US spies say anti-IS fight reports edited to be more positive

US military officials have rewritten intelligence reports to give a more optimistic assessment of the US-led campaign against the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda's branch in Syria, the Daily Beast reported on Wednesday.

According to the report, at least 50 Central Command intelligence analysts have complained formally that their reports were altered inappropriately. 

The scandal began last month, when the Pentagon's inspector general launched a probe after at least one civilian analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency said he had evidence that US Central Command officials were reworking intelligence report conclusions prepared for President Barack Obama and other policymakers. However, the claims that at least 50 analysts have been complaining from as early as October 2014 is a far more dramatic turn.

“The cancer was within the senior level of the intelligence command," the Daily Beast cited one defence official as saying.

The Daily Beast said: "The fact that so many people complained suggests there are deep-rooted, systemic problems in how the US military command charged with the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State assesses intelligence."

"The allegations echoed charges that political appointees and senior officials cherry-picked intelligence about Iraq’s supposed weapons program in 2002 and 2003," the report added. 

Under a directive by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the 17 US intelligence agencies, analytical assessments "must not be distorted" by a particular audience, agenda or policy view.

If the assessments were indeed skewed, it could help explain why public perceptions of progress against the militants has varied.

Since the US-led bombing campaign of the Islamic State began in Iraq a year ago, and subsequently in Syria, Iraqi security forces have retaken some territory previously seized by the group but not major cities like Mosul and Ramadi.

But US intelligence agencies have recently found that IS has been little weakened by the assault, while at the same time was expanding into North Africa and Central Asia.

“While we cannot comment on the specific investigation cited in the article, we can speak to the process. The intelligence community routinely provides a wide range of subjective assessments related to the current security environment," Air Force Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesperson for US CENTCOM told the Daily Beast. 

"These products and the analysis that they present are absolutely vital to our efforts, particularly given the incredibly complex nature of the multi-front fights that are ongoing now in Iraq and Syria." 

Syria's conflict began with anti-government demonstrations in March 2011. But after a bloody crackdown by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad the protests it spiralled into a multi-front civil war in which more than 240,000 people have been killed according to the latest UN figures.