One of the camp’s senior managers acknowledged that the Camp Bucca of Baghdadi’s time was both dysfunctional and, from the perspective of commanders looking to quell the Sunni insurgency, counterproductive. By corralling Islamist radicals and ordinary Iraqis in a lawless desert pen, U.S. officials inadvertently created a “jihadi university” that helped inculcate Islamist ideas into a new generation of fighters, the officer said.
