Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction Quarterly Report to the United States Congress
Abstract
I am pleased to submit to Congress and the Secretaries of State and Defense, SIGAR's 38th quarterly report on the status of the U.S. reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. This quarter, the Department of Defense (DOD) instructed SIGAR not to release to the public data on the number of districts, and the population living in them, controlled or influenced by the Afghan government or by the insurgents, or contested by both.* SIGAR has been reporting district-control data since January 2016, and later added estimates of population and land-area control reported by DOD. As shown in Appendix E of this quarterly report, SIGAR was informed this quarter that DOD has determined that although the most recent numbers are unclassified, they are not releasable to the public. This development is troubling for a number of reasons, not least of which is that this is the first time SIGAR has been specifically instructed not to release information marked "unclassified" to the American taxpayer. Aside from that, the number of districts controlled or influenced by the Afghan government had been one of the last remaining publicly available indicators for members of Congress--many of whose staff do not have access to the classified annexes to SIGAR reports--and for the American public of how the 16-yearlong U.S. effort to secure Afghanistan is faring. Historically, the number of districts controlled or influenced by the government has been falling since SIGAR began reporting on it, while the number controlled or influenced by the insurgents has been rising--a fact that should cause even more concern about its disappearance from public disclosure and discussion. This worrisome development comes as DOD this quarter, for the first time since 2009, also classified the exact strength figures for most Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), another vital measure of ANDSF reconstruction.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 30, 2018
- Accession Number
- AD1139784
Entities
People
- Cameron Moubray
- Clark Irwin
- Daniel Fisher
- Deborah Scroggins
- Emmett Schneider
- Hannaka Spillman
- Heather Robinson
- James Misencik
- John Sopko
- Michael Bindell
- Olivia Paek
- Solange T. Gaba
- Vong Lim
Organizations
- Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction