Summary
This episode contains graphic references of violence and torture
The rise of Islamic State (ISIS) stands as one of the darkest legacies of the Iraq War. Founded as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the organisation joined the conflict in 2003 by attacking not only Coalition troops but Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi government, the United Nations and Shia muslims alike. Their tactics were so brutal that even Al-Qaeda disavowed itself of them. A decade on from that conflict, IS gained global infamy when it conquered huge swathes of Iraq and Syria between 2013 and 2015, establishing its unrecognised Caliphate quasi-state and murdering anyone who stood in its way.
In this episode, James is joined by Joby Warwick, the US journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his work investigating Islamic State’s origins. Together, they explore the surprising beginnings of one of the most abhorrent terror organisations the world has seen, how its fighters managed to establish a Caliphate governing by terror millions of people, and what is left of it today.
Senior Producer was Elena Guthrie. The Assistant Producer was Annie Coloe. Edited by Aidan Lonergan.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone I'm your host James Patton Rogers and this is the warfare |
| 0:03.8 | podcast all this month on warfare we've been focusing on marking 20 years since the |
| 0:08.5 | start of the Iraq War and we've covered everything from Tony Blair's |
| 0:12.1 | relentless political drive to drag Britain into war through to the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein. |
| 0:19.0 | This episode, however, looks at one of the most important legacies of the war, the rise of ISIS. |
| 0:26.2 | To talk us through the surprising origins of this brutal terrorist organization and the way |
| 0:31.0 | it was finally defeated, I've invited a bit of a journalistic legend onto the |
| 0:36.0 | podcast. |
| 0:37.0 | This is the Pulitzer Prize winning author and Washington Post journalist Jobe Warwick. |
| 0:42.4 | Now Jobe is the author of Black Flags, the Rise of ISIS, and it's |
| 0:46.8 | from his research that he reveals insights and key moments that give us a whole new understanding |
| 0:52.4 | of one of the world's most abhorrent terrorist organizations. |
| 0:59.0 | Hi Jobe, welcome to Warfare. How you doing today? |
| 1:02.0 | Pleasure to be with you. |
| 1:03.0 | Well, it's great to have you on the podcast, and especially as part of our special series on the Iraq |
| 1:07.7 | war, which started, well, 20 years ago, this month. And as part of this this I wanted to focus on some of the legacies of the conflict and it's up for some debate but I would argue at least in my work that one of the direct legacies of the Iraq war is the rise of ISIS and as the |
| 1:26.4 | author of Black Flags, the rise of ISIS, I wanted to see if you agreed, do you think that if it |
| 1:31.8 | wasn't for the Iraq war there wouldn't have been an ISIS? |
| 1:35.3 | I think you're absolutely right. I mean, there was certainly an al-Qaeda, there was certainly a |
| 1:39.3 | jihadi movement, but ISIS, this peculiar strain that we all came to know very well in the mid-2010s, really |
| 1:47.4 | got its start because of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. |
| 1:51.0 | The leadership, you saw this separate, very powerful, very brutal movement was a direct |
... |
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