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takyon writes:

Two Congressional reports have found that CENTCOM manipulated intelligence reports related to the Islamic State, including altering reports that questioned the effectiveness of airstrikes:

Senior officials at U.S. Central Command manipulated intelligence reports, press statements, and congressional testimony to present a more positive outlook on the war against the Islamic State, a House Republican task force concluded in a damning report released Thursday. The report, written by the members of the House Armed Services and Intelligence committees and the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, confirmed more than a year of reporting by The Daily Beast about problems with CENTCOM analysis of the war against ISIS. House Democrats, who conducted their own separate investigation, reached a similar conclusion as their Republican colleagues, finding that CENTCOM "insufficiently accommodated dissenting views," Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement [link].

The altering of intelligence reports, which included information that made its way into briefings to President Obama, was systematic, lawmakers found. "There was a consistent trend that across four specific campaigns against [ISIS] in Iraq throughout 2014 and 2015, assessments approved by the J2 [CENTCOM's Joint Intelligence Center] or leadership were consistently more positive than those presented by the [intelligence community]," the report found.

Also at The Washington Post, Tampa Bay Times, and NYT.

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