The report stating that the U.S. Central Command manipulated intelligence to downplay the threat posed by the Islamic State represents a "complete breakdown" for the defense community and its reputed integrity, a member of the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday.

"We saw times where commanders would say that ISIS is in a defensive posture, they have lost their command and control, and a week or so later they overtake Ramadi," said Rep. Brad Wenstrup, an Ohio Republican who played a key role in producing the report, in an interview on Fox News.

"What we're seeing and what we hear from the whistleblowers … is that their intelligence analysis reports were always being changed to be more optimistic," Wenstrup said. "In many cases, it was suppressed or taken out completely. We want to know why, obviously, and we want to know why they misled the American people and representatives in Congress."

The report, issued Wednesday by a Joint Task Force composed of Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee as well as the House Armed Services and the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, found that officials at Central Command routinely pressured low-level analysts to reduce their assessment of the threat posed by ISIS.

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The task force, which included California Rep. Ken Calvert and Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo, in addition to Wenstrup, further claimed that the intelligence community generally refused to take corrective action. "This is, unfortunately, characteristic of the IC's response to the situation at CENTCOM," they wrote, adding that leadership attempted to "diminish the significance of the allegations … despite significant evidence indicating widespread problems."

Wenstrup on Sunday said that the reported manipulation or distortion of intelligence "was done throughout the commands, but only at Central Command was it at about 40 percent."

He also invoked his background as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves, and as one of the few congressional members to fight in recent conflicts in the Middle East, to emphasize the significance of the problem. "I always considered the military to be a sanctuary of integrity," Wenstrup said. "As a member of the armed services, as an Iraq war veteran, I look at our military to be a place of integrity, and now we're seeing that there is a complete breakdown in this process."