The Pentagon said on Friday that it supports withholding information about Taliban attacks from the public in an effort to restart dwindling peace efforts while the number of troops in the country continues to be reduced.
“I don’t think a report here and there or numbers here and there are going to be what we’re going to measure that by,” Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told journalists when asked about withholding metrics for evaluating success after the United States and the Taliban signed a peace deal in Doha on Feb. 29.
The NATO Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan withheld data about Taliban attacks in Afghanistan in the first quarter of 2020, data that is used to produce a report for Congress.
Taliban attacks and violence are known to have increased dramatically since the deal with the Taliban was signed.
“NATO Resolute Support (RS) restricted from public release data on the number of enemy-initiated attacks,” said John Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, or SIGAR, in the report released on April 30. “This [enemy-initiated attack] data was one of the last remaining metrics SIGAR was able to use to report publicly on the security situation in Afghanistan since RS discontinued its previous system of assessing district control in 2018.”
Meanwhile, intra-Afghan talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government planned for March 10 have yet to begin.
Hoffman’s comments appear to indicate that crumbling peace efforts could be stemmed by censoring the reporting on possible Taliban violations of the agreement.
“Look, we’ve been pushing the military option for some time on this, and we are helping right now to weigh in and push that diplomatic side a little bit more as well,” Hoffman said.
With intra-Afghan talks in limbo, a promised prisoner exchange unrealized, and a COVID-19 outbreak affecting U.S. troops and Afghans alike, the promise of peace after 20 years of war in Afghanistan is in question.
Nonetheless, the U.S. will continue to reduce the number of troops to 8,600 by mid-July and is on track for a complete withdrawal in 14 months, as per the agreement with the Taliban.
Hoffman said the U.S. honoring its side of the deal while the Taliban continue to escalate violence does not mean the Department of Defense is happy about it.
“We are not pleased with the level of violence in Afghanistan. The level of violence by the Taliban is unacceptably high,” he said. “We have continued to do retaliatory attacks, defensive attacks to help defend our partners in the area, and we will continue to do that.”
Hoffman assured the Taliban have not attacked cities, the U.S., or its allies.
“The decision was that we’re working toward a better solution, a better place for Afghanistan, and that the sharing of that information would not move that ball forward,” he said. “That decision was made. We are supportive of it. At the same time, that information will be released in the future.”
The Pentagon spokesman repeatedly emphasized that the Defense Department saw diplomatic efforts toward achieving peace in Afghanistan as the best path forward, not increased military measures.
“Gen. Miller has been engaging with State Department and Taliban leadership in an effort to bring that about,” he said. “Our goal and our measure here is going to be whether we get to a peaceful solution in Afghanistan.”
In recent days, President Trump has shown his impatience with Afghanistan as the coronavirus spread across the impoverished country, threatening U.S. troops stationed there.
In a report by NBC News, Trump allegedly told his military and national security advisers that he wants all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan over COVID-19 concerns.
Hoffman said Friday that the DOD has not sought to adjust the drawdown plan to 8,600.
“That’s a number where we think we can be and we should be, and so we’re going to continue to move toward it,” he said.
