GOP says US command manipulated Islamic State intel reports

The new report by a House Republican task force found that officials from the US military’s Central Command skewed Intel reports to make it seem as if the war against ISIS and al-Qaeda was going much better than it really was.

“After months of investigation, this much is very clear: from the middle of 2014 to the middle of 2015, the United States Central Command’s most senior intelligence leaders manipulated the command’s intelligence products to downplay the threat from ISIS in Iraq”, Pompeo said.

Now, an investigation by Republican Congressional members into a whistleblower complaint has found intelligence was altered to show more progress against ISIS than the intelligence warranted.

The report states that 40 percent of CENTCOM analysts “had experienced an attempt to distort or suppress intelligence in the past year”, and that leaders “violated regulations, tradecraft standards, and professional ethics” by modifying intelligence to present overly positive assessments of U.S. efforts to train Iraqi security forces.

The Joint Task Force, established by the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Defense, determined that there were intentional efforts to manipulate and propagandize battlefield realities, possibly for the goal of scoring political points in a heated election season.

According to the panel’s report, a new intelligence director arrived at Centcom only days before the Islamic State overran the Iraqi city of Mosul in June 2014, revealing the extent of the militant group’s strength and the calamitous state of Iraq’s army. They expect to continue their investigation and oversight work, after the investigation by the Department of Defense Inspector General (IG) is complete.

The report says, “Deference to operational reporting resulted in analysis that was more positive”, regarding both Iraqi forces and ISIS.

Austin took command after Mattis, and was replaced this March by Gen. Joseph Votel. Members of the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees and the Defense Appropriations subcommittee participated in the review.

The command’s intelligence on the Islamic State group also was “more optimistic” than that of other USA intelligence agencies and what actual events warranted, the task force said. “This intelligence manipulation provided space for both ISIS and al-Qaeda to grow and it put America at risk”. The analyst leveled allegations about senior leaders at CentCom’s intelligence directorate and at the command’s Joint Intelligence Center, which collects, processes, generates and stores classified intelligence data. Those conclusions are contained in this report. Cmdr. Kyle Raines of CENTCOM’s media department would not comment on the findings, because they have not been officially released.

Other than the top leadership of CentCom, the report mentions no one by name.

Republicans on the task force, led by Reps. “The frequency of these interactions could have provided CENTCOM leadership outsized influence on the material presented to the president outside of formal coordination channels”.

AXELROD: The task force stemmed from a whistle-blower complaint filed in 2015 by a senior analyst at CENTCOM alleging that intel had been manipulated.