A government task force finds that senior officers manipulated
intelligence reports to make the President look good. The result? The
Islamic State had time to blossom and flower.
BY CounterJihad · @CounterjihadUS | August 11, 2016
Last year, 50 professional intelligence officers at US Central Command
filed a formal complaint that their intelligence reports were being
altered by senior officers. Now, we can say for certain that they
were
right. A Congressional task force investigating the complaint has
found convincing evidence that the reports generated by junior officers
were far more dire in analysis of the threat from the Islamic State
(ISIS), and that those reports became altered only once senior officers
close to US Central Command (CENTCOM) leadership became involved.
Those altered intelligence reports sometimes made it into the
President’s briefing material, where they could reinforce his judgment
that ISIS was not a threat he had to take seriously.
The President later attempted to blame
Austin for his decision, saying
that he was acting on Austin’s advice. In fact, Austin had recommended
keeping 20,000 troops in the country to ensure its stability as a
fledgling democracy. It was ignoring that advice that created the
conditions in which ISIS initially began to blossom.
Worse, these altered intelligence reports formed the basis for sworn
testimony given by then-CENTCOM Commander Lloyd Austin. General
Austin’s testimony to Congress thus painted a rosier picture than was
accurate. This gave allies of the President in Congress the
opportunity to downplay the need for policy changes, and undermined
Republican efforts to drive a more serious response to the ISIS
threat. Such false statements by General Austin may have been
perjury,
especially if he was aware that they were false.
In a familiar pattern of behavior, it looks as if senior officials have
been destroying records — especially emails — to block the ongoing
Defense Department Inspector General investigation.
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