It's Hell, Mr President The Iraq War

This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

Three years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, America still had 130,000 troops in Iraq.

Our strategy can be summed up this way.

As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.

But by the summer of 2006, President Bush's plan was looking hopeless.

His top Iraq adviser got a call from a friend in Baghdad.

She said, "If the Americans leave, we will descend into,

"you know, mass killings and violence.

"So please, please, please make sure that the Americans stay.

"It is the only thing keeping us alive."

The President then gathered his Iraq team.

The President turned to me and he said,

"Our strategy's not working, Hadley. We need a new strategy."

My basic concern was that it was important that we not just walk away.

That we had to win, that we had to have a victory.

Their hopes rested on Iraq's new Prime Minister, Nouri Maliki.

The President said very clearly,

"We need to help him. I need to help him.

"He's never led a country before, he's certainly never led a country

"in this difficult and challenging a time."

But the Americans would soon begin to question

whether Maliki was the solution or part of the problem.

Baghdad, a year before Nouri Maliki became Prime Minister.

Iraq's capital had long been home

to members of the two biggest Muslim sects.

The Sunnis...and the Shia.

Abu Abed, a Sunni,

had been a military intelligence officer under Saddam.

In August 2005, his family were targeted by a Shia death squad.

Under Saddam's regime, the Shia majority had been oppressed.

Now they were in control.

Militias operated freely from government ministries.

His brother was taken away...and killed.

Sunni politicians called on the government

to stop killing their people.

The Prime Minister, Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shia, said they weren't.

The only Sunnis they were targeting were the extremists of Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq set out to destroy the Shia-led government.

Their first step was to provoke a civil war.

A huge Al-Qaeda bomb ripped apart

one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam.

The Al-Askari Mosque.

The target was well chosen.

It was bound to provoke Shia militias to retaliate against the Sunnis.

CHANTING

I went to Prime Minister Jaafari with the Ambassador and said,

"Prime Minister, this is a significant situation

"and it requires your...the immediate action of your government

"to resolve. And we strongly recommend that you apply a curfew."

Prime Minister Jaafari, the head of a Shia religious party,

did not dare clamp down on his fellow Shia.

It was clear to me that he was under enormous pressure

er...from his constituents,

er...and that things had gone too far,

the government had been ineffective in protecting the Shia population.

What Prime Minister Jaafari expressed to me was

that this is a significant attack on the Shia population of Iraq

and that they needed to let off steam, in his words.

Revenge attacks against Sunnis began that night.

After hundreds of deaths,

the Prime Minister finally ordered the curfew.

Jaafari's hesitation had already led him into political difficulties.

Following elections, he was struggling to put together

a new coalition government.

For ten weeks, the Americans had been waiting.

The President phoned his British ally.

President Bush and I discussed how to make progress in circumstances

where it was obvious that the present Prime Minister,

whatever his merits, didn't have the executive capacity

to really drive through the changes necessary.

The President really put his foot down and said,

"We've bet on a lame horse long enough

"and we have to try to find an alternative to Jaafari."

If Prime Minister Jaafari could be persuaded to stand aside,

another leader could be chosen from among the Shia parties

that had won the election.

Condi and I decided we need to find a moment

to go and pay Doctor Jaafari a fraternal visit.

Britain's Foreign Secretary wasn't taking any chances.

We were the occupying powers.

We were the postcolonial imperialists

trying to remove a democratically elected Prime Minister,

albeit for good reason, but that's what we were doing.

So this was tough stuff.

It is not my responsibility

or the responsibility of Secretary Straw

to determine who is going to be the Prime Minister of Iraq.

That can only be determined by Iraqis.

But in private, Secretary Rice

would use all her diplomatic skills on Jaafari.

She was quite effective.

I thought she praised him

for being one of the initial leaders of Iraq,

Father of...of...of a new Iraq.

And that he had done great things

in terms of what he had achieved already.

I talked to Jaafari, as it were, politician to politician,

and said this was a rough game of politics,

but if you didn't have majority support, you had to go.

That he needed to think about the fact that he had,

plainly, in our judgement, lost confidence

and couldn't sustain a government.

As it happens, the United States and the United Kingdom

are the people who are delivering

whatever security your people have got here,

and putting in the money.

So we're very, very sorry, but our judgement is

that you cannot sustain a democratically-elected government,

you're going to have to move aside for somebody who can.

Jaafari grudgingly gave in.

Jaafari would have to be succeeded by another Shia leader.

But many of them had been exiled for years in neighbouring Iran.

The Americans wanted a Prime Minister

who would not be the pawn of their biggest enemy in the Middle East.

The number two from Jaafari's party, Nouri Maliki,

caught the Americans' eye.

Maliki was really a pretty unknown quantity.

But we did know that he had spent his time in Syria rather than Iran

during the period of Saddam Hussein,

and that was a source of some reassurance.

Nouri Maliki got the nod.

We're encouraged by the formation of the unity government

and we recognise our responsibility to help that new government.

Whatever we do will be toward a strategy of victory.

Thank you.

President Bush gathered his senior advisors at Camp David

to discuss whether the new Iraqi government

needed a new American strategy.

General Casey, the Commander in Iraq, joined by video link.

We'd hear from Casey in Baghdad

and there was a desire to wrap it up as quickly as possible

and pass over responsibility to the Iraqis

and for us to get out.

I said the longer we stayed in Iraq in force,

the more the Iraqis relied on us to solve their problems.

And the less they did to resolve their problems.

We would have to draw down to win.

I thought at that point that was too soon.

My basic concern was

that it was important that we not just walk away.

That we had to win. That we had to have a victory

and we had to leave behind a stable, democratically-elected government

with an adequately trained and sized force.

President Bush seemed less concerned with the debate over strategy,

more with who was going to implement it.

The President focused on the importance of Maliki

right from the get-go.

And one of the things he said was,

"This man's never led a country before,

"never led a country facing the challenges that Iraq faces.

"We've got to help him succeed. I've got to help him succeed.

"I've got to help him learn how to lead his country.

"Because, in the end of the day, we can't succeed

"without Maliki succeeding in Iraq."

Bush had a plan.

First, he dismissed his team for the night.

Secret Service obviously played a major role in the whole operation.

I think Condi knew, probably Rumsfeld knew, as well, too,

um...that the President was going to sneak out from Camp David.

The next morning, when they all convened again

and looked around for the President,

he popped up on a video screen courtesy of Baghdad.

I've come to not only look you in the eye,

er...I've also come to tell you

that when America gives its word, it will keep its word.

The President really enjoyed the joke he had played on his cabinet.

Yes, he...he got a big kick out of it.

The problem was he had completely defeated the objective we had,

beginning discussions within the US team about a new strategy.

To Bush, what mattered now was to back Maliki.

But Maliki was in a precarious position.

Other leaders were much more popular amongst his fellow Shia.

Especially here.

The Baghdad slum of Sadr City was home to three million Shia.

And it was the heartland of the most active Shia militia.

Their leader was Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Sadr had won a huge following among Shia throughout Iraq

with his fierce opposition to American occupation.

Sadr's political wing had won enough seats in parliament

to make or break Maliki's governing coalition.

A few days after Maliki became Prime Minister,

the Americans targeted Sadr's militia.

Their operation would provide the first test of Maliki's leadership.

We had an operation in Sadr City where we employed a gunship

that shoots grenades the size of your fist.

It makes...sounds pretty loud.

GUNFIRE

And the Prime Minister was upset about that

because they called me and said, "They're bombing Sadr City."

SHOUTING

And so what he asked me to do is not to conduct any attacks in Sadr City

against particular individuals.

And I think we had a list of 10 or a dozen individuals

that we would not target without his approval.

Maliki's approval would also be required

for operations in Muqtada's strongholds.

Only days later, General Casey needed such approval.

He took the Prime Minister a video

recorded by a US drone plane over Sadr City.

We had the computer and we sat the computer right down on the table in front of him,

sat him down and said, "Push the button."

I said, "Prime Minister, you need to see this."

The American drone tracked the killers

to a local base of Muqtada al-Sadr.

I said, "Prime Minister, we need to go into this facility tonight."

They're probably going to use this time

to clear out any evidence out of the facility

and anything we do after this is probably going to be too late.

He had said to us, "Don't do the military thing.

"Let me do it, deal with it politically,

"because they are my friends, they will listen to me."

They decided it was too volatile

and that he didn't want us to conduct any operations there.

And the Ambassador and I thought to ourselves,

"This is not a very good start."

SIRENS WAIL

A few weeks later, all hell broke loose.

The Battle for Baghdad began.

Al-Qaeda attacked the Shia in Sadr City with a car bomb, killing 62.

SHOUTING

A week later, Shia militia in another neighbourhood

set up checkpoints to identify Sunnis.

And they killed 50.

RAPID GUNFIRE

In mixed neighbourhoods,

Shia militias drove Sunnis from their homes.

Networks of local Sunni fighters joined the battle.

Militias sometimes gave notice.

By the end of July, 1,855 Baghdad residents had been killed.

Extremist factions were taking control of the streets.

Muqtada's Mahdi army on the Shia side

and Al-Qaeda on the Sunni side.

Hoping to break the cycle of retribution,

the Americans asked Maliki's National Security Advisor

to use his influence with the Shia militia.

They didn't get the answer they'd hoped for.

I told General Casey that some of the Shia community felt that

the Shia militia

were fulfilling their duty and protecting them.

I said that it was the Shia militia and death squads

that were murdering civilians in Baghdad,

and the area around Baghdad,

that was the most dangerous long-term threat.

Well, George, the Shia militia

is fighting Al-Qaeda in some of these districts.

Wouldn't it be better if we leave these two fight

and...and the winner from that fight

will be much weaker,

and we can deal with that

weak winner much easier.

It was at that time I realised

that we had a significantly different view of the threat.

President Bush had promised that invading Iraq

would improve the lives of its people.

He had yet to realise that the violence now gripping the country

had left that goal in ruins.

But a routine briefing with his top Iraq adviser

would change everything.

The President said to Meghan,

knowing that she had spent several years in Baghdad

and had lots of contacts in Iraq,

"What are your, what are your, what do your friends tell you

"the situation in Iraq is like?"

I said, "Mr President, it's hell. Baghdad is hell.

"This place is a cauldron. It is consumed with killing."

This was one of his people who is committed to the Iraqi project

saying to him, "Mr President, we're on the verge of failure."

The American public were clamouring to bring their boys home.

But the national security advisor suggested to the President

he take a gigantic risk.

Send more troops in.

A surge of thousands of additional American troops to Baghdad

might stem the violence.

Bush hesitated.

He wasn't sure he could trust the Iraqi Prime Minister.

It was really this issue.

Is he a sectarian with a sectarian agenda?

Is he a non-sectarian,

an agenda for all of Iraq,

but simply does not have the means to deliver?

Bush went to find out for himself.

He knew that he was going to put Maliki on the spot.

He set out to charm him.

Before Bush could get serious,

the Iraqis offered up their own plan to end the violence.

We call it the Prime Minister Maliki Baghdad Security Plan.

And we believe that was a very good plan

because what the basic, er...principle in that

is for the American troops to pull back to their barracks

and to leave the streets and the communities for us.

But President Bush wasn't ready to trust Maliki to do it alone.

He revealed his own plan - the surge.

The President said, "I'd be willing to deploy

"tens of thousands of additional US forces

"to help you control your country.

"But only if I have a commitment from you on a series of things."

First and foremost among them was that

we could not have political interference

into the targeting of the most extreme cells

of the Shia militia groups. And that was really number one.

Because we were not going to deploy US forces

to babysit as Shia militias took over the streets of Baghdad.

The President said,

"I know I'm asking you to do something very hard here.

"But I can tell you I'm about to do something very hard.

"I, as President of the United States, am about to increase troops

"when the whole country thinks I'm about to reduce the troops."

This then called down credit on a bank account

that the President had been investing in all these many months

in developing a strong personal relationship with Maliki.

Maliki accepted the Americans' conditions.

Bush could now make his gamble public.

His last throw at achieving victory in Iraq.

America will change our strategy

to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign

to put down sectarian violence

and bring security to the people of Baghdad.

This will require increasing American force levels.

So I've committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq.

The new troops would also have a new boss -

General David Petraeus.

I give you my full support and wish you Godspeed.

The American General's first mission would be an awkward one.

While his 20,000 new troops prepared to go into Iraq,

Britain's 7,000 troops were preparing to pull out

from Iraq's southern province, Basra.

General Petraeus would have to change

the British Prime Minister's mind.

I said the justification for keeping large numbers of troops in Basra

was a lot less than the justification

for surging the American troops in Baghdad,

which is where the bulk of the terrorism was happening.

What I sought to do, frankly, was just to remind him

of a very important dynamic, which was coalition will.

And at a time when we were trying to demonstrate

to the enemies on the ground

that this coalition will is unshakable,

that to have the number two partner in this,

the most important partner for the United States to initiate a drawdown

would send a very confusing message.

I remember David Petraeus saying to me,

"Look, you know, we understand why the situation in Basra is different,

"why it's sensible for the British to draw down their troops,

"but right at the moment we surge is not the moment to do it."

Statement, the Prime Minister.

Tony Blair backed down.

The UK military presence will continue into 2008,

for as long as we are wanted and have a job to do.

General Petraeus flew onto Iraq

after the bloodiest month of the entire war.

Each day in January, more than 100 civilians were killed.

Even within institutions whose job was to preserve human life.

The Ministry of Health was known as

a very, very dangerous organisation in the grip of Shia militia leaders,

to the point that Sunni Arabs,

if they checked into a hospital because they were injured,

feared they might not get out again, except through the morgue.

The Ministry of Health was controlled

by a founder member of Muqtada al-Sadr's militia.

And militiamen were inside with him.

Petraeus asked the Prime Minister to dismiss the Deputy Health Minister.

But this was a step that could lead Muqtada al-Sadr

to withdraw his backing of the government.

Maliki asked Petraeus to help him out.

He said, "Could you arrest the Deputy Minister of Health?"

And I thought this was a mistranslation.

I mean, think of a Prime Minister in the UK

asking a coalition commander to arrest one of HIS deputy ministers.

And that's what, in fact, Prime Minister Maliki wanted.

The Minister was arrested.

But it did not halt the sectarian cleansing that was sweeping Baghdad.

A city of mainly mixed neighbourhoods

had been transformed into Shia and Sunni enclaves.

The Shia gained the most territory.

Petraeus decided to send his troops to live in warring neighbourhoods

to separate the rival factions.

But that alone would not be enough.

He also needed a political solution.

So he ordered his British number two, General Graeme Lamb,

to look among the enemy

to find some who might be persuaded to stop fighting.

If your brother, your sister or your uncle or your aunt...

you know, spent his last days chained to a chair...

being Black & Deckered to death...

then that person's going to have a pretty unreasonable damned attitude

to, "Oh, let's be reasonable here, peace will prevail.

"Just give peace a chance."

But it doesn't mean that they're naturally irreconcilable

or just lost to humanity.

General Lamb would not only have to win over his enemies.

Some of the American commanders were almost as reluctant.

I said, "Hey, listen. This is the level of anger that is out there.

"And if we do not check this and quickly,

"we will not get it back."

As he was initially walking me through this

and said, "We need to reconcile with some of these people," I said,

"I will not reconcile or it will be difficult for me to reconcile

"with anybody with blood on their hands."

Oh, I turned around and said, "We've both got blood...

"you know, we...we...we're covered in blood.

"You know, we're both hurting.

"And we're both guilty.

"But if you discard those who have been fighting against us

"from an opportunity to dialogue,

"then the truth is, this can't work."

The Generals agreed to look for insurgents they could talk to.

What Al-Qaeda did next

would inadvertently provide the opportunity.

In the spring of 2007, they greeted the American surge

with a counteroffensive of suicide attacks and roadside bombs.

In one Baghdad neighbourhood,

they killed seven US troops with a single bomb.

SHOUTING AND GUNFIRE

While I was out at the site,

another patrol got hit, this time consisting of four tanks.

So there was a huge fight going on in Ameriya at this time.

The district Ameriya

was Al-Qaeda's most important stronghold in the capital.

They had gained control of the area

by protecting local Sunnis from Shia violence.

But they had turned it into the capital of their own Islamic state,

where they imposed strict religious law.

For one local leader, himself a Sunni, it had gone too far.

Abu Abed decided it was time

to reclaim the neighbourhood from Al-Qaeda.

A colleague told the US area commander.

He said, "We're going to attack Al-Qaeda tomorrow.

"We need to do this. This needs to be the people of Ameriya."

So I told him, "OK.

"Do not point your weapons at my soldiers,

"do not point your weapons at any civilians.

"If you do, we'll kill you."

And then I wished him good luck.

RAPID GUNFIRE

Abu Abed's men celebrated.

RAPID GUNFIRE

Too soon.

SHOUTING

The next day, Al-Qaeda counter-attacked

and drove the locals back to a single isolated mosque.

GUNFIRE

RAPID GUNFIRE

The cavalry had arrived.

US 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry.

The rescue of the local Sunnis

was the opportunity the Americans had been looking for.

They began negotiations to organise and pay Abu Abed's fighters.

In return, the Sunnis would maintain local security

and keep Al-Qaeda out.

Within months, tens of thousands of Sunnis throughout Baghdad

were on the US Government payroll.

Local Iraqis are throwing in with us,

and that's something that we have to build on.

There is some momentum

and its something we have to capitalise on now

and make the most of while we have all of our forces here.

General Petraeus asked Prime Minister Maliki

to incorporate the volunteers into the Iraqi security forces.

But the Shia leader was suspicious of the former Sunni insurgents.

He expressed what can only charitably be termed as

very significant reservations.

The main argument we used was,

"Look, we've expended a lot of effort

"to take these guys out of the fight.

"You don't want to push them back into it."

In case they were double-crossed,

the Americans had recorded the recruits' DNA,

fingerprints and retina scans.

It paid off.

The young men who were sort of the foot soldiers

who would plant an IED for 50...

..they started coming over to our side.

And they knew who was behind what was going on.

So it increased our intelligence,

increased the effectiveness of our targeting

and brought security to the area.

GUNFIRE

Armed with this intelligence,

US forces went after Al-Qaeda's hardcore.

In September 2007, sectarian killing finally began to slow.

Maliki agreed to incorporate 20% of the Sunni volunteers

into Iraq's security forces.

But he also took a tighter hold of those forces.

He took charge of appointing senior officers.

And the country's elite Special Forces

would now report directly to him.

Maliki was at last providing strong leadership.

But the Shia Prime Minister

had yet to confront the power of the Shia militias.

In early 2008, Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi army

delivered a challenge that Maliki could not ignore.

They took control in Iraq's southern capital, Basra,

after the British forces there finally left.

SHOUTING

Most of Iraq's oil exports flow through Basra,

the country's only port.

Whoever controlled the city

controlled over 70% of Iraq's revenue.

Prime Minister Maliki was prepared to risk everything for Basra.

On 22nd March, the Prime Minister summoned General Petraeus.

The General was in for a surprise.

He said he was going to move to Basra himself

with his principle ministers and his own security brigade,

and he was ordering four Iraqi brigades down there immediately

to deal with situation in...in Basra.

I said, "Prime Minister, you know, whenever I've briefed you before,

"We always had what we call the setting, the conditions phase of the operation.

"We move the attack helicopters, the predators,

"the close air support aircraft,

"the medical evacuation, logistics, you name it,

"it all has to be moved down to support your forces."

Dave was there, er... called me immediately and said, you know,

"Oh, my God!"

Maliki had called the Mahdi army criminals

and said they would be arrested.

Al-Sadr told him to get out of town.

Muqtada's Mahdi army quickly repelled Maliki's forces.

They showered rockets and mortars on Maliki himself,

holed up in the Presidential palace.

General Petraeus and I were communicating with the Prime Minister by cell phone

huddled in my office and suggesting at one point

that, um...perhaps the wisest thing to do

would be to declare a victory, um...

and, um...reposition, reconsolidate his forces

before he lost them all.

I said, "Prime Minister, you've got into a desperate situation.

"You could lose. The militia, these gangs, these criminals

"could actually defeat your forces."

In Washington, President Bush was warned

that Maliki's forces were losing.

I had in my hand a series of maps

which showed that the Iraqi army units in Basra

at the time were surrounded,

unable to resupply and surrounded by militias.

There was some questioning about whether there should be whole-hearted support

for someone who had taken such a rash decision.

But George Bush had no such doubts.

The President came charging from behind his desk and said,

"Don't tell me this is a bad thing."

And the President said, "This is the Iraqis stepping up.

"We need to ensure that Maliki succeeds."

So, turning to the military,

"Your job, General, is not to get him to come back,

"your job is to get a team over there that helps him succeed."

The Iraqis had no air power.

Petraeus ordered attack helicopters and armed drones down to Basra.

Maliki took control of the city.

Now he seized the opportunity

to present Muqtada al-Sadr with an ultimatum.

Give up his militia or his political movement.

Muqtada called a permanent ceasefire.

It looked like the end of the Mahdi army

and a stunning victory for the Prime Minister.

Now the Americans had helped Maliki vanquish

both his Shia and Sunni foes,

he reckoned he could go it alone.

He told President Bush he wanted a firm date

for the withdrawal of US troops.

The President threw his hands in the air and said,

"A year ago, we were complaining that Maliki is too weak,

"now we're complaining that he's too strong."

The President gave Maliki what he wanted.

The agreement lays out a framework

for the withdrawal of American forces in Iraq.

A withdrawal that is possible because of the success of the surge.

INDISTINCT SHOUTS

OK, everybody calm down for a minute.

Bush left as he had come.

Not quite understanding the country he had liberated.

If you want the facts, it's a size 10 shoe that he threw!

Despite the embarrassment,

Maliki had fixed a date for the Americans to go home.

But had his triumph come at too high a cost for his countrymen?

Maliki's political opponents

argued that he had begun to destroy Iraq's democracy.

As the next election approached, they claimed that he was using

the police and intelligence services against them.

Led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi,

they formed a coalition

of 10 secular and Sunni parties called Iraqiya.

They ran as the non-religious, non-sectarian opponents to Maliki.

It was clear to me that the country is going out of the way

and the political process is being compromised completely.

In February 2010, just weeks before the election,

66 of Iraqiya's candidates were disqualified.

The allegation against them

was that they had ties to the former regime of Saddam Hussein.

We don't know how to appeal.

We sent the letter to the court,

but we don't have a way to defend ourself.

Saleh Mutlaq, one of the first Sunni leaders

to take the risk of working with Shia governments,

was himself among the accused.

Next, Mutlaq was accused of supporting terrorism.

Despite the intimidation of their candidates,

Iraqiya won two seats more than Maliki.

MUSIC BLARES

Maliki refused to accept the result.

He demanded a recount, but failed to realise

how independent the Independent Electoral Commission actually was.

The two sides signed an agreement to share power.

Maliki would continue as Prime Minister.

Iraqiya would get three of the government's top posts,

including the Deputy Prime Ministership for Saleh Mutlaq.

Some checks on Maliki's exercise of power were also agreed.

At least that was the theory.

I said to Maliki that, er...

"You embark on the power sharing

"and implement the agreement,

"and then we will be one party, one side, one team."

Unfortunately, he never implemented ultimately the power sharing.

SHOUTING

Within three months, thousands of protestors took to the streets.

Angry crowds tried to storm government buildings.

CHANTING

GUNFIRE

Maliki's forces killed 23 protestors.

Over the following months, more than 600 Sunni were arrested,

as was the head of the Electoral Commission.

All under the authority of the man Maliki had appointed

as acting Interior Minister - himself.

The Prime Minister insisted he was simply responding

to the terrorism Iraq continued to face.

He blamed some Sunni opposition leaders.

MILITARY BAND PLAYS TAPS

The new US administration backed the Prime Minister.

In December 2011, President Obama invited Maliki to Washington

to mark the end of the Americans' mission in Iraq.

Today I'm proud to welcome Prime Minister Maliki,

the elected leader of a sovereign,

self-reliant and democratic Iraq.

The Prime Minister leads Iraq's most inclusive government yet.

The Deputy Prime Minister, back in Baghdad,

could stand it no longer.

It is a one-party show and one-man show. Yes.

Al-Maliki is the most dictator

we have ever seen in our history.

Two days later, Deputy Prime Minister Mutlaq

had some unexpected visitors.

The Iraqiya people called me and they said,

"There is a wave of arrests and tanks are surrounding us."

An elite army unit, commanded by Maliki's son,

was pointing its guns at three of Iraqiya's top leaders.

Maliki said it was part of a judicial investigation

of one of them,

the Sunni Vice President, Tariq Hashimi.

The new director of the CIA flew to Baghdad.

I went in to see Prime Minister Maliki.

He would rightly point out that these were legal arrest warrants

that were issued to the police and executed.

Er...but frankly, there were no arrest warrants

for the Shia militia bodyguards,

of the Shia politicians who had plenty of blood on their hands,

so it seemed as if this was an exclusively Sunni, er...affliction

visited on them by a Shia-predominant government.

The leadership of Iraqiya met at the house of the Vice President,

still surrounded by armoured vehicles.

The meeting was very tense.

The tanks were obvious outside.

And you could see that, er...the body language

that, er...democracy is finished in the country.

You could see it, you could read it in the eyes.

The Vice President Tariq Hashimi left the country, fearing arrest.

In his absence, he was found guilty of orchestrating murder

and sentenced to death five times.

Maliki's government continued to target Iraqiya.

The bodyguards of key members were arrested one after another.

They were interrogated

and confessed to crimes implicating their bosses in terrorism.

One of the bodyguards died in custody.

Sunni demonstrations continued to grow.

SHOUTING

Maliki again sent in the troops.

SHOUTING AND GUNFIRE

Sunni extremists started to attack police and army units.

April 2013 should have been a time of celebration.

It was ten years since Saddam had been defeated.

Instead, that month, Iraqis buried more than 700 victims

of sectarian violence. The worst in five years.

And Maliki banned journalists from Al Jazeera

and nine other television channels.

In 2003, the Americans and British achieved their main objective.

Getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

More than 170,000 have since been killed.

The new Iraq is hardly what the liberators had in mind.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd