August 11, 2016
CENTCOM NEWS -- SO WHAT DID THE PRESIDENT KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?
THIS FROM THE DAILY BEAST DATED SEPTEMBER 2015 IS THE EARLIEST REPORT I FOUND:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/09/exclusive-50-spies-say-isis-intelligence-was-cooked.html
WRITTEN BY
SHANE HARRIS
NANCY A. YOUSSEF
‘CANCER WITHIN’ 09.09.15 9:00 PM ET
Exclusive: 50 Spies Say ISIS Intelligence Was Cooked
It’s being called a ‘revolt’ by intelligence pros who are paid to give their honest assessment of the ISIS war—but are instead seeing their reports turned into happy talk.
More than 50 intelligence analysts working out of the U.S. military’s Central Command have formally complained that their reports on ISIS and al Qaeda’s branch in Syria were being inappropriately altered by senior officials, The Daily Beast has learned.
The complaints spurred the Pentagon’s inspector general to open an investigation into the alleged manipulation of intelligence. The fact that so many people complained suggests there are deep-rooted, systemic problems in how the U.S. military command charged with the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State assesses intelligence.
“The cancer was within the senior level of the intelligence command,” one defense official said.
Two senior analysts at CENTCOM signed a written complaint sent to the Defense Department inspector general in July alleging that the reports, some of which were briefed to President Obama, portrayed the terror groups as weaker than the analysts believe they are. The reports were changed by CENTCOM higher-ups to adhere to the administration’s public line that the U.S. is winning the battle against ISIS and al Nusra, al Qaeda’s branch in Syria, the analysts claim.
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 accusations suggest that a large number of people tracking the inner workings of the terror groups think that their reports are being manipulated to fit a public narrative. The allegations echoed charges that political appointees and senior officials cherry-picked intelligence about Iraq’s supposed weapons program in 2002 and 2003.
The two signatories to the complaint were described as the ones formally lodging it, and the additional analysts are willing and able to back up the substance of the allegations with concrete examples.
Some of those CENTCOM analysts described the sizeable cadre of protesting analysts as a “revolt” by intelligence professionals who are paid to give their honest assessment, based on facts, and not to be influenced by national-level policy. The analysts have accused senior-level leaders, including the director of intelligence and his deputy in CENTCOM, of changing their analyses to be more in line with the Obama administration’s public contention that the fight against ISIS and al Qaeda is making progress. The analysts take a more pessimistic view about how military efforts to destroy the groups are going.
The large number of analysts who complained to the Pentagon inspector general hasn’t been previously reported. Some of them are assigned to work at CENTCOM, the U.S. military’s command for the Middle East and Central Asia, but are officially employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The complaints allege that in some cases key elements of intelligence reports were removed, resulting in a document that didn’t accurately capture the analysts’ conclusions, sources familiar with the protest said. But the complaint also goes beyond alleged altering of reports and accuses some senior leaders at CENTCOM of creating an unprofessional work environment. One person who knows the contents of the written complaint sent to the inspector general said it used the word “Stalinist” to describe the tone set by officials overseeing CENTCOM’s analysis.
Many described a climate in which analysts felt they could not give a candid assessment of the situation in Iraq and Syria. Some felt it was a product of commanders protecting their career advancement by putting the best spin on the war.
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
“While we cannot comment on the specific investigation cited in the article, we can speak to the process. The Intelligence Community routinely provides a wide range of subjective assessments related to the current security environment. These products and the analysis that they present are absolutely vital to our efforts, particularly given the incredibly complex nature of the multi-front fights that are ongoing now in Iraq and Syria,” said Air Force Col. Patrick Ryder, U.S. CENTCOM spokesman. “Senior civilian and military leadership consider these assessments during planning and decision-making, along with information gained from various other sources, to include the insights provided by commanders on the ground and other key advisors, intelligence collection assets, and previous experience.”
Two of the officials who spoke to The Daily Beast said that analysts began airing their complaints in October in an effort to address the issue internally and only went to the inspector general when that effort failed. Some of those who complained were urged to retire, one official familiar with the report told The Daily Beast. Some agreed to leave.
In recent months, members of the Obama administration have sought to paint the fight against ISIS in rosy hues—despite the terror army’s seizure of major cities like Mosul and Fallujah.
“ISIS is losing,” John Allen, the retired Marine general charged with coordinating the ISIS campaign, said in July.
“I am confident that over time, we will beat, we will, indeed, degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL,” Secretary of State John Kerry said in March, using the government’s preferred acronym for the group.
“No, I don’t think we’re losing,” President Obama said in May.
Yet a growing group of intelligence analysts persisted with their complaints. For some, who have served at CENTCOM for more than a decade, scars remained from the run-up to the 2003 war in Iraq, when poorly written intelligence reports suggesting Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, when it did not, formed the basis of the George W. Bush administration’s case for war.
“They were frustrated because they didn’t do the right thing then” and speak up about their doubts on Iraq’s weapons program, the defense official told The Daily Beast.
http://www.stripes.com/news/house-task-force-says-centcom-manipulated-islamic-state-intelligence-1.423510
Stars and Stripes
House task force says CENTCOM manipulated Islamic State intelligence
By Travis J. Tritten
Stars and Stripes
Published: August 11, 2016 42 minutes ago
WASHINGTON – U.S. Central Command manipulated intelligence on the Islamic State group to provide an overly positive impression of progress in the war, a joint House task force said Thursday.
An interim report by the task force found Central Command senior leaders signed off on intelligence reports on Iraq and Syria in 2014 and 2015 that were routinely more positive than ones produced by other agencies, and said that practice might have spawned policies that put U.S. troops in danger.
Dozens of analysts in the command cited a “toxic” leadership environment under former commander Gen. Lloyd Austin III, who retired from military service in April.
The findings come after analyst whistleblowers made claims last year of widespread massaging of war intelligence at the command and a recent House survey of its analysts found 40 percent felt somebody had attempted to distort or suppress their findings despite persuasive evidence.
The House investigation remains ongoing, according to the task force, which included members of the Armed Services Committee, Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Appropriations Committee. The Defense Department Inspector General is also probing the allegations, though it has not issued any findings yet.
“The leadership failures at CENTCOM reach to the very top of the organization,” said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., a member of the task force with the Appropriations Committee. “I hope that the new CENTCOM commander and the new director of intelligence can turn things around quickly.”
Gen. Joseph Votel took over the command this year after leading U.S. Special Operations Command, and Maj. Gen. Mark Quantock was named intelligence director in March.
The command did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment. Last year, a spokesman said Central Command and former commander Austin welcomed the inquiries and looked for “unvarnished” intelligence guidance from staff.
Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., who serves on the intelligence committee, said the massaging of information gleaned from the war zone was meant to downplay the threat of the Islamic State group.
“That may well have resulted in putting American troops at risk as policymakers relied on this intelligence when formulating policy and allocating resources for the fight,” Pompeo said in a released statement.
However, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, a task force member from the Armed Services Committee who acknowledged accurate analysis is crucial to the war effort, said he was less certain about Central Command’s handling of the information.
“Despite nearly nine months of review, we still do not fully understand the reasons and motivations behind this practice and how often the excluded analyses were proven ultimately to be correct,” said Wenstrup, who is also a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve.
The task force report found the command began producing intelligence reports that bucked the judgement of many of its senior analysts after structural and management changes made in mid-2014.
“These products were consistently more optimistic regarding the conduct of U.S. military action than that of the senior analysts,” according to the report.
Central Command was also more optimistic about progress in the war than other parts of the intelligence community, a practice that extended to misleading public statements as well.
“Many CENTCOM press releases, public statements and congressional testimonies were also significantly more positive than actual events,” the report found.
The descent into cooked intelligence happened after the departure of Gen. James Mattis, the commander until 2013 who is also now retired, and his staff of senior officials.
“Survey results provided to the joint task force demonstrated that dozens of analysts viewed the subsequent leadership environment as toxic,” according to the task force report.
The work environment at Central Command slowly began to improve when the IG launched its investigation into manipulated intelligence last year.
“Many issues persisted until the arrival of Army Gen. Joseph Votel and the new head of CENTCOM’s intelligence directorate,” the report found.
tritten.travis@stripes.com
Twitter: @Travis_Tritten
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/centcom-accused-of-manipulating-intelligence-isis-fight-syria-iraq/
CENTCOM accused of manipulating intel on ISIS
CBS NEWS August 11, 2016, 7:01 AM
According to a hard-hitting government task force report released Thursday, intelligence generated by the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) was manipulated to paint a rosier picture of the U.S. effort to combat ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
The report finds that, beginning in mid-2014, final intelligence reports issued by CENTCOM contradicted the initial internal assessments made by its own analysts, reports CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod.
"The facts on the ground didn't match what the intelligence was saying out of the United States Central Command," said Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., a member of the task force.
The military CENTCOM is responsible for American security interests in 20 nations, stretching from Egypt through the Arabian Gulf region and into central Asia.
The task force stemmed from a whistleblower complaint from a senior analyst at CENTCOM alleging that intel had been manipulated. The complaint is under active investigation by the Defense Department inspector general.
"There's enormous evidence about how this information from talented career professionals inside the analytic arm at CENTCOM did their job and accurately depicted what was going on on the ground, but when it got to very senior levels, that information was changed," Pompeo said.
But it wasn't just classified intelligence. The task force also found that CENTCOM's public statements were far more positive than events on the ground warranted -- such as in March 2015 when CENTCOM Commander Gen. Lloyd Austin testified to Congress.
"The fact is that he [ISIS] can no longer do what he did at the outset, which is to seize and hold new territory. He has assumed a defensive crouch in Iraq," Gen. Austin said.
While the report found intelligence was in fact manipulated by CENTCOM, the task force found no evidence that orders for those changes came from the White House.
House Report on CENTCOM Intelligence -- GO TO WEBSITE AND OPEN THIS TO READ REPORT.
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