It would appear, on the surface, to be one of the dumbest ideas on earth — falsifying or editing military intelligence reports to conform to the wishes of political leaders. Not surprisingly, the outcome is rarely positive.
One of the starkest examples occurred in the early days of June, 1967. Much of the world was taken aback when Israel, outnumbered in every strategic category, scored a completely one-sided victory against four much larger nations — Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. The element of surprise helped and the Israeli military was better trained, but a key factor can be gleaned from Michael Oren’s 2002 book, “Six Days of War.”
Mr. Oren interviewed military participants on both sides and disclosed a diametrically opposed use of intelligence. Egyptian officers feared giving bad news to their superiors and especially to their leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser. So after Israel’s initial attack that destroyed the Egyptian Air Force on the ground, the Egyptians falsely reported to their superiors and their allies that the opposite had occurred, that they had inflicted huge Israeli losses. This left Syria open to the same fate and brought Jordan into the war.