CIA retracts or revises 19 intelligence assessments over political bias concerns

ISTANBUL

The US Central Intelligence Agency said Friday that Director John Ratcliffe has ordered the retraction or “substantive revision” of 19 intelligence assessments issued over the past decade after they were found to be politically biased.

In a statement, Ratcliffe said the intelligence products, produced before his tenure as director, “fall short of the high standards of impartiality that CIA must uphold” and do not reflect the agency’s analytic expertise, adding that there is “no room for bias” in the agency’s work.

The CIA said the assessments were identified by the US President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, following an independent review of hundreds of intelligence reports from the last decade.

According to the agency, the flagged products “did not meet CIA and IC (intelligence community) analytic tradecraft standards and failed to be independent of political consideration.”

The CIA released three redacted examples, including reports on women involved in racially motivated violent extremism, pressure on LGBT activists in the Middle East and North Africa, and COVID-19-related contraceptive shortages in developing countries.

According to The New York Times, citing a senior administration official, most of the other flagged reports concerned diversity, equity, and inclusion. Former officials questioned the decision to declassify the documents and the claim that the assessments were flawed, the newspaper reported.