Afghanistan: Here’s One We Invaded Earlier.

Channel 4

George W Bush and Tony Blair promised to build a free and secure Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. They have just made similar promises to the Iraqi people following the fall of Saddam.

This is the tv programme that launched print journalist Peter Oborne, then the political editor of The Spectator into television.   He goes to Afghanistan to discover whether Bush and Blair have fulfilled their promises to the Afghan people. Arriving in Kabul, Oborne talks to President Hamid Karzai, only to find that Karzai’s power extends only to the capital itself. Elsewhere the coalition forces have failed to make Afghanistan safe, while the US seems mainly to be interested in continuing its own private war against al-Qaeda.

Oborne travels to the heart of the poppy growing areas of Afghanistan to discover if British attempts to eliminate opium production have been successful. In Herat he finds a state within a state, a medieval kingdom run by the warlord Ismael Khan. Real power is still held by warlords in Afghanistan – the predicament that gave rise to the Taliban in the first place.

Head of Production: Paula Prynn
Edit Director: Simon Berthon
Director: Paul Copeland
Producer: Jaswinder Bancil
Executive Producer: Samir Shah