The Department of Defense removed more than 140,000 images from a public website of Afghan allies who are in jeopardy under the Taliban government.
There were roughly 124,000 photos and approximately 17,000 videos taken down from Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters during Monday’s briefing.
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They first began taking down the photos, which Kirby described as a “mammoth undertaking,” around the time the U.S. began evacuating forces from Afghanistan in August.
Had the Pentagon not performed this precautionary measure, it “would show the faces or any other identifiable information about many of the Afghans that we have worked for, we’ve supported and have supported us over the last 20 years,” Kirby said.
He also took ownership over the decision saying he delegated the task to the heads of the Defense Media Activity.
“My guidance was, I want any imagery that could be used to identify individuals and or family members over the last 20 years of war — I want it to be unpublished for a temporary period of time, and it is temporary,” Kirby added. “And it was done out of an abundance of caution.”
Kirby also vowed to republish the photos and videos that were taken down.
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“They’re archived,” he said. “They’re safe and sound, and we’ll put them back in the public domain when we think it’s the right time to do that. … They were up on DVIDS for a long, long time. Some of them for more than a decade, and they’ll get back up there. We promise that.”
He also specifically said they did not delete the images but that they “took [them] off publicly accessible platforms and archived for future republication.”
