US deep state behind ISIL in Iraq: Kevin Barrett

Press TV has conducted an interview with Kevin Barrett, an author and Islamic studies expert, from Madison, about the recent events in Iraq.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: In your perspective, how does a group that many say is a couple of thousand, how were they able to take over that city and why is it that they are so well-equipped?

Barrett: I think they’re obviously being trained, armed and funded by the usual suspects, and by that phrase I mean the neo-conservatives in the US and their friends and allies in Israel and Saudi Arabia. These are the people who have been behind the whole lobby for arming the so-called Syrian rebels including the ISIL in the war in Syria. They’ve propped up this group.

There are all sorts of reports of Blackwater-style or whatever they’re calling themselves now, these privatized military spinoffs, have been arming and training these terrorists in Syria. There are reports that these same trainers may actually be complicit in what’s going on in Iraq.

I recently interviewed Gordon Duff of Veterans Today on my radio show. Gordon Duff, he has a side business in security and he talked about a contract that his company bid on for security involving apparently the Iraqi government. The actual cost was in the neighborhood of something like 50 million dollars, less than 100 million dollars.

A grotesquely overbid came in at a billion dollars. Gordon Duff says that that company, which was the same company that builds the Patriot missiles, used the vast majority of that money, which was earmarked for helping the Iraqi government, and turned it around and used that money to arm and train these ISIL rebels.

There is a sort of a deep state involved here that is partly American, partly Saudi and perhaps partly Israeli and partly connected to NATO, which has been arming and training al-Qaeda-types for a very long time. I think it’s time for the US government to put its foot down and try to exert some control over its own activities because it’s not in the US interests to have a group that’s vastly too extreme even for al-Qaeda to take over Iraq.

Press TV: What about that Kevin Barrett, are there forces in Saudi Arabia that want peace and how likely, if they do exist, are they actually to be able to get the upper hand, especially when dealing with the situation now that we’re seeing in Iraq?

Barrett: There are some more reasonable forces in Saudi Arabia along with the extremist ones. We had Prince Bandar fired recently as head of Saudi intelligence. He’s been associated with the neo-conservatives in the US, with the deep state that I was talking about. His firing was probably a good sign. Then Saudi Arabia did actually ban these various so-called terrorist groups including some groups that aren’t terrorists, but that’s another story.

I think our guest there in Beirut is correct, that Saudi Arabia does have many forces but historically it has been dominated especially in recent years by these forces that are allying themselves with these extremist groups.

And they’ve actually worked with a certain group with the Zionist community, let us say, and the American neo-con community to try to destabilize the Middle East and to fund these al-Qaeda-related groups in Syria.

In looking at what’s happening in Iraq today, I think the guest is also correct that it’s getting out of hand, that most of the top US people are not happy with what’s going on. They may recognize that this was in fact the intended end-goal of the US invasion of Iraq, which was created by neo-conservative Zionist extremists who perpetrated the 9/11 false-flag events precisely in order to destabilize the Middle East, destroy seven countries in five years, as General Clark told us.

This was part of the “Odeduknown” program to balkanize the Middle East and break up these countries into much smaller units that could never threaten Israel.

This is precisely what these hard-line Zionists want to do with Iraq. They are very happy that ISIL is in fact creating the situation that could lead to the partition of Iraq.
But this is not in the US interests. It’s not in the interests of other regional players including Iran. It’s not in the interests of the sane people in Saudi Arabia.

This is a good opportunity for the United States government to rethink its policies, to separate itself from the Zionist extremists and to work with these various countries, especially Iran, Russia, Syria, and the other regional players to come up with some kind of solution and to preserve the Iraqi national sovereignty.

Press TV: What do you think, Kevin Barrett, do you think the United States has supported the group?

Barrett: Yes, I think the reports that the US has supported these Takfiri terrorists in Syria are quite credible. The report I mentioned from Mr. Gordon Duff about this recent contract also is very credible. I think there are deep state elements within the US that have been involved in supporting these terrorists, which shouldn’t be surprising.

The US deep state has been responsible for waves of terrorism all over the world for many decades now. All you have to do is Google Operation Gladio to discover that virtually all of the biggest, most spectacular left-wing terrorism during the Cold War was actually perpetrated by NATO assets under US military command. The Bologna trained bombing, the Brabant massacres in Belgium and so on.
Yes, the deep state in the US had dirty hands with all sorts of terrorist activities and some of those people have been arming and supporting al-Qaeda and ISIL and related groups.

That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily official US policy. That doesn’t mean that everybody in the US government is behind this. General Martin Dempsey at the Joint Chiefs is clearly opposed to this out-of-control stuff that’s been going on since 9/11, and I would hope that President Obama is more or less in his camp.

Again this means there’s an opportunity for decision makers in the US to break with this policy of tolerating these deep state activities, tolerating these extreme Zionist activities and the Zionist influence over US policy that’s led to such a disaster in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world.

It’s time for a new policy, a genuine clear break. Not Netanyahu’s clean break, which is what’s been going on until now. We need a new clean break from Netanyahu’s policies.

We need the US to start thinking about its own national interests, and preserving stability in the Middle East and Iraq is in the US national interests. So it’s time for President Obama to sit down, rethink this policy and work with Iran and other regional players to preserve Iraq.

Press TV: What will it take do you think, in order to rid Iraq of the terrorists? Will the Iraqi military be able to do so and what will it take in order for them to do it?

Barrett: Clearly the US is going to have to work with the Iraqi government and perhaps with Iran to try to stabilize the situation. But that’s going to be tough because let’s face it, the US is not at all popular in Iraq for obvious reasons in many corners.

Likewise, Iran is a foreign country on the border, and Iran’s intervention in Iraq probably wouldn’t go over well with a certain segment of the population. I think it’s going to take a cooperative effort and direct invention hopefully won’t be necessary.

I would hate to see American bombs falling on Iraq again. I would certainly hate to see American troops going into Iraq. This would probably be a recipe for compounding the disaster and making it worse than it is now.

But serious material support for the government in Iraq, which is corrupt and less-than-ideal as it is, is all that that country has at this point, is probably absolutely necessary.

Likewise, I think we need to start rallying people including Sunni Muslims, Christians, Shia Muslims and all other people of goodwill around the world to reject this Takfiri terrorism.

The guest and the comments are absolutely correct. Sunni Islam is not this Takfiri practice of excommunicating everybody, cutting off heads of people you disagree with, crucifying Christians – my goodness! This is not the way to win hearts and minds. These people are a walking advertisement against Islam. It’s a disgrace.

I hope the people of Iraq will recognize the disaster that these extremist terrorists are bringing upon them, and will work together across confessional lines to put an end to this problem.