America’s War Against ISIS: The Untold Story of a Global Failure

Indexed: 2026-05-21

[00:01:15]It's been 2 years since the establishment [music] of the so-called caliphate.

[00:01:20]In the Sinjar Valley, life came to a halt on August 2nd, 2014, [music] when ISIS arrived.

[00:01:27]On the roadside are the clothes of those who did not.

[00:01:36]The lucky ones managed to escape into the mountains in time.

[00:01:49]>> [music] >> The Yazidis, a religious minority in Iraq, had no other choice.

[00:02:14]Flee or die.

[00:02:48]As they do each time they enter a town, the Islamic State's men murdered, raped, and kidnapped.

[00:03:24]In deafening [music] silence, the international community watched from afar and finally intervened, but too [music] late.

[00:03:32]1,500 Yazidis were shot by ISIS and 4,000 others kidnapped.

[00:03:39]When we started this investigation, there was one question, only one, that we wanted to answer. How have 30,000 jihadis held out against 15 of the most powerful armies in the world 2 years since the creation of an international force against ISIS.

[00:04:02]I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat.

[00:04:09]Despite the coalition's air strikes, ISIS is still present in Iraq as well as in Syria.

[00:04:23]Is the strategy of the coalition against ISIS and its heads of states the correct one?

[00:04:32]Every day the quagmire of Iraq and Syria gets a little deeper.

[00:04:37]Backed by the Russians, Bashar al-Assad continues to massacre his own people, 300,000 to date. Do you know there's no name? There's just numbers. What can be worse than this? Yeah.

[00:04:50]Five years after the beginning of the uprising in Syria, the chaos has spread like wildfire throughout the region. As the leaders of the international coalition, the United States is having trouble defining a strategy.

[00:05:03]Don't you think most people in Syria want two things? They want to fight.

[00:05:07]They want to destroy ISIL and get rid of Assad, the person who's killed 250,000 of their family.

[00:05:12]Uh is that really a mystery?

[00:05:16]No, it's not. It's not a mystery. Okay.

[00:05:19]>> It shows what happens when America fails to lead. So, there's no strategy for There's no policy even.

[00:05:42]December 1st, 2015 in the Sinjar Valley in the north of Iraq, not far from the Syrian border.

[00:05:52]ISIS has just been pushed back a few kilometers by Kurdish forces backed by coalition air power.

[00:06:08]Hassan Ashwal was a pharmacist before ISIS stormed his town. He is also a Yazidi.

[00:06:13]Today he has nothing. His home and his pharmacy were reduced to rubble in the war.

[00:06:19]Throughout this investigation, Hassan was our fixer, our guide along the front line.

[00:06:26]This morning we have a meeting in the middle of nowhere.

[00:06:29]The two pickups in front of us asked us to follow them.

[00:06:34]Aboard are Peshmergas, Iraqi Kurdish forces.

[00:06:38]They have just discovered a mass grave for the fourth time in 2 days.

[00:06:43]A year and a half ago, about 20 villages were executed by ISIS here.

[00:06:48]Around the site, men have come to try and identify the remains of people they knew.

[00:06:55]People who not long ago were their neighbors.

[00:07:16]The scene of the massacre resembles all the other ISIS massacres. The victims are mostly men.

[00:07:22]They've all been shot in the head. They were blindfolded and their hands tied.

[00:07:28]They're close to the ice. Ah, yes.

[00:07:35]Ask them to touch.

[00:07:38]I want to touch that guy.

[00:07:40]I did this. Ah, this is yeah.

[00:07:43]I don't even know what to find.

[00:07:45]I don't know about this.

[00:07:49]And what remains of the clothing, the Peshmergas look for items to identify the victims.

[00:08:12]The victims of this massacre lived in Kocho, a village not far from Sinjar.

[00:08:24]These murdered men were almost all husbands and fathers.

[00:08:35]52 Okay.

[00:08:37]Uh, his wife, name wife Kono Abdullah Saleh Someone know know this person here? Yes. You know this person?

[00:08:49]Is your brother? Open up. Is your brother?

[00:08:53]Standing next to us, this white-haired man has just realized that his brother is here at his feet. He had believed him to be alive, a captive of the Islamic State.

[00:09:04]It was your young brother or the brother?

[00:09:10]He was missing, mister. What was his job?

[00:09:17]Do you think that these things can happen? Do you you were aware that he has been killed or you just you know you knew that he just disappeared?

[00:09:30]Okay.

[00:09:31]So sorry.

[00:09:37]Four Four mass graves like this one have been found in the Sinjar Valley since the town was liberated.

[00:09:43]Survivors of the massacre often report that ISIS forced them to convert to Islam. If they refused, they were killed.

[00:09:54]>> [music] >> Khalil knew everyone who was executed in this field very well.

[00:10:09]He was in the group of men rounded up by ISIS. He was lucky enough to escape.

[00:10:33]And so, do you know personally some of the people who have been killed here?

[00:10:46]And how do you manage for to escape?

[00:10:56]So, now, where is your wife?

[00:11:15]>> [screaming] >> Before being taken away, the residents of Sinjar were all brought [music] by ISIS to a building in the valley.

[00:11:24]This footage was shot by the ISIS group itself.

[00:11:28]>> [cheering] >> Wives and daughters are clutching the arms of their husbands and fathers.

[00:11:33]Then they are brutally separated.

[00:11:42]>> [cheering] >> For ISIS in Sinjar as elsewhere, the captured women are the spoils of war.

[00:11:49]After being captured, most were transported to Raqqa, the capital of the so-called Islamic State, where they are used as sex slaves by ISIS combatants.

[00:12:17]Other women had to stay behind with the ISIS invaders as human shields.

[00:12:24]In Sinjar, ISIS took refuge in the cement factory. It's one of the biggest in Iraq.

[00:12:48]They got killed here, yeah? They found here, yeah? You found this picture here?

[00:12:51]Yeah.

[00:13:02]In every corner of this factory, scarred by a year under siege, are the traces of a hellish daily life.

[00:13:14]Two weeks earlier, the tormentors and their victims, some very young, were still there.

[00:13:21]It's for children. Yeah, for children.

[00:13:37]>> Just I found that here in the middle of Yes, yes.

[00:13:54]I believe that >> [music] [music] >> While thousands of Yazidis are quietly massacred in the Sinjar Valley, >> [music] >> an Iraqi MP's anger explodes in the midst of Parliament.

[00:14:40]She calls for a strong reaction from her country.

[00:14:44]>> [laughter] [crying] [laughter] [laughter] >> In the summer of 2014, [music] the whole world became aware of the monster that had appeared seemingly from nowhere.

[00:15:27]A terrorist group calling itself the Islamic State.

[00:15:31]It made Al-Qaeda look like harmless troublemakers.

[00:15:35]On June 29th, 2014, the Islamic State announced the founding of its own caliphate, a state straddling Syria and Iraq.

[00:15:44]In a few weeks, ISIS took control of Raqqa, then Mosul and their 2 million inhabitants.

[00:15:52]In the autumn of 2014, ISIS controlled 30% of Syrian and Iraqi territory, and it had no less than 30,000 combatants, all willing to sacrifice themselves for one man, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, head of the Islamic State.

[00:16:19]This is James Foley, an American citizen of your country.

[00:16:25]Your military air force is attacking us daily in Iraq. Your strikes have caused casualties amongst Muslims.

[00:16:32]Any aggression towards the Islamic State is an aggression towards Muslims from all walks of life who have accepted the Islamic [music] caliphate as their leadership.

[00:16:42]So, any attempt by you, Obama, to deny the Muslims their rights of living in safety under the Islamic caliphate will result in the bloodshed of your people.

[00:16:54]On June 19th, 2014, barely 2 weeks after the Sinjar massacre, Americans discovered with horror the face of one of their own, journalist James Foley, kidnapped a year earlier by the Islamic State.

[00:17:06]Standing next to him, preparing to slit his throat, was an English national dubbed Jihadi John.

[00:17:13]The decapitation of the American reporter marked a turning point.

[00:17:17]On September 10th, 2014, Barack Obama took control of an international coalition and declared war on the terrorist organization. [music] Led by the United States, it also included France, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.

[00:17:30]In order to destroy ISIS, 15 of the world's armies decided to unite.

[00:17:37]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.

[00:17:49]At this moment, the greatest threats [music] come from the Middle East and North Africa is ISIL, which calls itself the Islamic State.

[00:17:59]I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat.

[00:18:06]If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.

[00:18:14]The strategy chosen by the coalition is this: Bombard ISIS in its strongholds in Iraq and Syria [music] in coordination with local forces, essentially the Kurdish fighters.

[00:18:27]After 2 years of air strikes, the international coalition [singing] announced that it hit Syria and Iraq 13,000 times.

[00:18:33]The strikes have killed 7,824 ISIS [music] combatants and destroyed 6,545 buildings where they sheltered.

[00:18:54]The coalition raids have also reduced 80% of the ancient city of Sinjar to rubble.

[00:19:00]>> [music] [music] >> ISIS fighters were pushed back several kilometers, leaving behind a ghost town littered with corpses.

[00:19:37]That's the body of one ISIS over there.

[00:19:39]What Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He has been burned.

[00:19:48]What happened to this guy? We don't know. Maybe he got shot.

[00:20:04]Oh, [ __ ] Here, there is another body of ISIS.

[00:20:08]ISIS guys. Oh, yeah.

[00:20:10]This is a leak.

[00:20:12]This is a leak.

[00:20:14]Yeah, it's true. His shoes, yeah.

[00:20:18]Everything is about death here.

[00:20:22]>> [snorts] >> This is the market.

[00:20:33]This was a market here? Yeah, it's market. This is the market. We are inside the market in Sinjar.

[00:20:37]There's a big explosion that happened here.

[00:20:44]To escape the coalition air strikes, ISIS jihadis were resourceful.

[00:20:50]They dug subterranean passages under all the cities they occupied. With the sound of shooting in the distance, a Peshmerga captain leads us through the tunnels dug by the Islamic State fighters. Do you see what happened to the city?

[00:21:04]If I see, yeah, I see. I can see.

[00:21:07]There's no city anymore. Yes. It's finished. Yes.

[00:21:15]You want the light.

[00:21:21]In these tunnels, which could collapse at any moment, we find the remnants of the terrorists' daily lives.

[00:21:29]It was inside these tunnels that ISIS organized the occupation.

[00:21:34]In almost total [music] darkness, the jihadis slept between airstrikes on scattered mattresses.

[00:21:45]ISIS I never sleeping in the hill.

[00:21:50]power Yeah.

[00:21:57]Littering the ground, we find [music] some packets of medicine and a lot of books, always the same ones, explaining fundamentalist or Salafist doctrine.

[00:22:34]Inside the tunnel, we find many empty munitions cases.

[00:22:43]A lot of them are from Iraqi army stocks looted by ISIS when they took Mosul, 150 km away.

[00:22:50]bodyguards The war against ISIS is a war of attrition.

[00:22:55]On the front line of Sinjar in Iraq, mortars are falling randomly.

[00:23:00]For hours, there is no movement.

[00:23:03]The lines are unchanging.

[00:23:11]Then a bomb from a coalition plane hits the ground in front of us, behind enemy lines.

[00:23:16]Flying in more than 6,000 m altitude, it's impossible to see the plane that dropped the bomb. It is just hit. And then, silence and waiting.

[00:23:26]ISIS hits back 20 or so minutes later while the Peshmerga captain warms up by the fire.

[00:23:38]A mortar now falls 400 m from us.

[00:23:42]Then another.

[00:24:08]After a few seconds of panic, the Peshmergas hesitate.

[00:24:22]No one really knows who fired the mortar.

[00:24:57]In the fight against ISIS, Kurdish forces have enabled the international coalition to stop the group's progression.

[00:25:05]>> [music] >> Although the coalition air strikes have pushed back ISIS in places like here in Sinjar, President Obama knows that dropping bombs won't be enough to eliminate Baghdadi and his men.

[00:25:16]>> [music] >> The terrorist organization is still holding more than 3 million Syrians and Iraqis hostage, >> [music] >> and it continues to increase its attacks throughout Syria, Iraq, and now neighboring Libya.

[00:25:31]Beginning in 2014, [music] the United States decided to support certain Syrian rebel groups to help combat ISIS.

[00:25:38]But American interests [music] do not coincide with the rebels' agenda.

[00:25:47]The Pentagon's idea [music] has not gone as planned.

[00:25:51]Five years after the start of the revolution in Syria, there are at least 2,000 [music] armed groups on the ground.

[00:25:58]Who to support?

[00:25:59]A real conundrum [music] for the Americans.

[00:26:02]Who to trust?

[00:26:07]>> [music] >> Many of these groups are fundamentalists and want to implement Sharia.

[00:26:14]Others have links to Al-Qaeda.

[00:26:19]Some are secular, but not really effective.

[00:26:23]Still others are Kurdish and want to create their own country, Kurdistan.

[00:26:28]Choosing the right rebels in Syria is a bit like a blind audition in The Voice.

[00:26:33]It's very risky.

[00:26:37]So, how do you choose?

[00:26:40]For the United States [music] and for France, only one criterion above all others.

[00:26:45]They must be moderate.

[00:26:49]Allahu [screaming] Akbar!

[00:26:51]Nous poursuivons l'action de soutien >> We were engaged with moderate opposition.

[00:27:06]Train and equip the moderate opposition in Syria.

[00:27:11]moderate The make or break condition [music] for any rebel group that wants US weapons.

[00:27:17]To combat ISIS, the United States as well as France have placed their bets on the moderate rebels of the SFA, the Syrian Free Army, composed of deserters from the regime's army. One of their commanders based in Aleppo is Colonel Louay al-Mokdad. To the US, [music] al-Mokdad is a model of moderation. Here he is in the streets of Homs filmed with his troops.

[00:27:39]He is often seen in the US media, for example here in an interview on CNN speaking for moderate rebels.

[00:27:45]Colonel al-Mokdad, thank you for joining me. Thank you so much. Colonel, there have been more gains by the opposition, by the insurgents along the border of Syria.

[00:27:59]In 2013, the American ambassador in Syria even decided to appear on camera with Colonel al-Mokdad to emphasize US support. [music] Al-Mokdad is officially a moderate.

[00:28:15]And yet in the course of this investigation, [music] we happened on a video of him standing with ISIS just 3 months after the handshake with the American ambassador.

[00:28:35]On August 3rd, 2013, Colonel al-Mokdad [music] and his men partnered with the Islamic State cell to attack a military base of the Assad regime.

[00:28:44]The bloody battle for the Menagh base went on for days.

[00:28:51]At the time, ISIS had not [music] created its caliphate and hadn't yet inundated the internet with its horrific videos.

[00:28:58]But that day, the local head of ISIS, Abu Jandal, [music] was a happy, somewhat overexcited man.

[00:29:18]The ISIS video [music] is more than 6 minutes long. Obviously, this cooperation between moderates and ISIS is a rare occurrence.

[00:29:25]>> [music] >> Most of the time, the two groups clash violently.

[00:29:29]But this film says a lot about [music] the quagmire that is Syria, and the anti-Assad hatred so strong that it can unite two sworn enemies.

[00:29:37]We found two of the three principals of this troubling alliance.

[00:29:41]As you can imagine, we preferred to avoid an encounter with Abu Jandal.

[00:29:45]However, we were able to question Robert Ford in Colonel Okai Dee.

[00:29:53]The American ex-ambassador today teaches at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

[00:29:58]Ford has an excellent reputation for his [music] deep first-hand knowledge of the region where he spent more than 10 years. He knows Colonel Okai Dee, the man we saw next to an ISIS cell in the video, very well.

[00:30:14]We asked him to watch the video with us.

[00:30:25]You never imagined, I think, I guess, that he could be able to fight alongside um ISIS. That's correct?

[00:30:34]We did not want them to fight next to the Islamic State or next to the Nusra Front.

[00:30:40]Um but I think this is a very good indication of the American and Western failure.

[00:30:48]I know Abu Khaydi quite well. I have met him many times. I could tell you stories about him.

[00:30:55]He is not an Islamic fundamentalist.

[00:30:58]He's not an Islamic extremist. In fact, I suspect that he's quite moderate based on everything I have seen about him.

[00:31:07]So, why does he fight next to them?

[00:31:10]Is it because he likes them?

[00:31:12]Is it because he shares their ideology?

[00:31:15]Do you think that he wants to support the caliphate?

[00:31:18]Or is it because he is in a terribly difficult military situation fighting a repressive government that kills civilians recklessly uh, that uses poisonous gas uh, that has full backing from Iran and Russia.

[00:31:36]And so, he is in a tactical need a tactical need to cooperate with other groups that are fighting the same enemy.

[00:31:46]It's the difference between ideological adhesion and tactical coordination.

[00:31:56]I complained to him after he did this tape with the Abu Jandal from the Islamic State. I called him on the phone.

[00:32:04]Yeah, I called him.

[00:32:06]From my office at the Department of State in Washington and I said, I said, "You know, that was terrible that you would work with them like that. And it's even worse that you would appear on camera praising them." I said, I said, "It's an insult to the Americans. It's an insult."

[00:32:23]And you know what he said to me?

[00:32:25]He said, "If you people would give us help and not just give us food then I don't have to work with them."

[00:32:34]But he said, "What do you expect?"

[00:32:36]He said, "You expect me to just surrender to Assad?"

[00:32:42]For Colonel Okaidi, the number one enemy is Assad.

[00:32:46]At war with the regime and ISIS at the same time, the commander of the Syrian Free Army in Aleppo had to make a choice back in August 2013.

[00:32:54]Okaidi still lives in Aleppo.

[00:32:57]Since we couldn't go, we asked him to come to us in our Paris studio. [music] We show him the video projected onto the wall of him alongside his partner for a day, Abu Jandal of ISIS.

[00:33:12]The colonel seems uncomfortable at first, but then he owns to his tactical cooperation with the Islamic State.

[00:34:24]According to Okaidi, the disturbing [music] pact is the fault of the international community because they abandoned the Syrians.

[00:34:32]Colonel Okaidi agreed to go over the details of the terms of his military alliance with ISIS for this film.

[00:35:23]First, overthrow Assad, then eliminate ISIS.

[00:35:27]This is the view shared by a lot of rebel groups on the ground.

[00:35:32]The problem is that the Americans don't see it that way.

[00:35:36]For the Pentagon, the plan is the following.

[00:35:40]The rebels will get American military support, but they can't use it to fight Assad.

[00:35:46]The sole target for the rebels must be ISIS.

[00:35:51]>> [music] >> The problem is that in Syria, public enemy number one is Bashar al-Assad.

[00:35:57]The massive and blind violence of his regime is indelibly etched in people's minds.

[00:36:03]In 2011, while the student movement marched peacefully in the street, the Syrian president ordered troops to fire live bullets on his own people.

[00:36:14]His militias arrest men, women, and even children.

[00:36:23]In 2015, a former member of the Syrian services chose to denounce [music] this empire of terror.

[00:36:31]He showed the whole world the photos he took secretly in the morgues of Assad.

[00:36:36]28,000 photos that sent a shudder through anyone who has the stomach [music] to look at them.

[00:36:41]A series of photos that show torture on an industrial scale.

[00:36:45]Robert Ford, the former ambassador, decided to exhibit these photos at Yale University.

[00:36:56]You know, there are um 20 8,000 pictures like this, which we think are of people from the opposition. And what they've identified 6,800 bodies. Most bodies have three, four pictures.

[00:37:13]And so they've identified about 6,800 bodies.

[00:37:18]And they have now identified about 700 of the people. Cuz you know, there's no name. There's just There's just numbers.

[00:37:28]I think what's also uh hypocritical is for people to say, "Well, the Islamists must be worse."

[00:37:36]Yeah. Because really, when you think about it, what can be worse than this?

[00:37:40]Yeah.

[00:37:41]And so, it's not that I love Islamists.

[00:37:45]You don't. Uh but I have to say, what can be worse than this? This man's eyes were torn out. What can be worse? Maybe ISIS. Is it exactly on the same level than the regime? I would say probably it is. In France, we say we have to choose between the pest and the cholera. Yeah.

[00:38:03]Right, yeah. But I think we want to avoid in places like Syria having to make those kinds of choices.

[00:38:19]>> [music] [music] >> In 2013, the regime was suspected of using chemical weapons against the population.

[00:38:47]>> [music] >> Children gassed as they slept in the suburb of Damascus, died in their pajamas, stunned and asphyxiated.

[00:39:02]>> [music] [music] >> Barack Obama had promised, in case of a chemical attack, the United States would intervene against the regime.

[00:39:18]But in the event, the White House backtracked and did nothing.

[00:39:23]In the US Senate, many lawmakers rebelled against Barack Obama's strategy in Syria. Leading the dissent [music] is former Republican presidential candidate and senior senator John McCain.

[00:39:35]A former captain in the US Navy and a Vietnam War hero, he is very influential in military circles.

[00:39:43]According to McCain, that day the United States lost not only its influence in Syria, but the respect of the world.

[00:39:51]Finally, when the uh Syrians crossed the red line and used the chemical weapons, and the president then, after saying he was going to attack, then backed off. That sent a message throughout the world, much less the Middle East, that this president isn't serious.

[00:40:16]Three years after the chemical gas massacre, Bashar al-Assad is still in power, propped up by Vladimir Putin.

[00:40:23]Coming to the aid of the decimated Syrian army, the Russians began deploying their fighter planes in 2015, bombing positions of all enemies of the Assad regime.

[00:40:34]With a strategic goal to protect an ally and above all maintain Russian influence in the region.

[00:40:43]>> [music] >> Vladimir Putin's bombs are very bad news for the United States because they also target rebels supported by the Pentagon.

[00:40:54]>> [music] >> In Washington, lawmakers try to understand the American strategy in Syria.

[00:41:00]On March 3rd, 2016, a Senate committee summons the military's top brass to explain their strategy, destroy ISIS without touching Assad.

[00:41:12]South Carolina Senator Lindsey [music] Graham is not convinced.

[00:41:19]Uh General Austin, will the recruitment require them to fight ISIL alone and not go after Assad?

[00:41:26]Uh we will recruit, uh train, and equip forces to to focus on on Dash, on ISIL.

[00:41:32]Yes. Yeah, and part of the conditions will be you can't We're not going to support you when it comes to Assad.

[00:41:37]That's correct, sir. We'll only support those elements that are that are fighting >> So, what happens when Assad bombs the people we train? What do we do?

[00:41:44]Well, we we will defend the folks that uh that are that we are supporting.

[00:41:49]>> Have we defended them against the Russians and Assad, the people we've previously trained?

[00:41:55]In terms of forces that I have trained, uh we we've not had that issue. So.

[00:42:00]Well, the forces that the agencies trained have been bombed by the Russians and Assad. Is that correct?

[00:42:06]Sir, I would not want to address that in this forum. So. Uh I think it's pretty common knowledge that the people we've trained have been uh hit by the Russians and and Assad.

[00:42:16]Is it fair to say that going into any negotiations that Assad is in pretty good shape because Russia and Iran is behind him militarily and we're not behind the opposition militarily?

[00:42:28]I certainly would say Senator that that Russia's support and Iran's support of Assad has has really emboldened him and empowered him to a degree.

[00:42:39]We have sat by and watched the Russians bomb and destroy the people that we were supporting.

[00:42:48]You can imagine what those young men on the ground are thinking about United States support.

[00:42:56]They feel alone.

[00:42:58]They're not only alone, they've been abandoned to certain death by these indiscriminate bombing of the Russians.

[00:43:03]Russians don't use precision weapons.

[00:43:06]They use dumb bombs and they have slaughtered >> [snorts] >> untold numbers of innocent civilians as well as >> [music] >> members of the moderate forces.

[00:43:18]John McCain is not one to mince words.

[00:43:21]He and his Senate colleagues regularly question military officers on White House Syria policy.

[00:43:26]>> [music] >> Even a five-star general sometimes squirms when interrogated by McCain's committee.

[00:43:33]Yes, I can say that.

[00:43:34]>> most people in Syria want two things?

[00:43:36]They want to fight, they want to destroy ISIL and get rid of Assad, the person who's killed 250,000 of their family?

[00:43:43]Is that really a mystery?

[00:43:46]No, it's not It's not a mystery. Okay, is Russia going to fight for Assad?

[00:43:52]Russia is fighting for Assad.

[00:43:53]>> Will Iran fight for Assad? They are doing that, Senator.

[00:43:56]>> Will Hezbollah fight for Assad? They are doing that. When the people we trained to fight ISIL turn on Assad, which they surely will, are we going to fight with them to replace Assad.

[00:44:08]I can't answer that question, Senator.

[00:44:10]Can you answer it, Secretary Carter?

[00:44:12]Yeah, I just to be clear, let's take the what >> That day is coming.

[00:44:16]>> e.g. Kurds and well, I I I the Do you see a scenario where the people in Syria don't take on Assad?

[00:44:25]>> that were are that we are equipping are people who live in >> [clears throat] >> or come from ISIL-occupied territory and they're Do they want to take a side?

[00:44:35]>> on defeating ISIL and putting >> want to take a side down? For the most part, they're focused on defeating >> Do they want to take a side? Have you asked them?

[00:44:46]We know what their intent is and it is to fight ISIL. They're fighting ISIL now.

[00:44:50]>> know as well as I do, both of you know that the average Syrian not only wants to destroy ISIL, but they're going intent on destroying Assad because he's killed 250,000 of them. And here's the question for this committee.

[00:45:06]How do we leverage Assad leaving when Russia's going to fight for him, Iran's going to fight for him, Hezbollah's fight for him, and we're not going to do a damn thing to help people take him down?

[00:45:21]If I'm Assad, this is a good day for me.

[00:45:25]Cuz the American government has just said without saying it that they're not going to fight to replace me.

[00:45:34]So, what you've done, gentlemen, along with the president, is you've turned Syria over to Russia and Iran.

[00:45:41]You've told the people in Syria who died by the hundreds of thousands we're more worried about a political settlement than we are about what follows.

[00:45:52]All I can say this is a sad day for America and the region will pay hell for this cuz the Arabs are not going to accept this. The people in Syria not going to accept this. This is a [snorts] half-assed strategy at best.

[00:46:04]>> [music] >> After 1 hour of relentless and skeptical questioning, the Secretary of Defense can barely [music] look the senators in the eye.

[00:46:15]In 2014 at an impasse, the [music] Pentagon tries a new tactic.

[00:46:20]This time American military advisers will go to the region themselves [music] to set up training camps and instruct the rebels.

[00:46:28]But the program fails.

[00:46:30]A $43 million failure, the amount spent [music] to train about 50 rebels.

[00:46:40]We caught up with a member [music] of this unit called Division 30.

[00:46:45]Syrian Captain Alwawi worked with the Americans [music] setting up the program.

[00:46:50]To him, it is a total failure.

[00:47:22]>> [music] >> When the Americans are trying to form Division 30, and they say, "We will give you help. We will give you guns, ammunition, training, but only against the Islamic State, not against Assad."

[00:47:35]>> [music] >> They received very few volunteers.

[00:47:41]>> [music] >> A lot of money, meager results.

[00:47:45]In less than 2 weeks, half of Division 30 had been captured by Al-Qaeda [music] or had deserted.

[00:47:53]During one of General Austin's hearings [music] before the Senate Committee, lawmakers were stunned to discover the real number of rebels still active on the ground.

[00:48:01]We've heard reports about the attacks [music] on those individuals when they were reinserted back into Syria. Can you tell us [music] what the total number of trained fighters remains?

[00:48:15]Uh it's a small number and uh the ones that are in the fight is is is [music] we're talking four four or five.

[00:48:27]Four or five combatants. Obama's strategy is ridiculed in the press.

[00:48:30][music] The president even admits his mistake during a press conference.

[00:48:38]>> [music] >> The train and equip program was a specific initiative by the Defense Department to [music] see if we could get some of that moderate opposition to focus attention on ISIL in the eastern portion of the country.

[00:48:54]And I'm the first one to acknowledge it has not worked the way it was supposed [music] to, Julie.

[00:48:59]Uh and I think that the Department of Defense would say the same thing.

[00:49:05]The strategic error is recognized, [music] but against all expectations, the president decides to restart a rebel training program in March [music] 2016.

[00:49:14]Has the Pentagon learned from its past mistakes?

[00:49:18]This is what we want [music] to know.

[00:49:23]Yes, one question about the train and equip program. What kind of lessons did you learn from these previous failure? I think as General Votel has testified previously, I mean there're obviously significant lessons that we've learned from those start of of that program to where we are today. One of the most important things, of course, is we've learned a lot more about the people in Syria, those forces that are taking the fight to ISIL.

[00:49:48]We have a much better understanding of who they are, um, who we have confidence in that will be willing to carry out uh the that mission to take on ISIL uh and and then we have a much better understanding of the landscape than we did when this when that program first began. This time, in this new program, they will be authorized to fight against Bashar Uh again, this is a question I know that General Votel got the other day. Our focus is the fight against ISIL and will remain the fight against ISIL.

[00:50:16]We would expect again that the forces that we're going to support on the ground in Syria that that is their uh their primary mission. And how many fighters if the US military want to train this time? Yeah, we're not going to get into the numbers at this point.

[00:50:34]It shows what happens when America fails to lead. There is no strategy. No strategy.

[00:50:41]>> There there's no strategy for There's no policy even. When we tell these young men, "You can only fight against ISIS and not against Bashar al-Assad."

[00:50:51]They don't want to do it. They don't want to do it. So, they leave and they join other either moderate or even Islamic groups.

[00:51:11]The Saudis, along with Qatar and [music] Turkey, support a group called Ahrar al-Sham, freemen of the Levant.

[00:51:23]An organization founded by a former member of al-Qaeda, seen here with Osama bin Laden.

[00:51:31]The war against ISIS, with its contradictory alliances, is full of surprises.

[00:51:37]And here's a last one for the road.

[00:51:39]>> [music] >> As surprising as it may seem, former American Ambassador Robert Ford also considers that the best partners for the United States in its fight against ISIS are the fundamentalist Ahrar al-Sham, yesterday's [music] sworn enemies.

[00:51:54]I don't like Ahrar al-Sham's vision for Syria. I am not in favor of an Islamic state in Syria, but I'm an American. I'm not a Syrian.

[00:52:04]So, I think we have to talk to Ahrar al-Sham to bring them into a political process. We will need [music] their support, and let's be frank, we will need some of their fighters to use against the Islamic State. It was a bit surprising for me to hear US ambassador talking about Ahrar al-Sham, which which has been created by Al-Qaeda representative. There is no [music] perfect answer here. If you want a perfect answer in Syria, I can't give you one, >> [music] >> but I can tell you this.

[00:52:34]The longer the Syrian war continues, the more we have the chance of another attack like Paris.

[00:52:42]Because the Americans were doing what you suggested, waiting for the perfect answer, we got really not the perfect, we got the worst solution.

[00:52:58]>> [music] >> Let me ask a follow-up on that, Madam Secretary. We are then looking for this force to >> [music] >> defeat ISIS, then defeat Assad, then defeat al-Nusra, then defeat other Al-Qaeda affiliates, keep at bay the Shiite militias and Hezbollah, take control of Damascus, and establish a pluralistic democracy [music] in Syria.

[00:53:24]Isn't that kind of a tall order? Well, certainly described like that, um and and that's why I focused on ISIS.

[00:53:31][music] I mean, because I think it's I think right now we have one overriding goal.

[00:53:38]With ISIS its only target, the United States and its coalition are a long way from draining the ever-deepening quagmire. Five years after the [music] start of an aborted revolution, there are more than 300,000 dead in Syria and about 6.5 [music] million displaced persons. There is no doubt that the principal culprit of these massacres, Bashar al-Assad, is the main beneficiary of an anti-ISIS [music] coalition that is increasingly divided.