IRAQ, DESTRUCTION OF A NATION

A docuseries in 4 parts

 

Directed by Jean-Pierre CANET

In coproduction with Slug News

With the participation of France Télévisions, CNC, Procirep Angoa, ZDF, Radio Canada, NRK, RSI.

International Distributor ZED

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In the space of forty years, the Iraqi nation, despite its prosperity in the early 1980s, has been destroyed by dictatorship, conflict, sanctions, civil war and the birth of Daesh. The fate of the Iraqi people has turned tragic as a result of geopolitical interests and the folly of some. This documentary series tells the story of this fresco through the exceptional testimonies of most of the key American, French and Iraqi players of the period. 

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Episode 1 - The Ally

In the early days of 1980, Saddam Hussein, then perceived as a modernist by Western nations, embarked on an all-out war against his Iranian neighbour. Europe and the United States saw the Rais as a shield against the Islamic obscurantism of the Mullahs. To prevent their victory, everything was allowed to Iraq, including the use of chemical weapons supplied by several Western companies. US President Ronald Reagan even initiated military cooperation with Baghdad, which would prove decisive. The war ended in a Pyrrhic victory after eight years of conflict... Saddam, already consumed by his own ego, thought he was protected by Washington, London and Paris. He was mistaken. 

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Episode 2 - The Adversary 

Convinced that the major powers would let him get away with it, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990. The Americans, British and French agreed to punish Iraq, without really looking for a diplomatic solution. The Gulf War (January-February 1991) was as swift as it was devastating: under a deluge of fire, the Iraqis saw their infrastructure razed to the ground. 100,000 soldiers and at least 60,000 civilians died. This was followed by a twelve-year embargo, which made the Iraqi people pay for the megalomania of their president. Hundreds of thousands of children died of malnutrition, Iraqi society regressed and a creeping Islamisation of young people began. Far from toppling him, the embargo strengthened Saddam Hussein's regime.

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Episode 3 - The Condemned

For a section of the American political class, bringing down the Iraqi dictator is an obsession. The 11 September attacks offer them a unique opportunity to do so. To justify the war to come, Washington lied and accused Saddam Hussein of possessing weapons of mass destruction and of having supported the Al Qaeda terrorists responsible for 9/11. After a blitzkrieg, the White House improvised its administration of the country. Chaos set in. The American soldiers went from being liberators to invaders in the eyes of the Iraqis. Iraqi society gave way to inter-confessional violence: Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites clashed in an unprecedented war. 

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Episode 4 - The Ghost

In 2007, in the midst of civil war, the ghost of Saddam Hussein, executed a year earlier for crimes against humanity, hangs over Iraq. Saddam Hussein was a dictator, but he had managed to hold the Iraqi people, made up of Sunnis, Shiites and ethnic and religious minorities, together. The Americans, for their part, are overwhelmed by the violence that is tearing the country apart, where Islamist terrorism is flourishing. With millions of dollars, the USA financed Sunni tribes to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq and support the new regime. But Barack Obama decided to withdraw US troops from Iraq in 2011, leaving the field open for neighbouring Iran to impose its influence. A second civil war broke out between the Shiites supported by Iran and the Sunnis, many of whom once again joined the ranks of Al Qaeda in Iraq, renamed ‘Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant’: Daesh. Not much of the Iraqi state remained.