In 2003, Secretary Rumsfeld complained that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are. Both Donald Rumsfeld and Leon Panetta, secretaries of defense under Bush and Obama respectively, are exposed in the report as falsely presenting a positive picture, one they knew was a lie. These officials and officers were ignored and sidelined.Įven worse, senior officials and generals openly lied to the American public while, in private, they acknowledged the war was failing. At every step, officials and officers warned their superiors that money was misspent, the Karzai government was hopelessly corrupt, and the Taliban were tougher than expected. American officials warned that our efforts to build up a stable central government would likely fail, even after we spent $133 billion in aid-more than the entire Marshall Plan. Conditions on the ground made it difficult to create lasting stability, and officials could not agree on the basic objective of the war itself-let alone who the enemy actually was.įrom the beginning, the Department of Defense complained about a complete lack of intelligence. Senior officials and generals openly lied to the American public while they privately acknowledged the war was failing.Īs early as April 2002, half a year into the war, the American government knew that the mission was going sideways. Inspector General John Sopko admitted, “The American people have been constantly lied to.” officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.” Over 400 interviews reveal that American officials routinely edited and massaged data for a war they knew was lost. According to the Post, While over $2 trillion in taxpayer money was being spent, 2,300 American lives were being lost, and over 20,000 Americans were being wounded, “senior U.S. The contents of the Afghanistan papers are bleak. Garibay, 16th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
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