraq in 2002.

0:47.5

It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons.

0:52.1

It is seeking nuclear weapons.

1:01.0

That assessment was, of course, inaccurate. No such stockpiles were found after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And the Iraq war would become a quagmire. It cost the U.S. more than $2 trillion by one estimate.

1:08.0

It killed more than 4,000 U.S. service members and well over 100,000 Iraqis.

1:14.5

And it outlasted Bush's presidency, only officially concluding near the end of President Obama's first term.

1:21.6

Today, I can report that, as promise, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year.

1:30.0

After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over.

1:35.9

And Obama would end up sending more troops into Iraq in 2014 after the rise of ISIS.

1:41.5

There are still U.S. forces there today.

1:45.8

This history is important because, as we record this episode Wednesday afternoon on the East Coast, President Trump

1:50.9

is threatening to bring the U.S. military into another Middle East conflict. As with Iraq,

1:57.3

the justification for a potential attack on Iran is the alleged threat of a nuclear

2:02.4

weapon.

...

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