All language subtitles for Once.Upon.a.Time.in.Iraq.S01E02.720p.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV_track3_[eng]

CHILDREN CHEER

May 2003.

In the weeks following
the invasion of Iraq,

American troops were welcomed
onto the streets of Baghdad.

No Saddam. No Saddam.

That sense of joy was
a definite truth.

Now, the question is -
how long did it last?

And that was not long.

Iraq was in absolute chaos.

What's been going on here?

A fucking war's going on.

GUNSHOTS

GEORGE BUSH: The regime of
Saddam Hussein is no more.

America's more secure.

The world is more peaceful.

And the long-suffering people
of Iraq are now free.

The politicians have had their say.

The evidence about Saddam having
actual biological

and chemical weapons
has turned out to be wrong.

In this series, the story
of the Iraq War

is told by the civilians,
journalists and soldiers

who lived through the 2003 invasion

and the years of chaos
that continue to this day.

Through their eyes,

we'll see how events in Iraq
have changed the world.

Ultimately, war -

it's a kind of laboratory
of the human condition in extremis.

YELLING

You see the best of people
and you see the worst.

You see moments of
incredible heroism,

and also hatred and
irresponsibility.

You know, I think back to
Iraq 2003 kind of as the best year

and worst year of my life.

When I got back,
I mean, my kids didn't know me

and I didn't know them.
At all.

It was weird being back here.

Yeah, and I didn't do good with
the reintegration.

I mean, you drive on a highway,

all I could think about for a while
was waiting for the IED blast.

And I'm driving,
this guy comes around

and totally gives me the finger,
and I swear to God,

if I'd had my 9mm, I would have
blown his brains out right there.

It would've taken me two seconds.

I was out of control, man.

And I'll never fire a weapon again.

Ever.

Protect and strengthen
this band of brothers

as we endeavour to do your will.

A month after the invasion, there
were 150,000 US troops across Iraq.

It is for you that we battle.

Lt Col Nate Sassaman led a battalion
of almost 1,000 soldiers.

Send along your congratulations to
Sgt Howard, as well.

OK, men, that's all I got.
You guys are doing a great job.

Yeah, I'm good, I'm there.

I'm right there.

I'm back in Iraq right now.

I rarely go back there.

And frankly, I don't talk about it
at all. Ever.

Unless I'm with a veteran.

Nate Sassaman, son of a Methodist
minister, star quarterback,

total star in the Army,
destined to be a general.

Sassaman was the most impressive
officer I met in Iraq.

Dexter Filkins covered the Iraq War
for the New York Times.

He wrote about Sassaman's
year-long tour.

What Sassaman, I think, experienced
was perfect microcosm

for what happened in the war
at large.

Hi, I'm Lt Col Nate Sassaman,

former West Point quarterback
for 1984,

and the battalion commander for
1st Battalion 8th Infantry Regiment

serving here in Balad, Iraq.

I'd like to introduce you
to my special friend...

I seem to be a likeable fella.

I kind of wanted to meet everybody.

How about a little raki coffee here
to go with my prayers?

I knew virtually almost nothing
on Iraq and the Muslim culture,

as a commander who then
got to control

one of the main provinces in
the country of Iraq.

Yeah.

In the early days, I actually think
we were trying to go in there

and make it right for the folks.

Get some stability.

We would be doing the noble thing
of helping reconstruct this country.

This place is Adhamiyah District.

First of all, it's a very old
district here in Baghdad.

Second of all,
it's very, very public...

After the invasion,
things were changing so fast.

Like, you turn from a kid into...

..someone that has to be rigid,
cold, you know,

and it's like, just to survive.

Waleed Nesyif lived in Baghdad
and was 18 when the war started.

As an English speaker,

he managed to secure a job as a
translator for foreign journalists.

We're going to go now for
a very, very public place,

so we have to be careful, OK?

One of the things that I used to do
is basically drive around the city.

Take a journalist with me
and we'd just drive around.

It's a ghost town...

..that is destroyed -
either by bombs or looting.

And then Iraqis were under
this impression, it's like,

"OK, this is the greatest
power in the world.

"They're going to come and rebuild
everything in, like, months."

Month one passed, there's still no
electricity, there's still no water.

Baghdad became like a city
of garbage.

You know, like, even during
Saddam's time, man,

like, I remember Baghdad was clean.

There was sanitation.
And now, it's just like...

And you're meant to continue
functioning as a sane human being.

Six weeks after the invasion,

George W Bush landed on an aircraft
carrier off the coast of San Diego.

Major combat operations in Iraq
have ended.

In the Battle of Iraq,
the United States

and our allies have prevailed.

CHEERING

"Mission accomplished."

Yeah?

Seriously?

And now, our coalition is
engaged in securing

and reconstructing that country.

That was the time, again,
when people started questioning.

You know, it was like, "OK, well,
since mission is accomplished

"and everything is good right now,
when is security going to be there?"

Because there is no security.

GUNSHOTS

You know, all this by
American support.

It happen by the American support.

People started taking matters
within their own hands, right?

So, for instance,

security starting being imposed
by the people of the neighbourhood.

EXPLOSION

Everybody had a gun.

Strange car comes in, it's like,
"Who the fuck are you?

"What do you want?
Who are you coming to visit?"

Americans will pass by,
they didn't really give a shit.

I remember this image, literally,
of a guy with a donkey

pulling a cart with Katyusha
rocket launcher on it.

Just driving on the street,
you know,

and the Americans passing by,
"Hello."

What is he going to do with it?

Use it or sell it, right?

Simple things are what
we were asking for.

Very simple.

Dignity, electricity,
and some semblance of security.

These things, had they happened,

Iraqis would not have reacted in the
way they did to the American Army.

MUSIC: The Star-Spangled Banner

OK, please be seated. We'll have
a few words from Col Sassaman.

I pray for a lot of things
every day.

But mostly, I pray for wisdom.

I pray for wisdom...

There's this euphoria feeling that,
wow, you're in a foreign land...

..we got a bunch of forces here,
we've got a mission.

You know, what is my... What is...

You know, how am I going
to make...

..the best progress

in this 750 sq km area that I've
been given as my area of operation?

Sassaman's battalion was stationed
just over 50 miles

north of Baghdad,
in the city of Balad.

It's right there in the heart
of the Sunni Triangle.

We're smack dab in the middle, and
this is our home now for the next...

..for the next year.

On a map, if you start with Baghdad

and go out to basically
the Jordanian border,

and then up to Mosul, and then down
the Tigris,

it looks like a triangle.

That's where... That's where
the majority of the Sunnis are.

Saddam Hussein was born in
the Sunni Triangle.

Sassaman and his men
found themselves

amongst his most ardent supporters.

How you doing?

That, I think, is like
the first time

I accepted an invitation
from a sheikh.

Trying to, like, set up
some kind of dialogue.

Right here?

It was believed that if the Army
won the hearts and minds

of the Iraqi people,
that security, democracy,

and the reconstruction efforts
would all fall into place.

The way I was winning hearts
and minds

was engaging with you in dialogue.

I don't know, I was always trying
to find some common ground

and to talk to the sheikhs
or the leaders.

Frank, can you get it... Can you
get it any closer to me, Frank?

That's what I want to know.

All the soldiers that
I was talking to, they said,

"You've got to spend some time
with Col Sassaman."

Like, "He's the guy."

And you could tell he had
kind of a wider view of the war.

It's my job, along with the sheikhs,
to maintain the peace

so that we can rebuild Iraq
with dollars.

Along with everything else, we want
to be able to get electricity

to everybody all the time.

The Iraqis, like, loved him.

They were, like, gathering
around him.

He was incredibly charismatic.

If there's any country in the world
that needs a little peace,

it's right here in Iraq.

They quickly realised I enjoy
a Coca-Cola.

And I would hold it up
and I would go,

"Man, what a great world
we live in."

That, like, a Judeo-Christian
white man

can come over into your country
and we can drink Coke together.

Now, I thought that was funny,
I don't think they did as much.

You can see in the video, there's
some sceptical dudes in that group.

There was kind of like this,
"What just happened?"

It's kind of like the Martians
have just landed.

You know, we were trying to do
some reconstruction

for the local clinics.

I can remember the first one
I went to in that area,

and I'm telling you,
the woman running it

had to have been 50 or 60.
She was hard as woodpecker lips.

She goes, "I don't want any of your
stuff. I don't want you here.

"I want you to go back to
the United States.

"I never want to see you again."

That's my first personal effort
to reconstruct the area.

They were not interested
in the Americans being there

and whatever we were bringing
for reconstruction.

And they were definitely not
interested in hearts and minds.

In May, George W Bush's
presidential envoy arrived.

Paul Bremer was appointed
to oversee reconstruction

and implement democracy in Iraq.

He was to become the most powerful
man in the country.

We're not here to be
a colonial power.

We're here to help turn over,
as quickly as we can

efficiently do it, to the Iraqi
people their country.

Thank you very much.

Within days of his arrival,

Bremer issued two orders that would
irreversibly change Iraq's future.

Saddam Hussein was a truly evil man.

And those who were on high before -
in particular the Ba'athists,

who used their power to repress
the Iraqi people -

will be removed from office.

Shortly, I will issue an order
on measures to extirpate

Ba'athists and Ba'athism
from Iraq forever.

They did this whole sham of
the de-Ba'athification.

You've got to go and renounce
the Ba'ath Party

so you can basically re-engage.

But I was a Ba'athist.

And I was. Everyone in Iraq
was Ba'athist.

You cannot not be a Ba'athist.

It's like... It's basically
saying no to Saddam.

And who's going to say no to Saddam?

Like, everybody was in
the Ba'ath Party, you know?

If you were a school principal,
you joined the Ba'ath Party.

If you were a teacher,
you joined the Ba'ath Party.

Iraq was a functioning,
sophisticated,

middle-class society, and it
essentially gutted the Iraqi state.

It just put all those people
on the street.

I haven't any money.
Do you have a family?

Do you have children?

Yes, I have, a big family.
11. 11.

11 persons.

The de-Ba'athification
was the crippling blow

to the reconstruction.

Not only does the whole country
come to a standstill

because the teachers can't teach,
the hospitals are shutting down,

I mean, we're not letting
anybody do their job,

because they have a Ba'athist card.

Who's going to reconstruct
the country? Me?

Me and my soldiers, are we going to?

We're going to be the guys to...

..to restore power
and teach the kids?

And set up the police stations?

We're not staying there
for the rest of our lives,

so it has to be the guys
who have the Ba'athist cards.

Soon afterwards,
Bremer issued order number two -

to dissolve the entire
Iraqi military

that was seen by many
as loyal to Saddam.

SOLDIERS CHANT

This meant there were another
400,000 men out of work.

Every family in Iraq had an
army personnel in it, you know,

this was our salaries,
this was their job.

This is the only thing that they
knew, like, my father being one.

Here's my dad.

Assalaamu alaikum.

THEY CONVERSE IN ARABIC

Erm...

Colonel.

He was a colonel in the army.

CONVERSES IN ARABIC

So you have people like my father,
who spent all of his life

serving in the army.

He knew nothing but that.

Now, all of a sudden, you have
hundreds of thousands

of individuals with actual skills,

abundance of weapons, abundance.

What I just remember is
the streets had been lined

with hundreds if not thousands
of young men.

And they couldn't
support their families.

I mean...

Oh, man.

You need to help us.
I don't need to help you with shit.

Get away from me. Let's go.

THEY CONVERSE IN ARABIC

A lot of young, bearded, man-robed
folks that were not happy.

VEHICLE HORNS BLARE

They're not, like,
older generation people.

These are the most physically
able men in Iraq.

And they're from
a long lineage of warriors

who have fought for centuries
to protect their homeland there.

Dude, their country's not
200 years old.

We set up the perfect conditions.

It's the perfect storm
for an insurgency.

HE SIGHS

So, in the beginning,
the insurgency was overwhelmingly,

almost exclusively driven
by the Sunni Arabs.

The Sunni Triangle, that was
the epicentre of the insurgency.

We knew we were going
to be attacked.

Wasn't a matter of if, it was when.

We started seeing a lot of different
insurgency cells attacking us.

They started in July,
and once the fight started,

I think we started averaging
about seven or eight a day.

Guidons, guidons, guidons.

This is Eagle Six,

and welcome to the Friday night
Fighting Eagle FM update.

EXPLOSIONS

So you might have
small arms, mortars,

IEDs or a combination thereof.

Three to four mortar rounds
were reported

as to landing within the vicinity.

We have 18 soldiers
who are wounded.

I had some folks that were wounded
early on, you know, badly.

Yeah, you know you're in it. I was
always like, never underestimate...

I've always been

a never underestimate your enemy
type of guy.

I don't care if they're
running around in, like,

black pyjamas or rags,

and they're, you know,
they're not outfitted.

It's their land, it's their
territory, it's their turf.

HELICOPTER BLADES WHIR

During the summer,
the fledgling insurgency

spread from the Sunni Triangle
to cities across the country.

Waleed witnessed the aftermath of
one of the first insurgent attacks

on American forces in Baghdad.

In fact, we're going
for Haifa Street in order to do

a follow up for a story

of an explosion happened
for a Humvee for the...

I remember going
and doing this story.

There is an attack
near an American Humvee

but then kids were there
and they all got basically

shredded by shrapnel, some of them
died, some of them survived.

And something happened that
just fucked me up that day

for a long, long time.

WALEED SPEAKS ARABIC

Waleed visited the families
three weeks after the attack.

The whole casualties of this was
17 child, 5 of them get killed.

And 12 of them were injured.

A girl lost her eye.

Completely lost her eye.

This is the child.

She lost her eye.

Hello.

WOMAN WEEPS

Alaa...

OK.

WOMAN SHRIEKS

That's it.

Her daughter was seriously
injured in this attack.

They were in the street.

WOMAN WAILS

WOMAN WEEPS

FOOTAGE PLAYS

Ai...

This generation have seen absolutely
nothing but this now.

If I was lucky enough to live
throughout the '80s and the '90s,

where we had some
semblance of security,

safety, we had fun with our friends
and all of that,

these kids have seen
absolutely nothing.

I mean, that girl represents
the beginning of the end...

..for me.

In a sense, that marked to me,
like, the destruction of the country

from... in a way
that made it irreparable.

The country was disintegrating
and getting darker by the day.

And then we would go in and listen
to Bremer tell us how good it was.

We have met all of our goals
in restoring essential services.

All the schools
and hospitals are open.

Electricity is back
at pre-war levels.

We're moving ahead with our plan.

Increasingly over time,

it bore absolutely
no relationship to reality.

Like, at all.
It was like Alice in Wonderland.

The overall thrust is in the right
direction and good days outnumber

the bad days, and that's the thing
we need to keep in perspective.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Every day,
Iraq is making progress.

Every day,
Iraq draws closer to the free

and functioning society
its people were long denied,

and we will complete
the great work we have begun.

The moment when I realised that
we were in a situation that we

probably couldn't get out of,
was the morning of...

..it was in October,

it was the first day of Ramadan
in 2003.

There was a double suicide
car bomb attack

on the International Committee
of the Red Cross.

CHAOTIC DIN

SIRENS WAIL

I mean, we got there minutes after
the bombs went off, enormous bombs.

It was a horrible situation and
I remember standing in the rubble

as people were kind of sobbing
and wailing over the bodies

and the body parts
that they were finding.

But hearing five other
car bombs go off

within the space of
about three minutes.

Get back!

And I just thought, you know,
"Jesus," you know.

"This is hell,
this is hell on Earth."

MAN SHOUTS IN ARABIC

ALARM WAILS

This place is the most dangerous
place in Iraq, you know.

I'm asking all the Americans here,
or in America or Mr Bush,

because sooner or later
we will hate Mr Bush, you know.

Because he is not trying
to help civilian people.

SOLDIER: Stay out here.

Why? Why?

We were very safe
when Saddam was here.

What happen now?

The attacks spiked in
the October, November time period.

Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.

Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar.

DEAFENING EXPLOSION

The RPGs and the IEDs, those are all
pretty good weapons of terror.

LOUD EXPLOSION

Those things are ruthless.

I mean, it's terrifying,
it's paralysing.

It's a paralysing fear.

Allahu Akbar.

LOUD EXPLOSION

After a while, I would start
patrolling in the Bradley

with my fingers inside the cupola -

I just didn't want to lose
my fingers.

Isn't that funny?

I was always afraid my fingers
were going to get blown away.

Despite his men
being attacked daily,

Sassaman continued
to meet local leaders.

He even took the initiative
to set up elections

for the Balad Town Council.

Lots of photos,
everybody's having fun.

It's fun, it's exciting.

The whole idea
was to like, you know,

get this institution of, you know,
political reform.

I mean, this was like,
people were walking for miles

to, like, cast their ballot.

We may have been the first area

that ran the first
democratic elections in Iraq.

They were, like, hungry
to govern themselves

and not to be stomped on
all of the time, and you could tell.

It was amazing, it was amazing.

It was moving.
I was moved by it.

It was, like, so exciting and you
could feel that they had never...

..they just never had
that opportunity to vote,

where they could have a voice.

And this is, this is,
this is the core of being a human.

Having a voice in where you live.

Does that sound naive? No.

OK.

Witnessing that scene,
I thought, well, God,

if we can do this everywhere,
you know, maybe it'll work.

There's the colonel
with Hannah and Hashique.

They're ready for another picture.

So it was basically the effort
to build an Iraqi state,

and at the same time,
this growing insurgency

which threatens the whole thing.

And it was like, you could see it,

it was both of those things were
co-existing at the same time

and they were in
a race with each other.

You know, which one of these
was going to win?

The problem is, we'd have the sheikh
meeting and then that night,

they're picking up their weapons
and fighting us.

It's like, come on, man.

HE CHUCKLES

LOUD EXPLOSION

NEWS COMMENTARY:
Another attack in broad daylight.

In one of the most volatile
parts of the country.

Burning wreckage on the horizon
and more American dead.

This, the latest of a string
of attacks in and around Fallujah,

a killing ground for US troops.

You know, there were units
in other places that were just

getting their teeth handed to them
through softer tactics,

and some of those units
got hurt bad.

That was not how
I wanted to run the battalion.

If anyone shot
at one of our soldiers,

I was going to do absolutely
everything in my power to

make sure that was going to be their
last day on the face of the Earth.

And I went to extraordinary lengths
to make sure that happened.

You've got to meet aggression
with controlled violence.

A lot of people will say violence
leads to more violence.

I'll tell you that controlled
violence leads to no more violence.

Yesterday,
they fired from north west.

SOLDIER CHEERS

There was a large proportion
of attacks that were emanating

out of this area.

And guess what?

The attacks went down.

Sassaman's battalion had yet
to suffer a fatal casualty.

His aggressive tactics to quell
the insurgency

were endorsed by the US Army's
most high-ranking officers.

We had three- and four-star generals
coming through on a regular basis.

There's only ten four-stars
in the entire army, you know,

and we had several come through,

to say, "Look at the model
of progress these guys

"have worked through."

First thing is that I'm absolutely
proud of you all,

all of you, and what you've done.

What I don't want you to do is
to lose your edge,

and to remember that, you know, that
there are still bad guys out there,

and that you've got to remain
balanced and aggressive,

and, er, to keep your head up.

But you're...
you've just done magnificently.

My standard was, everyone was
going to come back alive.

But, you know, the plan is great,
and it's like Mike Tyson -

the plan is great till somebody
hits you in the face,

and then, you know,
the plan kind of changes.

VOICE ON RADIO: 5406.

On 17th November, Sassaman's men
were patrolling

a few miles outside of Balad
in Abu Hishma.

Abu Hishma's hardcore Sunni, dudes
want to fight all the time.

But it's a little, sleepy village.

Yeah, there are some bad things
that go down there.

And that's when,
and that's when, um...

..Staff Sergeant Dale Panchot
is killed,

in what's pretty much the most
sophisticated ambush I think we saw,

which was launched with a volley
of RPGs, eight or nine.

Staff Sergeant Dale Panchot,
I mourn him as a brother.

I will always have a special place
in my heart for Dale Panchot.

God bless him and his family.

There is no greater honour than
to lead men and women in combat.

But there is no sense of greater
failure than to come home...

..with men on your command
that died.

Please rise for roll call.

Private Short.
Here, First Sergeant.

Specialist Hamilton.

Here, First Sergeant.

Sergeant Panchot.

Staff Sergeant Dale Panchot.

Staff Sergeant Dale A Panchot.

MUSIC: Last Post

I think 17 November would be
an accurate date, 2003,

to say when, er,
some of my optimism went away.

This is where
Dale Panchot was killed,

just on the outskirts
of Abu Hishma.

Yeah, Dale was killed right there.

Hell, yeah, baby!

Burn, motherfucker, burn.

We cleared a square mile
of palm trees,

so it couldn't be used again
to attack.

That was fucking sweet!

Yeah!

It's just weird, James,
because I'm just,

I'm just back in the fight, dude.

I'm just back, I'm back there.
I'm like... I'm back.

Rashid Al Hishmawi comes from
a family of farmers in Abu Hishma.

Things got real Draconian
after that.

We, like, barbed-wired
the entire village.

So, we wired them in, with curfews,

and they had to have an ID card
to leave and come back in.

We would not have done that
if Dale hadn't died.

It was more of just like punishment
and retribution for the attacks

that they had been committing
on American forces.

DOG BARKS

I was driving around
the Sunni Triangle.

We came across Abu Hishma.

I remember Dexter as saying,
"Some colonel is doing, like,

"Israeli tactics, and I think
we should go and do a story on it."

There's nothing funny about what
happened at Abu Hishma at all.

Ashley Gilbertson
photographed the war

on assignment for
the New York Times.

God, it was so fucked up.

The tactics of wrapping
a town in barbed wire

imprisoned an entire
Iraqi population in their own homes.

"It was like, "Whoa,
what is going on here?" you know?

So, there were signs that said,
"If you cross this fence,

"you'll be shot."

I didn't want to put up
with any kind of resistance to us.

We were the law.

Man, what are you going to do? Are
you going to do this

to every village? You know, are you
going to do this to Baghdad?

Like, what are you doing?
You know, this is crazy.

And this, I found really troubling.

This is a guy who's
having his ID made.

I can only imagine what
that must do

to the civilian...occupants
of that town - their town.

20357.

Sassaman was enraged.

Sassaman was...feared in the area.

We're having to drop
a bomb right now for...

..for where they shot at us
yesterday.

Five-minute window, sir.
They want to drop it now.

OK. We're good.

MISSILE WHIZZES

MISSILE EXPLODES

We were trying to eliminate
all these different threats.

The rules of engagement were
such that, "You can smoke them."

"You can take them out."

This is one of the houses that was
destroyed by Sassaman,

er, in an air strike.

Did you have to deal with civilians
that had been killed?

Yeah.

Yeah, we dealt with the first one
in Abu Hishma, which was...

..which was, which was,

which was...it was devastating.

Um, you know, it wasn't
an attack on their family compound,

it was on targets,
but the meteorological data

hadn't been updated,
so the rounds fell short.

You know, it's just, I don't know,

it's got to be that way
in all of the history of warfare.

That's...that's...that's part of
when you push the button

and decide we're going somewhere,
that, um...

Yeah, the folks of that land
are going to...

There's going to be suffering.

There's going to be
a lot of pain and suffering.

GUNSHOTS

Good morning, dickheads.
Wake up!

Ladies, get out of the way.

Move out of the way.

Yeah, you fucking speaking English,
too, don't you, you little prick?

HE RESPONDS IN HIS OWN LANGUAGE

AMERICAN MIMICS PRISONER

Yeah, fuck you, too.

You speak English,
and I know you speak English,

and I'm not your boyfriend,
so don't smile at me.

Yeah, they took all the guys away,
you know, zip-cuffed them.

This is not just futile, this is,
er, this is a catastrophe.

The company jail.

Say hello to everyone back home!
Hello! Hi.

Oh, he loves America.
Awww, isn't that sweet?!

They spend all day
in the prison cells,

so they need to get out
and do some stretching.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

ON TAPE: Not too often
they see rain, huh? Probably not.

HE SIGHS

This is tough.
I watch that clip, I'm like...

INTERVIEWER:
Is this something you find sort of

personally a bit troubling?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just set up for some friction there,
and dehumanising kind of deals.

Yeah, yeah. On your knees.
On your knees. Come on! Get down!

These tactics weren't limited
to Sassaman's battalion.

No. Down. Get down!

MAN GROANS IN PAIN

Other American forces were doing
the same across the country.

Get...down.

This is not liberation activity,
it's not peacekeeping,

rebuilding, no. It's an all-out war.

They were just hardcore.

American forces had difficulties
distinguishing insurgents from

civilians, so the order was to treat
everyone as a potential threat.

We went in for some night raids.

There was no discrimination.

They went to every house
and, man, they did not knock.

BANGING

You know, they'd go in there and
they'd just tear the house up,

like, looking for guns.

Outside!

That was happening
across the Sunni Triangle

several times a night.

You know, in villages everywhere,
every night.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

Hey, lay the BLEEP down.

Lay the BLEEP down. Lay down.
Lay the BLEEP down! Lay down!

FEMALE SOBS

Then three times in a week, you have
40 men go through your house,

go through your wife's
underwear drawer.

SHE WAILS

It's humiliating.

PEOPLE SHOUT IN OWN LANGUAGE

SHE SOBS

Every day, all over the country
at any given time,

there were doors being kicked in,

there were guys being dragged
outside, detained, taken away.

There is humiliation, degradation.

We don't have jobs,
we don't have security,

we don't have anything, and now you
come and you break down our homes?!

Iraq is a very tribal,
patriarchal country.

You know, our honour is represented
by those whom we protect.

You know, atop of which
stands our women.

And it's also a society in which
you are obligated to avenge

a wrong or a humiliation.

You are absolutely required
to do that.

Anyone who was not
a member of the insurgency

when you went into that village

would sure as hell be a member of
the insurgency by the time you left.

You took this tiny insurgency,
uh, tiny in the beginning,

and then just, you know, like
pumped it up.

It was like a wildfire.
You know, it was everywhere.

We make some...calamitous mistakes.

You're making folks
enemies for life,

like that.

Fire in the hole!

SHE LAUGHS

SPEAKS TEARFULLY IN OWN LANGUAGE

SHE SOBS

Sassaman and his men were placed in
an impossible situation.

They didn't speak the language,
they were surrounded by a population

that loathed them,
and their mission was to, like,

bring order and, like, build
a democracy, or build a new state.

Like... Good luck, man. You know?

So we deal with Dale's death...

And then I got orders
to take the battalion to Samara.

Samara, 80 miles north of Baghdad,
had a largely Sunni population.

Saddam Hussein had been captured
in December 2003...

MACHINE-GUN FIRE

..which led to an upsurge
in violence against US forces.

PEOPLE CHANT

Now I was going to have to
pick up the battalion

and go up to this place,

because the unit up there
couldn't get it done.

"Send Sassaman."

Yeah. Send Sassaman.

The only reason we were asked
to go up there is

cos we were aggressive,
so it was like...

Showdown.

Samara, for too long,
has been pushing folks around,

and terrorising it, and it ends...
it ends this morning.

NEWSREEL: The soldiers blew
their way into house after house,

each door pushed in by a
quarter pound of plastic explosive.

Samara's completely out of control.

They openly defied
American authority.

So what day is today?
It's Christmas. It's Christmas.

And so, what's the mission...

AUDIO FADES OUT

# Holy night... #

Yeah, so Christmas in Samara
was not where I thought

we would spend Christmas.

The missions sucked
and the people hated us.

We hunkered down in this warehouse.

# Round yon virgin mother and child

# Holy infant so tender... #

Dude, it was chaos, man.
With guys who want to fight.

We were in a godforsaken place, and
I'm clearly on the dark side now.

When I say
going over to the dark side,

I get really focused
on combat operations.

Are you more dangerous?

Yeah. We were...
Yeah, we were lethal.

What do you do
if you're Colonel Sassaman?

You, like, take the gloves off,

and you kill more people.

He lost it. You know?

Man, he like,
spun out of control, you know?

Nobody's getting away with nothing.

GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

It was akin to killing an ant
with a sledgehammer.

They were going to disappear.

You're surrounded by this death.

Not just death,
but then this...just carnage.

HE WAILS

What I hoped to believe,

all in the name of giving the Iraqi
people an opportunity for a...

..for a better...
For a better deal for them.

But, man,
sometimes it's hard to see that.

My whole experience over months
with Colonel Sassaman was,

it was a kind of descent,

but it was totally clear that that
was the kind of logical progression

of where things were headed,
you know?

And not just with him,
but like everywhere.

It was becoming more violent
everywhere, everywhere.

GUNFIRE, SHOUTING

And so, it became this kind of
psychotic, bloodthirsty, you know...

"Begin the apocalypse of Iraq."

GUNFIRE

Once you think that
you've hit that threshold of, OK,

this is the bottom now,
we've reached it...

..obviously things
are going to get better.

But no, got worse and worse
and worse and worse and worse.

CAR HORNS

In 2004, Nate Sassaman was
officially reprimanded

after some of his men were convicted

for the assault
of two Iraqi detainees.

A year later,
he retired from the army.

You know, I'm retired military.
I had the...

..just the honour to lead
over 1,000 men and women in combat,

and lucky us, we got to be right
in the middle of the Sunni Triangle,

so it was really exciting.

I had about five years of leadership
experiences packed into about

13... 12, 13 months.

Do you consider yourself a leader?

AS VOICEOVER: I like just to say I
teach leadership. Yeah, I really

enjoy being in the classroom. I have
a passion for people, you can see.

It's relationship-based leadership.
You got to know your people.

You got to know each other.

VOICEOVER: As I sit here now
16 years later, I'm still trapped,

commanding my battalion in Iraq,
and I can't get out of it.

HE SIGHS

It's not a physical fight,
it's a mental fight now.

Trucks, as far as you can see.

And there comes the new guys!

Sad for them.

Two little kids wandering by.

You know what,
the kids were great.

The kids were great.

Right now we've got a whole...

Kids just want to be kids,
and we robbed those kids of that.

We did.

We did that.

We did that when we pressed
that button and we put everybody...

And that's just...that's just it.

War as an institution is pure evil.

It's pure evil. But I just...

You know, this is really
the sole reason I'm sitting

in this chair,
is that when we get to 2038,

and there's a whole nother
generation of lawmakers,

instead of us rushing into things,
I feel like we rushed so badly,

that we sit back and we go through
a whole bunch of other options

before we set the force in action,

because once the force is put into
action, you can't pull it back.

SHOUTING AND SCREAMING ON VIDEO

LOUD SCREAM

SHE SNIFFS

SHE CRIES

Fallujah was bad from the beginning.

It had become, like,
a giant car bomb factory.

Every time I look at
the number of deaths,

I see that one of those guys died
because of a decision that I made.

I'm here today
because another man died.