Hello and welcome to the pod. Have I got a treat for you today?

Britain's former top diplomat, Sir Jeremy Greenstock.

A man who served from the 1960s to deep into the 21st century. He served in British embassies

all over the world. He was Britain's permanent representative to the United Nations. He

was pivotal in the discussions, the negotiations between the Americans and Brits leading up to

the Iraq War in 2003. And following the invasion of Iraq, he was then sent to Baghdad to work

at the very highest levels as part of the coalition provisional authority. I thought this was

such an interesting chat about Britain, about the world, about Iraq, about power, about

personalities. As you know, I love having not just historians on the podcast, but practitioners,

all the been in the room where it happens, wielded power, led armies and been responsible for

post-war reconstruction. It was a huge treat and a very grateful term, Sir Jeremy, for

coming on the pod. If you want to listen to a backup service podcast without the ads,

you can do so at historyhit.tv. For a very small subscription, you join Team History

Hit, you become a subscriber, and you help us build the world's best history channel.

That's the dream folks, that's the dream, and it's getting closer every day thanks to you

guys. If you head over to historyhit.tv, join the revolution and get access to the world's

best history channel. But in the meantime, here is Jeremy Greenstock. Enjoy.

Sir Jeremy, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.

I pleasure down. When you were at school and you were the star of

Harrow and then you went to Oxford, was joining the British Foreign Service, the thing to

do for the kind of top pupils. It was still talked about as the thing to do.

No, not much. People had all sorts of things they wanted to do, mostly going to business

...