Paramount did the same thing with The Sum of All Fears - turned the Islamic terrorists into... Kurt Waldheim!
You’re right! They butchered the book—and Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan??? CAIR lobbied the filmmaker to avoid the “terrorist Arab” stereotype. A few months after filming wrapped, 9/11 happened and the stereotype was validated yet again.
I heard an interview with Vince Flynn once and he said a film producer didn’t want to make a movie of one of his novels with Arabs as villains. He said, “Can’t you make the terrorists Filipino instead?” (Probably because at the beginning of the book, Mitch Rapp kills a corrupt Filipino General during a hostage rescue. This was based on reports of Gracia Burnham that a Filipino general was trying to get a cut of the ransom when she was held with her husband by the Abu Sayaaf. Unfortunately, corrupt Filipino generals are also an “earned” stereotype: i.e. Angelo Reyes, Jacinto Ligot, Carlos Garcia etc...)