OPINION:
Every member of the military has a personal duty to report the facts they encounter truthfully to their superiors. That goes for everyone from the lowliest private to the four-star generals who report directly to the president.
But what happens when the colonels and generals disagree with the facts their junior officers and civilians report to them, not because they think the facts are wrong but because they want to satisfy their civilian bosses’ political agenda?
That’s exactly what is going on at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), according to the allegations made against CENTCOM senior officers by about 50 intelligence analysts. Several reports say CENTCOM analysts have taken these allegations to the Defense Department Office of the Inspector General, which has determined that there is enough substance to the allegations to compel a major investigation into how CENTCOM’s commanders handle intelligence that doesn’t comply with President Obama’s agenda.
CENTCOM, like other joint commands, has responsibility for an area of the world. CENTCOM’s responsibility includes 20 countries encompassing the entire Middle East and much of western Asia. It is responsible for defending America from whatever emanates from the most dangerous part of the world.
The allegations of senior officers’ interference in intelligence analysis were first made two analysts’ complaint to the inspector general in July. The two alleged that senior CENTCOM officers changed their findings to show that some terrorist groups — apparently including the Islamic State (ISIS) and al Qaeda’s branch in Syria (al-Nusra) — were weaker than the facts showed. The analysts reportedly allege that senior CENTCOM officers changed the analysts’ findings to prove that the Obama administration’s strategy was working when that was obviously untrue. Some of these analyses were allegedly briefed to the president.
Now, a total of about 50 CENTCOM analysts have either joined in the original complaint or made their own complaints to the inspector general.
An intelligence failure occurs when our 16 intelligence agencies fail to measure our enemies’ capabilities and intentions, such as before the September 11 attacks. This isn’t one of those cases. This is the politicization of intelligence, which is far worse, and can be even more dangerous. It is a perversion of the intelligence process, and it is the product of Mr. Obama’s relationship to the intelligence community.
One of the first events in any president’s day — that is, every president before Mr. Obama — was the Daily Intelligence Briefing. At the DIB, very senior CIA officials and senior military officers are supposed to brief the president in person on the latest important products of our spy satellites and human intelligence around the world.
Early in Mr. Obama’s term in office, he reduced the DIB to reading written reports, avoiding a briefing in which he could ask questions or the CIA and military intelligence people could stress the importance of the facts they were reporting. Though he may sometime sit for real briefings, Mr. Obama’s preference is to simply read or ignore the written briefings.
Now investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson told an interviewer that her sources say Mr. Obama refuses to even listen to intelligence on certain Muslim groups that he believes are not terrorists, even though they are listed on the official State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Mr. Obama is comfortable ignoring the fact that ISIS has claimed it is embedding terrorists in the “Syrian” refugees coming to Europe and America. After FBI Director James Comey reportedly told Mr. Obama that vetting each refugee for ties to terrorism is impossible, the president should have changed his position that America will continue to admit those refugees. But he didn’t.
We have a president who is impervious to facts, which may have led some senior CENTCOM officers to decide not to bother him with them. This accounts for Mr. Obama’s refusal to change his strategy against ISIS and the wider war on terrorism, both of which are utter failures.
Mr. Obama has made it clear that he doesn’t want to listen to intelligence that disagrees with his policy. If, as seems likely, the inspector general finds some or all of the analysts’ complaints valid, it will prove an influence over our entire intelligence community that is enormously dangerous.
Whenever the inspector general office’s investigation is completed, it will issue a written report. Unless CENTCOM is exonerated, Mr. Obama will certainly classify the report in an attempt to bury it. It is possible, too, that the inspector general will bend to pressure from the administration — despite its statutory mandate of independence — to find the analysts’ complaints exaggerated or irrelevant.
In the absence of the best, most accurate intelligence, policymaking is merely guesswork. Making policy decisions in the absence of facts — or in direct contravention of them, as Mr. Obama often does — can leave America undefended against defined threats.
The Defense Department inspector general should pursue the analysts’ allegations wherever they go. Any officers — senior, junior or civilian — who changed their reports to be politically palatable to the administration should be fired forthwith and never again be allowed to interfere in the analysts’ work for political reasons. But that won’t happen, at least under this president.
Faced with what may be the worst intelligence crisis in decades, our next president must do a top-to-bottom review of the entire intelligence community. That review should result in whatever reforms are necessary to root out politicization of the intelligence reported to the president and other policymakers. The president must make it clear to every intelligence analyst, operative and senior officer that any such action will not be tolerated. The CENTCOM syndrome must be eradicated wherever it may exist.
• Jed Babbin served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in the George H.W. Bush administration. He is a senior fellow of the London Center for Policy Research and the author of five books, including “In the Words of Our Enemies.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.