Empire of Fear Quotes

“Peter Mansoor, who left the army shortly after the Surge, said, ‘If you don’t get rid of all the cancer cells and if the environment is such that it is conducive to the cells then multiplying, in other words you stop the chemotherapy, then the cancer can come back, and that is an excellent parallel to what’s happened with ISIS.”
― Andrew Hosken, Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State

“So why didn’t the US finish off ISI when it was so clearly on its last legs? According to James Franklin Jeffrey, the US Ambassador to Iraq for almost two years from August 2010, it was down to a lack of resources and commitment from Washington. Jeffrey, also a former senior White House security official between two diplomatic tours of Iraq, told me, ‘In 2010 and 2011 we were doing everything we could do to finish off al-Qaeda [ISI]. That was our priority.”
― Andrew Hosken, Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State

“By the end of 2007, there were 73,000 Sons of Iraq on the payroll, a source of angst for senior Shia politicians running the government, who began to fear the emergence of this Sunni army.32 The vetting process included taking fingerprints, biometric scans and photographs.33 Tragically, as would become apparent, Shia prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, always deeply suspicious and fearful of the Awakening and the Sons of Iraq, would obtain this information later and use it against recruits to destroy the Awakening movement.”
― Andrew Hosken, Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State

“Devlin, the US military intelligence chief for Anbar,46 concluded that the strength of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and ISI had become so dominant in western Iraq that US and Iraqi troops were no ‘longer capable of defeating the insurgency in Anbar’ and that ‘nearly all government institutions from the village to provincial level have disintegrated or have been thoroughly corrupted and infiltrated’ by ISI. ISI was growing rich thanks to the millions of dollars provided by its illicit trade in oil. ISI had brought about ‘the near complete collapse of social order’ and had consequently become ‘an integral part of the social fabric of western Iraq’.47 For ISI, conflict was always about seizing territory and holding it for its caliphate. Aside from being ninety-five percent Sunni, Anbar was also very important strategically. This vast territory encompasses much of Iraq’s western territory and stretches out from Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.”
― Andrew Hosken, Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State

“Believe it or not, The Management of Savagery is the actual title of an online book that appeared in 2004 and it eerily describes the terror strategy used by Baghdadi and his predecessors including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Essentially, it is a terror manual that will most probably never be read by Western consumers of news and current affairs. Its 268 pages detail how to bring about an ‘Islamic state’ or caliphate through the use of extreme violence and brutality.”
― Andrew Hosken, Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State

“The savagery and crimes of IS become that much more comprehensible when you remember that under Saddam the Ba’ath slaughtered thousands of Kurds and Iranians with poison gas and thousands more Shia by mass shootings. When it comes to killing, both the Ba’ath and the jihadis often display great relish. Apparently, one of the Ba’ath’s favourite ways of dispatching dissidents was to feed them feet first through giant shredders or wood chippers.”
― Andrew Hosken, Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State

“The weeks following the fall of Baghdad are crucial to understanding the rise of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and later Islamic State. The post-invasion mayhem and looting would soon be compounded by decisions taken by the new interim bodies that would run Iraq on behalf of the US-led coalition, decisions that would prove disastrous for years after they were taken.”
― Andrew Hosken, Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State