The Daily - ISIS Has Lost Its Land. What About Its Power?

Episode Date: January 24, 2019

More than 99 percent of the territory the Islamic State once held in Iraq and Syria is gone — but the United States government may be misunderstanding what that means. Guest: Rukmini Callimachi, who covers terrorism and the Islamic State for The New York Times, spoke with us from Iraq. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily Watch. Today, more than 99% of the territory once controlled by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has been liberated, and the few remaining villages under its control are soon expected to fall. under its control are soon expected to fall. Rukmini Kalamaki on how the U.S. government may be misunderstanding what that means. It's Thursday, January 24th. We're destroying the bloodthirsty killers

known as ISIS ISIS almost gone. As the reporter at The New York Times who covers ISIS day in, day out, I've been struck by how the White House in recent weeks and months has been so black and white in its description of ISIS. We reached Rukmini at a hotel in Iraq. They have described the Islamic State as... We've wiped out ISIS in Iraq. We've wiped out ISIS.

Wiped out. We've essentially... As absolutely obliterated. Obliterated ISIS. We've also defeated the ISIS caliphate in Syria and Iraq. As in its final throes... The caliphate has crumbled and ISIS has been defeated. And as defeated.

We've beaten them and we've beaten them badly. We've taken back the land and now it's time for our troops to come back home. And all I can think when I hear those phrases is that I'm having an episode of Deja Vu. of Deja Vu. Good evening. Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about the end of our combat mission in Iraq. In 2010, the Obama administration effectively declared the group defeated. The Americans who have served in Iraq completed every mission they were given.

They defeated a regime that had terrorized its people. And began the accelerated pullout of American troops from Iraq. So tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over. And at that point in time, the estimates that we had were that the group was down to its last 700 fighters, that U.S. forces managed to pick off and either arrest or kill three quarters of the group's top leaders. And in a history of that period of time that ISIS itself put out, they described how the emir of the group had lamented to his fighters that they were so exhausted, so weak, and so depleted that the Islamic State could only hold ground for 15 minutes at a time, anything longer than a quarter

of an hour, and they would be overwhelmed. So it really did look like this group was on its last legs. But in fact, what we saw is that every year since then, 2011, 2012, 2013, the number of attacks that this group was doing per month started to spike. So in 2011, according to a database that is maintained by researcher Michael Knights, they were doing 358 attacks per month just in Iraq. By 2012, it was 539 per month. By 2013, it was 804 per month. So in a very short period of time, a group that I think legitimately looked like it was defeated, I agree with the assessment of the Obama administration that the group appeared to be on its way out. It was very quickly able to regenerate itself

and become a deadly force in the absence of American pressure. So what was happening that allowed that to occur? Well, for one, American forces pulled out. And unfortunately, our partners in the region, they weren't able to keep fighting this group at the same intensity that had happened under a coalition effort. this group at the same intensity that had happened under a coalition effort. And so they went from this ragtag insurgency of just 700 militants to carrying out insurgent tactics all over Iraq. They began doing targeted assassinations where they were assassinating village elders in small

localities and small villages. You would think that that would not be a tactic that would help them. But in fact, what it was doing is, in that village where that village elder was killed, immediately people understood that the most important game in town was ISIS, not the Iraqi security forces, who had failed to protect that village leader. So they carried out these targeted assassinations,

and in so doing, they began to have more recruits. And in really three, four short years, they were so strong that in 2014, they were able to blitz across Iraq and Syria and take a territory that was literally the size of Great Britain. That was, of course, the declaration of the caliphate. the declaration of their caliphate. So this idea that ISIS was defeated and that it was time to pull out, which was the calculation of the Obama administration, this was a complete miscalculation. It was clearly premature.

But to be fair to them, the metrics look good when they made the decision. On paper, it looked like the group was really on its way out. And that's where the declarations that the White House has been making now are so puzzling. Why? Because if you just compare the history of then to now, the numbers now are so much more worrying. So according to three different studies that have just been done,

including by the Pentagon Inspector General, by the United Nations, by CSIS, ISIS is now estimated to have between 20,000 and 30,000 fighters just in Iraq and Syria. Wow. So that's more than 20 to 30 times what they had in 2010, more than 20 to 30 times. So obviously, if it was not actually defeated in 2010, why in the world would we be saying that it's defeated now when it has many magnitudes more fighters than they had previously? I just want to be clear about those numbers. Yeah. There are 20,000 to 30,000 ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria. Yes.

Compared to 700 in 2010. Yes. Now, the caveat to that is these are, of course, estimations. There's no national registry of ISIS fighters. There's no census of ISIS fighters. And there are people that have criticized the 20,000 to 30,000 numbers saying, wait, this is way too large. But what I find significant is that three different groups, independent of each other, the United Nations, the Pentagon Inspector General, and CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, they have all come independently to the same conclusion.

All three of them are saying that the group is now between 20,000 and 30,000 fighters in reports that they published late last year. So, Rukmini, if there are that many more ISIS fighters now than there were in 2010, what would lead the United States and all of these leaders in the Trump administration to make this declaration that ISIS is defeated? So, Michael, let me give you the most innocent explanation for that. Most people became aware of ISIS when ISIS declared its caliphate, its so-called state, and blitzed across this region and took this enormous territory. So for as long as people in the general population have known ISIS, it's been associated with holding territory. And it is true that the territory that it had in Iraq and Syria is almost all gone.

It has less than 1% of the territory it once held. I've just been checking in with sources on the ground. The group is now down to three villages just in Syria. And I believe that one of those three is about to fall. So really, it's down to two. So what people have done is they have mistaken the territory holding group with the group itself. What they're forgetting is that ISIS is just another name of a group that has been in Iraq since 2002, 2003. just another name of a group that has been in Iraq since 2002, 2003. And only since 2014 and really till around 2017 did the group really hold a lot of land. And at that point in time, they were imposing taxes on people. They were issuing birth certificates. They were fixing

potholes and fixing the electricity grid. You suddenly saw a terrorist group that for all of our attempts to downplay them and to call them a so-called state, really were acting like a proto-state. And that was a frightening prospect. And for a couple of years, it just seemed like there was no way to dislodge them. So I think that there is a reason why people are equating these two things. But what they're missing is the history of this group. This is a terrorist group that only held land for the last couple of years of its more than 15-year history. And for all of those 15 years, the group has been incredibly deadly and incredibly destructive most of those years without holding any territory at all.

So what you're saying is that the U.S. justifiably started to think of ISIS as a territory, as you said, a proto-state. That's right. But now that that territory has shrunken, the U.S. hasn't quite adjusted to that reality in thinking about the group's overall strength and danger. Certainly that is what is being reflected in the decision to pull out of Syria. I'll tell you, I'm in Iraq right now, and this is a country that I've been to many times covering the effort against ISIS.

When I was coming here in 2016, in 2017, even in parts of 2018, we knew exactly where the front line against ISIS was. First it was in this city, then it was in that city, then in this town, then in that village. And I knew that I had a reasonable expectation that if I was on the coalition side of that front line, that I was protected, right? Now, ISIS is technically gone as a territorial entity from Iraq. But I'll tell you, recently, I went to the birthplace of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State. This is a place that was liberated many

months ago. And the security forces who took me there stopped our convoy three different times on the way to this little village. And we had to have lengthy negotiations with them about whether we should continue because they were too scared to advance. Why? Because they themselves know that ISIS is there, but it's like you've kicked the hornet's nest, right? They're no longer in one specific place. They've basically bled into the population. They're hiding among civilians. They're now everywhere and anywhere. And so they could strike at any time. So as you've explained, there are significant numbers of ISIS fighters, strike at any time. So as you've explained, there are significant numbers of ISIS fighters,

and they're hiding in the general population of Iraq and Syria, basically blending in now that the territory has been shrunken. So what are we seeing from them that signals how strong ISIS really is there? So what we've seen is in areas that were declared liberated by the coalition and which look stable, we're seeing ISIS do counterattacks and push back into those areas. And in some instances, they've been able to retake areas that had just been declared liberated. And we've seen that both in Iraq and in Syria. More worrying than that is the attack that happened last week in the Syrian town of Manbij. News out of Syria. We're following reports of a car bombing in Syria that has killed U.S. troops. Two soldiers, one civilian and one contractor were killed and three more servicemen wounded.

The bomb went off near a restaurant where a delegation of American and European visitors was having lunch. The patrol was likely in that area providing security for the... This was a place that was considered so safe that American forces were openly walking around this market and going to a popular lunch spot to have their daily meal. Just as a data point, in the four years that American troops have been in Syria, before this incident, only two other Americans had died in combat. So in a matter of moments, that one incident more than doubled the American death toll for this operation in Syria.

I wonder if in some ways what happened in Syria inside this restaurant feels like kind of a metaphor for this larger issue you're describing, feels like kind of a metaphor for this larger issue you're describing, which is that it appeared the area was safe, and yet ISIS was still able to carry out an attack, which feels a bit like the U.S. overall assessment, which is it feels like ISIS's land is gone, so ISIS is not that big a threat. Right. I think you're spot on, Michael. I mean, I think that what we're seeing is a White House that thinks that because the territory has now been removed, that the group is no longer a threat. And unfortunately, four Americans came back in body bags last week, in part because of this mistaken assumption. Workmini, given what you explained about 2010 and the Obama administration assessment, which turned out to be a miscalculation. And knowing that the Trump administration and its military leaders must know that lesson as

well as you do, why does it feel like the U.S. isn't learning the lessons of that era when it comes to thinking about ISIS being on its last legs now? You know, Michael, I've been thinking about this a lot. And I think part of it is that really since 2014, we have been working in such a conscientious way to beat this group back from the cities that they held. What analysts have told me is that as monstrous as the caliphate seemed and as big as their territory was when that military operation began in 2014 and 2015, in a way, that was the easy part.

That was the conventional war phase of this conflict. You had a front line and you had advancing troops and you were basically moving towards the incoming fire from ISIS. And they would identify that building, we're taking incoming fire from ISIS, let's call in an airstrike. Okay, that building, now that building. They were rolling in tanks into cities and fighting an army that was in some ways acting like a conventional army. They were firing rockets and artillery and going around in Humvees. Now the coalition and the coalition partners, the Kurds in Syria and the Iraqi security forces,

they have to do something that in a way is harder, which is they have to fight an insurgency, which is hiding among the population. And the only ethical way to do that is very carefully, because otherwise you're going to kill tons and tons of civilians. It's much harder to weed them out when they've cut off their beards, they're dressing like normal people, and they're basically just hanging out in some farmhouse in the middle of some village. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch ally of President Trump, has been harshly critical of the president's strategy in Syria. Since he's concerned the president's statements about Syria have emboldened ISIS.

President's statements about Syria have emboldened ISIS. President Trump's National Security Advisor, John Bolton, is now contradicting President Trump's comments about military action in Syria. Bolton says United States troops will not leave the country until ISIS is destroyed and until our Kurdish allies have protection. I'm struck that over the past couple of weeks, the Trump administration, or at least certain members of it, seem to be having second thoughts about pulling out of Syria. John Bolton, for example, when in Israel, suggested that the pullout would be much, much slower. And it feels as if people are grappling with this question you are of maybe ISIS is stronger than we think and we should

slow this all down. What do you make of that? Well, I think from the reporting that The New York Times has done, what we know is that the people around Trump, his senior generals, his top advisors, are all telling him that this is a bad idea. In the several weeks that have passed since his announcement of the withdrawal in December of last year, I've actually seen a change in Trump's language regarding this issue. The reason I'm here today is to personally thank you

and every service member throughout this region for the near elimination of the ISIS territorial caliphate in Iraq and in Syria. He's no longer talking about the defeat of ISIS overall or even the defeat of ISIS in Syria. So it's as if he now understands that the territorial caliphate and defeating that is not the same thing as the overall defeat of the group.

However, his overall stance remains the same. We're pulling our soldiers out and they will be pulled back in Syria. We're getting out of Syria. Yeah, absolutely. But we're getting out very powerfully. We don't know when, but they're going to pull out. And what his own advisors are telling him is that there's no partner that they see that is reliable and that can step in on America's behalf to do this job. And so our pullout means that we're going to leave a vacuum. And we know that ISIS historically has done very well in vacuums.

Rick Meany, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. It's always a pleasure. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, tens of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of the country's capital, Caracas, to call for the resignation of President Nicolas Maduro and for the recognition of an opposition leader as his replacement. Today, January 23, 2019,

in my condition as president of the National Assembly. In a speech to the protesters, that opposition leader, Juan Guaido, the new head of the National Assembly, declared himself Venezuela's legitimate president. Soon after, at least eight foreign countries, including Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and the U.S., announced they would recognize Guaido as the country's leader, infuriating Maduro, who called it a U.S.-led conspiracy to topple him.

I have decided to break diplomatic and political relations with the imperialist government of the United States. By Wednesday afternoon, Maduro responded by cutting ties with the U.S. and giving American diplomats 72 hours to leave Venezuela. The protests against Maduro and the international support for Guaido reflect growing anger over Maduro's repressive style, his potentially fraudulent re-election, and the country's descent into poverty and hyperinflation under his leadership. And...

Mr. President, Nancy Pelosi just responded, and she said she will not consider a concurrent resolution to have you come to the House on January 29th to deliver your State of the Union. Your response to the House speaker? I'm not surprised. It's really a shame what's happening with the Democrats. They've become radicalized.

On Wednesday, President Trump said he would look for alternative venues for his State of the Union address after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi again told him she would not invite him to deliver it in the House Chamber of the Capitol until the government reopens. The consent of both the House and Senate is required for the president to give the State of the Union in the Capitol building. A few hours later, the president capitulated to Pelosi, saying he would deliver the speech scheduled for January 29th, after the

shutdown is over. In a tweet, Trump wrote, quote, to giving a great State of the Union address in the near future. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.