More than a decade after charges that intelligence was manipulated in the Iraq War, last week, The Daily Beast broke the news that 50 U.S. intelligence analysts have signed a formal complaint. Their work, they say, is being improperly manipulated in order to paint a false picture of another war into which the U.S. could easily become more involved.
The allegation is that top military brass and Obama administration national security officials have been sugar-coating the situation in the fight against the Islamic State. The analysts would pass up the chain reports that reflected the grim situation on the ground. But by the time senior officials were done with those reports, they reflected a much rosier imaginary world.
The manipulations have resulted in something more harmonious with President Obama’s assertion that “No, I don’t think we’re losing,” Secretary of State John Kerry’s promise to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State, and various other officials’ public optimism.
Of course, the White House doesn’t control the media working overseas. And so in July, the public learned that the administration’s plan to train and deploy local fighters is a complete bust. Only 60 fighters were ever trained, as opposed to the 5,000 per year that the Pentagon had promised, in batches of 200 and 300 at a time. To make matters worse, the leader of those 60 fighters was kidnapped by al Qaeda over the summer along with his deputy.
The disparity between fact and public propaganda goes all the way back to President Obama’s ill-considered remarks about the Islamic State fighters in early 2014. Faster than you could say “J.V. team,” they stormed through eastern Syria, took Iraq’s second-largest city, and overwhelmed a U.S.-trained Iraqi fighting force, collecting their abandoned weapons along the way.
For that matter, one could go even further back to 2011 and look at Obama’s careless declaration of victory as U.S. forces left Iraq without a status-of-forces agreement.
“The tide of war is receding,” he said, oblivious to concerns by his own secretary of defense that he was abandoning Iraq prematurely and without a status-of-forces agreement. Obama went on to pat himself on the back for the war he had unilaterally conducted in Libya: “Meanwhile, yesterday marked the definitive end of the Gadhafi regime in Libya. And there, too, our military played a critical role in shaping a situation on the ground in which the Libyan people can build their own future.”
Today, the Islamic State is also in Libya, which, thanks in part to Obama’s intervention and lack of follow-up, has devolved into a failed state controlled in various places by multiple warring militias.
Americans have spent enough time listening to Obama’s rhetoric on foreign policy that they can probably recognize a pattern here. He consistently dishes out happy talk that doesn’t survive the test of time or scrutiny from those on the ground. In that sense, this intelligence scandal isn’t that big a deal. It’s really just an extension of Obama’s general policy.
One can only hope his reassurances on the Iran deal don’t resolve themselves in the same way as all of his other foreign policy pronouncements.
