WAR & CONFLICT

Did the US occupation create ISIL?

US Ambassador Paul Bremer, former administrator of Iraq, discusses whether his policies led to the rise of ISIL.

04 Dec 2015 19:46 GMT | War & Conflict, United States, Middle East, Iraq, ISIL

In this Head to Head special from Washington DC, Mehdi Hasan challenges Paul Bremer, who was appointed by President George W Bush to run the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority in the wake of the Iraq war, on whether his policies led to the

"rise of ISIL.

I've taken full responsibility for the mistakes I've made.

 

Paul Bremer"

As the Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Bremer ordered the disbanding of the Iraqi army and banned members of the Ba'ath Party from holding public office.

These measures, critics say, were directly responsible for Iraq's descent into chaos.

With no panel or audience, we discuss the US track record in Iraq and the region, from the 2003 invasion to the rise of ISIL. We ask him how personally responsible he feels for the birth of ISIL and whether the US should put a significant number of soldiers back on the ground in the region.  

Uploaded on Jan 19, 2016

This video shows how Peshmerga forces from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Kurdish militias in northern Iraq have bulldozed, blown up and burned down thousands of homes in an apparent effort to uproot Arab communities in revenge for their perceived support for the so-called Islamic State (IS) and to establish control of a disputed area of the country they have long claimed as theirs.

 

Published on Oct 25, 2015

Hersh has written a series of articles for The New Yorker magazine detailing military and security matters surrounding the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. In March 2002, he described the planning process for a new invasion of Iraq that he alleged had been on-going since the end of the First Gulf War, under the leadership of Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Fried and other neo-conservatives. In a 2004 article, he alleged that Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld circumvented the normal intelligence analysis function of the CIA in their quest to make the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Another article, "Lunch with the Chairman", led Richard Perle, a subject of the article, to call Hersh the "closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist."[22]

A March 7, 2007, article entitled, "The Redirection" described a recent shift in the George W. Bush administration's Iraq policy, the goal of which Hersh said was to "contain" Iran. Hersh asserted that "a by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda."[23]

Published on Oct 30, 2015

https://www.iera.org/dawah/tackling-ex...

On Friday 16th Oct 2015, the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA) held a cross-panel debate on the criminalisation of Islam and tackling extremism in London entitled, ‘The Big Question: Is Islam The Cause Or Solution To Extremism?’

The panel was chaired by Peter Oborne, the former Chief Political Commentator for The Telegraph 

 

Published on Aug 13, 2015

Mehdi Hasan goes Head to Head with Michael T. Flynn, former head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, on how to deal with ISIL and Iran.

Flynn was the former head of the US Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and a commander of J-SOC, the ghost military unit whose squads hunted Al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan all the way to Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. With no panel or audience, we ask him whether the US is to blame for creating ISIL and whether the War on Terror has become a crusade. We also discuss torture in US bases and why he is opposed to a deal with Iran.

Published on Sep 25, 2014

Also watch these Interesting Videos documentary

Published on Nov 2, 2014

In the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein, the man who ruled the country with an iron fist, was captured. He was then executed by the new Iraqi government. However despite what most people believe, taking out Saddam wasn't the problem, taking out his political party - was. In June 2003, the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq banned the Iraqi Ba'ath party and all its members. This was the most ill-conceived decision in the whole invasion of Iraq affair, as it completely upset the fragile balance of power that existed in the Middle East.

With this ban, every public sector employee affiliated with the Ba'ath Party was removed from position, and was banned from any future employment in the public sector. But in a totalitarian state as Saddam’s Iraq, being a member of the Ba’ath Party was more a necessity than a choice. It’s like saying that the Soviet Communist Party and its members should have been banned from the public sector when the USSR collapsed. Following the prohibition of Ba’athists from the public sector, thousands of experienced people were excluded from participating in the new government, people such as doctors, professors, bureaucrats, etc. However, perhaps the most important change was that the ban effectively dismantled the Iraqi military and security apparatus, because everyone involved was a member of the Ba’ath Party. Back then the US thought that this was necessary to create a new Iraqi government from scratch. But what it really did was create a void of power; a void that was quickly filled by Iraq’s Shia Muslim majority, with strong support and coordination from Iran. So what really happened was that the US attacked and occupied Iraq, passed legislation, and then immidiately lost the country from right under its nose to Iran. We discussed the rise of Iranian geopolitics and more in a previous CaspianReport.

Published on Mar 6, 2015

The Islamic State has been viewed, variously, as a collection of nihilistic psychopaths and as a direct descendant of Al Qaeda that shares the parent organization's strategy and goals. Scrutiny of the group's statements, as well as conversations with its overseas supporters, suggest both impressions are dangerously misleading. The group's ideology suggests avenues for defeat, and cautious optimism for a strategy of containment. In his current Atlantic essay “What ISIS Really Wants,” Graeme Wood explores these facets of ISIS, the forces arrayed against it, and offers insights into today’s foremost security challenge for the Middle East and the United States. Please join author Graeme Wood and CSIS’ Tom Sanderson for an eye-opening TNT Terrorism Roundtable

Published on Mar 5, 2015

In a special report, RT America examines the origins, power and expansion of the terrorist group known as the Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS). RT’s Ben Swann delves into the roots of the organization while Ameera David explains how the group amasses the millions of dollars it requires to operate. Finally, Manuel Rapalo explores how the Iraqi army fell apart despite benefiting from billions of dollars of US money – and military hardware – meant to ensure security.

Published on Aug 14, 2014

EXCLUSIVE: VICE News Meets Barack Obama: https://bit.ly/1wT03Bi
The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced its intention to reestablish the caliphate and has declared its leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph.

The lightning advances the Islamic State made across Syria and Iraq in June shocked the world. But it's not just the group's military victories that have garnered attention — it's also the pace with which its members have begun to carve out a viable state.

Flush with cash and US weapons seized during its advances in Iraq, the Islamic State's expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged.

VICE News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State, gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria as the first and only journalist to document its inner workings.