NEW SECRECY SURROUNDS WAR: The latest report from the Pentagon’s independent watchdog is sharply critical of the military’s increasing secrecy about key metrics for measuring success in the 16-year-old Afghanistan war. The latest report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction decries the “instruction” from DoD to withhold unclassified data that was previously public, such as how many districts the Taliban controls in Afghanistan and the fighting effectiveness and casualty rates of the Afghan military.
“This development is troubling for a number of reasons, not least of which is that this is the first time SIGAR has been specifically instructed not to release information marked ‘unclassified’ to the American taxpayer,” wrote Special Inspector General John Sopko, in the preface to the report released this morning. “Aside from that, the number of districts controlled or influenced by the Afghan government had been one of the last remaining publicly available indicators for members of Congress — many of whose staff do not have access to the classified annexes to SIGAR reports — and for the American public of how the 16-yearlong U.S. effort to secure Afghanistan is faring,” Sopko said.
