Absolute banger of a video. I can verify just how hard it is to source, edit and write 2 hour videos. And for it to be this good throughout is a testament to the level of work put in here.

Aussie KZfaqrs seem to have a knack for military history and defense analysis. Excellent work.

As an Iraqi witnessing the war as it went on i can testify that this is the best objective and honest take on the tactical and strategic outlook on the war .. even so painful to watch , still it is what it is . As a someone from a military family and though lost couple of them to the war , as an individual and as the survivors of the war from the family we cannot but have deep respect for the professionalism and the tactical prowess of the coalition forces , a respected and powerful enemies yes but even if the reasons for the war was misleading and unfortunate we still hold that war in our minds to this day , .. I deeply respect that you didn't say what most youtubers imply that the Iraqi army was "Saddams Army" basically trampling the honor of the service men that actually do as anyone in the military service do which is Defend the country and the people .. even if Saddam Hussein was a dictator no one worth their uniforms will let a foreign power take a hold of their destiny by force , Saddam was our problem, take it a 10 .. 20 or more years he would be gone as all the dictators before him, .. Idiology aside .. the Fidayeen were retired or auxiliary troops taken from other units and Civilian voulentees from the same city they were defending for situations as these as fighting in an area well known and with limited to no support as we knew the huge tactical disadvantage of the war , as not defending them but all the sources that claim they were ruthless is very exaggerated by the current political climate of Iraq today as anything with "Saddam" in it's name is villified beyond recognition and it's up to you to take my word for it, they have been sworn an oath to die and they knew what they were up to , mere distraction to slow the Coalition as the Army have at least reorganize into a minimal fighting formation , they used everything to be shown as a threat included heavy handed show of brutality to any Coalition soldier as to make as much noise as possible so they have attention of the opposition forces and to be perceived as a threat to divert attention from the main defense forces , .. To be honest the army was out gunned and out matched, they lacked range and fire power , people knew they were going to die , even so they went anyway , Fighting in the open ground with such a total air superiority is basically a suicide, I can't blame anyone who surrendered and the same for anyone that kept fighting, if you have met with overwhelming odds then its better to have the shame of surrender than a a coffin sent to your family, its a matter of pride , .. I think you will have the insurgency as a topic for the next video I can give you one insight, even with the huge advantage of the coalition forces and the losses inflicted to the Iraqi military as to leave a big chunk of it to "recal" it later for a provisional government was a HUGE mistake , as they knew that urban fighting was the best chance of inflicting damage to Coalition forces , they just simply changed tactics and left the Coalition forces with a huge force eager and motivated for revenge now free to move freely without restraint as the bulk of the insurgency, for the first years after the war at least then religious and terrorist groups took over after the huge failure of keeping the borders open without even considering the threat of religion and politically backed groups to the security of the Coalition and the civilian lives .. Sorry for the long comment i will try to have it shorter in the next video I pray for all those died in the war .. Coalition and for ours too Thank you for the good video

Also, for those wondering, Blitzkrieg’s actual name is Bewegungskrieg or “Movement War”. It’s more about concentration of combat power with concentric advances aimed at identified weak points.

This was an exceptional video, 2 hours and 40 minutes of top quality military history. The amount of work and effort that went into making this was obviously immense. This video was better than many professional media companies have ever produced. Very well done, thank you for making this.

Bloody hell I love this guy, his content is always amazing

A nearly 3 hour video! That's a hell of a lot of work, man. Awesome. Gonna enjoy this on my ride to work

We appreciate how much work goes into the production of the videos. Cant wait for this channel to grow so more people can find value in it as well! Keep it up mate!

You are a pure Gem mate!! As a lifelong glutton for a good documentary…you Sir, provide sustenance to my palette in a way I didn’t know was possible.

BABE WAKE UP

Looking eagerly for Part 2 of this. Excellent breakdown of the initial phases of the Iraq War, great video.

Great video, I myself was an infantryman in Australia's 2nd force rotation in 2005 after the end of the initial conflict, I spent 7 months at camp Smitty outside of Al Samawah, I also travelled to Basrah, Talil, Nasiriyah and many other places that I can no longer remember the names of. We were warmly welcome wherever we went because the Iraqis knew we weren't there to fight them, we were there to ask what they needed and then we would do it for them.

This production is beyond brilliant. It eclipses any main stream media documentaries of this conflict immeasurably, it should receive international recognition and an award.

This has an insane level of detail compared to everyone else covering this topic

I have been aware of this video for some time, but have hesitated watching it for fear it would stir my anger up. Thank you one of the most professionally done “intros” that immediately diffused my tension. Excellent, objective analysis once again!

Absolutely brilliant video as always. Sometimes I have trouble finding the motivation to continue on my path to become a history teacher, with all the placement hours and discussion posts. Then I come across a video like this and am reminded of how deep my love for history is, and suddenly I have all the motivation in the world. Genuinely love your content.

Very rarely do I feel the need to comment on a YT video. But I would just like to thank this creator for such an incredibly clear, concise and engaging video. It took me five viewing sessions to watch but not once did my level of interest falter. I am not a heavy user of YT and nor do I subscribed to many channels yet I subscribe to this channel halfway through this video. I look forward to watching this channels videos of the Australian Army’s New Guinea campaign from WWII. Again, thank you for your effort.

Extremely high quality. Can't wait for part 2.

Very good video, looking forward to pt.2 Would've liked to have seen further elaboration of Task Force Viking, which was the opening of a Northern front, and included the 173rd Airborne Brigade's combat jump into Northern Iraq, the largest airborne drop since the invasion of Normandy in WWII. The iconic photo of the solider taking a knee under his load was all that was shown and a passing mention.

While it's not the Ukraine War, some of the tactics discussed here have echos in the current war, so still relevant. And the whole story of the Iraq invasion is great history. "Now what?" Oh that's right, part 2👍 Cheers

I am a Iraq war veteran. You have some precise information about Iraqi military and doctrines. 👏

Amazing content as always. Thank you for your work and effort.

It took me 12 hours to find the time to watch the vide in its entirety, I am shocked by the amount of quality and effort that went in. I can't wait for the rest.

Ask and you shall receive. Crazy how i got a feeling it's been too long since we got any of your fenomenal content.

Great to see new content. Vietnam from an Aussie perspective would be awesome

Yes, i noticed alot of tankies love to downplay desert storm. If youtube existed in 1991. They would be in the chat talking about how the US will get wrekt. Great video by the way!

Thank you once again! Have you considered uploading these videos on podcast platforms as audio only versions? I would enjoy listening to you while rucking, and I enjoy listening to these presentations as I fall asleep.

Finally watched this,....a number of times. Needless to say,....its brilliant, informative and incredibly engaging. Its actually the first time I have chosen to listen to this wonderful piece of work,..by just listening to it on my way to and from work,...as well as watching it on youtube. Essentially, I listened to it as I would a podcast. Both watching and listening were equally a terrific experience. Notwithstanding the brilliance of the work,.....this has led me thinking to another podcaster. I am sure you have heard of Dan Carlin and his, "Hardcore History" podcast. They are in a word,.........brilliant. They are different to hypohystericalhistory,..in that Dan is very much about the Human Experience,.....or as he says, the extremes of human experience. But,....he is my favorite long form podcaster. Without doubt, hypohystericalhistory's New Guinea Campaign series is of a similar vein and can be easily be listened to as a podcast. It is, in my view, as good as Dan Carlin's "Supernova in the East" series,...which is my favourite series from Dan Carlin. I actually prefer hypohystericalhistory's method,...with a Stategic, Operational and Tactical overview of a Campaign, with an occasional/personal/individual view. My point being,...in my view hypohystericalhistory is clearly a star and podcasting,......more importantly, making a living from podcasting like Dan Carlin,....has to be a possibility. hypohystericalhistory is that good!! Encore!!

When you mentioned the questionable motives behind the Iraq War, it really made me reflect on what people thought the motive was back then. Being a kid at the time, I had an idea what was going on but I needed clarification from adults, who would often be wrong about the definition of WMDs, the relation of Iraq to 9/11 and Afghanistan, and whether or not the mission was to find WMDs or free Iraqis from Saddam. If you spoke to the wrong person they'd tell you about how Osama bin Laden has nukes, or Saddam and bin Laden have teamed up. I think this was an intentional effect of using vague descriptors like "WMDs" and "War on Terror" to get folks to draw their own conclusions on why they should support the war.

Yes … a new episode..! Thank you very much ..!

Although I cannot attest to its impartiality and unbiased content, it is detailed and concerned with dates and numbers, impressive!Congratulations on the initiative and sincerely for the work you certainly put into making it. Thanks

Well this will fill in my saturday morning. Hello from Newcasle NSW

What an exceedingly detailed and well produced video, with many aspects not covered anywhere else and new to me. Major kudos to you, sir.

Can you make the Ultimate Guide to Biological Weapons video?

That took me five hours to watch and I would gladly spend another five hours to go back and catch the details I didn't get the first time. Great job!

Despues de ver el video completo tengo que darles mi mas sincera enhorebuena, muchas gracias por el ánalisis

It’s funny that Russia even today cannot match the level of air and ISR capacity the US had back in 91.

This is a very high quality upload. This is greatly appreciated! No matter how much time it took to prepare this, I think it was totally worth it.

Brilliant. Such a joy to see a youtube video that takes on a complex subject and does an in depth analysis instead of the usual under 10-minute skim through. Thanks for all the work that took.

i adore your content dude. watched all of it.

I'm a USN vet, so the only parts of the video I understood were the deep penetrations of the enemies' rear.

I’m really grateful for this. So many books on Iraq (especially the second engagement) look at the internecine clashes between intelligence and the White House and I’ve been trying to find a source on the overall strategy that isn’t boring. I’m about 20 minutes in and it looks like I found it!

To Solowing1620- A terrific comment. As an American, I was heartbroken to see, due to the lack of consideration and planning on the US part, post war after destroying many Iraqi institutions-leaving aside the horrific empire created by Saddam-and inability to reform a government and functioning nation. And it was horrible that the university and museums were looted and destroyed. There was no thought, it seems, to preserving any institution what might have helped the poor Iraqis to have something of their culture to anchor them. But with Saddam deciding to provide housing and support for jihadi groups and letting them have some power in areas, chaos was assured. I am sorry for what you and other citizens have had to endure. I pray for your safety.

Ive rewatched this several times now. Excellent job I can't wait for part 2 to drop. All the best

You don't p*ss around, do you !!! A two & a half hour part one !!! And yes, we want more !?! While you never can divorce politics from war, I like your approach here.

A great way to start the weekend thanks. Nice work

The Iraqi tank column that was hit by the CBU105 is an incredible story. It shows how a smaller lightly armed recon unit can make much more impact than it used to. This is such a well detailed video from what is becoming the premier channel for historical strategic military buffs.

Rumsfeld wasn't nearly as knowledgeable about military operations as he believed he was, but I don't have to give him 1 thing. He was right about keeping the war in Afghanistan to as small of a footprint as possible. The Afghani people supported us in the beginning for the most part until our numbers started to rise and we went from being seen as liberators to conquerors. Nothing will make the Afghan people come together faster than a foreign invader. They will tolerate a brutal regime full of locals before they will allow a foreign government to come in and take control even if their way of life is better under the foreigners. Had we have kept it at a small Special Forces dominated war we would have been far more successful. The leaders of the Taliban have said themselves that once they saw the build up happening they knew they would win in the long run because we would lose the support of the people. The problem with us Americans is that we assume everybody wants to live the way we do and not everybody does. We've forgotten our roots and the fact that America was founded because our founding fathers wanted to live their own way and not within the "status quo" of an England dominated world.

Man youtubers like you and others really put documentaries to shame

Love the video well researched and how I can tell is the fact you gave the example of the first recon divisions run in with an Iraqi tank battalion. And you told it right as it’s put in the reports. Not a single combat jack was in your retelling. Which is what those marines were more concerned with.

The more I watch these documentaries is the more I realize that, "Those that preach the most peace are the said one's responsible for the most wars" __ E.O

Thank you so so so much for this. I’d been doing amateur research into this war and you have done the best historical description I’ve seen of this so far THAT ISNT BIAS

Overall very well put together. I was with task force tarawa in Nasiriyah during the invasion and can certainly attest to the heavy fighting in the area. Only feedback I have is that I'm pretty sure it was seal team 6 as the primary rescue force for Jessica Lynch and not Delta Force. But again, fantastic job. Even though I was there I was living in my own little bubble. So this was a great high level view of the strategy going in.

Awesome content as always sir!

College of war level video. Absolutely genius in it's presentation and thoroughness. Incredible work.

This video is absolutely incredible. I’m a devourer of historical documentaries and this is the best one I’ve seen about the Iraq war and the build up to it. Well done, sir. 🍻

This is pretty incredible for a small team to produce such a high quality presentation. Ken Burns would be proud. He might suggest more pans or slow zooms since you have a lot of static images. That's literally the only thing I'd change. You covered so much of the high level overview of this war in this video and tried to cover only the military aspect except in cases where political context was integral to the military picture. It seems like this is exactly the way Ukraine is finding success. They are doing it without the conventional airpower. But they have some other aces up their sleeve that the US and UK dreamed of in 2003. 20 years later the gap has widened even further between the US and countries like Russia.

US Marine 2002-2006. Iraq was a complete waste of tax payer money and a sad tragedy for all sides. Senseless war. It has changed my life, but I’m making the best of what I have.

This is an incredibly well researched and well presented video. I basically got glued to my chair watching this. Cheers man, I am very impressed and pleased with your content!

Im glad I got this video recommended to me, because not only is it extremely well made, but now I have your whole channel to check out lol.

The chemical weapons stash was much larger than the remnants from the 80's. I was part of the unit that found one the larger stockpiles, they were co-located with the yellow cake processing and uranium enrichment facilities. (about 40km south/southwest of Baghdad.) Most of the chem weapons were of soviet/iraqi origin, some were US weapons leftover from the iran/iraq war, but most were newer 90's manufacturing dates coming out of Saddams own factories (old soviet tooling mostly). The UE facilities were operational and he (Hussein) had enough yellow cake to eventually make plenty of nukes, and I mean plenty. The site was near camp muleskinner, The chemical weapons were destroyed, and I think the Uranium Ore was eventually sold off to western companies capable of processing it. It was estimated they had achieved a critical mass at least once, but of course it was controlled and very small, similiar to the chicago pile reactors. I've got plenty of primary source material for this episode in history. I lived it. I went through the crosssabers in May 2003.

Never let British diplomats draw your national borders.

So much better than professionally produced content from public and private broadcasters!

detailed and coherent narration! Bravo, where is Part 2? Would be very interesting to hear the insurgence phase

9:00 thank you for point it this out

Brilliant, can't wait for part 2.

I like that you pound it into even the dimest bulb that this is ONLY about the presentation of accurate information / execution of military aspects of this war. No theories or conspiracy about why or who. Thank you.

Unbelievably good video, the amount of information, effort and work to produce it is just incredible. Thank you so much for such a hard work.

Welcome to the Russian military academy.. Todays lecture on 'recent developments in Western Military doctrine and practice and how this might affect future Conflicts' has been cancelled. Instead 'why the West is gay' and 'winning with war crimes' will be the topics discussed.

Part 2 when??

Awesome stuff ! The title is the exact opposite of a clickbait ! You get way more deep analysis than what is promised !

One of the best videos ever. Highly recommend watching all 3 hours. Very compelling.

Was hoping for some ukraine analysis but this will do Love your content btw

Comprehensive, informative (and a few other "...ive"s I can't think of right now)

Tommy Franks called Wolfowitz “the dumbest fucking guy on the planet” once during the invasion lmfao

day 600 asking for part 2

When is part 2?

Buddy imma need that Part 2 ASAP

The most comprehensive account of the Iraq War I have seen .. kudos.

When is pt2 coming?

Fun fact; nobody has finished the video yet

This deserves more views and subscribers! Fantastic job🎉 This seems like a relatively fair assessment of events on the ground as they unfolded. As the title teases; an eventual part 2... I wait with baited breath 🤓

Holy daze! This exactly what I didn't know I needed today!

when will part 2 be out?

My body is not ready... Dear God.

I'm totally waiting for part 2, I lurk for a very long time between YT videos, this one here is top prime content.

My only political point is that this bloke is the best military historian EVER!!! AND AN AUSTRALIAN 👍👌

6:00 Jesse please help me , Jesse, I've joined the republican guard Jesse

Russian forces panicking? Never!

This is absolutely exceptional content. Thank you.

This video offered far more depth than any documentary I've ever watched; As an example, I remember viewing one where one Apache Pilot told of his experience recounting how, all around him, were automatic fire. It was just one account, and I assumed that like every other battle fought was a victory for US airpower... not knowing the full truth. That it was the very first, American defeat, in the air. A defeat not seen since the WWII. Although the battle was not fought in the air, the fact that the fearsome attack helicopters that have inflicted so much destruction in the 1st Gulf War, were driven off from the skies of Baghdad, evidenced of something else I've never learned from the documentaries watched afore: How the Iraqis learned from, planned for, and adapted to the superpower that was the United States. The country that had the absolute advantage in all key aspects of warfare. And your documentary had done it with such detail that, I feel, should be included in the libraries of every war college and university. I cannot say enough good things about this documentary and find myself, giddy for more! A friend of mine found this precious treasury of knowledge. Thank you for making this video!!!

New HHH video!!!

I feel that the US Intelligence had improved significantly since the invasion of Iraq, assisting Ukraine with the ability to strike supply lines, intercepting phone calls, etc. i feel that Russia had learned the wrong lessons in the Iraq invasion as an observer, explaining the blunders they had on the Invasion of Kyiv.

I love your (continuously exemplary) hard historical investigative research... cobber. Much appreciated - Onya!

This was a great video but part 2 when?

When is part 2

I was in 3rd brigade, 101st in OIF1. This is the best video I have seen on the subject.

The amount of work it must have taken to make this must have been immense. Thank you very much.

This is the military equivalent of, “I’ll only use 2% of my power to defeat you.”

Imagine being on time, couldn’t be me