Global Research

First published in October, 2006. Of relevance to recent events. ISIS is a US intelligence construct.

Author’s note

The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) confirmed in a leaked 2012 intelligence report that the US contemplated supporting the jihadists including ISIS-Daesh.  

In the present context, an understanding of the historical origins of the ISIS is required.

Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was the alleged mastermind behind Al Qaeda in Iraq which was at the origin of the Islamic State (ISIS, ISIL, Daesh). 

Until 2014, the Islamic State was referred to as Al Qaeda in Iraq, which was a creation of US intelligence.

As outlined in my 2006 article (also published as a chapter in my book America’s “War on Terrorism”:

 “The US military-intelligence has created it own terrorist organizations. In turn, it has developed a cohesive multibillion dollar counterterrorism program “to go after” these terrorist organizations.  To reach its foreign policy objectives, the images of terrorism in the Iraqi war theater must remain vivid in the minds of the citizens, who are constantly reminded of the terrorist threat”.

A leaked August 12, 2012 report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency confirms unequivocally that the US administration had contemplated supporting Al Qaeda affiliated rebels in Syria several years prior to the onslaught of the war in March 2011.

… there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime ….

Bear in mind, as mentioned by the report, the objective was also to install so to speak the Islamic State in Mosul and Ramadi.

Below are screen shots of the controversial leaked Pentagon report (highlights by GR).

From Day One (March 2011), the Islamist “freedom fighters” and “protesters” were supported, trained and equipped by NATO and Turkey’s High Command. According to Israeli intelligence sources in a report published in August 2011:

NATO headquarters in Brussels and the Turkish high command are meanwhile drawing up plans for their first military step in Syria, which is to arm the rebels with weapons for combating the tanks and helicopters spearheading the Assad regime’s crackdown on dissent. … NATO strategists are thinking more in terms of pouring large quantities of anti-tank and anti-air rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns into the protest centers for beating back the government armored forces. …

Also discussed in Brussels and Ankara, our sources report, is a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011, emphasis added)

It is now abundantly clear that the US led coalition is behind the Islamic State (ISIS).

The US counter-terrorism operation initiated by Obama in 2014, is a smokescreen.

Michel Chossudovsky, October 17, 2018,  August 14, 2022

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Who is Behind “Al Qaeda in Iraq”? Pentagon Acknowledges Fabricating a “Zarqawi Legend”

Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research

April 18, 2006

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Zarqawi is the outside enemy of America. The Bush administration in official statements, including presidential speeches, national security documents, etc. has repeatedly pointed to the need to “go after”  Abu Musab Al Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden.

“You know, I hate to predict violence, but I just understand the nature of the killers. This guy, Zarqawi, an al Qaeda associate — who was in Baghdad, by the way, prior to the removal of Saddam Hussein — is still at large in Iraq. And as you might remember, part of his operational plan was to sow violence and discord amongst the various groups in Iraq by cold- blooded killing. And we need to help find Zarqawi so that the people of Iraq can have a more bright — bright future.” (George W. Bush, Press Conference, 1 June 2004)

The official mandate of US and British occupation forces is to fight and win the “war on terrorism” on behalf of the Iraqi people. Zarqawi constitutes Washington’s justification for the continued military occupation of Iraq, not to mention the brutal siege of densely populated urban areas  directed against “Al Qaeda in Iraq”  which is said to be led by Zarqawi.

Coalition forces are upheld as playing a “peace keeping role” in consultation with the United Nations.  The Western media in chorus has consistently upheld the legitimacy of the “war on terrorism”. It has not only presented Zarqawi as a brutal terrorist, it has also failed to report on the Pentagon’s disinformation campaign, which has been known and documented since 2002.

Pentagon PSYOP Zarqawi Program

In an unusual twist, the Washington Post in a recent article, has acknowledged that the role of  Zarqawi had been deliberately “magnified” by the Pentagon with a view to galvanizing  public support for the US-UK led “war on terrorism”:

 “The Zarqawi campaign is discussed in several of the internal military documents. “Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response,” one U.S. military briefing from 2004 stated. It listed three methods: “Media operations,” “Special Ops (626)” (a reference to Task Force 626, an elite U.S. military unit assigned primarily to hunt in Iraq for senior officials in Hussein’s government) and “PSYOP,” the U.S. military term for propaganda work…” (WP. 10 April 2006)

The military’s propaganda program, according to the Washington Post, has “largely been aimed at Iraqis, but seems to have spilled over into the U.S. media. One briefing slide about U.S. “strategic communications” in Iraq, prepared for Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, describes the “home audience” as one of six major targets of the American side of the war.” (WP, op cit.)

An internal document produced by U.S. military headquarters in Iraq, states that “the Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date.” (WP, op cit).

The senior commander entrusted with Pentagon’s PSYOP operation is General Kimmitt who now occupies the position of senior planner at US Central Command (USCENTCOM), responsible for directing operations in Iraq and the Middle East.

“In 2003 and 2004, he coordinated public affairs, information operations and psychological operations in Iraq — though he said in an interview the internal briefing must be mistaken because he did not actually run the psychological operations and could not speak for them. Kimmitt said, “There was clearly an information campaign to raise the public awareness of who Zarqawi was, primarily for the Iraqi audience but also with the international audience.”

A goal of the campaign was to drive a wedge into the insurgency by emphasizing Zarqawi’s terrorist acts and foreign origin, said officers familiar with the program. “Through aggressive Strategic Communications, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi now represents: Terrorism in Iraq/Foreign Fighters in Iraq/Suffering of Iraqi People (Infrastructure Attacks)/Denial of Iraqi Aspirations,” the same briefing asserts…

…

It is difficult to determine how much has been spent on the Zarqawi campaign, which began two years ago and is believed to be ongoing. U.S. propaganda efforts in Iraq in 2004 cost $24 million, but that included extensive building of offices and residences for troops involved, as well as radio broadcasts and distribution of thousands of leaflets with Zarqawi’s face on them, said the officer speaking on background…

The Zarqawi program at the Pentagon was run concurrently with a related operation “led by the Lincoln Group, a U.S. consulting firm, to place pro-U.S. articles in Iraq newspapers, according to the officer familiar with the program who spoke on background.” According to The Washington Post, however, there was no relationship between the Pentagon’s PSYOP program and that run by the Lincoln Group  on behalf of the Pentagon. (WP, 10 April 2006)

Disinformation and war propaganda are an integral part of military planning. What the Washington Post fails to mention, however, is its own role in sustaining the Zarqawi legend , along with network TV, most of the printed press, and of course CNN and Fox News, not to mention a significant portion of the alternative media. Disinformation regarding the War on terrorism has been fed into the news chain by a limited number of “top feeders”:

A relatively few well-connected correspondents provide the “scoops” that get the coverage in the relatively few mainstream news sources – the four TV networks, TIME, Newsweek, CNN – where the parameters of debate are set and the “official reality” is consecrated for the bottom feeders in the news chain. In other countries, this is what is known as propaganda – or, put less politely, psychological warfare. ( Chaim Kupferberg, The Propaganda Preparation for 9/11)

Zarqawi  has been identified by the US media as being behind the “insurgency” in Fallujah, Tal Afar and Samara. He was held responsible for the Amman hotel bombings as well as terrorist attacks in several Western capitals.. He is indelibly behind the suicide bomb attacks in Iraq as confirmed by the Washington Post: ” The ruling Shiite leadership has Zarqawi squarely in its sights. He has led the suicide bombers whose Shiite victims are now climbing into the thousands.” ( 11 December 2005).

The Pentagon’s PSYOP is a cover-up for US sponsored atrocities by the US media, which has upheld the “villainize Zarqawi” focus in its news and editorials coverage of the Iraqi resistance movement.

The top U.S. military intelligence officer in Iraq said Abu Musab Zarqawi and his foreign and Iraqi associates have essentially commandeered the insurgency, becoming the dominant opposition force and the greatest immediate threat to U.S. objectives in the country.

“I think what you really have here is an insurgency that’s been hijacked by a terrorist campaign,” Army Maj. Gen. Richard Zahner said in an interview. “In part, by Zarqawi becoming the face of this thing, he has certainly gotten the funding, the media and, frankly, has allowed other folks to work along in his draft.” (WP, 25 September 2005)

Amid the continuing bloodshed in Iraq, there is evidence of fresh thinking. The change is, ironically, brought about by Abu Musab Zarqawi himself, whose indiscriminate terrorism appears to have succeeded in uniting people there against his global jihad ideology. Since the hotel bombings in Zarqawi’s native Jordan, more and more Sunni Iraqis and Arabs have condemned the terrorist leader’s nightmarish vision for their societies — one that promises further “catastrophic” suicide attacks. (WP, 4 December 2005)

Immediate withdrawal from Iraq is not an option the U.S. administration can or should entertain. It would give Abu Musab Zarqawi and his small band of foreign fighters the opportunity to claim victory and to announce that they have successfully defeated a superpower. This would strengthen al Qaeda’s hand across the Middle East and elsewhere, and lead to greater instability throughout the region. (WP, 11 December 2006)

The US media has identified the nature of the insurgency, centering on the key role of Zarqawi and his ties to the former Baathist regime:

“The backbone of the insurgency appears to be an alliance between the die-hard Baathists and the network of terrorists mostly under the command of Abu Musab Zarqawi. It is a partnership of convenience; both groups are fighting the same battle, but for different reasons and with different goals. (WP,  8 May 2005)

[S]enior officials at the Pentagon and in Iraq say they believe that Mr. Zarqawi and the insurgency’s ”center of gravity” is now in the bends and towns of the Euphrates River valley near the Syrian border.(New York Times, 17 September 2005)

In Fallujah, the siege of the city, which resulted in thousands of civilian deaths was described as a battle against the “Zarqawi network”:.

U.S. forces have conducted four airstrikes on what have been described as targets associated with Zarqawi’s network in and around the city. Among them was a housing compound in an agricultural area about 15 miles south of Fallujah where the U.S. military said as many as 90 foreign fighters were meeting. The military said the strike, which occurred on Thursday evening, killed about 60 foreign fighters.

Witnesses and hospital officials disputed the account, saying that about 30 men were killed, many of them Iraqi. They said 15 children and 11 women also died in the attack.

Neither version of the strike could be independently verified.

The following night, the U.S. military said in a statement that it conducted “another successful precision strike” on a meeting of “approximately 10 Zarqawi terrorists” in central Fallujah. “There was no indication that any innocent civilians were in the immediate vicinity of the meeting location,” the military said in the statement. (WP, 21 Sept 2004)

Concluding Remarks

If indeed Zarqawi’s role was fabricated as part of the Pentagon’s PSYOP, what is the accuracy of these media reports?

The internal military documents leaked to Washington Post confirm that the Pentagon is involved in an ongoing propaganda campaign which seeks to  provide a face to the enemy. The purpose is to portray the enemy as a terrorist,  to mislead public opinion.

Counterterrorism and war propaganda are intertwined. The propaganda apparatus feeds disinformation into the news chain. The objective is to present the terror groups as “enemies of America.” responsible for countless atrocities in Iraq and around the World.  The underlying objective is to galvanize public opinion in support of America’s Middle East war agenda.

US military-intelligence has created it own terrorist organizations. In turn, it has developed a cohesive multibillion dollar counterterrorism program “to go after” these terrorist organizations. To reach its foreign policy objectives, the images of terrorism in the Iraqi war theater must remain vivid in the minds of the citizens, who are constantly reminded of the terrorist threat. The Iraqi resistance movement is described as terrorists led by Zarqawi.

The propaganda campaign using the Western media,  presents the portraits of the leaders behind the terror network. In other words, at the level of what constitutes an “advertising” campaign, “it gives a face to terror.”

The “war on terrorism” rests on the creation of one or more evil bogeymen, the terror leaders, Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, et al, whose names and photos are presented ad nauseam in daily news reports. Without Zarqawi and bin Laden, the “war on terrorism” would loose its raison d’être. The main casus belli is to wage a ” war on terrorism”.

The Pentagon documents leaked to the Washington Post regarding Zarqawi have revealed that Al Qaeda in Iraq is fabricated.

The suicide attacks in Iraq are indeed real, but who is behind them? There are indications that some of the suicide attacks could have been organized  by the US-UK military and intelligence. (See references below pertaining to British Special Forces Soldiers caught Planting Bombs in Basra.)

Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international best seller “The Globalization of Poverty ” published in eleven languages. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization, at   www.globalresearch.ca . He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  His most recent book entitled: America’s “War on Terrorism”, Global Research, 2005, contains a detailed analysis of the role of Zarqawi in the Adminstration’s disinformation campaign. 

To order Chossudovsky’s book  America’s “War on Terrorism”, click here.

Order directly from Global Research

America’s “War on Terrorism”

by Michel Chossudovsky

In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”.  Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.

According to Chossudovsky, the  “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalization is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.

Related articles from the Global Research Archive

Fabricating an Enemy: “Al Qaeda in Iraq”. Who is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi?: – by Michel Chossudovsky – 2005-09-30

British Chief Police Investigator in Basra dies under mysterious circumstances – by Michel Chossudovsky – 2005-10-17

Were British Special Forces Soldiers Planting Bombs in Basra? – by Michael Keefer – 2005-09-25

British “Undercover Soldiers” Caught driving Booby Trapped Car – by Michel Chossudovsky – 2005-09-20

Did Al-Zarqawi Really Bomb Amman? – by Dr. Elias Akleh – 2005-11-15

The Al-Zarqawi 11/9 Amman Bombings: More Holes in the Official Story – by Michel Chossudovsky – 2005-11-15

Fabricating an Enemy: “Al Qaeda in Iraq”. Who is Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi?: – by Michel Chossudovsky – 2005-09-30

Al Qaeda and the Iraqi Resistance Movement – by Michel Chossudovsky – 2005-09-18