>> Tonight on Frontline... >> Allahu Akbar!
>> If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.
>> As the United States, with a coalition of other countries,
wage a new war on terror, Frontline investigates how ISIS
gained such a dangerous stronghold.
>> It goes from being nothing to being the most powerful active
group within 12 months. It's extraordinary what happens.
>> Tonight, from the ashes of Al Qaeda...
>> ISIS builds enough strength, and the monster grows.
>> Correspondent Martin Smith uncovers the early warnings.
>> ISIS didn't become the group that it is today until they went
to Syria. >> The missteps...
>> The intelligence analysis continued to point to what could
happen. >> The view was, "This is Iraq's
problem, let them deal with it." >> And the ancient tribal
hatreds that fuel... >> These are not Muslims, and
frankly, they're barely human beings.
>> "The Rise of ISIS."
>> Frontline is made possible by contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you. Thank you.
And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Major support for Frontline is provided by the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, committed to
building a more just, verdant and peaceful world.
More information is available at macfound.org.
Additional support is provided by the Park Foundation,
dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues.
The Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the front
lines of social change worldwide.
At FordFoundation.org. The Wyncote Foundation.
And by the Frontline Journalism Fund, with major support from
Jon and Jo Ann Hagler, and additional support from
Millicent Bell through the Millicent and Eugene Bell
Foundation.
>> The last American combat brigade has begun leaving the
country. >> MARTIN SMITH: It was late
2011 when American troops finally left Iraq.
>> For U.S. soldiers, the war in Iraq has come to an end.
>> SMITH: After eight long years, the war seemed like it
was over. >> The last U.S. soldier is out
of Iraq. >> SMITH: Iraq's leaders said
they were ready to go it alone. >> History in the making.
>> SMITH: Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki flew to Washington to
mark the occasion.
>> It was a moment of optimism. There was a sense of pride...
>> All right, everybody. >> ...that the occupying forces
really left. And a lot of Iraqis, Sunnis
and Shias, were responding positively to that.
>> Today, I'm proud to welcome Prime Minister Maliki.
>> Both sides presented it as a victory.
Maliki presented it as a great accomplishment-- Iraq would
stand on its own two feet. President Obama talked about
this new democratic Iraq. >> What we have now achieved is
an Iraq that is self-governing, that is inclusive,
and that has enormous potential. >> SMITH: President Obama gives
a very rosy picture of where things are.
What'd you think? >> As somebody who voted for
President Obama, I was deeply disappointed because I knew
those words were going to go back and haunt him.
>> Thank you very much, everybody.
>> It was at that trip, actually, when things started to
go astray.
>> SMITH: What happened was that while he was in Washington,
Maliki received a phone call from Baghdad about a terrorist
plot implicating his vice president, Tariq al-Hashemi, the
most senior Sunni politician in the Shia-led government.
It accused Hashemi's bodyguards of planning an attack on Shia
targets. >> We were at the Blair House.
I recall Maliki. He was fiddling with his phone.
He said, "Well, some guards of Tariq al-Hashemi,
the vice president, have been monitoring our compound.
And they have been arrested." >> SMITH: Maliki relayed the
news to President Obama. >> l think the President's
response was, "Well, every country has its own rules,
its own law, and the rule of law should be applied."
>> SMITH: How did Maliki interpret what the president
told him? >> I think he interpreted this
may be some support of any future actions.
>> The response he got from the president was that this is an
internal Iraqi affair. And that, to Maliki, was a
green light in terms of what he can do with the Sunnis, because
the United States is not going to stand in his way.
>> SMITH: Maliki returned to Baghdad, and then just one day
after the last American soldiers left Iraq...
>> Maliki immediately orders that Hashemi be arrested.
>> And it took a lot of people by surprise.
I think that was a departure point.
It showed Maliki is really independent from the Americans..
>> SMITH: Before he could be arrested, Hashemi fled.
He was tried in absentia and sentenced to death.
We interviewed him in Doha, the capital of Qatar.
>> SMITH: Was it possible that your bodyguards were involved
in any kind of... >> No way.
>> SMITH: Some of your bodyguards appeared on
television. >> Yes.
I do have plenty of reports of the way that my guards had
been treated, unfortunately. When they just receive brutal
torturing, in fact.
>> We'll never know what is true because they were held in the
Baghdad Brigade headquarters in the green zone.
It's been clearly documented over time that torture happened
there. It's been documented by Iraq's
human rights ministry and the Red Cross.
There's no doubt torture happened there.
>> SMITH: So the confessions were likely the result of
torture? >> Mm-hmm.
>> SMITH: Hashemi and his bodyguards would just be
Maliki's first targets. >> Hundreds of Sunnis had been
arrested after the American leaving of the country.
Thousands, in fact. >> SMITH: In 2012, thousands of
Sunnis suspected of subversion were held for months or longer
without charges ever being filed.
>> So everyone talk to Maliki that this is not the way of
dealing with the people. This is a discrimination,
in fact. But he is not listening to
anyone. >> SMITH: Many Sunnis didn't
even make it to jail. >> The Shia militia were very,
very violent. There were many, many instances
in Baghdad and in many other parts of Iraq of Sunnis
turning up with a bullet in the back of their head and their
hands bound behind them. This was common.
This was a daily, daily occurrence.
>> SMITH: In the first year after the departure of the
Americans, hundreds of Sunnis turned up dead in the streets of
Baghdad. >> The thing to understand about
Maliki is that when he looks at Iraq's Sunni minority, he sees,
you know, Al Qaeda, he sees the Baathists, he sees military
coups, he sees plots against him, he sees a population which
despises him and wants to come back into power.
>> This is a man who many of his close relatives were secretly
arrested and tortured by Saddam's regime.
He's capable. And yet if I could use one word
to describe Nouri al-Maliki, it's "paranoia."
>> He had a deep fear that ultimately, the Baathists
were gonna go after him and that he was gonna be targeted
and that he would lose power, and it would be the ghost
of Saddam Hussein again. I think that's what he
worried about.
>> SMITH: Maliki also enraged the tribesmen of the Sunni
Awakening. These were the tribesmen who,
in exchange for American money and promises of political
inclusion in a new Iraq, had helped defeat Al Qaeda
years earlier. >> I think that he was
suspicious of them really, of this force.
They were not sustained or maintained as a potential
force that the government might need later on.
>> And then the other key thing was that Sunni leaders in the
army and Sunni leaders in the police began to be sidelined,
and people with a strong Shia sectarian bent replaced them.
And that meant that a lot of people felt they were being
excluded, and that was true-- they were.
(gunfire) >> SMITH: Meanwhile, Al Qaeda
in Iraq, the group that would become ISIS, was camped in
Iraq's western deserts. It was not much of a force.
The Surge and the Sunni Awakening had severely reduced
it. >> Remember, by the time
the Americans left Iraq, the insurgency was broken.
The Sunni insurgency, it was broken.
It was on its last legs. Al-Qaeda had been decimated.
>> SMITH: What remained, though, were the most battle-hardened
Al Qaeda militants, a few embittered tribesmen, and some
remnants of Saddam's Baathist military hoping to regain power.
>> This is a collection of very hardened killers.
These are the guys that the United States didn't manage
to kill during the war then. >> These are mostly young men
who were in prison, some of them under Maliki.
Some of them were in U.S. prisons.
Mr. Baghdadi, the head of ISIS, was in Camp Bucca.
>> SMITH: After he was released from Bucca, the American-run
prison, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi would, in time, become head of
Al Qaeda in Iraq, directing ambushes on Iraqi forces and
suicide bombings. But he had greater ambitions.
In the summer of 2011, he sent a few men into Syria to join
the rebels fighting the Shia government of Bashar al-Assad.
(chanting) (explosion)
For Baghdadi, the Syrian war was a gift.
>> Suddenly, you have a complete breakdown of the state in Syria.
You have this vast, open space between the two countries.
And so these guys, they're suddenly able to find life.
>> ISIS didn't become the group that it is today until they went
to Syria. Syria is what made ISIS ISIS.
>> We don't know how many Al Qaeda in Iraq guys move from
Iraq to Syria in the 2011, 2012 timeframe.
But once they move into Syria, all of a sudden, they're able
to operate once again. All of a sudden, they're able
to recruit once again. Their message gains traction
with the Sunnis of Syria who are looking to wage a civil war
against the Shia government. (explosion)
>> SMITH: Al Qaeda was joining the fight along with dozens of
other Syrian Sunni rebel groups, but it quickly became a major
force. >> Baghdadi sends a bunch of
guys into Syria. It goes from being nothing
to being the most powerful active group.
They're running operations all over the country
within, like, 12 months. It's extraordinary what happens.
Takes off like fire.
>> SMITH: Back in Iraq, Maliki's purges of Sunnis continued.
And Maliki upped the ante in December 2012, when his police
rounded up the bodyguards of another prominent Sunni leader,
finance minister Rafi al-Essawi. >> Rafi al-Essawi,
everybody loves the guy. I mean, he's greatly respected.
I've seen no evidence that suggested that his bodyguards
were doing anything bad. To the contrary.
And so when his bodyguards are arrested, that I think is
the real blow to the Sunni community, because everybody
knows Rafi al-Essawi is a peaceful man.
>> SMITH: So you were sitting inside the finance ministry.
>> Yeah, they attacked the office and they took 16 of my
bodyguards. These are almost ten years
they are with me. I'm sure that they are against
terrorism, all of them, almost, they are my close relatives.
>> SMITH: After the arrest warrant is issued for Rafi
al-Essawi... >> I called Maliki up.
I said, "What are you doing? What the hell's going on?"
He's a colleague of ours. He was with us yesterday
in the cabinet. And now some police people
have gone to arrest him? This is absolutely unacceptable.
>> Hundreds of thousands of people were very upset because
they feel that this is a story of dignity.
No Sunni is exempted. People started to prepare for a
big demonstration in Fallujah and Ramadi.
So I called them, I said to them, "I'll join the
demonstration."
>> Anyone, Maliki and the gangs of the militias of Maliki,
can arrest anyone.
>> I went there. They are protesting for their
rights. And they have legitimate
demands for releasing the innocent people in the prisons,
some of these in detention center for two, three,
six years without trials. They are telling us of,
in one month or twice in a month, three months,
raids in their community and collecting just young people
like that. Collecting people.
>> They were not fully integrated into the security
forces as was promised, so they felt, again,
completely marginalized. The idea that it's just
terrorists, Maliki is trying to cultivate that impression.
No. The average man in the street,
woman in the street, Sunni, perceived it exactly that same
way. >> (chanting)
>> SMITH: Officials in the White House saw what was happening.
Obama's ambassador to Iraq had warned that Maliki needed to be
contained. >> This was a constant warning
that I had made and that others had made before me, that Maliki
was a problem. On the other hand, the
president and the country had taken the position, "Iraq was
a mistake, we've ended our war in Iraq.
If we see things we don't like, we'll do calls from the vice
president, just like we do with 150 other countries
that have similar situations." >> The Obama administration
certainly did tell Prime Minister Maliki and other Iraqis
that they wanted to see them play by the democratic rules,
that they thought it was a mistake for them to go after
their political rivals in this fashion.
But they did it in private. They didn't do it in public.
And they certainly never imposed any kind of a cost.
>> You gotta continue to put pressure on them to do the right
thing. I think everybody just kept
their fingers crossed that ultimately, Maliki would somehow
step down or be replaced and that Iraq would be in a better
place. >> No, I don't think that's
accurate. We were engaged with all of
Iraq's communities, we were engaged with Prime Minister
Maliki, and we were seeking to manage this and press Iraqi
leaders to move in a more inclusive direction.
But by definition, our leverage, in order to affect
political outcomes inside a very complicated society like Iraq's,
has inherent limits. And at the end of the day,
it's going to be Iraqi leaders who have to make these
determinations to work together. >> (chanting)
>> SMITH: As weeks went by, the demonstrations grew.
In Ramadi, protesters camped out on the main road between
Baghdad and Jordan, a vital trucking artery.
In other Sunni cities and towns-- Fallujah, Mosul,
Tikrit, -- other protests halted traffic and commerce.
With youth unemployment running as high as 40%,
young men were free to gather. And support poured in from
around the Sunni Arab world to pay for tents, meals
and transportation. One of the principal funders was
a wealthy Iraqi businessman living in Jordan, a man with
ties to the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein.
>> SMITH: How much money did you spend in support of those
protests? >> (translated): All that the
demonstrations needed. >> SMITH: And how much was that?
>> (translated): All that was needed.
I don't know. Whatever was needed.
>> SMITH: Khanjar also paid for the establishment of pro-Sunni
TV stations.
>> (translated): We encouraged channels like Baghdad,
Al-Rafidain and Fallujah to defend our people.
>> (shouting in Arabic) >> (translated): Maliki is the
cause of all of this. He has a problem with the
Sunnis. This is the revolution of the
tribes. I am proud of it
and I support it. >> (chanting): Allahu Akbar!
>> SMITH: 60 miles away in Baghdad, Iraq's Shia
were organizing their own demonstrations.
Here and in other Shia cities throughout Iraq's south,
people encouraged Maliki. >> (chanting)
>> They were supporting him. He was popular in the streets,
he was popular in Najaf, he was popular in Basra,
he was popular in Babil, popular in Baghdad.
And when he moved against Sunnis, he found himself getting
more popular. So there was no real
disincentive at that point to discontinue doing what he was
doing.
(explosion) >> SMITH: Back in Syria,
Al Qaeda was steadily gaining ground.
In its early months, the group relied on donations from wealthy
Sunnis in the region. >> The Saudis, the Kuwaitis, the
Emiratis, all of the gulf states and a whole variety of other
countries began to provide support to a whole variety of
Sunni opposition groups, and they weren't terribly careful
about which groups got the aid. >> SMITH: And soon, Al Qaeda
needed fewer donations. As they gained territory,
they became self-sustaining, robbing banks, running
extortion rackets, seizing Syrian transportation routes
and Syrian oil fields. >> Allahu Akbar!
>> They were very smart. They understood, "If we can
control those oil wells, we'll be able to sell the oil on the
black market and get cash." And they went about that
in a very conscientious way, field by field.
>> SMITH: In this Al Qaeda video, they are shown planning
and then executing an attack on a major Syrian power station.
(gunfire)
>> SMITH: U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford had urged
the administration to quickly provide aid to pro-Western
Syrian rebels. Otherwise, he warned,
Al Qaeda would dominate. >> I think there was certainly
warnings from people at my level that in a large, ungoverned
space, having Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda-affiliated groups able
to operate freely would be as much a risk to the United States
as Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan were.
And in each of those places, the Americans had to act.
>> SMITH: But in Syria, the president chose not to send
arms. >> I think the president's
concern-- and I respect his decision-- but I think
his concern was that ultimately, if we provide those kinds of
weapons, we couldn't be sure whose hands they might
ultimately wind up in. >> SMITH: You respect his
decision. He was the commander-in-chief.
But you think he was wrong? >> I think we made the wrong
decision in not providing assistance to the rebels.
>> I think President Obama has a fundamental belief that any
military action or aiding local fighters will lead to, almost
inexorably, 150,000 troops on the ground like Iraq, or 500,000
like Vietnam. Slippery slope, down the drain,
huge disaster for America. I think he believes that,
sincerely. I think he's absolutely wrong.
>> SMITH: You were getting advice from Ambassador Ford,
Ambassador Jeffrey in Iraq that we needed to get involved
in the Syrian situation, or the Al Qaeda elements that were
operating there were going to dominate and become a much more
serious issue. >> Well, let's step back here.
I think in the rear-view mirror, people suggest that
it was about ISIL. In those conversations in 2012,
it was very much about, "What can we do to effect change as
it relates to Bashar al-Assad?" >> SMITH: Correct, but the
urgency increased as Al Qaeda- linked rebels gained more and
more power and money. >> Absolutely, and again,
it's a complicated picture. The president was willing to get
engaged in support for the opposition in Syria, but he
wanted to make clear that we understood there were limits
as to how we could solve this problem with our military,
and that we had to be very deliberate and careful when it
comes to something like providing military assistance
to an opposition group. >> SMITH: Throughout 2012,
the president held off. Without U.S. arms, the more
moderate Syrian rebels struggled.
Al Qaeda, meanwhile, was ready to expand back into Iraq.
(explosions) In a campaign called "destroying
the walls," they launched a series of attacks on Iraqi
prisons. ISIS's ranks swelled
with newly freed inmates. Then in March 2013, a few of
Al Qaeda's black flags began to appear in the midst of the
protests in Ramadi. they started calling
themselves the Islamic State in Iraq and
al Sham-- ISIS. their presence stoked
Maliki's worst fears. >> That was a turning point,
really. That was a turning point
in the government attitude toward these demonstrations.
"We told you so. These are infiltrated."
This is the black flag of Al Qaeda.
>> SMITH: Then in April 2013, at a Sunni protest camp in the
town of Hawija, there was a confrontation.
>> The facts were a little unclear.
You have some provocateurs, there's a police officer
who's killed-- maybe by Al Qaeda, maybe not-- and Maliki
responds massively and with enormous force.
>> No one thought that the Iraqi army can attack demonstrators in
Hawija. They are demonstrating
for months at that time, peaceful, calling for the
rights. So when they brought
their tanks and the heavy vehicles of the army and the
security forces of the ministry of interior and attacked,
they killed the people in a very criminal model.
>> It's unclear how many people were killed.
The estimates that I've heard from people who saw the bodies
was that there were hundreds. Hundreds and hundreds of bodies.
>> And at that point, ISIS, they were arguing, "You're not gonna
get anywhere with peaceful protests.
You need to have muscle. You need to use some measure
of violence." And they started to gain more
traction with that argument.
>> SMITH: So these are people, young men who sat in those
protests in Ramadi and Hawija who decided to take up weapons
and join with ISIS? >> They tried to...
They voted for a new government in Baghdad in 2010.
Their representatives, like Hashemi and Essawi, fellow Sunni
Arabs, were purged. They were humiliated.
They tried to form a region. They tried to exercise
civil disobedience. They were attacked with Maliki's
forces. And so now they've taken up
arms. >> Allahu Akbar!
>> It's been called the revolution, it's been called the
insurgency. Whatever you want to call it,
it was back. >> If you take Iraq's Sunni
community, its leadership, it's full of reasonable people.
It's full of secular, educated, very moderate people.
But they look around and they say, "Where do we go?
The only people who are gonna protect us are these really
hard guys, and we may not like them, but we need them because
otherwise, there's nothing. Nobody's gonna protect us.
And the Americans aren't here anymore."
>> SMITH: Years earlier, the Sunni leadership had warned
American officials what would happen if Maliki reneged on the
promises of power sharing he'd made to Iraq's Sunnis.
>> The message back was, "If we are backed into a corner again,
we will rise up. And this time,
we will not stop. We will take Baghdad.
We will burn it or we will die trying."
(gunfire) >> SMITH: Three months after
Hawija, ISIS mounted a spectacular attack right on the
outskirts of Baghdad, releasing 500 inmates from Abu Ghraib
prison. >> Abu Ghraib is only seven
or eight miles from Baghdad Airport.
It's 12 or 14 miles to the city. So it was very clear that
ISIS-led Sunnis, basically, were encroaching and making major,
major gains in Anbar Province. >> It was a huge propaganda win
for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
It was basically the prison bust-out was a statement of
purpose that, "We're here. What started after
Hawija, in terms of the bombings, the spike in violence,
we're orchestrating this, and hell is coming."
>> SMITH: ISIS began bringing more reinforcements over the
Syrian border. It became clear the Iraqi army
could not stop their advance. In Baghdad, the leadership was
worried. >> I spoke with Maliki.
I said, "Listen, let's admit it. You cannot do it.
We cannot do it. Our military is dysfunctioning.
And we have an option. If our democratic system
is threatened, we can go and ask our American friends for help."
>> SMITH: In November 2013, Maliki would set out hat in hand
to Washington. >> The message was really,
"We are under threat. We don't have control over our
border with Syria." And in terms of weapons,
Hellfire missiles, you see, we run out of them.
And we warned about the seriousness of the situation,
the existential threat that this country is facing.
>> SMITH: But getting American aid beyond Hellfire missiles was
going to be a hard sell, in spite of the fact that U.S.
intelligence and defense officials were also increasingly
alarmed about ISIS. >> The American intelligence
community was saying that this group, the Islamic State in Iraq
and Syria, was becoming increasingly potent.
They were expanding their footprint in Syria.
They were expanding their operations in Iraq.
There were months of these kinds of warning signals about the
growth and expansion of ISIS. >> I think the intelligence
analysis continued to point to the implications of what was
happening in Syria and what could happen in Iraq.
You know, this was not something that people were not being made
aware of in terms of the implications.
>> SMITH: The administration did agree to some small increases in
military aid. >> I want to welcome back Prime
Minister Maliki to the White House.
But despite the warnings, the president was not ready
to give more. Maliki was not seen as a
trustworthy partner.
>> SMITH: He was hat-in-hand, asking for more weapons, but the
president did not appear to be tough on Maliki at that point,
publicly. Can you tell me that it was
different behind closed doors? >> Yeah, privately.
We said that, "You need not only our security assistance, you
need a political program that all Iraqis can get behind."
>> SMITH: And what did he say? >> He would commit to do certain
things, but there was never the sustained follow-through that
was going to be necessary to really have an inclusive Iraqi
political culture. >> SMITH: What leverage could
you use with him at that point? >> Well, we obviously had
significant relationships with Iraq.
But at the end of the day, it's up to the Iraqi political
leadership to govern in an inclusive fashion.
We couldn't do it for them when we had troops in Iraq.
We couldn't do it for them when we didn't.
>> Thank you. >> SMITH: And after that visit,
things got much worse. >> Got much worse.
>> (chanting) >> SMITH: In December 2013,
Maliki would strike once again, this time against a hardline
Sunni parliamentarian, Ahmed al-Alwani.
>> Ahmed al-Alwani was a Sunni politician, a member of
parliament. He'd give angry speeches
against Maliki's government.
>> And Maliki decides that he's had enough and the Iraqi forces
stage a raid on his house. (gunfire)
Alwani's brother is there. The brother is killed.
Ahmed al-Alwani, the member of parliament, is taken away,
but nobody has seen him since. (gunshots)
>> SMITH: After that arrest, Maliki sent the army into Ramadi
to tear down the year-old protest camp.
(gunshots) Maliki's move would prove
disastrous. >> That provokes a Sunni
uprising. (rapid gunfire)
>> The Sunni Arab population of Anbar rose up and said, "Okay,
we're sick and tired of you. You're oppressing us.
Get the troops out of our cities."
>> And the Islamic State takes advantage of that to move inside
these cities. And from there, you have chapter
one of the Iraq War of 2014 begin.
(gunfire) >> What happened here is that by
virtue of the Shias not opening it up and allowing the Sunnis to
participate, that they created the monster that has led to
ISIS. >> SMITH: So they created the
monster that they feared. >> Exactly.
>> SMITH: The fighting lasted only a few days.
In the end, the Iraqi army was no match.
(rapid gunfire) (loud chanting)
>> SMITH: You would think this would set off real alarm bells
in Washington. I mean, now you have them taking
over a city just a few miles outside of Baghdad.
>> The ISIS attacks on Ramadi and Fallujah certainly did set
off some alarm bells in Washington, at least in
certain quarters. But the top-level leadership
continued to do virtually nothing.
>> SMITH: Presumably Biden gets on the phone to Maliki?
Or, I mean, what happens? >> Some phone calls were made.
No question about that. But of course, the Iraqis had
never seen the Obama administration actually take any
action either to help them or to hurt them if they didn't do what
the United States wanted.
>> SMITH: In Iraq's north, ISIS was eyeing another target:
Mosul, Iraq's second largest city.
Months before they attacked, a Kurdish intelligence official
gave Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari a warning.
>> "Tell Maliki I have very, very serious concerns.
The terrorists have established themselves.
They have encamped themselves in the western desert near the
Syrian borders. And really, they are planning to
formally militarily overrun Mosul."
>> SMITH: You took this message to...
>> I took this message to him. It was a clear message of
warning. And he didn't take it.
>> SMITH: The White House, too, was warned.
>> The administration not only was warned by everybody back in
January, it actually announced that it was going to intensify
its support against ISIS with the Iraqi armed forces.
And it did almost nothing. >> SMITH: Ambassador Jeffrey
says that the Obama administration said it was going
to speed military assistance, but it did, in his words,
"almost nothing." >> That's just not true.
I mean, if you go back and you look at the record of what we
were providing to the Iraqis, there was a steady increase,
whether you're talking about Hellfire missiles, the Apaches,
they were held up by Congress. We sought the expedition of that
delivery to the Iraqis. >> Hellfire missiles started to
come. They increased the intelligence
capacity, but it was really not enough, to be honest with you.
I mean, the United States could have done more.
>> SMITH: Then on June 6, 2014, ISIS sent several suicide car
bombs into downtown Mosul. (explosions)
(sirens blaring) >> SMITH: ...along with ISIS
fighters in pickup trucks. In some neighborhoods, they were
warmly welcomed.
(rapid gunfire) >> SMITH: The Iraqi army, on the
other hand, was seen as a Shia militia.
With no local support, the army had deserted by June 10 with
barely a fight. >> They didn't know how to
respond. They didn't want to respond.
You know, these were people that didn't want to do any
actual work. They were fat cats, I call them.
They were people who were earning good money to basically
sit at a desk and smoke cigarettes and drink good
liquor all day. >> SMITH: In the end, it took
only 800 ISIS militants, with the help of local Baathist
military cadres, to secure a city of 1.8 million people.
Even ISIS was surprised. >> The original intelligence was
that ISIS did not come to invade Mosul.
They didn't come to take it over.
They came to break a bunch of people out of prison.
But what happens? They roll into the city and the
entire Iraqi army collapses. And they make some adjustments
very quickly, on the spur of the moment, and decide, "Wow, we're
not gonna just get the prison, we're gonna get the whole city."
Then they just keep on rollin'.
>> SMITH: For ISIS, the spoils included tons of U.S.-made
military equipment. >> I don't think bin Laden
could've ever dreamt that elements even more radical than
his own Al Qaeda would be armed with American M1-A1 tanks or
155-millimeter artillery or up-armored Humvees or MRAPs.
>> SMITH: From Mosul, ISIS rapidly advanced down the Tigris
and captured Qayyarah, al Shirqat, Hawijah and Tikrit,
the hometown of Saddam Hussein.
In Tikrit, ISIS was easily able to round up several hundred
Iraqi soldiers. ISIS recorded their execution.
>> SMITH: What did you think when you saw these mass
executions taking place? >> These guys are crazy.
But there's a method to their madness.
>> SMITH: And what is that method?
>> Control. I mean, this is one of the
first terrorist groups saying, "You know what?
We're not gonna hit and run. And we're not gonna participate
in politics as you know it. We actually want to kill
everyone who disagree with us, we want to control the piece
of land, and whatever cost it is, we're gonna do it."
>> Al Qaeda was an underground organization.
It could hurt. It could maim.
It could terrorize people, bomb, blow up.
We know their tactics. But ISIS has a different
strategy. They have a plan.
They have a strategy to establish a state, an Islamic
emirate. >> SMITH: On June 29, ISIS
declared a caliphate, an Islamic nation representing the world's
Muslim faithful-- an entity that recognizes no political borders.
>> As you can see, this is the so-called border.
We don't recognize it and we will never recognize it.
>> SMITH: For this ISIS propaganda video, militants
bulldozed the Syrian-Iraq border.
An ISIS recruit from Chile is calling on Muslims everywhere
to join them. >> We will break the barrier of
Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, all the countries.
This is the first barrier of many barriers we will break.
>> By declaring the Khalifah, they did something nobody else
has done. >> SMITH: The caliphate.
>> The caliphate. The implication of this in the
minds of the traditional Salafi believers is that they have a
religious obligation to pledge loyalty.
>> SMITH: Salafis being hardcore Islamist fundamentalists?
>> I would say the traditional religious fundamentalists.
Due to their faith in that particular sect, they have an
obligation to respond to a caliph if he calls them.
Now I know not all Salafis will do that.
But even if one percent of the Salafis do that, you're talking
about tens of thousands of people now in Nigeria and
Saudi Arabia, in Jordan, in every Muslim country, Sunni
country.
>> We have chosen to depict ISIS as a successor, or a partner, to
Al Qaeda. It's actually not.
Islamic State is a state-building enterprise.
They're trying to create a real state, not some post-modern
virtual Al-Qaeda-style thing that only exists in your head.
They're trying to create something that looks like a real
state. It's a very different model.
>> SMITH: On July 4, ISIS made another extraordinary move.
In their newly occupied Mosul, the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, ascended the pulpit of the Great Mosque.
>> Baghdadi gave a sermon in Mosul.
Bin Laden never did that. Zawahiri never did that.
>> In an Arab city in broad daylight, an Arab city that used
to be under control of American troops?
It's a very ostentatious move and one that's likely to attract
more support.
>> SMITH: After Baghdadi's sermon, thousands more jihadists
flocked to Syria and Iraq. >> Virtually every country in
the world, you have young, disaffected youth, both men and
women, who have little hope in their life, who want to be a
part of something special, want to be a part of something
successful, and they now see ISIL taking over vast swaths of
both Syria and Iraq, succeeding like no one else has succeeded.
This is the Al Qaeda that Osama bin Laden only dreamed of
building. >> SMITH: And unlike Bin Laden's
Al Qaeda, ISIS fighters operate under the command of experienced
military officers. Several of the top leadership
positions, are now being held by ba'athist from Saddam's army
>> What you call ISIS, behind them sit the Baath party and
the former regime. And the Baathists are pretty key
to that structure. I think without the Baathists,
it becomes very difficult to pursue ISIS's agenda.
You lack a lot of the administrative capability and a
lot of the military skills. >> They know how to emplace
artillery. They know how to use tanks.
They know how to set up defensive positions.
They know how to go on the offensive.
(rapid gunfire) >> SMITH: ISIS military strength
was evident when in August, fighters moved into Kurdish
territory. The Kurdish Peshmerga, reputed
to be Iraq's fiercest fighting force, were easily overrun by
ISIS fighters armed with captured American weapons.
minorities in northern Iraq -- Christians, Shabaks,
Turkmen-- faced a stark choice: convert or die. Or flee to Kurdn
Tens of thousands of Yazidis fled their homes.
Meanwhile, a column of ISIS fighters was
approaching Erbil... >> ISIS is advancing closer to
Erbil. >> SMITH: ...Kurdistans's
capital. >> There are some 40 American
military advisors there. Uniteda special relationship with
Kurdistan. >> There's a U.S. consulate
in Erbil... >> Kurdistan is the silver
lining of Iraq. A trillion dollars' worth of
global energy companies: Total, Chevron, Exxon and Gazprom Neft
are invested in Kurdistan. >> SMITH: It was the threat to
Erbil that prompted the U.S. administration to finally
intervene. >> The trigger was the threat to
U.S. facilities in Erbil. That was the start of the
air campaign.
>> SMITH: But the U.S. signaled to Iraqis that more assistance
would come only if Maliki resigned.
A week later, Maliki stepped aside and the U.S. airstrikes
stepped up. (explosions)
ISIS responded by releasing this video.
>> This is James Wright Foley, an American citizen of your
country. >> SMITH: It was just one of
many horrific videos they proudly shared.
>> They knew how to use the social media.
They knew how to promote themselves as the only reliable
global jihadi movement. >> The fighting has just begun.
>> And you have thousands of foreign fighters who truly
believe in this criminal behavior.
>> This kind of bloodlust is psychosis.
There's no other word for it. It's not...
I mean there's no political program that justifies it.
I think killing is as important to ISIS as securing
the caliphate. But killing first.
>> My fellow Americans, tonight I want to speak to you about
what the United States will do with our friends and allies to
degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as
ISIL. >> SMITH: Is ISIS a threat to
the United States? >> ISIS is a threat to the
United States. In the near term, ISIS is an
immediate threat to our interests in the Middle East.
There is nothing that would lead us to believe that
they would do anything but ethnically cleanse the region
and absolutely create a Sunni-Shia civil war.
(rapid gunfire) Long-term, if they achieve the
Islamic State that they've declared, then absolutely it
will be a threat, initially to Europe, probably, and ultimately
to us.
>> SMITH: A week after the president announced expanding
airstrikes into Syria, ISIS besieged the Syrian town of
Kobani, right on the Turkish border.
(rapid gunfire) The U.S. is trying to coordinate
military help from over 20 countries.
But as U.S.-led coalition airstrikes bombed ISIS positions
in Kobani, the Turkish army watched from just across the
border, refusing to participate. >> It's a regional issue.
Turkey is a very obvious example, which way is Turkey
going now, you know? It comes down to the
sectarianism of the area. So it's an issue which Iran and
Saudi Arabia have to address, as well.
All those countries really have to get together to say,
"Are we prepared to at least shelve our differences and find
a way that we can sort out this dreadful mess that has emerged
in Syria and Iraq?" >> SMITH: Our interventions into
this part of the world have not gone well in the past.
So there's a lot of people who are going to say,
"Look, I mean, I just don't see these guys as an immediate,
imminent threat to the United States.
I don't think any good is going to come by us trying to go in
there and manage this." >> I'd say they're right.
We're not gonna do this by ourselves and we're not gonna do
this for the region. We're not gonna have large U.S.
forces on the ground to do this. The only way that you're going
to solve this problem is if you get the countries and
governments of the region invested in it.
>> SMITH: Today, ISIS is in control of large parts of Syria
and Iraq. The U.S. is hoping that Iraq's
new prime minister, Haider al- Abadi, a Shiite, can get Iraq's
Sunni tribesmen to once again turn against ISIS.
Without their trust and support, the Iraqi forces cannot win.
>> Without that trust between the Shia and the Sunni in Iraq,
without that trust between the leaders of the Sunnis and the
leaders of the Shia groups in Iraq, I think you're gonna
create a vacuum that no one will benefit from that vacuum but the
extremists. >> SMITH: Are you an optimist at
this point? >> No, I'm not an optimist.
I mean, I'm 41 years in the military and I've spent, as I
said, it seems to me, seven or eight of the last 12 years
working these very issues in and around Iraq or Afghanistan and
wherever else. This is the right campaign plan,
but I'm pragmatic and every campaign's assumptions have to
be revisited as the campaign evolves.
And some of these assumptions are actually, I've no doubt, are
going to be challenged. >> This morning, the committee
receives testimony from the secretary of defense and the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
>> SMITH: In recent testimony, General Dempsey stated that the
president may have to reconsider his pledge not to send in U.S.
troops. >> My view at this point is that
this coalition is the appropriate way forward.
I believe that will prove true. But if it fails to be true and
if there are threats to the United States, then I, of
course, would go back to the president and make a
recommendation that may include the use of U.S. military ground
forces. >> SMITH: If General Dempsey
does come to the point where he says we need to introduce
boots on the ground, will the president reconsider?
>> The president's view is that we do not need to do this with
U.S. combat forces on the ground.
>> SMITH: I take that as a no? >> That's a no.
Obviously... >> SMITH: Even if Dempsey comes
forward and says, "That's what we need"?
>> Again, no, in terms of how we are looking at the strategy.
I can't anticipate every hypothetical scenario.
But in terms of the strategy itself, the president is very
confident and comfortable with a limiting principle as it relates
to combat forces on the ground. >> SMITH: ISIS is now in
control of most of Iraq's Anbar province.
American military advisors, are coordinating the war
just outside Baghdad. >> For more on "The Rise of
ISIS," visit our website. >> Islamic State is a
state-building enterprise. They're trying to create a real
state. >> And check out our new iPad
app at pbs.org/frontline/app. And subscribe to our YouTube
channel. >> Now you can get original
short Frontline documentaries. >> And connect to the Frontline
community. Tell us what you think on
Facebook and on Twitter, and sign up for our newsletter at
pbs.org/frontline.
>> Frontline is made possible by contributions to your PBS
station from viewers like you. Thank you.
And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Major support for Frontline is provided by the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, committed to
building a more just, verdant and peaceful world.
More information is available at macfound.org.
Additional support is provided by the Park Foundation,
dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues.
The Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the front
lines of social change worldwide.
At FordFoundation.org. The Wyncote Foundation.
And by the Frontline Journalism Fund, with major support from
Jon and Jo Ann Hagler, and additional support from
Millicent Bell through the Millicent and Eugene Bell
Foundation.
>> For more on this and other Frontline programs, visit our
website at pbs.org/frontline.
>> Frontline's "The Rise of ISIS" is available on DVD.
To order, visit shoppbs.org. Or call 1-800-PLAY-PBS.
Frontline is also available for download on iTunes.