CIA Director Ratcliffe retracts 19 intelligence assessments deemed biased
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The CIA on Friday said Director John Ratcliffe had ordered the withdrawal or “substantial revision” of 19 intelligence assessments over the past decade that were deemed politically biased.
In a statement, the CIA included three redacted assessments of the hyper-radicalization of white women between 2015 and 2021, attacks on LGBT activists in the Middle East and Africa, and the COVID-19 pandemic that has restricted access to birth control in developing countries.
“The intelligence products we present to the American people today – produced before my tenure as DCIA – fall short of the high standards of impartiality that the CIA must uphold and do not reflect the renowned expertise of our analysts,” Ratcliffe said in a statement. he said.
He added: “There is absolutely no room for bias in our work, and we have a responsibility to set the record straight when we identify situations where analytical rigor has been compromised. 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 commitment to analytical excellence.”
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The CIA on Friday said Director John Ratcliffe had ordered the withdrawal or “substantial revision” of 19 intelligence assessments over the past decade that were deemed politically biased. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
The CIA statement stated that the assessments were determined by the Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board, which independently reviewed hundreds of reports over the last decade, and that the assessments “do not meet the analytical commercial standards of the CIA and the IC and cannot be independent of political assessments.”
The agency said an internal review conducted by Deputy Director Michael Ellis “concluded that the CIA did not meet the high standards it expects from its elite analytical workforce.”
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The first of three reports included in the statement was titled “Racially and Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremist Radicalization and Women Advancing Whites in Hiring” and was published in October 2021, during the first year of the Biden administration.
The report focused on women in groups abroad who “encouraged, facilitated or perpetrated violence”; because they believed that their idealized, white European sense of ethnic identity was under attack by people who embodied and promoted multiculturalism and globalization.
The second report was titled “Middle East-North Africa”.: LGBT Activists Under Pressure,“ He was released towards the end of the Obama administration.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the reports fell “below the high standards of impartiality that the CIA is required to uphold.” (Jemal Countess/AFP via Getty Images)
This assessment claimed: “The harsh stance taken by governments in the Middle East against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community is likely driven by conservative public opinion and domestic political competition from Islamists, and is hindering US attempts to support LGBT rights.”
The last declassified report included in the CIA statement had the following title: “Worldwide: Pandemic-Related Birth Control Shortages Threaten Economic Development,“ and was released in July 2020, near the end of President Donald Trump’s first term.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is restricting access to birth control in the developing world and will likely undermine efforts to address population pressures that impede economic development there,” the statement said.
Cover page of a declassified CIA assessment of radicalized White women. (CIA)
A senior administration official who spoke to The New York Times on condition of anonymity said most of the flagged reviews were about diversity, equity and inclusion.
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The Times added that former officials it interviewed questioned both the decision to declassify the three documents and the allegations that the evaluations were flawed, believing they merely showed the policy priorities of past administrations.
