HARPER: GEN. FLYNN LAYS INTEL SCANDAL ON OBAMA'S DOORSTEP

 

The Pentagon’s Inspector General is investigating charges by analysts at the Central Command that higher-ups in the Tampa headquarters “cooked” their intelligence analyses to satisfy White House demands for “good news” reporting on the war against the Islamic State.  That investigation has moved into an advanced phase, and there are now also probes underway by Senate and House oversight committees.

While the complaints by the analysts focus ostensibly on Maj. Gen. Steven Grove, Centcom’s intelligence chief, and his civilian deputy Gregory Ryckman, there are clear indications from sources within the Pentagon that the real scandal goes up to the Oval Office, via Gen. James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence.  In what some describe as a rerun of Vice President Dick Cheney’s infamous personal visits to CIA headquarters to discipline analysts who disputed the “Saddam WMD” fairy-tale, and his and Donald Rumsfeld’s creation of the Office of Special Plans, a SecDef intelligence unit staffed with neocons that created tailored intelligence to justify the March 2003 Iraq invasion, Clapper reportedly put pressure on Gen. Grove and others in Tampa, to suppress contrary intelligence estimates about the success of the US military actions against ISIS.  Part of the IG investigation now focuses on whether some emails and staff reports were deleted to hide evidence of the intelligence tampering.

In recent interviews, Gen. Michael Flynn, who President Obama fired as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in August. 2014, because of persistent DIA analyses that disputed his claims of success in the Global War on Terrorism, called for a “top down” approach to the investigation.  Flynn correctly argued that the tailoring of intelligence is always aimed at the intelligence community’s number one client—the President of the United States.  If there is pressure on analysts to modify their evaluations, it is always to satisfy the ideological beliefs of the President or his closest advisors.

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/11/24/former-obama-dia-chief-intel-probe-should-focus-on-white-house/

In the case of the war on the Islamic State, the President has consistently overstated the success of the US program, often without any grounding in intelligence assessments.  Just prior to the Nov. 13 Paris attacks by the Islamic State, President Obama pronounced the group to be “contained.”  During his 2012 presidential reelection campaign, Obama famously declared that Al Qaeda Central was defeated, following the killing of Osama Bin Laden.  On Sept. 12, 2012, his claims were proven false, when Al Qaeda linked terrorists stormed two American compounds in Benghazi, Libya, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American officials.

Gen. Clapper, a longtime critic of humint, who shut down critical programs when he was Director of DIA in the 1990s, has been at the center of a number of scandals since being appointed by President Obama as Director of National Intelligence early in the Obama presidency.  He lied under oath before Congress, claiming that there were no bulk surveillance programs against American citizens. 

If Gen. Flynn is correct, and the scandal actually begins at the top of the Obama Administration, the question is whether or not the IG or the Congressional oversight committees will take up that challenge, and approach the investigation in a fashion that does not end with a few mid-level scapegoats taking the fall, but leaving the system of political pressure on intelligence analysts intact.

If there is to be a genuine success in the war against the Islamic State and other jihadist groups, intelligence will be key.  This is doubly true now that it appears that ISIS has “gone global” and has adopted blind terror tactics as a key part of their arsenal of asymmetric weapons.  It is in that larger context that the investigations take on special significance.

Comments

[J]

Colonel, TTG,

The Russians are posing the question as to how in the hell did U.S manufactured TOW's wind up in the hands of Turkmen terrorists operating inside Syria, that the murder of Russian pilot LC Oleg Peskov has brought to light. Mark Toner State Department spokesman gave away the farm on that question. Quote: "First, we have been supplying weapons to...." end quote.

What we have is a prime example of an over $2 billion and climbing fiasco by a failed bureaucracy whose ONLY task should have been and should be HUMINT collection and NOTHING ELSE.

IMO some things are better left in DoD hands.

[walrus]

Thank you for your balanced and sober assessment Harper. I saw something about this a few weeks ago but didn't post anything - there is a now declassified DIA report that indicates that the DIA called it correctly regarding ISIS in 2012, but the report was either ignored or doctored.

That report is available here:

http://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Pg.-291-Pgs.-287-293-JW-v-DOD-and-State-14-812-DOD-Release-2015-04-10-final-version11.pdf

[MRW]

Thank you, Harper.

[mbrenner]

I infer that there are 3 questions to be answered.

1. How did the various Intelligence agencies assess the emergence of ISIL at various dates:2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, etc? 1b How dis they assess al-Qaeda/al-Nusra in Syria at those times?

2. What did the chiefs of those agencies actually report to the White House?

3. What did the White House (President and staff) make of those latter assessments and what did they do in response to them? 3b. Did that response include instruction to cook future Intelligence?>

[J]

Colonel, TTG,

Russian press is indicating that the Syrian Turkmen commander who murdered Russian pilot LC Oleg Peskov, is a Turk ultra-nationalist Alparslan Celik and son of a former mayor in the Elazig province. Celik is also a member of the Grey Wolves which carried out political murders in the 70s.

The body of LC Oleg Peskov is now in Turkey and awaiting transfer to Russia. It remains unclear how Turkey managed to recover LC Peskov from the Syrian Turkmen militants. Hmm.....

[bth]

What does Pres. Obama see in Clapper? I have not been able to figure it out.

[different clue]

J,

Where the Grey Wolves connected to or overlapped with what some Turks were calling the Deep State? Were Grey Wolf murders on behalf of this Deep State?

[bks]

I would understand pressure from the Oval Office to produce rosy public assessments, but it's hard for me to believe that any chief executive would instruct his staff to fake internal reports: It's an invitation to be blindsided by reality. So I can see Clapper or someone in CENTCOM wanting to put his thumb on the scales, but not Obama.

[The Twisted Genius]

J,

That's simple. Erdogan supports and directs those Turkmen militants. They're butt buddies. That's how Turkey recovered LTC Peskov's body.

[The Twisted Genius]

bth,

Obama sees an ass kissing sycophant, nothing more.

[Croesus]

Did the US give tacit support to ISIS in Iraq in its efforts to persuade Maliki to grant a SOFA? Or to counter increasing Iranian influence in Iraq?

[The Twisted Genius]

walrus,

That DIA report is an intelligence information report. As it says, it's not finally evaluated intelligence. It came from the field. My totally unclassified guess is that this is from the Defense Attache in Baghdad. As I believe Colonel Lang mentioned before, the information is probably the assessment of the situation provided by a defense official of a third country, perhaps another defense attache. We don't know what the analysts did with the report or how it figured in any subsequent intelligence assessments.

[bth]

Off topic, but we need to begin to think through the implications of sustained low cost oil and gas in 2016. Russia will have problems. So will Venezuela. Iran will have to crowd its way into the market. The US and Canadian O&G industry needs to be at about double these rates. Regional banking and local real estate will also be impacted. In this era perhaps it may be global. If the feds jack interest rates then it will only aggravate the problem by impacting developing currencies causing wage deflation to follow commodity deflation. China will have to adjust it's currency downward I think in 2016.

[crf]

Not cleaning house at the beginning of the Obama presidency: that was a signal to the bullies and incompetents that they would be safe and that they could keep on doing what they were doing for the new boss, same as they did with the old boss.

[Barish]

It's very important to keep the allegiance of this character in mind, as it painfully shows one aspect that's been overlooked vis-a-vis Turkish security forces' hostilities with Kurdish fighters on both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border. Because so far, the factions at play remained in this bi-polar, clear picture, with blame apportioned to whichever side the beholder considered to be worse.

I would also think of this particular flavour of extremism being another possible candidate of both the bombing of a peace-rally in Ankara earlier in October, as well as the assassination of lawyer Tahir Elçi last Saturday, who had made this memorable quote directly prior to his demise:

Biz buradan çağrı yapmak istiyoruz. Biz bu tarihi bölgede bir çok medeniyete beşiklik etmiş ev sahipliği yapmış bu kadim bölgede insanlığın bu ortak mekanında silah, çatışma, operasyon istemiyoruz. Savaşlar, çatışmalar, silahlar, operasyonlar bu alandan uzak olsun diyoruz.

We here want to make a call. In this area [he is directly referring to Diyarbakır], which has been the cradle of civilizations, this ancient abode of mankind as a whole, we do not want weapons, conflict or military operations. We say begone! to wars, weapons and operations in this area.
--------------------------------

This of course does not rule out that the Turkish nationalists, such as the Gri Kurtlar/"Grey Wolves" aren't acting so much independently than that they are utilized by the Turkish (deep) state for its own ends.

[Babak Makkinejad]

Gulfies have them, I think.

[Babak Makkinejad]

A loyal man.

[J]

NYTimes has an interesting bio on Erdogan

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/03/12/the-deep-state

[J]

Hope this will help you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Wolves_%28organization%29

[J]

Colonel,

In 2014 Turk MIT was discovered by Turk Police smuggling large quantities of munitions (ammo and mortars) marked FRAGILE and hidden under medicine boxes to Syria. The Turk Police who made the discoveries were charged with treason and espionage, along with journalists who happened upon the MIT to Syria imbroglio. All the MIT toys were destined for ISIS hands. Red faced Turk officials have made so many contradictory statements of denial and that the toys were destined for the Syrian Turkmen, that nobody believes them.

[walrus]

BKS, you have never met, let alone worked for, a narcissist. Yes, they do "instruct their staff to fake internal reports" by the simple method of firing or bullying anyone who presents information that does not coincide with the narcissists version of reality in which they are the movie star. I kid you not.

I have even seen a chief of staff fired for having the temerity to correct a glaring error by a narcissist CEO.

Yes. It is an invitation to be blindsided by "real" reality. but NOT the narcissists reality.

[Emad]

To me what's interesting in this story is not stove piping intelligence; which is to be expected of every administration.

I'm interested in the "workforce" pressured to fix intelligence "around the policy". What is the mix of uniformed military, civilian government employees and beltway bandits?

My understanding is that CENTCOM has turned into a den of contractor types who're probably much easier to pressure and manipulate. Even if they enjoy the same "protections" as government employees, the operative word for them is the next contract, not speaking truth to power, as often advertised as an analyst's job.

[bth]

By 2012 was there anything the US could have really done to stop the rise of IS in light of an ongoing civil wr in Syria and an incompetent and teligiously divided Iraqi government?

[turcopolier]

Emad

"stove piping intelligence" Stove piping normally means a function being confined to a single chain of command. How are you using the phrase? "Even if they enjoy the same "protections" as government employees," Well, you know very well that contractors DO NOT enjoy the same protections as regular government civilian employees. pl

[The Beaver]

"A representative of one rebel group supplied with TOW missiles said his fighters were not currently suffering from a shortage of the weapon, as they had earlier. He complained, however, that they still only had one launching tripod for the missiles. His group is fighting south of Aleppo.

TOW missiles have been supplied to rebels under a program of military support for vetted Syrian groups that has in some cases included military training by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, including on how to use TOW missiles."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/25/us-mideast-crisis-syria-arms-idUSKBN0TE1KJ20151125#0pObfmk7Uy6pOQvF.97