U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) officials manipulated intelligence to downplay the threat from ISIS, a U.S. House task force argues in a report released on Wednesday.
The report comes after months of investigation by Congressman Mike Pompeo (R-KS), Congressman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), and Congressman Ken Calvert (R-CA) after allegations made by a whistleblower in May 2015.
From mid-2014 to mid-2015, CENTCOM’s most senior intelligence leaders manipulated the command’s intelligence products to downplay the threat of the terrorist group in Iraq, the report found.
“The result: consumers of those intelligence products were provided a consistently ‘rosy’ view of U.S. operational success against ISIS,” said Pompeo in a statement.
“That may well have resulted in putting American troops at risk as policymakers relied on this intelligence when formulating policy and allocating resources for the fight,” he added.
The congressman said that the manipulation of intelligence “provided space for both ISIS and al-Qaeda to grow, putting America at risk.”
Pompeo noted that intelligence products can contain incorrect information, but that during that timeframe “nearly every error was in one direction: downplaying the threat from radical Islamic terror consistent with the administration’s narrative that this threat was not significant.”
