Exclusive: 50 Spies Say ISIS Intelligence Was Cooked

[bananas]

Source: Daily Beast

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.

<snip>

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.

<snip>

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.

<snip>

Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/09/exclusive-50-spies-say-isis-intelligence-was-cooked.html

[JDPriestly]

1. This needs to be looked into. This is what happened in Viet Nam.

We should not cover up mistakes made in high places. The ultimate price is not worth the happy talk.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. IKNEW that soundedfamiliar!

Dubya's Iraq war and the Afghanistan occupation sounded like Viet Nam also.
"light at the end of the tunnel" and all that crap.

[bobthedrummer]

33. Psy Ops became Information Operations/IO in 2003 dixiegrrrrl and now IO is 24/7 MSM-the Ministry of

Truth, instead of The Fourth Estate here in HOMELAND...

Information Operations Related Documents (DoD)
http://information-retrieval.info/docs/DoD-IO.html

[trillion]

11. And it's what happend in Iraq.

[SkyDaddy7]

27. I agree...But...

I also fear there are a lot of intelligent officials who want us back in Iraq so they will make it sound as bad as possible...Just like they did Iraq!!!!

[razorman]

36. Oh, yes. The holy 'body count" requirement.

[TwilightGardener]

2. The real questions are: if true, who ordered it? How high up does it go?

Does it really end at CentCom?

[global1]

4. And Wait Til The Repugs Have At It At This One.....nt

[GusFring]

5. What are you insinuating?

[TwilightGardener]

7. I'm not insinuating anything. Did this begin with someone high up in CentCom,

as is alleged, or does it go higher than that? Did someone at Joint Chiefs, SecDef, NSA, DNI level tell CentCom to produce positive analyses? The report states that the President himself was receiving briefings based on fudged facts.

[GusFring]

8. Seems to me they're trying to blame Obama in a roundabout way.

As if someone in his administration is doing this to please him.

Next phase will be complaining how Obama isn't taking the threat serious and is endangering Natl security. Some how a call for ground troops in Syria will me made. Again.

[TwilightGardener]

25. I didn't get that. Not sure why Prez O. would want faulty intel briefed to him.

But at several levels under him, someone might have thought that it would do his or her career some good if the mission was seen as more successful than it was. Military officers are "make it happen" kind of guys--They're all confidence and can-do optimism to superiors, and then turn around and pressure those below them for results. This may have been one of those occasions, or it may be that someone just below the President decided to appoint himself or herself as the gatekeeper against bad news, and the chain of command further down picked up on that and filtered things accordingly. Or, the intel guys who produced the analyses were for some reason trying to paint an inaccurately negative picture, and that was corrected at higher levels, but I'm not sure why they would produce inaccurate reports.

[razorman]

37. This sort of thing has been common, historically.

Aides to kings, queens, emperors and presidents want to only bring good news to the leader. It is up to the leader to see through the bullshit and sort out the truth. It is hard to find someone whose advice they can trust.

[JDPriestly]

29. This is a possibility (and it may not be true) because of the culture

of secrecy in our government that, since Eisenhower, has grown to a self-defeating extreme.

Do we have reporters in the Middle East who can honestly and objectively report on what our military efforts are achieving or not achieving?

If not, why not?

Why is our news on this pretty much limited to official propaganda?

It's the culture of secrecy and cover-up. It started to get really bad with Eisenhower and has gotten worse and worse since.

[trillion]

12. The defense industry ordered it.

[GusFring]

6. This screams of Neo cons doing what they do best. Next stop, Syria. Nt

[MisterP]

9. how long ago was it that Juan Cole said IS was on its downward trajectory?

just 6 more months, guys!

[salib]

10. Interesting that they did not come out for the 9/11 - Iraq lies that took us into a war.

However, when we are not willing to go to war to their liking, here they come out of the wood work.

The is Neo-con BS as far as I am concerned.

They just want Obama to go to war and be blamed for the mess, or use it against Dem's in the next election if he does not.

Do not fall for this.

[GusFring]

13. Seems like people here are buying it. Nt

[salib]

14. Peace is always a tougher sell than it ought to be.

Even here.

Still, the drive-by's are not always indicative of the mood on DU.

This needs an OP about something smelling fishy.

[Nihil]

22. There was a very public "pour encourager les autres" that stopped them then ...

David Kelly R.I.P.

[JDPriestly]

30. The stream of refugees suggests this story may be true.

Things may be going worse than they should in Syria/Iraq/Llibya, etc.

One of our problems is that Turkey is not necessarily on the same page with regard to ISIS that we are. Turkey's position may agree with ours on some issues but be different from ours on others. Only recently are we getting more cooperation from Turkey, and they are key in this since they border on the area in question.

I don't know what is going on, but I cannot dismiss the critique in the article in the OP without a lot more information.

Since Eisenhower, we have become a country of secrets and of cabals and machinations and intrigue to the extent that I wonder whether the right hand really knows what the left hand of government is doing in terms of national security.

Meanwhile, huge sums are invested by our government in studying our e-mail address books and perhaps even our posts on DU as well as all who work in our legal, defense, education, etc. systems.

What was that you said about free speech, freedom of the press, and human rights?

Do we really have a free society when our basic rights are being narrowed by the very technology we use every day?

This story strikes me as par for the course. I am inclined more to believe it than to doubt it.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

31. Sorry, but you misremember.

Intel at various agencies were leaking like sieves to reporters that all was not as it appeared with what Bush Co. was peddling. The creation of the Pentagon intel group was fully exposed for the cherry-picking factory it was meant to be. Unfortunately their voices were drowned out by the Administration lackeys and media.

[salib]

32. Interesting point.

however, where is the example post 9/11 and runup to Iraq where an article like this was presented?

The situations are starkly different and this one really stinks.

[bananas]

40. Joe Wilson, "What I didn't find in Iraq".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C._Wilson

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/what-i-didn-t-find-in-africa.html

[bananas]

41. Katherine Gun, "Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Gun

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/mar/02/usa.iraq

[bananas]

42. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Veteran_Intelligence_Professionals_for_Sanity

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), formed in January 2003 "to speak out on the use of intelligence to justify the war," is "a coast-to-coast enterprise; mostly intelligence officers from analysis side of CIA, but Operations side also represented. "[1][2][3]

VIPS Steering Group

Kathleen McGrath Christison, Santa Fe, NM
William Christison, Santa Fe, NM
David MacMichael, Linden, VA
Raymond McGovern, Arlington, VA
Richard Beske, San Diego, CA
Patrick G. Eddington, Alexandria, VA

Other Alleged VIPS Members

Eugene Betit[4]
Ray Close[5]
Larry Johnson[6]

Correspondence

7 February 2003: VIPS MEMORANDUM sent to President George Walker Bush (published in Common Dreams).
15 February 2003: VIPS: "CIA says NO. U.S. Intelligence Officers Say Bush Out of His Mind on Iraq War" by Ray McGovern for NowToronto.com.
16 March 2003: VIPS MEMORANDUM: "Memorandum for Confused Americans. Cooking Intelligence for War" posted at LI Politics Message Board Forum by Ray McGovern: Appended and translated March 6, 2003, transcript from German Channel One's Panorama interview with former CIA officers, including Ray McGovern and David MacMichael, "to discuss the use/abuse of intelligence to support the US administration's case for attacking Iraq."
18 March 2003: VIPS "Memo to the President: Forgery, Hyperbole, Half-Truth: A Problem" posted Timothy D. O'Hare on March 20, 2003 -- "Veteran US Spooks Strongly Doubt Bush's Iraq Case" -- at ForeignPolicy.com.
26 April 2003: VIPS Memorandum: "The Stakes in the Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction" by David MacMichael and Ray McGovern; "Weapons of Mass Distraction: Where? Find? Plant?" in Scoop.
1 May 2003: "Intelligence Officers Challenge Bush" - VIPS Memorandum for the President: "Intelligence Fiasco" at BNfP.org; Also.
17 May 2003: "The Moment of Lies Has Arrived" by Hwaa Irfan, Staff Writer, IslamOnline: VIPS credited with bringing "to light" the forged Iraqi documents that were "supposed to provide evidence for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."
19 May 2003: VIPS Letter sent via fax to Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations: "We Are Perplexed at the US Refusal to Permit the Return of UN Inspectors to Iraq" (published in Dissident Voice, May 21, 2003). Also at Truthout.
25 May 2003: VIPS: Opinion: "U.N. needs inspectors to return to Iraq", Birmingham News.
14 July 2003: "Cheney Must Go", an open letter to Pres. Bush published by Salon.com.

News Stories

14 March 2003: "Ex-CIA Officers Defy Bush Administration" by John J. Lumpkin, Associated Press Writer.
17 March 2003: "Ex-CIA Accuse Bush of Manipulating Iraq Evidence", AP: "The 25-member group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, composed mostly of former CIA analysts along with a few operational agents, is urging employees inside the intelligence agency to break the law and leak any information they have that could show the Bush administration is engineering the release of evidence to match its penchant for war."
22 March 2003: "CIA Officials Doubted Documents Linking Iraq to Efforts to Purchase Uranium from Niger" and communicated those doubts to the Bush Administration, reports the Washington Post, but President Bush nevertheless cited the allegations in his State of the Union address.
4 April 2003: "Some worry U.S. may bend facts for policy", SunSpot.net(cached article).
18 April 2003: "US should be 'embarrassed' over failure to find WMDs: ex-spies", AFP.
18 April 2003: "Former CIA Agents: Not Finding WMD in Iraq, Embarrassing to US" by Republicons Staff.
26 May 2003: "CIA: Sinned Against or Sinning?" by B. Raman, South Asia Analysis Group. Items 17 and 18 re VIPS in particular.
30 May 2003: "Save Our Spooks" by Nicholas D. Kristof, Op-ed columnist, The New York Times.
1 June 2003: "US security men accuse Bush of twisting facts," The International News (Pakistan).
3 June 2003: "Story: Ray McGovern of Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Analyzes Private Conversatino Between Powell and Straw Regarding Iraq's WMDs"; "live" interview with Pacifica's Peacewatch: "Peacewatch talked with Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran and a member of the steering committee of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity or VIPS. McGovern served as an "All Intelligence Agent" during the Reagan White House."
10 June 2003: "Intelligence questions" by Peter H. Stone, National Journal: DCI George J. Tenet "...in a written statement defended intelligence on Iraq, saying that the 'integrity of our process was maintained throughout, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong.' ... Tenet's statement came in response to a memo written to Bush, and posted on some Internet sites, by a group of retired CIA and State analysts known as Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity."
23 June 2003: "Will Heads Roll over Faulty Intelligence about Iraq?" in Business Week Onlin, Richard S. Durham, Ed.: "Tenet, a holdover from the William Jefferson Clinton Administration, is caught in the crossfire. 'Most of my colleagues think it's only a matter of time before Tenet is fired,' says Raymond McGovern."
2 July 2003: "Veteran Intelligence Professional Ray McGovern: Bush administratiion slanted evidence prior to war"; live interview: "In this commentary for Peace Watch Ray McGovern points to an unusual pattern on the part of Vice President Dick Cheney to visit the CIA headquarters, which he did 27 times prior to the invasion."
23 June 2003: "Washington Lied: An Interview with Ray McGovern," Counterpunch.com
15 July 2003: "Why We Resigned from VIPS. It's About Policies, Not Personalities" by Kathleen and Bill Christison, CounterPunch.
12 April 2004: "Decoding the PDB" by Larry Johnson, TomPaine.com.
29 June 2004: "CIA According to Anonymous: New Book Reflects Analyst Outrage," by Ray McGovern, Counterpunch.com.

Extracted from Silence Is Unacceptable by M. Steven Kenniston, The Modern Tribune, March 30, 2003.

"In the months preceding war our President flatly refused to grant an audience to any anti-war organization, including Veterans for Common Sense, Veterans for Peace, and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Many of the men and women in these groups have experienced the horror of war first-hand and have commanded troops and served their country with dedication and valor. Yet when they sought to voice their concerns that the terrible costs of this war and its potentially disastrous consequences were not justified, they were rebuffed. Our President chose instead to listen to the counsel of a group of reactionary ideologues recruited from neo-conservative think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century. These arrogant and authoritative men advocate the use of military force as an acceptable political tool to achieve their goal of a New World Order dominated by American military and economic interests. They identified Iraq as a military target with the goal of regime change years before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. These men crafted the foreign policy behind the President's belligerent rhetoric, which sabotaged any hope of a diplomatic solution or possibility of building a broad coalition of nations. Saying that you're either with us or you're against us and that we are prepared to act unilaterally and preemptively doesn't leave much room for debate."

Contact

Ray McGovern at:
[e-mail]"[7] or
[e-mail]

Other Related SourceWatch Resources

cooked intelligence
media control

External Links

...

This page was last modified on 6 July 2004, at 01:04.
Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike unless otherwise noted.

[bananas]

43. Analysts' Warnings of Iraq Chaos Detailed

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/25/AR2007052501380.html

Analysts' Warnings of Iraq Chaos Detailed
By Walter Pincus and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 26, 2007

Months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that it would be likely to spark violent sectarian divides and provide al-Qaeda with new opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Analysts warned that war in Iraq also could provoke Iran to assert its regional influence and "probably would result in a surge of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups" in the Muslim world.

The intelligence assessments, made in January 2003 and widely circulated within the Bush administration before the war, said that establishing democracy in Iraq would be "a long, difficult and probably turbulent challenge." The assessments noted that Iraqi political culture was "largely bereft of the social underpinnings" to support democratic development.

<snip>

In a statement attached to yesterday's 229-page report, the Senate intelligence committee's chairman, John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va.), and three other Democratic panel members said: "The most chilling and prescient warning from the intelligence community prior to the war was that the American invasion would bring about instability in Iraq that would be exploited by Iran and al Qaeda terrorists."

In addition to portraying a terrorist nexus between Iraq and al-Qaeda that did not exist, the Democrats said, the Bush administration "also kept from the American people . . . the sobering intelligence assessments it received at the time" -- that an Iraq war could allow al-Qaeda "to establish the presence in Iraq and opportunity to strike at Americans it did not have prior to the invasion."

<snip>

[newfie11]

15. The military industrial complex is alive and well

Business as usual, spin the tales, get more money!
War is hell AND a racket!

[Wilms]

16. ^

[bemildred]

17. Yep, they never give up, lie, lie, lie. nt

[AngryAmish]

18. Remember when our President called IS "the j.v."?

Obviously they are not. If he was being fed bad intelligence then that explains what is, on it's face, a really dumb statement.

It was clear from the campaign our President wanted out of Iraq. And a careerist intelligence officer may wanted to tell the President what he wanted to hear.

[Ford_Prefect]

19. The question to ask is whether this so-called complaint is borne out by Other sources.

Last edited Thu Sep 10, 2015, 05:36 PM - Edit history (1)

Does intelligence community in Germany, France, or anywhere else (other than Israel) reflect that POV. DO they report that ISIS is stronger, or not weaker as the case may be?

Since when is the US the only or even the primary opposition to ISIS? When we had the run up to the Invasions Cheney and Rumsfeld cherry-picked analysts and information to suit their agenda. They left in place a substantially altered system of Intel services. How do we "civilians" know who is speaking here?
Is this the neo-con element of the Intel crowd who see ISIS as the next holy war?
Are we hearing a legitimate complaint from professionals about Political goals interfering with accurate assessment of ISIS in the field?
Is this an internal political struggle inside the Intel agencies? If so who is benefiting and why?

Which version of what truth can we find basis for believing?

[bemildred]

20. The Nightmare Since 9/11 — 14 Years of War, Torture and Kidnappings

Fourteen years later and do you even believe it? Did we actually live it? Are we still living it? And how improbable is that?

Fourteen years of wars, interventions, assassinations, torture, kidnappings, black sites, the growth of the American national security state to monumental proportions, and the spread of Islamic extremism across much of the Greater Middle East and Africa. Fourteen years of astronomical expense, bombing campaigns galore, and a military-first foreign policy of repeated defeats, disappointments, and disasters. Fourteen years of a culture of fear in America, of endless alarms and warnings, as well as dire predictions of terrorist attacks. Fourteen years of the burial of American democracy (or rather its recreation as a billionaire’s playground and a source of spectacle and entertainment but not governance). Fourteen years of the spread of secrecy, the classification of every document in sight, the fierce prosecution of whistleblowers, and a faith-based urge to keep Americans “secure” by leaving them in the dark about what their government is doing. Fourteen years of the demobilization of the citizenry. Fourteen years of the rise of the warrior corporation, the transformation of war and intelligence gathering into profit-making activities, and the flocking of countless private contractors to the Pentagon, the NSA, the CIA, and too many other parts of the national security state to keep track of. Fourteen years of our wars coming home in the form of PTSD, the militarization of the police, and the spread of war-zone technology like drones and stingrays to the “homeland.” Fourteen years of that un-American word “homeland.” Fourteen years of the expansion of surveillance of every kind and of the development of a global surveillance system whose reach -- from foreign leaders to tribal groups in the backlands of the planet -- would have stunned those running the totalitarian states of the twentieth century. Fourteen years of the financial starvation of America’s infrastructure and still not a single mile of high-speed rail built anywhere in the country. Fourteen years in which to launch Afghan War 2.0, Iraq Wars 2.0 and 3.0, and Syria War 1.0. Fourteen years, that is, of the improbable made probable.

Fourteen years later, thanks a heap, Osama bin Laden. With a small number of supporters, $400,000-$500,000, and 19 suicidal hijackers, most of them Saudis, you pulled off a geopolitical magic trick of the first order. Think of it as wizardry from the theater of darkness. In the process, you did “change everything” or at least enough of everything to matter. Or rather, you goaded us into doing what you had neither the resources nor the ability to do. So let’s give credit where it’s due. Psychologically speaking, the 9/11 attacks represented precision targeting of a kind American leaders would only dream of in the years to follow. I have no idea how, but you clearly understood us so much better than we understood you or, for that matter, ourselves. You knew just which buttons of ours to push so that we would essentially carry out the rest of your plan for you. While you sat back and waited in Abbottabad, we followed the blueprints for your dreams and desires as if you had planned it and, in the process, made the world a significantly different (and significantly grimmer) place.

Fourteen years later, we don’t even grasp what we did.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/911-torture-wars-and-kidnappings

[bemildred]

21. Netanyahu in Britain: Mideast crumbling in face of radical Islam

The Middle East is disintegrating in the face of extreme Shi'a radicalism embodied by Iran, and extreme Sunni extremism incarnated by Islamic State, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the outset of a meeting Thursday in London with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Netanyahu said that this – and how to “roll back the tide of militant Islam both in the Middle East and North Africa” – was one of three main issues he wanted to discuss with Cameron.

The second “no less important” issue, he said, was peace.

“I want to say here, at 10 Downing, that I am ready to resume direct negotiations with the Palestinians with no conditions whatsoever to entering negotiations, and I am willing to do it immediately.”

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Netanyahu-in-Britain-Mideast-crumbling-in-face-of-radical-Islam-415817

[Ford_Prefect]

28. As I said before: just exactly who do we believe at this point?

Last edited Thu Sep 10, 2015, 05:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Its like the cold war all over again: everyone has an agenda and none of them is good for we ordinary people, either here or directly in the path of the war machines.

We know Netanyahu has a goal of generating open war on Iran. We know the Neo-cons, and it seems some neo-liberals, share his views and his militarist leanings. It seems likely that anything he advocates for is a bad idea for the rest of the world (including you and me) so how is he a reliable reference point? When exactly in the last 15 years has he been a truthful witness? I don't believe a word he says.

At this point those of you who feel the need to attack me as anti-Israeli please note: I don't believe in Netanyahu's version of Israel. I think he and his ilk have turned it into the largest concentration camp in the world. This was not intended by Israel's founders and original supporters. It is not the Israel my friends moved to many years ago. Shame on him and all who sail with the fascist bastard.

[wildbilln864]

23. k & freaking r! n/t

[unhappycamper]

24. Our Generals And Admirals

The United States military has around 1,000 Generals and Admirals.

They have been trained for war and they are good at killing. Do we need a thousand of them?

[PersonNumber503602]

26. This seems to be a common theme

[TwilightGardener]

34. New reporting via Guardian suggests Clapper was talking daily to the CentCom General

in charge of Intelligence--this is supposedly very unusual. They're starting to name names, someone will be stepping down soon.

[killbotfactory]

35. As long as ISIS are mainly fighting Assad and Iranian-aligned Iraqi's, we aren't going to do much

Like with the Iran-Iraq war, we will happily watch each side bleed themselves dry.