State Dept, Pentagon concealing Afghanistan data, says US watchdog

WASHINGTON, October 29

A US government watchdog on Friday accused the State Department and Pentagon of suppressing information that lawmakers and the public need to understand the collapse of Afghanistan’s former government and military and the chaotic US troop pullout.

“The full picture of what happened in August and all warning signs that could have predicted the outcome will only be revealed if the information that the departments of Defense and State have already restricted from public is made available,” said John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR).

A spokesperson of the State Department said the department had requested “some reports be temporarily removed to redact identifying information from public records and protect the identities of Afghans and Afghan partner organisations” due to security concerns about the evacuation effort. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Addressing reporters, Sopko said after the Taliban seized Kabul, the State Department asked him to temporarily suspend online access to certain reports he issued to ensure the safety of US-affiliated Afghans.

The department “was never able to describe any specific threats to individuals that were supposedly contained in our reports,” said Sopko, who added he “reluctantly” barred access to the documents.

The State Department, he continued, recently sought redactions of some 2,400 items remaining on SIGAR’s website. Some requests were “bizarre”, such as excising former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s name from reports, Sopko said. — Reuters

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