and on go to cnn.com/sotu. the questions haunt us. each time we witness some terrible new savagery. >> the images emerging are frankly horrifying. >> each time we meet the face of evil. >> our 85 will continue to strike the next of your people. >> we ask how? why? how could a band of butchers come out of nowhere, take savt lands. >> we will chop off the heads of the americans, chop off the

heads of the french. wherever you may where. >> perhaps the most important question how could we fought have known? the answer is we did. this is a story of what we few about isis and when we few it. it is a story that has not been told before not in its entirety told by the people who have made the journey into the mind and heart of isis. we begin with an extraordinary chance to look into the islamic state. not a single reporter has dared to venture there since the gruesome beheadings of journalists began last year. imagine seeing this. >> i'm john cantlie, the british citizen abandoned by my own government. >> and this. >> these could be my last hours in this world. >> and then heading straight into the heart of darkness.

but that is precisely what this man did. >> for months i was preparing the trip. every nit i felt a knife on my throat. i felt it physically. >> a german journalist. last years ago he crossed the border into isis territory. >> i think you must know your enemy if you want to defeat him. >> he went to mosul, an iraqi city about the size of philadelphia. population around 1.5 million. it's the biggest prize isis has captured. this extraordinary video gives us a rare look into every day life under isis. it brings to mind the writer's concept, the benality of evil.

isis has its own license plates and traffic cops who give parking tickets and there are friendly shop keepers. >> completely brainwashed. completely. i've never in my life met people like this. >>? >> this of course is the isis they wanted him to see. they gave him written permission to come to the city and he believes they let him live a life to make a point. >> they wanted to show me that they are a state and that this state is work. it's not a perfect state. it's not like the united states. but it's a state. >> and it's getting bigger. he saw new recruits pouring in every day. >> in this recruit krernlt, we

have every day more than 50 new fighters they can lose fighters. they don't care. the amazing thing is they are completely enthusiastic. they think it's the time of their life. they think that they are a part of a historical event, changing the whole middle east. >> among them were americans. i met many americans. i met remember germs and french people and english people but many americans, guys from new jersey. >> there were also american weapons, soldiers carry them like a badge of honor, even the children. >> how old are you? >> these child soldier 12 and 13 years old now go to what isis call schools.

>> they start a new school system which i found is completely wrong, completely crazy, but it's a system. >> isis officials toted out a few prisoners, this man is one of a group cap cured kurdish soldiers. >> when did they cap cure you? >> he told him he was afraid. >> shortly after, isis put kurdish prisoners in cages, dressed in orange jump suits they were paraded through the streets and isis made a propaganda video out of it. it's hard to believe but according to him, there are people in mosul who say they are better off under the islamic state. almost all sunni and they are suffered pe hands of iraq shiite

government. >> first of all, instead of anarchy, they have now law and order and people don't like it but they like security. so they take taxis. they take care of rapport. >> isis even reaches out to the disabled this is a recruitment video for deaf jihadis who wish to join isis. his isis munders kept him away from one group. he was not permitted to speak to or go near a single woman. >> and to think that you will win the war. >> programs the most astonishing thing he heard, from both isis soldiers and leaders is this. >> they want to provoke the united states to bring ground troops to the country. it's a clear target. they want the americans to bring

their boots on the ground. they want to fight the americans. that's their dream. their ultimate fight against the americans. that's what they want. it's what they hope. >> they do want to fight the american on their own turf. in this regard isis has a different dream than al qaeda. osama bin laden wanted to perpetrate large scale terrorist attacks against the west isis may do this but to further its aim of building a state, a caliphate. still you cannot understand isis without going back to al qaeda and its signature moment. it's most spectacular attack. >> september 11th 2001. 19 al qaeda operatives hijack

four plane, knock down two skyscrapers, crash into the pentagon and kill almost 3,000 people the people that knock these buildings down at. >> at that moment the american people terrorized. the american government searched for a fitting response to this attack at that moment the seeds of isis were planted. it will take years and untold numbers of debt before isis would supplant al qaeda. but you can draw a line from the horrifying events of 9-11 and the american response to the creation of the islamic state. >> that line begins 18 months after september 11th. the united states invades iraq. >> my fellow citizens at this hour american coalition forces

are in the early stages of military operations. it is on iraq to free its people and defend the world from grave danger. >> when the u.s. invited. it hasn't really thought much about the day after. it was very much focused on overslowing saddam. >> and what happened in initial weeks was a total power vacuum. >> as the american occupation quickly devolved into chaos. one man seized the moment al zarkawi, the godfather of isis. in 2004 zarkawi swore allegiance to osama bin laden and became the leader of al qaeda in iraq. >> the u.s. has described him as one of the world's most

dangerous terrorists. >> var cao whichzarkawi's ultimate goal is to create an islamic state. >> the older team needed to be formally disbanded. >> osama bin laden's military was out on the street and then american soldiers captured saddam himself. >> we got him. >> sub mys were out of favor and jobs but they had guns and corporational prowess. zarkawi began recruiting them. >> zarkawi was a major celebrity in 2004. he became a rockstar. >> some of the worst violence americans saw on their tv screens during the iraq war came courtesy of zarkawi. >> he was like a psychopath. >> sunni insurgents inspired by

iraq blew up a holy shryia shrine. >> the bombing, the beheading, the focus not just ob foreigners but on shiites, other muslims, seen as heretics. >> with a bounty on his head there is no one anyone wants to catch other than zarkawi. >> in 2006 u.s. forces killed him, with two 500-pound bombs. >> tonight the most wanted terrorist in iraqi is killed in a massive united states airstrikes. >> zarkawi, he said was eliminated. >> zarkawi's death is a severe proceed to al qaeda. >> but as it turned out, the movement zarkawi began would

survive that flow. when we come back the rise of the leader of isis. >> he wasn't considered from everything that we know now a high level detainee. >> inside an american prison.

ert of southern iraq. this is camp bucca, an american prison. during the iraq war, the most dangerous jihadis were locked up

here. up to 20,000 of the country's angriest men. some of the men that worked at camp bucca called it simply camp hell. it wasn't just crowded, it was violent. in 2005 riots broke out. detainees wint on a rampage, take -- went on a rampage, taking over whole sections of the camp. they massed outside the fences firing into the crowd. at least four prisoners were killed. >> now, this is camp bucca. >> major general doug stone was brought in to fix camp bucca. even he was wary of the inmates. here he is giving cnn's nick robertson a tour in 2008. >> we got about 2,000 identified al qaeda here in the theater

interment facility. >> everyone is crowded around looks at us now. >> right. this is not a place you want to hang around. so we don't want to stand here that much longer. they will now organize around us. >> there were beatings unexplained prisoner deaths and several jihadis escaped. into this quad dron one day in early 2004 a new man arrived. we know him now as abu bakir al baghdad baghdadi the leader. he was in american custody. al baghdadi has shown his face publicly once last year when he gave a sermon to his

followers. followers. >> r but back when the u.s. had him under lock and key, he was seen as believe it or not, a man that can be trusted. >> abu bakir was someone who could keep them quiet. there are 24 camps. he was allowed open access to all of them. >> he wasn't considered from everything we know now a high level detainee and he was allowed to lead prayers. he was allowed to give religious lessons. >> the future leader of isis was giving other inmates lessons on islam islam. those inmates were jihadists. or former baathists. henchmen of saddam or simply common criminals. >> it most assuredly was a jihadist university. unquestionable. >> put them altogether in the

baking heat of southern iraq with al baghdadi a man who dreamed of a new kind of terror. it was a recipe for isis. >> they are meeting. they were playing soccer together. they were strategizing together. >> one thing is clear, al baghdadi went through a transformation at camp bucca. >> he was an average person. he was just a sunni foot soldier when he was arrested by the americans. >> but by the time al baghdadi left he was someone else. >> all we know is baghdadi became an entirely different creature in terms of radicalization in terms of militarization. in terms of building a huge network, admittance in the prison. >> at camp bucca, al baghdadi networked with hundreds jihadis, at least some of whom would later join isis. the day would come when he would also feed military expertise.

enter saddam hussein's army dismissed my american now many at camp bucca. men with exactly the skillset al baghdadi can make use of. then he was set free. the future leader of isis was recommended for unconditional release by a military review board in december 2004. they did not consider him a threat. whether it turns out al baghdadi is the mastermind of isis or a figurehead the fact remains, the united states has put a $10 million price tag on his head. >> when we come back the dangerous way that isis is using us television news. >> while the u.s. is backing

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iville just a click away. it takes no more than a few seconds to find isis propaganda online. thousands of videos are strewn across the internet. much of it of course is sickeningly violent, unbearable to watch. the awful beheading, the fiery murders. but all of it may add up to the single biggest reason for the success of isis. like so much of what the group does. this is a terror tactic we have fought seen before and it is frighteningly effective. >> 20 years ago, you could never find the three people in minnesota who would be attracted to the isis ideology. today you can. and they can find you. isis has used facebook twitter, google and the world wide web as its command and control system. >> the violence in isis propaganda is enhanced by

special effects and powerful music. some videos really are like small film done with real skill. ironically it is the barberism that makes these clips go viral. no one has ever seen anything like it. most of us look at this and this and wonder how it could possibly attract recruits. but for some young men, raised on violent video games and shoot them up movies it's a powerful lure. >> actions speak louder than words. it is it's savagery and viciousness, all of us here. we look at the horrible aevilleeill.-- owe evil. people who suffer from torn

identities come to us. >> all brothers and sisters come to jihad to feel the honor we are feeling. heel feel the happiness we are feeling. >> they want killing opinions. that's why you see them doing these videos making kids watch these videos making kids commit crimes and kill because they are trying to establish a new generation of killers. >> it's a gang mentality. >> the gang idea is important because isis uses it to manipulate kids. a lot of the propaganda mixes the violence with scenes of camaraderie. friendship. the people in isis videos seem to be sake we did not for long where we were but now we have found a home. a powerful message to the millions of unemployed disconnected young muslims across the middle east. and even in countries like france and germany. >> a brother in islam and syria i originally come from syria. >> i think you am still

dreaming. i am dreaming like i'm dreaming. i'm dreaming in the dream world. you have to be here to understand what i'm saying. >> and, of course isis also manipulates us television news they put their videos online. we put them on television. in a bizarre twist, isis turns around and makes clever use of what it sees on tv. this video is called victory in kobani. it dplorfys the isis capture of that syrian city while mocking president obama and other western leaders. >> first of all there is no military solution through isil. military owns the solution. okay. >> the angry rhetoric of cable news fits right into the script. >> we have proven we cannot defeat these people. we are so incompetent in terms of conducting foreign policy in

terms of conducting military operations. >> cnn makes an occasional appearance. >> into that city of kobani. >> but fox news the a favorite of isis with commentators who demand boots on the ground playing into isis dreams of a grand battle against americans. >> at the end of the day when kobani fall i would say by all accounts it's going to the united states will look absolutely foolish for doing some pin pick stripes that had no effect on the outcome. isis will come out more empowered than ever. isis will be the big winner and the united states will be the big loser. >> all of it is frighteningly effective. creating 21st century machine designed perfectly for the young and built to recruit followers from across the world. >> they were raised on twitter. they were raised on youtube. they were raised on facebook. >> isis is cnn to somebody's

home tv. these guys are very sophisticated. they're a whole different generation. generation. >> if just a moment isis and the white house, the story of what we knew about the terror group and when we knew it. >> we failed to understand the enemy that we face. star gaze dream big wander m .

tally murdered. their bodies burned and hung from a bridge. >> four u.s. civilians butchered, dragged through the street. >> this was fallujah iraq. the year was 2004. the atrocity aroused deep

american anger and brought promises of retribution. >> we will hunt down the criminals. we will kill them. or we will capture them and we will pacify fallujah. >> and u.s. forces fought two long and bloody battles to retake the city. nearly 70 americans lost their lives liberty liberating fallujah hundreds more were left seriously wounded. ten years later, fallujah falls back into the hands of an enemy. but this time it's isis. just a few days after fallujah fell the president talked about the threat from the terror group from an interview with the requested new yorker" magazine. he said the analogy we use around here sometimes, i think it'sing a ratd is when the jv team puts on lakers uniforms it doesn't make them kobe bryant.

>> i was disappointed. i was disappointed that he said that. i don't think he was well served. >> leiutenant general michael flynn had a front row seat to the rise of isis. he led the defense intelligence agency until late last year. >> we failed to understand the enemy that we face. >> intelligence officials have warned the administration that isis was growing more dangerous before the president made his infamous jv comment. but the president has said the intelligence on isis was inadequate. here he is on "60 minutes." >> how did they end up where they are in control of so much territory? was that a complete surprise to you? >> well i think our head of the intelligence community, jim clapper, has acknowledged that i think they underestimated what had been taking place in syria.

>> you were dia at the time. do you think it was an intelligence -- >> no i don't. i look at. that it's easy i will take one for the team you know the president has to decide who he's going to listen to and what information he's going to use and i think that he was thoroughly advised to say that. >> the president makes no apologies for being measuring and deliberate about military resources. >> benjamin rhodes is the national security adviser and a close aid to president obama. >> do you think we should have been alerted to the threat that isis posed earlier? >> you know it's always easy to look back and say you could have been alerted to a specific threat at a spec time. the question is, what action would that have triggered? part of what the president brought to his approach to

national security is some degree of restraint in saying we're not going to chase every rabbit down every hole in the middle east. >> the white house did underestimate isis and republicaned seized on the issue. >> our strategy will fail yet again. this president needs to rise to the occasion before we all get killed back here at home. >> even former top officials in the obama administration had tough words. >> it's more than just an intelligence failure. it's a policy failure as well. >> of course the solution offered by most critics is the one thing isis wants the most. american boots on the ground. >> we frankly don't believe as a matter of policy the insertion of significant u.s. ground troops is the right way to go. it's because what we've learned from iraq and other experiences is there is more legitimacy on the ground if it's people fighting for their own country and their own future. >> but the biggest intelligence

failure. the biggest policy failure. the biggest underestimation was not of the sprint of the self styled islamic state, but of the weakness of the iraqi state. in the middle of 2014 when isis started taking town after town in iraq the iraqi army is centrally laid down its arms and ran away. -- essentially laid down its articles and ran away. remember this was an army the united states had spent more than $25 billion building umm. an army more than 200,000 strong. that's more than six times the size of isis and maybe more. and it was all rendered useless against the isis assault. why? well much of it can be pinned on one man. >> if you ask me what's the

most important factor? the driver behind the resurgence of isis i would say fury al maliki. >> nouri al maliki the prime minister the united states put into power in 2006. >> i appreciated your commitment to representing the people of iraq. >> back then maliki's appointment was touted by the administration as a triumphant moment for the newly democratic iraq. >> i appreciate you recognize the fact that the future of kwlour country is in your hands. >> to insure the success of democracy, maliki, a shiite needed to hear the powerful schism between iraq but he never did. when asked to fight against isis the sunni soldiers and the iraqi army simply said no. >> for many soviet union nice they look to iranian backed

regime in baghdad. they looked at isis. some made the calculation that isis was the lesser of two evils. >> they left after the u.s. could not reach agreement with maliki to maintain a military presence. >> the question that we ask today when people look back at that decision is, what would we have done with 10,000 u.s. troops? frankly, would we have wanted them to be fighting which is like mosul and fallujah against isil? >> republicans have criticized president obama for not leaving troops in iraq. some have said if american forces had stayed there would be no isis but they that was never in the cards. he had a new set of patron fellow shiites and the mullahs

made him an offer he couldn't refuse. >> that was part of iran's deal with maliki we will give you a third term but the conditions are no american soldiers. that was what tehran had demanded. there was no way it had gone through the parliament. >> one thing is clear, it was only iraq's army that could have stopped isis. instead, iraqi soldiers threw down their weapons and ran. >> next on "blindsided," what drives these people? what makes them tick? we will go inside the mind of a radical. immediate a man who was prepared to die for a fantasy. the idea of an islamic caliphate. .

ears for jihad. bin ladin was there, sawzawahiri was there. foreign fighters were constantly flowing from but now incredibly foreign fighters are flowing in even faster to iraq and syria. an estimated 20,000 of them in total. what drives these people there? what makes them leave home to go far away and fight for an idea? a fantasy. you're about to find out. in the days that followed 9-11 just about everyone in the world

150e78d to be stand seemed to be standing with the united states. but not this man. >> i am sorry to say this but i lacked any empathy with the victims. >> maga nowa didn't start as a radical. he grew up here in essex, england, the son of hard working pakistani parents. but he didn't quite feel at home in britain and yet had no other place to call home. no community to call his own. he read for us what he wrote in his diary after seeing the towers fall. >> don't you think we have been crying too, leak you are now for years? do you think we felt no pain as you wrapd and plundered our land and bombed our cities what lands, what cities you ask? your arrogance is only compounded by your ignorance. you chose your side and we have

chosen ours. >> he had become convinced the world of islam was under constant and brutal attack from the west muslims lad to fight back. his chosen army was a radical group. the day before 9-11. he had landed in egypt to recruit for the group, which in some ways is a forerunner to isis. >> it's the first of this organization responsible for popularizing the notion of resurrecting a so-called islamic state. its caliphate is what arabs have been dreaming of since 1953. >> the trigger was a muslim slauths he saw every night on tv every morning in the paper. the genocide in bosnia. and it made him a perfect prospect for a local recruiter. >> i dedicated the rest of my life it to. in fact i was prepared to die

for it. >> in the months after 9-11 he was arrested. in an egyptian jail with what he calls the cream of the crop of jihadists, he was thrilled at first about all he could learn from them. but then he had a jailhouse revelation. >> living so close with them for four years in prison i came to the conclusion that if these guys any of them ever got to power. if they ever declared this so-called caliphate, it would held up. it would be a living nightmare. >> recently his journey almost took him from prison to parliament. he ran for seat in this year's british elections. he is currently the chairman of the quillium foundation, a think tank he co-founded to study extremism and challenge it. >> people that join isil they

genuinely think that brigg about an end of day scenario they genuinely believe they will working on behalf of god. >> imagine na waz's story sheds light on one crucial as peblt of this picture. but what about the other? why are hundred, thousands or people streaming from four corners of the world to fight for isis? thomas freedman has a simple explanation. >> none of them has ever held aopower or the girl's hand and when you put large numbers of young males together and you offer them a wife, a salary you offer them the ability tolighter over somebody else that is isis' value proposition. >> next on "blindsided," is isis a threat to the united states to the homeland? i'll give you my thoughts when we come back.

big day? ah, the usual. moved some new cars. hauled a bunch of steel. kept the supermarket shelves stocked. made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. what's up for the next shift? ah, nothing much. just keeping the lights on. (laugh) nice. doing the big things that move an economy. see you tomorrow, mac. see you tomorrow, sam. just another day at norfolk southern.

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>> you've heard so much and seen so much about isis that it's easy to get anxious. it is trying to scare you around confuse you. with that caveat let me offer a few thoughts about the group. isis is clearly about religion. about its version of radical islam. but it is also about power. there is increasing evidence that the military backbone of isis is made up not by a group of islamic zealots but high ranking officers from saddam hein's aerial, baathists that are secular. isis presents itself as a global organization. but it has thrived because of a local cause. the group has gained territory, cash and recruits primarily because of the rage and rebellion of the sunnis of iraq and syria. >> that sunni cause is going to endur for some time. the sunnis of the region will

remain in rebellion. the sunni dominated areas will remain in turmoil. isis will be able to capitalize on this chaos. now in the long run, isis might find its greatest knows lie within the so-called caliphate t. few reports that are emerging from areas controlled by isis suggest that people do not like living under a brutal theo kratic dictatorship. once they are governing, the ilawyerfy the disenchantment builds with it ever increasing repression. remember no one has ever voted isis into power anywhere. they slaughter their way to victory. is isis a threat to the west? the group's leaders declare it is every day. but their ambitions appear to be mostly center on their arab enemies on building a caliphate in iraq and syria. they are opportunists.

they ask and hope their followers would act in america. but their main focus is not to come here. they want americans to go there. no mother how one rates the level of the threat isis poses, the group has changed the nature of terror. the leaders of isis have recognized that above all they are a messaging machine, which, inturn becomes a recruitment machine t. gruesome videos would seem a repulsive turnoff and are to most people but they work on the web. the shock and awe they produce makes them go viral. that's a scene by tens of millions. that ensures these videos attract those utterly alienated young men. a few thousand among the world's 1.6 billion muslims, who seek revenge, glory, and gore. as long as those young men scattered across the globe are attracted to isis and streamed

to its cause, the group presents the world with a danger that is impossible to fully assess and a danger that grows by the month. >> good morning, happy independence day weekend. we have a whole lot in store today starting with the sentence i never thought i would say, get ready for this is presidential candidate donald trump going to sue nbc over the miss usa panel ent? it sound like he is. his lawyer is actually standing by in new york to talk about it. it's been that kind of week donald trump with reporters scrambling to keep up. i was with them. i took a roadtrip to find out how seriously the political press pact and asked reporters how seriously they should be taking them. you