CIA retracts, revises 19 past intelligence assessments deemed politically biased
The CIA on Friday said that director John Ratcliffe had ordered the retraction or "substantive revision" of 19 intelligence assessments over the past decade that were deemed to be politically biased.
In a release, the CIA included three redacted assessments from between 2015 and 2021 that related to White women's extremist radicalization, attacks on LGBT activists in the Middle East and Africa, and the COVID-19 pandemic limiting access to birth control in developing countries.
"The intelligence products we released to the American people today — produced before my tenure as DCIA — fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold and do not reflect the expertise for which our analysts are renowned," Ratcliffe said in a statement.
He added, "There is absolutely no room for bias in our work and when we identify instances where analytic rigor has been compromised, we have a responsibility to correct the record. These actions underscore our commitment to transparency, accountability, and objective intelligence analysis. Our recent successes in Operation ABSOLUTE RESOLVE and Operation MIDNIGHT HAMMER exemplify our dedication to analytic excellence."
The CIA release said the assessments were identified by the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, which did an independent review on hundreds of reports from the last decade, adding that the assessments "did not meet CIA and IC analytic tradecraft standards and failed to be independent of political consideration."
The agency said an internal review led by Deputy Director Michael Ellis "agreed that they did not meet the high standards the American people expect from CIA’s elite analytic workforce."
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The first of the three reports included in the release was titled "Women Advancing White Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist Radicalization and Recruitment," and was published in October 2021, in the first year of the Biden administration.
It focused on women in groups overseas "that incite, facilitate or conduct violence because they believe that their perception of an idealized, white European ethnic identity is under attack from people who embody and support multiculturalism and globalization."
The second report was titled "Middle East-North Africa: LGBT Activists Under Pressure," and was released near the end of the Obama administration.
That assessment claimed that "The tough stance taken against the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community by governments in the Middle East probably is driven by conservative public opinion and domestic political competition from Islamists, and is hindering US initiatives in support of LGBT rights."
The last declassified report included in the CIA release was titled "Worldwide: Pandemic-Related Contraceptive Shortfalls Threaten Economic Development," and was published in July 2020, nearly the end of President Donald Trump’s first term.
"The COVID-19 pandemic is limiting contraceptive access in the developing world and will probably undermine efforts to address population pressures there that are hindering economic development," it stated.
A senior administration official who spoke to The New York Times on condition of anonymity said that most of the rest of the flagged assessments dealt with diversity, equity and inclusion.
The Times added that former officials it spoke to both questioned the decision to declassify the three documents and the claims that the assessments were flawed, believing they just showed the policy priorities of past administrations.