Emotional former Tank Commander tells Nick Ferrari ‘I lost everything’ in Iraq ‘for what?’
20 March 2023, 11:46 | Updated: 20 March 2023, 14:19
Former Tank Commander Graham reflects on his time in Iraq with Nick Ferrari LBC
On the 20-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq former serviceman Graham believes the conflict "created the very refugees you were talking about earlier".
Reflecting on his time serving as a Tank Commander in the Iraq Conflict, caller Graham tells Nick Ferrari the anniversary provokes "a lot of bad memories".
Graham noted how the anniversary of the invasion evokes “difficult” thoughts emotively telling Nick: “I lost friends and everything out there, for what?”.
Speaking of his time on the ‘highway of death’, a six-lane motorway where American forces carried out a 10-hour bombardment which killed hundreds, saying: “When we were stood on the highway of death, the blood went up to the first lace hole on my boot”.
Their conversation falls as Iraq marks the 20th anniversary of the American-led invasion that saw the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship.
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President George W. Bush invaded Iraq as part of his “war on terror” after the Al Qaeda attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Prime Minister of the UK at the time, Tony Blair, supported the American assault, launching the country into conflict on 20 March 2003.
Discussing the damage the conflict caused the Iraqi society, Graham said: “We destabilised a country, we destabilised an area, we created the very refugees you were talking about earlier”.
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The conflict which spanned from 2003-2011, killed 134,000 civilians and displaced almost three million individuals.
Believing the country is a “worse off place now”, Graham believed the UK “shouldn’t have gotten involved” but the government remained “hellbent on removing Saddam”.
