Daily Beast: 50 US Spies Say Admin Altered their Dire Reports on ISIS Into ‘Happy Talk’

by Dan Calabrese

If this sounds familiar, it should. Tomorrow marks three years since the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which was followed by several days’ worth of bizarre talk from the Obama Administration about the whole thing starting with a YouTube video. That was all complete garbage, of course, but they were desperate to pitch that narrative in order to protect the larger political narrative that Al Qaeda was on the run.

Three years later, it’s now ISIS that represents the major threat, but the administration’s stance is basically the same. They don’t want to really fight, and in order to keep that approach politicallly plausible, they need to put forward a narrative that the enemy is on the run and we’ve got the upper hand.

So when non-political analysts file reports that completely contradict that narrative, what does the Obama administration do? Alter them, of course. Unfortunately for them, a large group of the analysts is not just sitting back and taking it. They’ve filed a complaint with the Pentagon’s inspector general, and 11 of them – and we offer the standard warning here that they are not letting their names be used - are now talking to the Daily Beast:

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 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 reports affirmed already-held beliefs.