Pentagon: Gag order on Afghan data was a mistake
WASHINGTON — In an abrupt reversal, the U.S. military on Tuesday said it made a mistake when it ordered an independent federal auditor to stop providing the public with information about U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan that help to measure how the 16-year-old stalemated war is going.
Just hours after the report was publicly released, the U.S.-led NATO coalition in Afghanistan issued a statement blaming “human error” for the order, and provided a few segments of the data that has been restricted. The newly released information revealed that 44 per cent of Afghanistan is contested or under the control of insurgents.
Other previously available information on the size, attrition and performance of the Afghan forces continue to be unavailable.
President Donald Trump has announced a new Afghanistan strategy aimed at breaking a battlefield stalemate by accelerating Afghan-led operations against the Taliban and other insurgent groups in the country. On Monday, Trump railed against the recent string of attacks in Afghanistan, and ruled out any U.S. discussions with the Taliban as part of the effort to seek peace talks between the Afghan government and the insurgents.