To the best of my ability I write about my experience of the Universe Past, Present and Future
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
General Stewart: Syria may be fractured into many parts
If Russia takes out ISIS that could be a good thing but if they help Assad Barrel Bomb innocent families in apartments who aren't fighters that could be a bad thing. So, it will be interesting to see who Russia kills with it's weapons in Syria. They definitely are better militarily prepared for organized warfare than anyone else there now on the ground. Unfortunately for Russia all warfare in Syria pretty much is Asymmetric. So, that could be a bad thing for Russian soldiers in the future there like it was in Afghanistan when the Soviets were there with tanks and Jets and helicopter gunships in the 1980s. It's also one reason U.S. and Nato soldiers aren't there in great numbers right now either.
Also, lt. General Stewart talked about the title on the Today show with matt Lauer
WASHINGTON
— A group of intelligence analysts have provided investigators with
documents they say show that senior military officers manipulated the
conclusions of reports on the war against the Islamic State, according
to several government officials, as lawmakers from both parties voiced
growing anger that they may have received a distorted picture about the
military campaign’s progress.
The
Pentagon’s inspector general, who is examining the claims, is focusing
on senior intelligence officials who supervise dozens of military and
civilian analysts at United States Central Command, or Centcom, which
oversees American military operations against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
Bridget
Serchak, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon’s inspector general, confirmed
that the investigation is focused on Centcom’s intelligence command.
“The investigation will address whether there was any falsification,
distortion, delay, suppression or improper modification of intelligence
information,” she said in an email on Tuesday.
She
added that the inquiry would examine any “personal accountability for
any misconduct or failure to follow established processes.”
The
New York Times reported last month that the investigation had begun,
but the scope of the inquiry and the focus of the allegations were
unclear. The officials now say that the analysts at the center of the
investigation allege that their superiors within Centcom’s intelligence
operation changed conclusions about a number of topics, including the
readiness of Iraqi security forces and the success of the bombing
campaign in Iraq and Syria.
The
revisions presented a more positive picture to the White House,
Congress and other intelligence agencies, the officials said.
“The
senior intelligence officers are flipping everything on its head,” said
one government intelligence analyst, who like others spoke on condition
of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter
publicly. The analyst said that the complaints involve the
highest-ranking officials in Centcom’s intelligence unit, run by Army
Maj. Gen. Steven R. Grove.
The
Pentagon’s inspector general would not examine disputes over routine
differences among analysts, and so it is highly unusual that an
investigation would be opened about the intelligence conclusions in an
ongoing war. The allegations raise the prospect that military officials
were presenting skewed assessments to the White House and lawmakers that
were in sharp contrast with the conclusions of other intelligence
agencies.
The
issue is expected to come up Wednesday when Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III,
commander of Central Command, is expected to testify before a Senate
panel about the military campaign against the Islamic State.
“We
do take seriously any allegations of the mishandling or manipulation of
intelligence information for purposes other than getting to ground
truth,” Representative Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on
the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday. “In the wake of the
flawed intelligence prior to the Iraq war, we must make sure that all voices are appropriately considered and that assessments are never again politicized.”
Last
week, Mr. Schiff said that the intelligence presentations that
lawmakers get from spy agencies are in general far better than they were
in the period leading up to the start of the Iraq war in 2003, when
dissenting views about Iraq’s weapons programs were often buried in
intelligence reports or ignored. Today, he said, dissenting views are
given more prominence in reports.
Disagreements
over analytical conclusions are both commonplace and encouraged. Just
as in the peer review process in academia, the government wants analysts
to consider opposing viewpoints and revise reports as necessary.
Analysts who disagree are encouraged to publish rival papers, but
changing someone else’s conclusion is forbidden.
The
matter is complicated because the analysts who made the complaint work
for the Defense Intelligence Agency — it was created to be immune from
the pressures and biases of the officers leading the war — but are
supervised by officers at Centcom. At least one analyst complained to
the inspector general in July. Last week, The Daily Beast reported that
those complaints were supported by a cadre of more than 50 intelligence
agents.
Col.
Patrick S. Ryder, a Centcom spokesman, on Tuesday reiterated several
points he had made when news of the investigation broke last month. The
inspector general has a responsibility to investigate all allegations,
he said, and he cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.
But
Colonel Ryder said that because many different intelligence agencies
provide assessments to policy makers — all derived from a wide range of
sources — the system is structured to guard against “any single report
or opinion unduly influencing leaders and decision makers.”
On
Friday, Pentagon investigators held a conference call with members of
Congress as a growing, bipartisan chorus of lawmakers expressed concerns
about the dispute. One official who listened to the call said it was
intended to assure lawmakers that investigators were taking the claims
seriously.
That
same afternoon, both the Republican chairman of the House oversight
committee, Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, and a colleague sent
letters to Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and John T. Rymer, the
Pentagon inspector general, asking that Pentagon officials brief his
committee about the scope of the inquiry and its findings.
“We
are deeply concerned about these allegations and want to ensure that
intelligence provided to key decision makers properly reflect the expert
analysis produced by our Intelligence Community (IC) professionals,”
the letter said.
Last
summer President Obama authorized a bombing campaign against the
Islamic State, a Sunni terrorist group that spun off from Al Qaeda and
now controls large areas in Iraq and Syria. Roughly 3,400 American
troops are in Iraq advising and training Iraqi forces. The White House
has been reluctant, though, to recommit large numbers of ground troops
to Iraq after announcing an end to the Iraq war in 2009.
The
bombing campaign over the past year has had some success in allowing
Iraqi forces to reclaim parts of the country formerly under the Islamic
State’s control, but important cities like Mosul and Ramadi remain under
the sway of the group. There has been little progress in loosening the
group’s hold over large parts of Syria, where the United States has
conducted limited airstrikes.
Critics
have argued that the bombing alone cannot defeat the Islamic State and
have called on the administration to send in more troops. It is not
clear if Defense Intelligence Agency analysts have concluded that more
American troops would make an appreciable difference.
In
testimony on Capitol Hill this year, Lt. Gen. Vincent R. Stewart, the
agency’s director, said sending ground troops back into Iraq risked
transforming the conflict into one between the West and the Islamic
State, which would be “the best propaganda victory that we could give.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
A version of this article appears in print on September 16, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: New Evidence in U.S. Inquiry on ISIS Data. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
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