Have government officials been sugarcoating intel reports about the fight against ISIS and other terrorist groups in the Middle East? That’s the claim being made by dozens of intelligence analysts from the U.S. military’s Central Command (CENTCOM).
In a formal complaint filed with the Department of Defense in July, two senior analysts from CENTCOM accused their superiors of distorting intelligence reports to reinforce the administration’s assurances that the war against groups like ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch) is going well. According to The Daily Beast,
That complaint was supported by 50 other analysts, some of whom have complained about politicizing of intelligence reports for months. That’s according to 11 individuals who are knowledgeable about the details of the report and who spoke to The Daily Beast on condition of anonymity.
The complaint alleges that high-ranking officials at CENTCOM and the Defense Intelligence Agency regularly altered intelligence reports to put a more positive spin on the war effort.
According to the complaint, senior intelligence officials completely omitted crucial elements of intelligence reports in some cases. A number of analysts also described an environment that stifled dissenting opinions. The Daily Beast reports:
Some reports crafted by the analysts that were too negative in their assessment of the war were sent back down the chain of the command or not shared up the chain, several analysts said. Still others, feeling the climate around them, self-censored so their reports affirmed already-held beliefs.
According to the analysts who filed the complaint, a number of employees were pressured to retire when they protested the manipulation of reports.
CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa, FL (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
The official complaint was referred to the Pentagon’s inspector general, who is currently conducting an investigation into the allegations.
While government intel rules state that assessments, “must not be distorted” by any agency agendas and/or policy views, it is very common for analysts to have differing opinions. The New York Times explains,
Legitimate differences of opinion are common and encouraged among national security officials, so the inspector general’s investigation is an unusual move and suggests that the allegations go beyond typical intelligence disputes.
According to two of the officials who spoke with The Daily Beast, intelligence analysts began complaining about distorted reports as far back as last October. Since then, a number of figures from the Obama administration have cast the fight against ISIS in a fairly positive light.
“I am confident that over time, we will beat, we will, indeed, degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL,” said Secretary of State John Kerry back in March. “ISIS is losing,” said John Allen — a retired general who Obama tapped to help coordinate the anti-ISIS coalition — at a security forum in July.
Even the President himself has made assurances: “No, I don’t think we’re losing [to ISIS],” he told The Atlantic during an interview in May.
But a number of recent intelligence reports suggest that the reality on the ground is much less optimistic. According to The New York Times, the reports…
…paint a sober[ing] picture about how little the Islamic State has been weakened over the past year, according to officials with access to the classified assessments. They said the documents conclude that the yearlong campaign has done little to diminish the ranks of the Islamic State’s committed fighters, and that the group over the last year has expanded its reach into North Africa and Central Asia.
Read more from The Daily Beast and The New York Times.