'Maybe the War Would Have Ended Earlier.' Afghanistan Watchdog Says Secrecy Hurt Oversight Effort

n the days leading up to the chaotic American withdrawal from Afghanistan, John Sopko’s staff began receiving urgent emails from the U.S. State Department to shut down public access to his agency’s website. As Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction , Sopko is charged with producing reports cataloging the waste, fraud and abuse that has plagued 20 years of U.S. reconstruction spending in Afghanistan.

But after a decade of investigation, chief among Sopko’s concerns about America’s handling of the war isn’t a particular failed multimillion-dollar project, ill-conceived diplomatic strategy or shoddy battle plan. It’s the U.S. government’s inability to be honest with the American people. Sopko had locked horns with U.S. officials over redaction requests before. In 2015, for instance, the Pentagon requested SIGAR classify information on the performance of the Afghan security forces, allegedly requested by the Afghan government on the grounds that it tipped off the Taliban to the forces’ posture.

The U.S. spent at least $84 billion to train and equip Afghanistan’s 300,000-plus troops and police, which vastly outnumbered the estimated 75,000 Taliban fighters now in control of the country. The Afghan government owned an air force of attack planes and helicopters, armored trucks and heavy weaponry.

,” a searing report largely based on previously classified SIGAR documents which he obtained after filing multiple public-records requests and two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. “U.S.

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