17th November 2002| Channel 4 in association with WGBH Boston
In the run-up to war, a Hardcash Productions team risked arrest in Iraq to investigate human rights abuses inside one of the world’s most terrifying police states. The film tested Western allegations over the public beheading of hundreds of women in the streets of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities – crimes the regime denied ever happened. Reporter Sam Kiley (former foreign correspondent with the Times and Evening Standard) and producer/director Andrew Smith uncovered eyewitness accounts of the atrocities, and investigated the propaganda war raging around weapons of mass destruction and human rights.
The team filmed undercover in Baghdad, despite the close attentions of the Ministry of Information minders, even covertly filming Iraqi officials searching their bags and equipment every day. The investigation centred on the activities of Uday Hussein, Saddam’s grotesque eldest son, and the terrifying private army he heads – the fedaye’en, or Saddam’s Martyrs, uncovering grisly footage of how they are trained – including killing and ripping a dog apart with their bare hands and eating it.
Reporter: Sam Kiley
Directed & Produced by Andrew Smith
Executive Producer: David Henshaw