House Report: CENTCOM Manipulated Data about ISIS

We cannot trust the US Government.

According to a House report released today (Thursday), the US Central Command (CENTCOM) has been skewing key military intelligence about the United States’s attempts to combat ISIS in Syria and Iraq. 

For the past two years, CENTCROM has manipulated this data to paint a more optimistic picture of the war on terror. Starting in 2014, “final intelligence reports issued by CENTCOM contradicted the initial internal assessments made by its own analysts,” reports CBS News. 

“The facts on the ground didn’t match what the intelligence was saying out of the United States Central Command,” says Mike Pompeo (R-KS), a member of the House Republican task force that released the report. 

CENTCOM is responsible for US security interests in 20 countries. 

The House task force was formed after a senior analyst at CENTCOM complained that intel has been manipulated. The whistleblower complaint is currently under investigation by the Defense Department inspector general. 

“There’s enormous evidence about how this information from talented career professionals inside the analytic arm at CENTCOM did their job and accurately depicted what was going on on the ground, but when it got to very senior levels, that information was changed,” says Pompeo. 

According to CBS, the House task force did not find any evidence suggesting that orders to alter the information came from the White House. 

The findings do line up with reports about the politicization of military intel, however, and could prove disastrous for the Obama Administration. Despite increased terror attacks at home and abroad, President Obama has repeatedly told us that we are winning the war against ISIS. 

Last year, more than 20 intelligence analysts complained that their assessments about ISIS were manipulated or silenced to make our efforts against the terrorist organization seem more effective than they actually were. An investigation was launched as soon as the Pentagon’s inspector general learned of the complaints. 

House Republicans of the Armed Services, Intelligence, and Appropriations committees opened their own investigation last December.