Secretary of Defense nominee Lloyd Austin retired from the military during investigations into allegations raised by intelligence analysts who had a “strong perception” that his team was “cooking the books” about the rise of the Islamic State.
“Certainly, many witnesses believed that intelligence was distorted and that the USCENTCOM intelligence products presented a more positive assessment of … the failures of ISIL than they believed the intelligence warranted,” a Defense Department inspector general report concluded in 2017.
The controversy erupted in public after ISIS battlefield successes exploded Barack Obama’s famous characterization of the group as a “JV” terrorist organization, while Austin would issue his own similarly faulty prognostication in 2015. The error aligned with the view of subordinate analysts, who thought that Austin’s team preferred to focus on positive reports about the fight against ISIS at the expense of the mission.
“Several witnesses asserted that GEN Austin did not like to receive bad news from his staff regarding USCENTCOM’s counter-ISIL campaign,” the inspector general reported. “These witnesses believed that GEN Austin was the source of pressure to present a rosier picture of the effects of USCENTCOM’s operations against ISIL.”
Austin denied ever incentivizing “rosy” reports. “Let me confirm 100% that I have not done that and I never would do that,” he told the inspector general’s investigators. “Again, we’re in a fight to win, and so I don’t gain anything by trying to paint a rosy picture here.”
Whistleblowers triggered multiple investigations, which reflected badly on the senior officials responsible for curating intelligence assessments for Austin but “did not substantiate” the allegation that they “falsified” reports.
“In our investigation, we found a strong perception among many intelligence analysts … that [Central Command intelligence] leaders were attempting to distort the intelligence products, either through excessive editing, imposition of a narrative, requiring a higher burden of proof for ‘bad news,’ or demanding additional sourcing requirements if the intelligence indicated that ISIL was doing well,” the Pentagon’s inspector general found. “That widespread perception alone indicated a significant problem, which leaders failed to adequately address in a timely way.”
The finding could complicate Austin’s path to the Pentagon corner office, according to a source involved with a House Republican joint task force investigation into the allegations. “You don’t want that on your record, even if, once the smoke clears, it’s not completely as advertised by the whistleblower,” the joint task force source said. “That speaks to the command climate.”
Austin’s nomination already faces extra headwinds because a law designed to preserve civilian control of the military bans generals who retired as recently as he did from taking over at the Pentagon. For Austin to receive an exemption from that ban, both houses of Congress must vote in favor of the waiver.
Public confidence was a theme of the inspector general’s 2017 report, which documented Austin’s concern that ISIS terrorists were winning the propaganda battle. “We’re going to win this fight, we’re going to find a way, we got a plan,” Austin was quoted as saying at a commander’s conference in October 2014. “One important thing though is that we have to manage the narrative, like this nonsense that Anbar is about to collapse.”
That statement was delivered at a difficult time in the fight against ISIS, which had seized Mosul Dam in early August. Intelligence analysts were “frustrated because some analysts believe they had warned of ISIL’s advance previously, but leadership was resistant to publishing it,” according to a Navy captain who took command of the headquarter’s Joint Intelligence Center that month.
Morale sagged in October after a top general for Central Command’s intelligence directorate rebuked a staff officer, allegedly saying, “Just get on stick with the [briefing] script.” The senior officials had defensible reasons for criticizing the analysis offered to them, according to the inspector general’s report, but conducted themselves in a way that eventually led intelligence analysts to “self-censor” their reports rather than battle the extra scrutiny applied to “bad news” about the conflict.
“It was troubling to find that many analysts believed their leaders distorted intelligence or imposed a narrative on their intelligence products,” the inspector general audit noted.
The general himself was burned by the intelligence analysis breakdowns, as joint task force investigators noted in their report that he told lawmakers that ISIS had “assumed a defensive crouch” in Iraq in March 2015, adding that the terrorist organization had lost the capacity “to seize and to hold new territory.”
ISIS militants seized the city of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province, two months later.
The Biden transition could not be reached for comment.
