The Road to the Iraq War | 1. The Exile

Slow Burn

Slate Podcasts

News, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Politics

4.6 • 25.1K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2021

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Eighteen years have passed since the United States invaded Iraq. It’s a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed America’s credibility on the world stage. How much can that war be traced to one Iraqi exile’s longstanding quest to return to Baghdad? Want more Slow Burn? Subscribe to Slate Plus to immediately access all episodes of Slow Burn (and your other favorite Slate podcasts) completely ad-free. Plus, you’ll unlock subscriber-exclusive bonus episodes that bring you behind-the-scenes on the making of the show. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit slate.com/slowburnplus to get access wherever you listen. Season 5 of Slow Burn is produced by Noreen Malone, Jayson De Leon, and Sophie Summergrad. Mixing by Merritt Jacob. Production help from Margaret Kelley. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:28.0	On March 19th, 2003, the United States invaded Iraq.
0:34.8	This season of Sloburn is about the events and arguments that led up to that day.
0:39.6	So now you know where we're going to end up.
0:42.0	But where do we start? George W Bush made the call to
0:47.5	launch the invasion, but it wasn't what he'd come into office to do. Bush, like any president, was influenced by people in his administration.
0:57.2	Some of them had been spooked by 9-11.
0:59.7	Others had been pushing to get rid of Saddam for a lot longer. You'll hear about all of that later in this series. But in this
1:06.1	episode I'm going to tell you about someone else. His name is Ahmed Chalabi and deposing Saddam Hussein was his life's work.
1:14.0	Saddam is an insult to my being.
1:19.0	He's an insult to my country.
1:21.0	He's an insult to our history, to our culture.
1:26.0	Chalabi was an aristocrat, an Iraqi exile who was brilliant and
1:29.6	charismatic.
1:30.9	He was also a bullshit virtuoso with a core of absolute conviction.
	...

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