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Twenty years ago, this month, the US invaded Iraq with 130,000 combat troops and a terrifying air campaign — shock and awe. Last month President Biden declared in Warsaw: “The idea that over 100,000 forces would invade another country —since World War II, nothing like that has happened.” Two decades after the Iraq war, no regret, no apology —and no accountability for what Noam Chomsky says was “a textbook example of what was called at the Nuremberg Tribunal ‘the supreme international crime of aggression’.” In Part 2 of “Iraq: 20 Year on”, I speak with a Pentagon whistleblower and a top advisor to US Vice President Cheney, one of the war’s key architects.

Twenty years ago, this week, the US invaded Iraq with devastating consequences for the country and the region. We look at the legacy of the war — its human cost and long-lasting legal and political ramifications. To date, no US or British official has apologised, let alone been held to account for launching a war that then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called ‘illegal’. I speak with the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and ask him if Iraq did not deserve international justice, and whether the ICC’s arrest warrant for President Putin on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Iraq invasion did not show the politicization of the Court.

Prosecutors in New York move closer to a possible indictment of Donald Trump as he refuses to testify this week before a grand jury. Trump could become the first former president in US history to be indicted, following the decision by the Manhattan District Attorney to invite him to testify this week over an alleged hush-money payment and falsification of payment records, in the lead-up to the 2016 election. Trump, who is running for president for a third time, called it a “political Witch-Hunt”, saying the aim is to “take down the leading candidate, by far, in the Republican Party”.

New legislation to ban TikTok moves through the US Congress, as lawmakers accuse the Chinese social media app of threatening US national security, while civil liberties activists warn the move could violate the constitutional rights of millions of Americans. TikTok, which is used by over 100 million Americans, including two thirds of American teenagers, has been called a “security threat” by Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill and top US intelligence officials.

President Biden is calling on Congress to tackle America’s opioid crisis, as fentanyl-related deaths in the US surge to more than 70,000 a year. Republican lawmakers are blaming the Biden administration for not doing enough to curb the production, sale and trafficking of this lethal synthetic opioid at the US’ southern border. Mexican drug cartels are increasingly manufacturing fentanyl for the US market, using chemicals imported predominantly from China.

The US government rejects a bombshell report by Pulitzer Prize veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh entitled “How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline”, which alleges that the United States, with Norway’s assistance, blew up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines in a covert operation last September. The attack on the Nord Stream pipelines was carried out by the US Navy and the CIA under direct orders from President Biden, according to Hersh’s piece which was published on February 8th on Substack.com. Seymour Hersh joins Ghida Fakhry on this week’s episode to discuss his report.

As Ukraine pleads for more heavy weapons, the US considers the scope of its military assistance following President Biden’s decision last week to supply Kiev with 31 Abrams tanks. This move by the White House marks a reversal in the US’ earlier decision not to send one of its most advanced offensive weapons used in ground combat to the Ukrainian government and could lead to a new escalation in the conflict.

He was Trump’s Secretary of Defense, during 18 months of heightened political tensions in the United States. He was fired, by tweet, just days after Trump lost the 2020 election. On today’s program, Mark Esper joins me to discuss his new book ‘A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times’.

With almost 50 African leaders gathered in Washington last week, the Biden administration promised to invest billions of dollars in their countries’ economies in an effort to reset US-Africa relations. But after years of tense relations and neglect, can Washington sway African leaders with $55 billion of economic, health and security support over the next three years? How will America’s rivalry with China and Russia shape US-Africa relations and can Africa leverage its growing economic potential?

The Biden administration eases some sanctions on Caracas, allowing oil giant Chevron to start producing and shipping Venezuelan oil to the United States. Chevron, the second-largest US oil company, is expected to begin shipping oil from Venezuela to the United States later this month, following the Biden administration’s decision to ease some of the sanctions imposed on the Venezuelan government.

As Democrats in Congress hold their leadership election this week, two of the top three positions will go to the next generation of Democrats. Earlier this month, Nancy Pelosi, the 82-year-old Speaker of the House of Representatives, announced that she will step down as the top House Democrat after nearly two decades in leadership positions. Her decision, which comes after her party lost its majority in the House in the midterms, paved the way for 52-year-old Congressman Hakeem Jeffries to become the first Black house minority leader. As the Democratic Party leadership undergoes a generational shift, Joe Biden who turned 80 last week became the first octogenarian president of the United States.

Since his takeover of Twitter late last month, Elon Musk has faced growing criticism. Last week, he reversed Twitter’s decision in 2021 to ‘permanently suspend’ Donald Trump’s account following the January 6th insurrection ‘due to the risk of further incitement of violence’. Does the decision to reinstate Trump’s Twitter account amount to a reckless move by the company’s new CEO, as some Democratic lawmakers and civil rights organizations argue —or does it represent a victory for free speech?