'IS' intel probe highlights old problems

At least since the revelation that the information presented by the United States intelligence community in the lead-up to the Iraq War was grossly wrong, the assessments compiled by the various agencies have been seen with a more skeptical eye.

Now "The New York Times" is reporting the US Defense Department's Inspector General has launched an inquiry into allegations that intelligence about the campaign against the militant group "Islamic State" was distorted to provide a rosier picture. The manipulated information included assessments provided for President Barack Obama.

"That some people are claiming that intelligence reports were skewed before being passed on to policymakers is very worrying," said Charlie Winter, a senior researcher with counter-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation.

While the Pentagon has not issued an official reaction as to the accuracy of the report which was published online Tuesday, it seems likely it would have done so had the story been erroneous.

Underwater chess game

Regardless of whether the investigation finds any wrongdoing, the incident highlights once again the inherent difficulties of providing and verifying intelligence.

"Someone told me once it is like a three-dimensional chess game underwater with all the pieces moving simultaneously," said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at Sweden's National Defense College. "It is very difficult to see the whole picture and the flows and the dynamics between the different areas."

What's more, said Elie Tenenbaum, a security analyst at the French Institute of International Relations, it is not uncommon that different services conducting their own analyses arrive at different conclusions. "If you look deep enough you always find contradictory assessments coming from intelligence agencies. It is not a hard science."

Still, the Obama administration's approach of probing whether intelligence was skewed positively differentiates it from the way the Bush administration handled the intelligence failure over Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destructions, noted the experts.

Room for improvement

It also sends a clear signal, said Ranstorp. "On an operational level it is also a way to put pressure on the system to say 'We don't want any more surprises.'"

While the picture provided by US and other intelligence services about the self-proclaimed Islamic State's rise and strength has not been entirely inaccurate, there is certainly room for improvement.

"Intelligence estimations of the Islamic State's power and sustainability in Iraq and Syria have been varied at best and badly wrong at worst," said Winter. "So I can see why there is this investigation being made."

"The record has not been great so far, especially of seeing more sudden changes," said Ranstorp. "Why could they not know that the Arab Spring turned into an absolute Arab Winter with a deep freeze for a long time?"

Merging information

In order to bolster the quality and reliability of the information they provide, said the experts, US and Western intelligence services collectively must do better at fusing their individual research to create a unified picture.

"To some extent they are always playing catch-up because there is no interlinkage in the analysis," said Ranstorp.