us troops in iraq
Riz Khan

Iraq: Five years on

Jonathan Steele discusses his book, Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq.

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Journalist Jonathan Steele has
covered the Iraq war since 2003

This week marks the fifth year anniversary of the war in Iraq.

More than $800 billion in US tax dollars have been spent, an estimated 2.5 million Iraqis have been displaced, almost 4,000 US soldiers have been killed, and there is an Iraqi civilian death toll that ranges from more than one hundred thousand to one million.  

In Iraq the run up to this anniversary has been marked with the continued violence.

On Tuesday Dick Cheney, the US vice president, made a surprise visit to the country and called the war a “successful endeavor”.

He also promised Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, the unwavering support of the US.

When George Bush, the US president, warned in a 2003 speech that this conflict “could be longer and more difficult than some predict,” perhaps no one realised how long the US involvement in Iraq would be.

On the next show author and journalist Jonathan Steele discusses Iraq five years on.

Steele has covered the Iraq war since the beginning as a senior correspondent for the British national newspaper The Guardian.

His latest book is called Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq.

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This episode of Riz Khan airs on Thursday, March 20, 2008
 
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