Thursday, August 27, 2015

Did The Pentagon, Intelligence Chiefs, And The White House Politicized Islamic State Intelligence Reports And Analysis?

Shane Harris & Nancy A. Youssef, Daily Beast: Spies: Obama’s Brass Pressured Us to Downplay ISIS Threat

U.S. intelligence analysts keep saying that the American-led campaign against ISIS isn’t going so well. Their bosses keep telling them to think again about those conclusions.

Senior military and intelligence officials have inappropriately pressured U.S. terrorism analysts to alter their assessments about the strength of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, three sources familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. Analysts have been pushed to portray the group as weaker than the analysts believe it actually is, according to these sources, and to paint an overly rosy picture about how well the U.S.-led effort to defeat the group is going.

Reports that have been deemed too pessimistic about the efficacy of the American-led campaign, or that have questioned whether a U.S.-trained Iraqi military can ultimately defeat ISIS, have been sent back down through the chain of command or haven’t been shared with senior policymakers, several analysts alleged.

Update: Bad ISIS Intelligence? Military Told Obama What He Wanted to Hear -- Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary

Previous Post: Pentagon Investigating If Islamic State Intelligence Analysis And Reports Were Altered To Present A More 'Positive View'

WNU Editor: Talk about being ahead of the curve .... while researching this story I came across a post that I did a few months back questioning the "intelligence and analysis" of CENTCOM .... Are The People Who Run U.S. Central Command Stupid?

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