Less than two weeks after a watchdog report revealed the extensive classification of information about U.S. spending in Afghanistan, lawmakers are pressing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on why the data, which had long been a matter of public record, was suddenly made secret.
“The safety and security of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan are paramount. However, inappropriately classifying information severely restricts the ability of Congress to conduct meaningful oversight and impairs the ability of the American people to know how billions of their taxpayer dollars are being spent in Afghanistan,” members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote in a letter to Hagel Monday.
Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the committee’s ranking member, Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., chairman of the National Security Subcommittee, and Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., the subcommittee’s ranking member, all signed the letter requesting a briefing on the decision to withhold virtually all details about U.S.-backed Afghan security forces.
The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) raised concerns about the “unprecedented” classification of information about how billions of taxpayer dollars are used to support the Afghan national police in the quarterly report to Congress it released Jan. 29.
“The decision leaves SIGAR for the first time in six years unable to publicly report on most of the U.S.-taxpayer-funded efforts to build, train, equip, and sustain” Afghan security forces, the report said.
U.S. Army Gen. John Campbell, commander of the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission and of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, cited safety concerns in defense of his decision to withhold such a large quantity of data.
But Campbell has since narrowed the scope of his classification, Alexander Bronstein-Moffly, spokesman for SIGAR, told the Washington Examiner.
“He’s provided us documents that he says are now unclassified,” Bronstein-Moffly said. “We don’t know the extent of what has been unclassified.”
Bronstein-Moffly said SIGAR staff are still combing through the thousands of pages they received in order to determine what information is again publishable and what remains secret.
Campbell’s move to classify information about the bulk of the U.S. tax dollars flowing into Afghanistan coincided with the drawdown of American troops in the country and the official end of engagement there.
The Oversight Committee wants to understand why information that was released to the public for six years without raising national security concerns was abruptly deemed a threat to national security, a congressional aide told the Examiner.
The committee aide, who declined to be named, said the briefing between committee members and defense officials hasn’t yet occurred, but is in the works. Members have taken an interest in the issue because the classified information is needed to hold the government accountable for the money it spends in Afghanistan, the aide said.
Past SIGAR reports have criticized spending on Afghan security using data that, under the broad classification order, would no longer be shared with the public. For example, a Jan. 12 report discovered corrupt practices in the Afghan national police force may have diverted millions of Pentagon dollars meant to pay officers’ salaries.
Since 2002, Congress has poured $107.5 billion into Afghan reconstruction activities.
