logo
episode-header-image
Mar 2023
49m 23s

Danger Close

NPR
About this episode
NPR's Pentagon Correspondent, Tom Bowman, receives a shocking tip from a trusted source: A deadly explosion during the Iraq War was an accident—friendly fire, covered up by the Marine Corps—and the son of a powerful politician may have been involved.

He partners with an old pal, Graham Smith, to investigate, and they discover the truth is even worse than the tipster realized. After dozens of interviews, the team patches together the story of the First Battle of Fallujah — the days and hours before the explosion — from the men who were there.
Up next
Oct 2024
A Good Guy from NPR's Embedded
New from NPR's Embedded: Marine Sgt. Joshua Abate was in the middle of a routine polygraph test to receive top-secret clearance when he made an extraordinary admission: He had followed the crowd that broke into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. This admission leads to a differ ... Show More
39m 6s
Dec 2023
Accountability
In this Taking Cover update, a U.S. senator wants answers from the Marines about what went wrong - and we meet an Army soldier still serving on active duty who's been denied the truth about his war wounds. To listen to this series sponsor-free and support NPR, sign up for Embedde ... Show More
8m 46s
May 2023
The Gulf School
Tom and Graham meet Shihab's brother in Baghdad — but he's wary. They also visit Fallujah, to find the schoolhouse and talk with people who were on the other side of the occupation. Then, finally... back to Camp Pendleton. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices. ... Show More
55m 26s
Recommended Episodes
Mar 2023
The Sunday Story presents: Taking Cover, an NPR investigation
The worst Marine-on-Marine friendly fire incident in modern history happened during the war in Iraq. In Spring 2004, an explosion rocked a schoolhouse in the city of Fallujah. It left three dead and a dozen wounded. But you won't read about it in the history books. In fact, the e ... Show More
50m 57s
Jan 2021
Truth vs Lies | Grey Zone Ep 2
This episode explores a battle between truth and lies that’s threatening democracies around the world. It looks at how information is used as a weapon, not just by hostile foreign states, seeking to divide and weaken rival nations, but also by domestic politicians and other actor ... Show More
47m 30s
Apr 2023
Escape from Khartoum
After the first evacuation planes carrying British nationals arrive in Cyprus, Adam hears one Newscaster’s first-hand account of fleeing war-torn Sudan, and speaks to Larry Madowo, CNN’s international correspondent, from Nairobi.And the BBC’s media editor Katie Razzall is in the ... Show More
32m 1s
Oct 2018
Ep. 397 - Dale Comstock EXCLUSIVE interview on controversial combat ops in Yemen
Earlier this week we reported on highly controversial private combat ops ran in Yemen which were leaked to Buzzfeed by a former SEAL who was one of the men there. What went on was described in detail in the Aram Roston piece, "A Middle East Monarchy Hired American Ex-Soldiers To ... Show More
1h 33m
Jan 2022
The Civilian Casualties of America’s Air Wars
Four years ago, Azmat Khan, an investigative reporter for The Times Magazine, told us the story of Basim Razzo, whose entire family was killed in a U.S.-led airstrike in Iraq. His story helped reveal how American air wars were resulting in a staggering number of civilian deaths.A ... Show More
36m 32s
Dec 2022
Bhopal: Part one
When one of journalist Rajkumar Keswani's friends dies at the Union Carbide plant after exposure to toxic gas, he decides to investigate. Local government officials dismiss him, but safety reports smuggled to him open his eyes to the potential for disaster. Rajkumar Keswani wrote ... Show More
27m 35s
Oct 2023
Gaza Hospital Blast: The Information War
Hundreds of people are known to have died in a blast at a Gaza hospital on Tuesday. Hamas blames Israel for the attack, while Israel has insisted it is not to blame. BBC Verify’s Shayan Sardarizadeh joins Adam in the studio to discuss what we know so far.And, on the day that US P ... Show More
38m 5s
Feb 2023
Hard Day’s Strike
On what’s thought to be the biggest single day of industrial action for a decade, we talk to Len McCluskey, the former leader of Britain’s biggest union, Unite.He tells Adam what he thinks Sir Keir Starmer should be doing differently in response, and how he’d be trying to use ‘le ... Show More
34m 36s