US Military Provides Inspector General With Afghan Troop Data After All
It claimed last week that the information was classified.
— -- It appears the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan will get the information it wanted after all.
In a reversal the U.S. military in Afghanistan has now provided specific declassified statistics about Afghanistan’s security forces to the inspector general that a week ago it said should remain classified.
Those statistics had been routinely provided for public release to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) for inclusion in previous reports. But the latest quarterly SIGAR report issued last week only included the information in a classified appendix.
General John Campbell, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, had said publicly that releasing the information could help the Taliban in planning attacks and creates security risks for the 10,600 U.S. troops serving as trainers in Afghanistan.
However, he has since decided that most of the statistics requested by SIGAR can be publicly released while continuing to classify important Afghanistan National Security Force readiness data.
For six years, the SIGAR has produced regular reports that track the progress of the $65 billion the United States has spent to build Afghanistan’s infrastructure, development and security forces. Those reports have included information about the Afghan security forces such as troop numbers, attrition rates, salaries, training and equipment.
The quarterly report released last week included that information in a classified appendix available only to government officials with a high enough security clearance.
"I am deeply concerned with the implications of this sudden classification decision and have raised it with the appropriate officials," said John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction following the release of the report.
Last week, Gen. John Campbell, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, explained his decision to classify the information in a letter to Sopko.
At the time, he wrote that while he could not comment “upon the precise reason why certain information was considered unclassified in the past, I can advise that given the risks that continue to exist to our forces and those of Afghanistan, I have directed that sensitive operational information or related materials, that could be used by those who threaten the force, or Afghan forces, be classified at an appropriate level.”
He added, “With lives literally on the line, I am sure that you can join me in recognizing that we must be careful to avoid providing sensitive information to those that threaten our forces and Afghan forces, particularly information that can be used by such opposing forces to sharpen their attacks,” wrote Campbell.
Lt. Col. Patrick Seiber, a spokesman for Campbell, says the military has since gone back and separated the public data it could provide to SIGAR that had previously been combined with classified readiness information about Afghan security forces.
“General Campbell has not changed his position in regard to the importance of protecting ANSF readiness data, which remains classified,” Seiber said in a statement.
The office of the inspector general received the data on Monday, but it is still trying to find out exactly what was declassified, according to Alexander Bronstein-Moffly, a spokesman for the inspector general. According to Bronstein-Moffly, the newly-declassified information was 91 percent of the data the Inspector General’s office wanted to prepare its most recent quarterly report to Congress.
“Clearly, they realized they had made a mistake or that they over-classified in this case,” Bronstein-Moffly told ABC News.
Beginning in 2009, the Pentagon began providing twice a year reports mandated by Congress that tracked the overall security situation in Afghanistan as well as the progress of Afghan security forces. Those publicly available reports included similar information that had been provided publicly to SIGAR in the past.
However, the last of those reports was released in October with the pending end of the combat mission in Afghanistan in December.
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