Many people believe that the American decision to invade Iraq in March 2003 was about much more than disarming Saddam Hussein: they believe it was actually about creating a pro-western democracy in the heart of the Middle East. This was to be achieved initially through military occupation, and President Bush was, and remains, adamant that history provides examples of how successful this can be.

In many of his speeches, Bush comes back to the post-1945 transformation of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan into successful, peaceful, liberal free-market democracies. However, historians, both American and Japanese, have insisted that the US Administration is mistaken in using post-1945 as a model and an analogy.

This programme features interviews with leading experts on the American occupation of Japan – most notably John Dower at MIT in Boston – who spell out why they believe US policy in Iraq is built on bad history.

Whitaker also looks at what international law refers to as "transformative occupations", ie, occupations that set out to fundamentally change the political and economic systems of the occupied country. There are interviews with Sir Adam Roberts, Britain's leading expert on the laws of war, and Charles Garraway, who has provided legal advice to British occupying forces in Iraq.