Apparently U.S. intelligence and military officials have been pressuring terrorism analysts to turn the pig’s ear of news about the Islamic State into a silk purse. At the Daily Beast, Shane Harris and Nancy Youssef write:
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.
… Two defense officials said that some felt the commander for intelligence at CENTCOM failed to keep political pressures from Washington from bearing on lower-level analysts at command headquarters in Tampa, Florida.
… 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.
Where have we seen this before? Oh yeah, among other instances, to pave the way for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In 2003 James Risen wrote for the New York Times:
The recent disclosure that reports claiming Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger were based partly on forged documents has renewed complaints among analysts at the C.I.A. about the way intelligence related to Iraq has been handled, several intelligence officials said.
Analysts at the agency said they had felt pressured to make their intelligence reports on Iraq conform to Bush administration policies.
For months, a few C.I.A. analysts have privately expressed concerns to colleagues and Congressional officials that they have faced pressure in writing intelligence reports to emphasize links between Saddam Hussein’s government and Al Qaeda.
The practice was summed up in the infamous Downing Street memo from 2002 emanating from a meeting of British government, defence and intelligence officials, in which they discussed U.S. plans for Iraq.
“[George W.] Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
Regarding the latest allegations, the Wall Street Journal reports:
The Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General is looking into whether military officials from U.S. Central Command had modified conclusions of some intelligence assessments prepared for senior policy makers to play up progress against Islamic State, said a spokesman for Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.), chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, which is aware of the review.