Independent Thinking
Independent Thinking is the new podcast from Chatham House.
Each week our director, Bronwen Maddox, will host conversations with leading policymakers, journalists and our own Chatham House experts to provide insight and depth on the big international questions of the week.
Independent Thinking gives you, the listener, the opportunity to engage with the high-level conversations that the institute hosts, and, for Chatham House members, to ask questions directly to the participants in each episode.
Mar 24, 2023
This week on the podcast we mark twenty years since the start of the invasion of Iraq led by the US. Launched amid fears that Saddam Hussein was acquiring weapons of mass destruction, the war changed the Middle East and inflicted huge damage on Iraq and many civilian casualties, with effects that persist today. We discuss the invasion with those who were in power here in London when the decision was made to commit UK forces to the invasion, and with those in Iraq who lived with the consequences.
Joining Bronwen Maddox on the podcast is Clare Short, the former Secretary of State for International Development, who served in Tony Blair’s cabinet and resigned after the invasion began, becoming one of the best-known critics of Prime Minister Blair’s approach to the war. Joining her is Dr Patricia Lewis, the Director of our International Security programm; Dr Lina Khatib, the Director of our Middle East, and North Africa Programme; Dr Renad Mansour is a Senior Research Fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme and the Project Director of our Iraq Initiative and Hayder Al-Shakeri, a Research Associate with the MENAP programme.
Read our expertise:
From Iraq to Ukraine: What did governments learn?
Iraq 20 years on: Insider reflections on the war and its aftermath
What two decades of Iraqi struggles can teach us about modern conflict
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Presented by Bronwen Maddox. Produced by John Pollock. Sound by Abdul Boudiaf and Matthew Docherty.