Beyond Baghdad (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

“I think we Americans want very much to earn the respect, to earn the partnership, and friendship” - 5 minutes after bulldozing someone’s house.

I'm so glad the Frontline library is coming to YouTube. It makes so much sense. I hope PBS can generate more interest and revenue so they can keep making these stories.

Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan ... one blunder after another.

As a Soldier who served with the 3rd Infantry Division in the invasion and early liberation of Iraq in 2003, this was an interesting film to watch. The events of this film took place just a couple of months after I left. A lot changed between when we were turning our areas of operation over to units like the 4th Infantry Division and the 82nd Airborne in the late summer of 2003 and when I went back for my second tour in 2005. This film was very eye-opening, And it should have been shown to military leadership at every level as a primer on what the mission was and what to do and what not to do just between COL Mayville from the 173rd Airborne trying desperately to explain in Kirkuk why the Kurdish leadership has to do the right thing and embrace everyone for the sake of stability and the asshole, LTC Drinkwine, in Falluja who obviously had no grasp on what a complete fucking mess of things he was making. Drinkwine incidentally never rises beyond the rank of Colonel and is tied to other terrible failures with his toxic leadership climate over the next decade while Mayville rises to LT General and goes on to do many good things.

Trying to turn a foreign country into america is difficult.

I was listening to Colonel Mayville talk about his being worried about all the different ethnic groups not recognizing each other’s rights to be involved in the same cities and such and it’s sad that we speak in a condescending way that omits the fact that we started all this mess. We destabilized Iraq and Afghanistan as bad or worse than they ever had been before. I was in the Army during the first Gulf War, I’m a proud American and I support our military every second of every minute of every day but President W and Cheney and Rumsfeld put us on a collision course to ruin generations of afghan and Iraqi children’s lives ….. and all the American families that have paid a needless price for these two wars that were absolutely pointless, we gained nothing when it’s all said and done.

Can't beat Frontline, especially the Martin Smith pieces.

The film did not tell us about the uranium bombs that America blew up Iraq for more than 15 years before the invasion, in which hundreds of thousands of children died! The film did not mention to us about more than a million Iraqi civilians who died as a result of the invasion and as a result of the terrorism of the Bush Jr. administration

This film should be mandatory for every government official to watch before they ever vote for War. Brilliant story and an heroic film making.

True soldier. Being interviewed by a civilian "Roger sir."

Couldn't help but notice Martin Smith's words near the end after Saddam's capture, he says "This is why we came here". I was told it was WMDs?

Any new frontline coming?

Qoute of the day "When they kick down the doors, do they expect to be loved?"

Great job at winning hearts and minds. We found these armaments in your house. Oh, that is our son’s, he is over here plowing this field. OK, we are going to destroy your house now. Someone should have briefed those soldiers that destroying houses of people older than dirt. I don’t think that is how you win hearts and minds.

How old is this?

ty for these replays !

Thank you, Frontline. Your documentaries are the best.

Well Americans are gone now!

Not only I .but every man and a woman across the Arab world laughs hysterically when the Americans talk about wanting to establish democracy in Iraq. The USA is definitely not interested in democracy and justice in Iraq. That is against its interests.

Raytheon likes this.