Centcom Emails Seized in ISIS Intel Doctoring Investigation

Pentagon officials have been tight-lipped in recent weeks about the status of an ongoing investigation into Centcom deliberately doctoring intelligence of the ISIS war to mislead policy makers about how the war was going. This weekend, it was revealed the probe has not only continued but is growing precipitously.

The Pentagon’s Inspector General, in charge of the investigation, seized a massive number of Centcom emails from military computers, along with other documents related to the intelligence. The Inspector General has also added a significant number of new investigators to the once small inquiry.

Reports on Centcom’s activities first emerged publicly back in August, when the Inspector General informed Congress that the intelligence they’d received on the ISIS war was likely “reworked” by senior officers to sound more upbeat than reality was.

Complaints got to the Inspector General by way of the DIA, the Pentagon’s internal intelligence agency, as workers there complained that their reports and conclusions on the ISIS war were taken by Centcom, and the conclusions  totally rewritten before being passed on to Congress and the White House. They said Centcom had made it clear to them that bad news “wasn’t welcome” in their reports.

Centcom officials have offered a mixed array of public statements on the matter, with some denying any edits were made and others insisting that since the ISIS war is in their theater of operations they were permitted to change the intelligence to say whatever they wanted.