Page 3 - ARUBA TODAY

A3
U.S. NEWS Tuesday 10 december 2019
Paradise is calling

Get your room in Paradise starting at $1,800 before time runs out.

J.E. Irausquin Blvd. #51 (T): 297-582-7000 (W):www.casadelmar-aruba.com
Report: U.S. misled public on progress in Afghanistan war

WASHINGTON (AP) — The military commanders in U.S. troops from that quag-
U.S. government across 2013 and 2014, told gov- mire. Now it appears U.S.
three White House admin- ernment interviewers, ac- officials misled the Ameri-
istrations misled the public cording to the Post. "Sur- can public about the war.
about failures in the Af- veys, for instance, were It is time to leave Afghani-
ghanistan war, often sug- totally unreliable but rein- stan. Now."
gesting success where it forced that everything we Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif.,
didn't exist, according to were doing was right and said in a tweet: "775,000 of
thousands of pages of we became a self-licking our troops deployed. 2,400
documents obtained by ice cream cone." American lives lost. Over
The Washington Post. The Pentagon released a 20,000 Americans wound-
The documents reveal statement Monday saying ed. 38,000 civilians killed.
deep frustrations about there has been "no intent" Trillions spent. Rumsfeld in
America's conduct of the by the department to mis- 2003: "I have no visibility into
Afghanistan war, includ- lead Congress or the pub- who the bad guys are.'"
ing the ever-changing U.S. lic. Sarah Kreps, professor of An Afghan boy stands on a wall near a horse tied up at a camp
strategy, the struggles to Defense Department of- government and interna- for internally displaced people in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday,
develop an effective Af- ficials "have consistently tional relations at Cornell Dec. 9, 2019.
ghan fighting force and briefed the progress and University said the inter- Associated Press
persistent failures to defeat challenges associated with views reveal the enormous interviews contain few rev- James Dobbins, a former
the Taliban and combat our efforts in Afghanistan, disconnect between what elations about military op- senior U.S. diplomat who
corruption throughout the and DoD provides regular civilian and military lead- erations in the war, they in- served as a special envoy
government. reports to Congress that ers knew about the war clude a lot of criticism that to Afghanistan under Bush
"We were devoid of a fun- highlight these challenges," and what the public knew, refutes the narrative that and Obama was blunt in
damental understanding said Lt. Col. Thomas Camp- particularly about its costs. officials often touted about his assessment of the war in
of Afghanistan — we didn't bell, a department spokes- The Post said that while the progress being made. his interview.q
know what we were do- man. "Most of the individu-
ing," Douglas Lute, a three- als interviewed spoke with
star Army general who the benefit of hindsight.
served as the White House's Hindsight has also enabled
Afghan war czar during the the department to evalu-
Bush and Obama admin- ate previous approaches
istrations, told government and revise our strategy,
interviewers in 2015. as we did in 2017 with the
The interviews were con- launch of the president's
ducted as part of a "Les- South Asia strategy."
sons Learned" project by SIGAR has frequently been
the Special Inspector Gen- vocal about the war's fail-
eral for Afghanistan Re- ures in reports going back
construction over the past more than a decade, in-
several years. SIGAR has cluding extensive ques-
produced seven reports tions about vast waste in
so far from the more than the nearly $1 trillion spent
400 interviews, and several on the conflict.
more are in the works. The The Post said that John
Post sought and received Sopko, the head of SI-
raw interview data through GAR, acknowledged that
the Freedom of Informa- the documents show "the
tion Act and lawsuits. American people have
The documents quote of- constantly been lied to." SI-
ficials close to the 18-year GAR was created by Con-
war effort describing a gress in 2008 to conduct
campaign by the U.S. gov- audits and investigations
ernment to distort the grim into waste of government
reality of the war. spending on the war in Af-
"Every data point was al- ghanistan.
tered to present the best Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif.,
picture possible," Bob tweeted: "The war in Af-
Crowley, an Army colonel ghanistan is an epic bipar-
who served as a counter- tisan failure. I have long
insurgency adviser to U.S. called for the withdrawal of