Meanwhile, in Afghanistan

The U.S. military decided it will no longer release facts and figures about America’s costly effort to assist Afghan security forces.

(As this goes online, the military has announced, having been called out, that it is backtracking* on parts of the classification)

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Information that has been made public for the past 12 years is now classified. The fact that the information has generally made the military (and the State Department, who helps spend the money) look like fools may have something to do with the decision.

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The now-classified data also hides the results of the $107.5 billion U.S. reconstruction program.

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Despite a legal obligation for federal government agencies to provide requested information to the inspector general, “the State Department did not answer any of SIGAR’s questions on economic and social-development this quarter, and failed to respond to SIGAR’s attempts to follow up.”

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Afghan war blog Sunny in Kabul (which, if you have any interest at all in events in Afghanistan you should be reading) says the military isn’t hiding money, it’s hiding people. Specifically, the lack of Afghan soldiers on the job.

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”[N]early three quarters of the ANSF’s total force over the course of 31 months was lost

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Basically, despite extraordinary sums of money being spent to train and equip the ANSF, they are quitting, deserting, getting killed or running away

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Sunny in Kabul concludes “Based on the numbers publicly reported last fall, there won’t be an army left to fight the insurgency by the end of 2015. That’s not a metaphor or commentary on their professionalism. I mean there won’t be an army at all.”

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And much, much more!

  Peter Van Buren

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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The watchdog Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) accused the U.S. military of depriving the American people of an essential tool to measure the success or failure of the U.S.-led rebuilding effort.

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The U.S. watchdog had challenged the U.S. military's assertion that releasing data on topics ranging from recruitment of women to salaries and attrition could be of tactical benefit to Taliban insurgents, and called the decision to classify it "inexplicable".

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"Resolute Support has informed SIGAR that a majority of the information has been declassified and we are in the process of reviewing it," a SIGAR spokesman said in an emailed statement.

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A spokesman for the U.S. force said in a statement: "A large volume of the data requested by SIGAR, when viewed alone, is suitable for public release.

"USFOR-A has since gone back and separated data releasable to the public from classified ANSF readiness data based on the SIGAR’s request," the spokesman said.

  Reuters

We shall see.