Intelligence reports produced by U.S. Central Command that tracked the Islamic State’s 2014-15 rise in Iraq and Syria were skewed to present a rosier picture of the situation on the ground, according to a bombshell report released Thursday by a House Republican task force.
(FOX)- The task force investigated a Defense Department whistleblower’s allegations that higher-ups manipulated analysts’ findings to make the campaign against ISIS appear more successful to the American public.
The report, obtained by Fox News, concluded that intelligence reports from Central Command were, in fact, “inconsistent with the judgments of many senior, career analysts.”
Further, the report found, “these products also consistently described U.S. actions in a more positive light than other assessments from the [intelligence community] and were typically more optimistic than actual events warranted.”
The report from a joint task force blamed “structural and management changes” at the CENTCOM Intelligence Directorate starting in mid-2014. Surveys provided to the task force, according to the report, showed 40 percent of analysts later claimed they “had experienced an attempt to distort or suppress intelligence.”
The report also said senior leaders relied on details from coalition forces rather than “more objective and documented intelligence reporting,” using this as a rationale to change reports – sometimes “in a more optimistic direction.”