{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Former British Army leader Tim Collins talks Iraq War, contracting","description":"When the United Kingdom sent soldiers to join the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the force was marked with veterans of a decades-long conflict between England and Northern Ireland, which came to be known as \u201cThe Troubles.\u201d Among those soldiers was a Tim Collins, a British colonel in charge of the Royal Irish Regiment\u2019s 1st Battalion. Collins, 59, had grown up in Belfast and came of age while serving in the British army as his hometown was rocked almost daily by violence. He was no stranger to bloodshed, and he was aware of the impact an invasion could have on a population caught in the crossfire. When Collins stood before his men on the eve of sending them into battle March 19, 2003, he knew what was at stake. That familiarity with fire and death and that empathy led him to deliver one of the most famous speeches of its time. In that speech \u2014 a copy of which was later said to have hung in the Oval Office \u2014 Collins talked about the Iraqi people. \u201cTheir children will be poor. In years to come they will know that the light of liberation in their lives was brought by you.\u201d We are joined this week by Collins, who will talk about his time in the British service, what it was like growing up during the Northern Ireland conflict and the early days of the Iraq War. Collins \u2014 now involved with private military and security contracting firm New Century \u2014 shares his perspective on the operations gaps filled by contracting and how it\u2019s shaping the modern battlefield. podcast@stripes.com ","author_name":"Force for Hire","author_url":"http:\/\/www.stripes.com\/podcasts\/force-for-hire","html":"