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WASHINGTON — When Islamic State fighters overran a string of Iraqi cities last year, analysts at United States Central Command wrote classified assessments for military intelligence officials and policy makers that documented the humiliating retreat of the Iraqi Army. But before the assessments were final, former intelligence officials said, the analysts’ superiors made significant changes.

In the revised documents, the Iraqi Army had not retreated at all. The soldiers had simply “redeployed.”

Such changes are at the heart of an expanding internal Pentagon investigation of Centcom, as Central Command is known, where analysts say that supervisors revised conclusions to mask some of the American military’s failures in training Iraqi troops and beating back the Islamic State. The analysts say supervisors were particularly eager to paint a more optimistic picture of America’s role in the conflict than was warranted.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/us/pol...-rise.html?_r=1

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WASHINGTON — President Obama said Sunday he has told top military officials to "get to the bottom" of reports that intelligence assessments have been altered to give a rosier assessment of progress in turning back the Islamic State.

Obama was responding to a report in The New York Times that the Pentagon's inspector general has expanded its probe of intelligence reports from Central Command, or CENTCOM, and that congressional committees were seeking answers about whether that intelligence had been shaded to make it appear more progress is being made. The Times reported that the Pentagon has added more investigators who have seized documents related to intelligence reports.

Obama said he didn't know what that inspector general's investigation would find. But he appeared to be more concerned about the issue than he's been in previous responses, saying he's asked Defense Secretary Ash Carter and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford, to investigate.

"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. We can’t make good policy unless we’ve got good, accurate, hard-headed, clear-eyed intelligence," Obama told reporters at a news conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he was wrapping up a week-long overseas trip with stops in Turkey and the Philippines.

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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/polit...gence/76216474/

Forgive my cynicism, but if intelligence reports have been doctored to make US gains look like they are more than they really are, then military analysts are doing a cya not only for themselves but also for another guy who resides in a big white house on the other side of the Potomac.