Shock, awe, death, joy and looting: how the Guardian covered the outbreak of the Iraq war

The Audio Long Read

The Guardian

Society & Culture

4.2 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2026

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In spring 2003, exuberance at the fall of Saddam was swiftly followed by a descent into deadly chaos. Whether moving independently or embedded with troops, Guardian reporters witnessed the violence on the ground By Ian Mayes. Read by Karl Queensborough. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
0:09.1	Welcome to The Guardian long read, showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture, politics and new thinking.
0:15.8	For the text version of this and all our long reads, go to the Guardian.com forward slash long read.
0:30.8	Shock, awe, death, joy and looting. How the Guardian covered the outbreak of the Iraq War by Ian Mays, read by Carl Queensborough.
0:44.8	Yeah. Read by Carl Queensborough. The Allied attack on Iraq began on the 20th of March 2003.
0:49.7	The Guardian's 4 a.m. edition on Friday the 21st of March carried the headline, land, sea, and air assault.
0:57.0	The report was by Julian Borger in Washington and Rory McCarthy in Camp Assalia on the outskirts of Doha, the capital of Qatar.
1:06.0	It opened. The ground war began in Iraq last night, as British and American Marines stormed beaches a US helicopter crashed in Kuwait,
1:37.3	killing all on board.
1:40.1	Suzanne Goldenberg's front-page report from Baghdad revealed that only two hours after the decapitation effort,
1:46.3	Saddam Hussein himself had made a defiant appearance on television.
1:51.0	A guardian leader stated that the plain fact was this first surgical strike had missed its mark.
1:57.6	Even had it reached its target, it would have been difficult to applaud.
2:01.9	State-ordered assassination sets an abominable precedent that encourages unwelcome emulation.
2:08.6	The U.S. must tread carefully, for the legal and moral grounds for this war are already very shaky.
2:15.7	By then, events had moved on.
2:19.6	The violent display of the shock and awe assault on the regime's infrastructure in and around
2:24.4	the capital came that same night.
2:27.6	The headline on the Saturday 4-E.M edition read,
2:30.9	Full-blooded onslaught is launched on Baghdad.
2:34.6	Julian Borgia, Richard Norton Taylor and Rory McCarthy contributed to the report,
2:39.7	describing the successive waves of aerial attacks on centres and symbols of Saddam Hussein's
	...

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