Patterico's Pontifications

11/24/2015

US Central Command Analysts Who Warned About ISIS Were Told To “Cut It Out”

Filed under: General — Dana @ 7:19 am



[guest post by Dana]

The Pentagon’s IG is investigating claims that US Central Command analysts were told by DOD officials to tone down their reports about ISIS in an apparent effort to line up with the president’s reassurances that the “JV squad” was “contained”. However, in actuality, ISIS continued to increase in strength and gain territory.

Analysts at U.S. Central Command were pressured to ease off negative assessments about the Islamic State threat and were even told in an email to “cut it out,” Fox News has learned – as an investigation expands into whether intelligence reports were altered to present a more positive picture.

Fox News is told by a source close to the CENTCOM analysts that the pressure on them included at least two emails saying they needed to “cut it out” and “toe the line.”

Separately, a former Pentagon official told Fox News there apparently was an attempt to destroy the communications. The Pentagon official said the email warnings were “not well received” by the analysts.

Those emails, among others, are now in the possession of the Pentagon inspector general. The IG’s probe is expanding into whether intelligence assessments were changed to give a more positive picture of the anti-ISIS campaign.

The president discussed the issue of whether his intelligence reports had been altered:

“One of the things I insisted on the day I walked into the Oval Office was that I don’t want intelligence shaded by politics. I don’t want it shaded by the desire to tell a feel-good story,” Obama said Sunday.

“I don’t know what we’ll discover with respect to what was going on in Centcom,” Mr. Obama said. “What I do know is my expectation — which is the highest fidelity to facts, data, the truth.”

[I] have made it repeatedly clear to all my top national security advisers that I never want them to hold back, even if the intelligence or their opinions about the intelligence, their analysis or interpretations of the data contradict current policy.

Because this administration has always been about fidelity to the facts and truth. Just think: Benghazi, IRS, Fast and Furious, the VA, and so on…

–Dana

39 Responses to “US Central Command Analysts Who Warned About ISIS Were Told To “Cut It Out””

  1. Good morning.

    Dana (86e864)

  2. Poor Obama. Misled by over-solicitous subordinates who faked intelligence analyses in order not to upset him. Can’t this poor man ever get a break?

    nk (dbc370)

  3. Who told the officials to order their people to light up, and who sent the emails???

    Dana (86e864)

  4. I can tell you: rogue, nameless officials.

    felipe (b5e0f4)

  5. It could not have been top Obama advisors. Probably the Jay Vee team at Defense or Central Intelligence.

    nk (dbc370)

  6. Probably rogue, nameless Republican officials trying to undermine or sabotage Obama. Or Hillary’s vast right-wing conspiracy.

    DRJ (15874d)

  7. The Guardian report says the negative analysis was revised by the General’s civilian aide Gregory Ryckman. The Guardian isn’t the best source but if that’s true, who is Ryckman?

    DRJ (15874d)

  8. The attempt to implicate Clapper and blame Grove may be true, or it could be a diversion to shield the CentCom chief, Gen Lloyd Austin. Austin’s role in thus is curiously absent from these reports.

    DRJ (15874d)

  9. A Falafel Too Far?

    nk (dbc370)

  10. Austin hasn’t escaped Congress’ scorn. That’s a rare moment of bipartisanship.

    DRJ (15874d)

  11. “Just remember, it’s not a lie………..if you believe it” – George Costanza

    rcw3000 (dbe57f)

  12. This probably started in some office in cincinnati and poor old obama didn’t find out until he read it in a newspaper.

    Jim (a9b7c7)

  13. Greetings:

    Sounds like some more prosecutorial discretion may be in order.

    11B40 (0f96be)

  14. Have you noted all the recent interviews with commanders there about how swimmingly it’s all going against ISIS? Lara Logan, who is nobody’s fool, interviewed one on 60 Minutes and looked pretty skeptical herself.

    It’s all PR. And stupid PR, too. How many people actually believe we could not have taken out their oil trucks before Obama was shamed into it by Putin? And giving warnings to the enemy is something that has been going on for a while — even W warned the Taliban — and it’s got to stop. Who could possibly approve of this? Think of the thousands who have been slaughtered since Obama refused to bomb the trucks and their possibly civilian drivers.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  15. Gather names, keep them alive, and threats of trials for treason marching up the chain as high as possible, then make the actual trial under the next administration.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly, and out and about) (4a071b)

  16. Obama only knows what he read in the newspapers…

    David Jay (fe0181)

  17. Q. Will Obama fire anybody?

    Sammy Finkelman (4d9cfa)

  18. Patricia (5fc097) — 11/24/2015 @ 8:33 am

    How many people actually believe we could not have taken out their oil trucks before Obama was shamed into it by Putin?

    That’s not the question.

    The proper question is:

    How many people actually believe we couldn’t have figured out before now how to take out their oil trucks without killing their drivers?

    That was the objection. Which they didn’t override.

    They adopted a policy of

    1) Dropping leaflets warning the drivers – when they are about to be attacked – the drivers hve noo weapons that can protect the trucks from a drone strike, nor are there any human shields around out there on the road – to get out.

    2) Make an “attack” that looks like they are trying to get to the truck, without actually trying to do so. It’s the old Israeli “knock on the roof” trick.

    3) Finally, when they leave the truck, or possibly when some driver decides to stick it out and stay in the truck, drop a bomb that destroys the truck.

    And giving warnings to the enemy is something that has been going on for a while — even W warned the Taliban — and it’s got to stop. Who could possibly approve of this? Think of the thousands who have been slaughtered since Obama refused to bomb the trucks and their possibly civilian drivers.

    Sammy Finkelman (4d9cfa)

  19. They say that they’ve now destroyed 50% of their oil trucks, so saving the lives of the drivers doesn’t appear to have been too much of a handicap, and it’s not like the oil is of immediate strategic value to ISIS.

    Sammy Finkelman (4d9cfa)

  20. Good Allah, Sammah. Nothing like missing the forest because of a leaf.

    Dana – he has no fear of being struck down by lightning otherwise he would never utter the words fidelity to the facts.

    JD (34f761)

  21. Oblahblah: the UN Climate Conference will be a “powerful rebuke to terrorists.”

    Iago was misunderestimated.

    DNF (755a85)

  22. Watched the joint presser… Obama squanders opportunity to show true leadership and lectures Americans about AGW threat and Syrian “migrants”…when you repeatedly employ “Francois and I” to ride on the French Prez’s coat tails, you highlight your vacuousness, weakness and narcissism.

    Colonel Haiku (fb7ea4)

  23. Oil is what funds ISIS, Sammeh. For God’s sake, Buy. A. Clue.

    Colonel Haiku (fb7ea4)

  24. I wouldn’t mind Barry’s loony leftism if he at least were a give-peace-a-chance isolationist, somewhat in sync with Sarah Palin’s flippant “let Allah sort it out” form of isolationism. After all, the Middle East truly is a quagmire, full of bad players on all sides (per below). But the kook in the Oval Office, because Islam isn’t Western, because it doesn’t involve mainly, say, blond-haired people, because it’s anti-Christian, because it’s supposedly the “underdog,” feels a need to shed tears for Mohammed’s religion or gives it a million benefits of the doubt, in keeping with the ass-backwards way Barry has responded to most bad humans/bad situations, including Trayvon-type of criminals, etc, etc, etc.

    Americans (certainly those who voted for Obama and have a soft spot in their heart for him), you broke it, now you pay for it.

    nytimes.com, November 22, 2015: For years, Ashraf Fayadh, an artist and poet, has served as an unofficial ambassador for Saudi Arabia’s small contemporary art scene, organizing shows and working to introduce Saudi art to the world. Although Mr. Fayadh is of Palestinian origin and officially stateless, Saudi Arabia is the only home he has ever known, his friends say, and he sees art as a line of communication between Saudi society and the rest of the world.

    But on Nov. 17 a Saudi court sentenced Mr. Fayadh to death on charges of apostasy based on poems he published years before and on the testimony of a few witnesses, according to Adam Coogle, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who has read the court documents.

    The sentence, which can be appealed, follows a string of harsh punishments handed down by Saudi courts amid the highest recorded number of executions in the kingdom since 1995, according to human
    Notable cases have included the public flogging of a liberal blogger; a death sentence for a protester for offenses committed as a minor; and a sentence of 350 blows for a British man who was arrested with alcohol in his car. (The Briton was released this month after spending more than a year in prison, averting the threatened flogging.)

    ^ The public flogging of a liberal blogger?! Is it strange that perhaps I find that more outrageous than a leftist like Obama?

    Mark (74fce8)

  25. Seth Borenstein rates Ted Cruz as the clearest thinking least gullible presidential candidate on the topic of global warming.

    Via Jo Nova . (Seth is the enemy, pusher of that false eco religion, so you can’t get a better endorsement.)

    papertiger (c2d6da)

  26. @narcisco, Why do you think Obama doesn’t understand what he’s doing?

    scrutineer (b7d257)

  27. well his understanding of the consequences are utterly blinkered,

    narciso (732bc0)

  28. are you sure, narciso?

    if he is an America-hater who thinks it needs its chickens to come home to roost he may be looking to get exactly the results he wants

    did he make race relations in the country worse by not knowing any better?
    I think not.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  29. You cite Gramsci and Marcuse in the other thread, but you think Obama doesn’t intend the predictable consequences? “Kicked off political career with fundraiser at Bill Ayers’ house” tells us everything.

    scrutineer (b7d257)

  30. Attending a global warming conference is a stern rebuke to ISIS. I am sure they are effin terrified.

    JD (34f761)

  31. Actually, I believe that the ISIS situation is to their (Liberals) liking. A”victory” of sorts. Going to a GWC is like going to Disneyland after winning the Superbowl.

    felipe (b5e0f4)

  32. The attempt to implicate Clapper and blame Grove may be true, or it could be a diversion to shield the CentCom chief, Gen Lloyd Austin. Austin’s role in thus is curiously absent from these reports.

    DRJ (15874d) — 11/24/2015 @ 7:49 am

    Sort of smells like that to me too.

    DRG (76b104)

  33. SF: it’s not like the oil is of immediate strategic value to ISIS

    Colonel Haiku: Oil is what funds ISIS, Sammeh. For God’s sake, Buy. A. Clue.

    I said it was not of immediate strategic value, meaning that taking a few days more or less to destroy the trucks, won’t have much of an effect and none should be expected immediately. Dollars only make a difference when the effect gets to be substantial.

    Oil also is actually only one of the sources of money for the organization. They also make money from grain (the wheat crop in Iraq), ransoms, enslaved women, “taxes” or extortion, sales of antiquities, foreign contributions maybe (believed to be coming mainly from Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia). and there was about $1 billion they took from Iraqi banks in June, 2014, or maybe tthat’s exaggerated.

    Sammy Finkelman (4d9cfa)

  34. So NATO is taking it to Pooter over the wasteland that is Syria and going to spank his azz.

    Estonia will be lost Friday morning.

    DNF (ffe548)

  35. I spent 20 years as a naval intel officer. They were told. I’m sick of taking the blame.

    Steve57 (4d7b6d)

  36. Obama just doesn’t want to get is. I’ve worked for some thick f***s, but this guy isn’t thick.

    He’s malevolent.

    Steve57 (4d7b6d)

  37. The US is rudderless at this moment in its history. Or, even worse, it’s in the hands of a crumb bum, whose very presence is actually hurting and endangering the nation.

    I’m not being sarcastic when I say I’d have more confidence in the safety and normalcy of this country if the White House were vacant right now.

    Mark (f713e4)


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