Old Newscast: The Gulf War, The Legacy (Part 3)

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 24 August 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

34 years after the conclusion of Operation Desert Storm, Adam is joined by Kate Adie, Justin Webb, and Jeremy Bowen, to discuss the legacy of the first Gulf War. Was it a high point for conventional war tactics and Western , liberal, democratic power in the world? Or did it herald the start of a bloody intervention in the Middle East, from which the world has still not recovered?

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New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bit.ly/3ENLcS1 Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. The presenter was Adam Fleming. It was made by Rufus Gray and Chris Flynn. The technical producers were Mike Regaard, Rohan Madison and Dafydd Evans . The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for listening on BBC Sounds. Newscast will always be available first and in full on BBC Sounds.
0:06.1	So while you're here, please make sure you subscribe. That way you'll get a notification every time we've finished an episode of newscast that's ready for you to listen to.
0:15.8	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Welcome to another episode of old newscasts.
0:21.9	We've talked about the two phases of Operation Desert Storm, first of all in the air and then the ground invasion.
0:27.5	This episode, we'll talk about the legacy of the first Gulf War, with three people who were there at the time living it.
0:34.2	Kate Adie, Justin Webb and Jeremy Bowen.
0:37.3	Newscast from the BBC.
0:39.6	The war started, the day Saddam Hussein marched into Kuwait.
0:43.4	I'm now going to show you a picture of the luckiest man in Iraq.
0:46.3	Their success will be as swift as it is certain.
0:49.4	It will not, I believe, be a long conflict, but it may be a fierce one.
0:54.0	Tonight, the battle has been joined.
0:59.2	Here with me in the studio is Justin Webb. Hello, Justin.
1:02.0	Hello.
1:02.6	We're joined from Jordan by Jeremy Bowen.
1:04.8	Hi.
1:05.3	And also painting an amazingly vivid picture of her time during the Gulf War is Kate Ad.
1:10.4	Hi, Kate. Hi.
1:12.3	So Jeremy, do you know what? First of all, I was going to go back to the timeline, but actually I've just been struck in the previous two episodes of my memories of this period. And I remember you would get this guy, this American military guy called Storm and Norman, Schwarzkopf, who was the guy in charge of the military operations.
1:29.3	He'd do these really kind of like patriotic, gung-ho PowerPoint presentations.
1:34.3	And you'd have that on the TV, but then you'd have images of like the Basra Road
1:39.1	and the oil wells on fire.
	...

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