This wrenching work uses little-seen media clips and documents to explore pressing questions about that quintessential "media war" titled Operation Desert Storm. The invasion of Kuwait, the reasons behind U.S. involvement, and the subsequent embargo of Iraq are all examined with clear-eyed inquisitiveness, prompting discomfiting conclusions about our country’s role in that international crisis. Narrated by Academy Award–winning actor John Hurt, Hidden Wars of Desert Storm is a compelling interrogation of the moral relativism of U.S. foreign policy.

Award-winning journalist John Pilger argues that the effects of ten years of sanctions against Iraq, imposed by the United Nations and enforced by the United States and Britain, have killed more people than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Director Lowery follows Pilger as he escorts former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations Denis Halliday back to Iraq for the first time since he resigned in protest over the sanctions in September 1998. Together they reveal an extraordinary portrait of life in a country with a decaying infrastructure and a population that Pilger says is being held hostage to the compliance of Saddam Hussein. Pilger also exposes the suffering caused to the civilian population by the bombing campaign being conducted by the U.S. and Britain in the "no-fly zones" in northern and southern Iraq.