Officials: Trump Admin’s New Iran Report Skewed, Intended to Justify Military Action

State Dept ignored intelligence assessments, drew its own conclusions

That the Trump Administration is hostile to Iran is hardly a secret, nor that they try to paint Iran in the worst light possible. Are their reports honest on even a basic level though? That’s increasingly in doubt after the State Department’s latest on Iran.

The State Department posted and then removed this report on Tuesday, sparking a lot of complaints within the administration, particularly from intelligence agencies, who saw serious problems with the report.

Concern, even within the administration, was that the State Department report attempted to politicize hostility toward Iran, and offered slanted assessments that were designed to justify US military action against Iran.

There was enough concern that the report went up Tuesday and was taken back down, though it was put back up on Wednesday and remained so. The State Department is defending the report as containing “all relevant information,” and declined comment on politicization.

These assurances would’ve been more meaningful, but intelligence agencies believe their own assessments were totally ignored, and there were no mentions of any such assessments within the State Department report.

Critics likened the report to the Bush Administration’s attempts to paint Iraq are badly as possible in the lead-up to the 2003 US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.