Gordon Carrera

So you start to see all these kind of impacts very quickly as the whole situation unravels after the military victory.

Yeah.

No, I mean, it is a whole other story, which is the failure to plan for the aftermath.

But of course, the crucial thing is those weapons of mass destruction were never found.

I mean, we were promising you were promising at the start of this episode that we were going to reveal where they were.

I'm afraid

This is the point where we tell the audience they've been had.

A bit like intelligence analysts, you know, briefing their customers that we're sure you'll find the stuff.

I'm afraid we've let them down badly because we've not found them yet.

And no one has, however many years, 23 years on.

So I guess as we come to the end, focusing on that WMD question, I mean, who's to blame?

There have been so many inquiries.

inquiries and things like that.

Well, it is because where do we assign blame?

I mean, should we?

I think it's interesting because I felt in the aftermath, there was this question and the accusation that the politicians had lied about WMD and that became very much the narrative in the UK, which is that Tony Blair and others had lied about the WMD.

I actually think it's much more complicated than that because Tony Blair says he went to his intelligence chiefs, even on the eve of war, went to the Joint Intelligence Committee and said to them, are you sure Saddam has got this stuff?

And they said, yes, he's relying on what they are told.

The spies were the ones who got it wrong rather than the politicians lying about it.

Now, that is not, before people have a go at me, to say that that excuses the politicians