Almost half of the analysts at the Pentagon structure overseeing military operations in the Middle East and South Asia have called into question the integrity of the organ’s intelligence work.
In a poll taken annually by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), forty percent of respondents at US Central Command (CENTCOM) reported “problems with analytical integrity and CENTCOM processes,” according to House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).
The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, acknowledged that he “would consider that [number] unusually high,” in testimony before the committee on Thursday.
Nunes said ODNI contacted the panel after The Daily Beast reported the existence of the survey on Feb. 16. The outlet noted the complaints were related to previously-reported charges about the manipulation of intelligence on the US-led campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIL).
“[T]he analysts accused their superiors of editing or rejecting reports that cast doubt on whether the US-led campaign against [ISIL] was dealing a crippling blow, and they accused senior CENTCOM intelligence officials of attempting to delete emails and other reports that provided evidence of their manipulations,” The Daily Beast’s Shane Harris and Nancy Youssef reported. CENTCOM told the pair that “no emails were deleted.”
Since July, the Department of Defense inspector general has been investigating allegations of intelligence-doctoring in the counter-ISIL war. The probe was triggered by two senior CENTCOM analysts lodging a complaint about the manipulation of assessments to hype up successes on the battlefield.
Harris and Youssef noted on Thursday that about 1,000 analysts work for CENTCOM, “so at least 400 people voiced concerns about their work, according to the survey.”
CENTCOM is based in Tampa, Fla. In addition to the counter-ISIL war, it is also currently overseeing the War in Afghanistan.
