Book
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War
Whitlock, a Washington Post investigative reporter, narrates the U.S. war in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021 across four presidencies in twenty-one chapters. The sources are SIGAR's unpublished Lessons Learned interview notes, which the Post won through two FOIA suits, Rumsfeld's snowflake memos, and Army, State Department and Miller Center oral histories. Each chapter sets what officials said in public against what they or others recorded in private. It argues that the mission was never defined, that reconstruction spending outran the ability to use it, that anti-corruption and Afghan security-force programs failed, and that leaders told the public year after year they were making progress while knowing the strategy was not working. Its Note on Sources says about thirty of the 428 interview records are transcripts and the rest typed summaries.
Who made it
- Craig Whitlock is an investigative reporter at The Washington Post. His author note says he has covered the global war on terrorism for the Post since 2001 as a foreign correspondent, Pentagon reporter and national security specialist, and lists 2019 awards for the Afghanistan coverage (George Polk, Scripps Howard, IRE Freedom of Information, Robert F. Kennedy).
- The Post published its series on the documents in December 2019, with an online database of the interviews and snowflakes (Foreword). The book credits the Post as a project partner: Marty Baron 'encouraged me to make it happen as a Post project' (Acknowledgments).
- The Post was the plaintiff in both FOIA suits against SIGAR, and Whitlock was the requester: Whitlock and Greg Miller on 24 August 2016 for the Flynn interview record (complaint para. 14; exhibit Exhibit 392), Whitlock alone on 23 March 2017 for all Lessons Learned interviews (exhibit Exhibit 393, p. 1). The complaint states the Post's allegations.
- The Acknowledgments say the Post's leadership 'made an institutional commitment to uncover the truth about the longest war in American history' and thank the Post's legal department and three Ballard Spahr attorneys who represented the Post in court.
- Published by Simon & Schuster, 31 August 2021, 368 pages; paperback ISBN 9781982159016 (2022). The Acknowledgments name Priscilla Painton as editorial director and Julie Tate of the Post as fact-checker.
- The Rumsfeld snowflakes came to the Post from the National Security Archive, which obtained them by suing the Defense Department (Foreword; Acknowledgments). The Army interviews come from the Combat Studies Institute's Operational Leadership Experience project, the Miller Center's George W. Bush oral history and the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (Note on Sources).
Its claims checked against the record
16 claims checked:5 supported · 10 partly supported · 0 contradicted · 1 not in the record
A verdict rests on the documents named in its row.
| The work says | Verdict | What the record shows |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. officials lied to the public about Afghanistan year after year while privately knowing the strategy was failing, and interviewees described explicit, sustained efforts to mislead. | Partly supported | SIGAR reviewed senior State and DOD officials' public statements from 2011 to 2021 and found claims of near success (LL p. 18), wrote that pressure to show progress turned accountability systems 'into spin machines' (p. 32), and that agencies 'faced massive pressure from the Congress to report that they were achieving success' (p. 91). The same passage begins 'Assuming these U.S. officials believed what they said in public', so SIGAR does not find that they knew otherwise. At the 11 February 2020 hearing retired Lt. Col. Daniel Davis testified 'We were keeping the truth from you'; Milley said the assessments were 'honest' (CRS). Record partly withheld. The unredacted names of 366 of the 428 interviewees (CRS R46197), the six audio recordings and the State Department-classified interview passages are withheld, and the court upheld those withholdings on 30 September 2021 (Washington Post Co. v. SIGAR, No. 18-2622, Dkt. 44, pp. 30-31, 47); Sopko told the Senate on 11 February 2020 that most indicia of success in training the Afghan military 'are now classified or we do not collect it' (S. Hrg. 116-203). |
| On 25 September 2001 Rumsfeld told the Pentagon press corps he could not imagine DOD lying to the press, said 'I don't recall that I've ever lied to the press', and answered a question about everyone in DOD with 'You've got to be kidding.' | Supported by the record | The transcript has 'The answer to your question is, no, I cannot imagine a situation. I don't recall that I've ever lied to the press, I don't intend to, and it seems to me that there will not be reason for it', and, to the follow-up about everybody in DOD, 'You've got to be kidding. (Laughter.)'. Rumsfeld's own Churchill line was 'sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies', said after 'don't quote me on this'; the book prints Churchill's sentence ('In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies') as Rumsfeld's paraphrase. The transcript records no pause or smile. |
| Rumsfeld wrote in a snowflake to his intelligence chief, almost two years into the war, 'I have no visibility into who the bad guys are' and 'We are woefully deficient in human intelligence.' | Supported by the record | The memo reads: 'I have no visibility into who the bad guys are in Afghanistan or Iraq. I read all the intel from the community and it sounds as though we know a great deal but in fact, when you push at it, you find out we haven't got anything that is actionable. We are woefully deficient in human intelligence.' The Foreword prints the first sentence ending at 'in Afghanistan' and Chapter 2 ends it at 'are', so the book's quotations omit 'or Iraq'; the memo covers both wars. Read from an OCR of the Archive's scan. |
| Bush told VMI cadets on 17 April 2002 'We're not going to repeat that mistake' and 'We'll stay until the mission is done', while Rumsfeld dictated a memo that morning saying the U.S. would never get out of Afghanistan without stability; on 16 October 2003 Rumsfeld wrote that the coalition 'can win in Afghanistan and Iraq in one way or another, but it will be a long, hard slog.' | Supported by the record | The April memo reads 'I may be impatient. In fact I know I'm a bit impatient' and 'We are never going to get the U.S. military out of Afghanistan unless we take care to see that there is something going on that will provide the stability that will be necessary for us to leave'; the Archive lists it with the note 'Help!'. The speech transcript has 'We're not going to repeat that mistake' and 'We will stay until the mission is done', so the book's 'We'll stay' changes the wording. The October memo also says 'Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing' and records 'mixed results with Al Qaida' and 'reasonable progress in capturing or killing the top 55 Iraqis'. |
| Lute told SIGAR: 'We were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan—we didn't know what we were doing... We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking.' | Supported by the record | LL p. 15 prints the sentences under Lute's name from the 20 February 2015 interview. The book joins 'Afghanistan' and 'we didn't know' with a dash, as Sen. Paul's reading in the hearing record does; LL has a period. The book runs on to 'What are we trying to do here?' without marking the omission of LL's passage comparing $10 billion for Afghanistan with Haiti, and prints 'There is a fundamental gap' where LL has 'There [was]'. Lute testified at the hearing and the record holds no statement from him disputing the quotation. |
| Army Col. Bob Crowley told SIGAR: 'Every data point was altered to present the best picture possible. Surveys, for instance, were totally unreliable but reinforced that everything we were doing was right and we became a self-licking ice cream cone.' | Partly supported | Sen. Lee read the same sentences into the hearing record as Crowley's; the book matches the wording except for Lee's comma after 'unreliable'. The interview record is not held, so the quotation is confirmed as Crowley's only through the hearing. LL says agencies were 'sometimes relying on shaky data to make claims of success' (p. 83) and felt pressure for 'good news stories' (p. 91), which bears on his assertion without confirming that every data point was altered. |
| Clinton told a Senate committee in June 2011 'We have broken the Taliban's momentum' and cited 7.1 million enrolled students, a 22 percent fall in infant mortality and more than 100,000 microfinance loans; auditors later found the Obama administration's statistics on infant mortality, life expectancy and school enrollment rested on inaccurate or unverified data. | Partly supported | The hearing record has Clinton saying 'the bottom line, as the President said, is that we have broken the Taliban's momentum', 'By 2010 7.1 million students were enrolled', 'Infant mortality is down 22 percent', 'Afghan women have used more than 100,000 microfinance loans' and 'life is better for most Afghans'. LL p. 87 says SIGAR 'has repeatedly identified data quality problems with metrics, such as those touted by USAID as showing improvements in life expectancy, maternal mortality, and school enrollment'; it names maternal, not infant, mortality, does not tie the problems to Clinton's testimony, and says 'data quality problems', not that the figures were inaccurate. |
| Gates removed Gen. David McKiernan in May 2009 because he was the first general in Afghanistan to admit the war was going poorly and 'did not deceive the public with specious language'; at his last Kabul press conference on 6 May he called the war 'stalemated' in the south and 'a very tough fight' in the east. | Not in the record | The 1 October 2008 transcript supports the book's quotations that 'in large parts of Afghanistan, we don't see progress' and 'We are in a tough fight', though the same answers say progress is 'very uneven' with 'very positive signs' in some places. On 11 May 2009 Gates said he had 'asked for the resignation' and 'nothing went wrong, and there was nothing specific'; Mullen said he had looked at McKiernan's relief 'as far back as six or seven months ago'; a reporter cited a criticism that McKiernan had not implemented a joint campaign plan. No one links the decision to McKiernan's public remarks, so the motive is the book's inference. Wording differs in two places: the book gives Mullen as 'very encouraged by the progress being made' where the transcript has 'very encouraged by the progress that we'd made' in RC East, and the AFPS report of 6 May has McKiernan saying new forces open a chance to break a security 'stalemate', with no 'stalemated in the south' or 'very tough fight' wording found. |
| The Lessons Learned interviews 'broadly resembled' the Pentagon Papers in showing the government's private view of the war and its determination to conceal it. | Partly supported | The book lists its own differences: interviews taken 2014-2018, none originally classified, 'few revelations about military operations', and some material classified afterward when other agencies intervened. CRS adds that the Pentagon Papers were a contemporaneous recounting from classified material while the SIGAR records were taken as many as 15 years after events, that its quotations come from SIGAR notes of interviews it 'cannot independently verify', and that at least four named interviewees contested the views attributed to them. The Note on Sources says only about thirty of the records are word-for-word transcripts and the rest are typed summaries of notes and quotations. Record partly withheld. Verbatim records that would test how closely the typed summaries track what interviewees said are limited: SIGAR's general counsel wrote on 23 February 2018 that 374 of 410 interviews had no audio or transcript (Complaint para. 23, Dkt. 1), and six audio recordings remain withheld in full, five of them on the ground that they contain classified information (Dkt. 44, pp. 30-31). |
| SIGAR delayed and resisted the Post's requests, the Post filed two federal lawsuits, and SIGAR released more than 2,000 pages of notes from 428 interviews while redacting the names of about 85 percent of interviewees. | Supported by the record | The complaint records the 24 August 2016 request, SIGAR's January 2017 denial and the October 2017 suit (1:17-cv-2114); the 2021 opinion records the 23 March 2017 request, the 14 November 2018 suit, production of hundreds of records by June 2019, and a September 2020 order granting each side's motion in part. CRS counts 428 interviews with 62 identified and 366 redacted (85.5 percent), roughly 2,000 pages, final batch delivered August 2019. 'Delayed and resisted' is the author's characterization and the complaint's account of delay is the plaintiff's allegation. |
| The history was 'secret': SIGAR's published Lessons Learned reports were 'weighed down with leaden government prose' and 'omitted the harsh criticism and finger-pointing' that the interviews contained. | Partly supported | Sopko wrote to the Post that the Afghanistan Papers 'is not a "secret" history. SIGAR has written about these issues for years, including in seven Lessons Learned reports and more than 300 audits and other products.' The book itself says none of the interview documents was originally classified. SIGAR's 2021 report, issued after the Post's suits, prints Lute's name beside his words (p. 15) and reports the interview findings on spin and metrics (pp. 32, 87, 91). CRS counts 62 of 428 interviewees as identified. |
| From 2001 to 2020 Washington allocated $143 billion to reconstruction, aid and Afghan security forces, more than the Marshall Plan adjusted for inflation; annual reconstruction aid nearly tripled from $6 billion in 2008 to $17 billion in 2010, about what Afghanistan's economy produced. | Partly supported | LL gives '$145 billion trying to rebuild Afghanistan' over 20 years (p. 1), $2 billion above the book's figure, which stops a year earlier. LL states that by 2010 reconstruction spending 'was equivalent to more than 100 percent of Afghanistan's GDP' (p. 31) and prints David Marsden's 'pouring a lot of water into a funnel' passage that the book quotes. LL has no Marshall Plan comparison and no $6 billion or $17 billion annual figures. |
| Security assistance for Afghan forces exceeded $85 billion, the largest item in reconstruction, and the United States spent more than $9 billion on counternarcotics over two decades, none of it working. | Partly supported | LL says the United States spent 'more than $83 billion' building the Afghan forces (pp. 4, 77), about $2 billion below the book. LL says 'nearly $9 billion on counternarcotics efforts since 2002' and that poppy cultivation 'has trended upward for two decades' (pp. 6, 63), where the book says 'more than $9 billion'. The book's $4.5 billion for interdiction is not in LL. |
| More than 775,000 U.S. troops deployed, more than 2,300 died in Afghanistan and 21,000 were wounded; the government has not calculated a comprehensive total of war spending, though most estimates exceed $1 trillion. | Partly supported | LL reports more than 775,000 troops deployed (p. 18) and, as of August 2021, 2,443 U.S. troops killed and 20,666 injured (p. 1), consistent with figures the book wrote earlier in 2021. DOD's Section 1090 table gives $881.9 billion for Afghanistan through FY2023, and LL gives $837 billion for warfighting plus $145 billion for reconstruction, about $982 billion; neither reaches $1 trillion. The book's 'most estimates' refers to outside estimates we do not hold. |
| The U.S. supply chain was 'a vast protection racket' underwritten by taxpayers, and a military task force found about 18 percent of 3,000 contracts worth $106 billion went to the Taliban and other insurgents. | Partly supported | The majority-staff report says the Host Nation Trucking contract, '$2.16 billion' split among eight companies, 'has fueled a vast protection racket run by a shadowy network of warlords, strongmen, commanders, corrupt Afghan officials', and puts trucking at 'roughly 6,000 to 8,000 truck missions per month'; it is a staff report, not a committee finding. The book attributes the 18 percent figure to Gert Berthold's Lessons Learned interview, and it appears in no document we hold. |
Show the other 1 claims checked
| The work says | Verdict | What the record shows |
|---|---|---|
| Sopko told Congress in January 2020 that U.S. officials 'knew the data was bad' yet bragged about the numbers, and that the lies were part of 'an odor of mendacity'. | Partly supported | CRS prints Sopko as saying that policy had been characterized by 'institutional hubris and mendacity' and 'We have incentivized lying to Congress.... [T]he whole incentive is to show success and to ignore failure and when there's too much failure, classify it or don't report it.' At the Senate hearing Sopko said 'We did that three or four times with the metrics' and 'every time we find something that looks like it is going negative, it gets classified or it is no longer relevant.' |
What the record shows that it leaves out
- SIGAR attributes the gap between public confidence and results to analysis, not only to statements: 'the gulf between their confidence and the poor results can only point to severe deficiencies in their analysis of the ways' (SIGAR-21-46-LL p. 18), and states that money spent was the usual measure of progress, 'money expended equals success' (p. 17).
- SIGAR's report lists gains alongside the failures: life expectancy up from 56 to 65 by 2018, with higher per capita GDP and literacy, and says it 'has repeatedly identified data quality problems' with the USAID metrics for them (SIGAR-21-46-LL pp. 6, 87).
- SIGAR found that Congress and agencies created the pressure for good news, not only officials in Kabul: 'Agencies faced massive pressure from the Congress to report that they were achieving success' (SIGAR-21-46-LL p. 91).
- The book gives no total for waste. SIGAR 21-05-SP counts about $19 billion, 30 percent of the $63 billion it reviewed, out of nearly $134 billion appropriated through 2019; 'waste' there includes programs that did not meet their purpose (SIGAR 21-05-SP, letter and Table 1).
- Mullen told the 11 May 2009 press conference he had looked at McKiernan's relief 'as far back as six or seven months ago' and a reporter cited a criticism that McKiernan had not implemented a joint campaign plan; the book's account of the removal leaves out both (DOD transcript, 11 May 2009).
- The Lessons Learned program was SIGAR's own initiative under Sopko and fed seven published Lessons Learned reports before the Post sued (S. Hrg. 116-203 pp. 5-6; CRS R46197). The court's 2020 ruling held that interviewees who spoke on an understanding of anonymity had a privacy interest that outweighed the public interest in their identities, except for 'on the record' interviews (Exhibit 393 pp. 4-5).
- At the 11 February 2020 hearing Boucher said he did not 'agree with many of their characterizations' of the Post series, and the Senate record shows no Lute statement disputing the quotation the book prints (S. Hrg. 116-203).
- The book's snowflake counts differ: 'an estimated 59,000 pages' (Foreword), 'the entire 50,000-page avalanche' (Acknowledgments), and 'hundreds' of memos from 2001 to 2006 (Foreword), where CRS describes approximately 190 memos from 2001 to 2004 in the Post's release (CRS R46197).
- The reviewer Conrad Crane counts that Whitlock quotes 73 of about 600 Army Operational Leadership Experience interviews and asks what the other 527 said (H-Diplo/RJISSF Roundtable 14-9, Crane review). The book states it set aside more than 600 Afghanistan interviews (Foreword).
Documented efforts and withheld records
Each item is a documented act, with its source: an act against the work, its author or its sources, or the withholding of records on its subject. The list states what was done and does not state why.
- January 2017 to October 2017. SIGAR denied the Post's 24 August 2016 FOIA request for the Lessons Learned interview of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn in January 2017 under Exemption 5; the Post appealed, SIGAR's appellate authority remanded in May 2017, SIGAR did not respond on remand, and the Post sued in October 2017 (No. 1:17-cv-2114). Complaint, Washington Post Co. v. SIGAR, No. 1:18-cv-02622, paras. 14-16 (exhibit Exhibit 392)
- December 2017 to 27 February 2018. SIGAR produced the Flynn record of interview to the Post redacted in December 2017, with fewer redactions in January 2018, and the audio in February 2018; the first suit was dismissed by stipulation on 27 February 2018. Complaint, No. 1:18-cv-02622, para. 17, citing the docket in No. 1:17-cv-2114
- 23 and 28 February 2018. SIGAR's general counsel John Arlington wrote to the Post on 23 and 28 February 2018 that SIGAR is 'prohibited by law' from identifying sources who want anonymity and would remove the names of interviewees from the notes before release, citing the Inspector General Act. The Post's 17 April 2018 letter answered that the cited provision applies only to reports made through an inspector general's website link. Complaint, No. 1:18-cv-02622, paras. 23-33 (exhibits B, D, F quoted)
- April to November 2018. SIGAR is alleged to have produced records of 35 interviews by April 2018 and 42 of 47 'on the record' interviews, 7 of 17 audio recordings and 86 of 363 'on background' interviews by 31 August 2018, and not to have answered the Post's letters of 17 April, 31 August and its email of 14 May 2018 asking for a production timetable. These are the plaintiff's allegations. Complaint, No. 1:18-cv-02622, paras. 34-44
- 31 August 2018. The Post wrote to SIGAR on 31 August 2018 asking SIGAR not to force a second lawsuit and stating that it would request attorney's fees and costs if it had to litigate. This is an act by the work's own side. Complaint, No. 1:18-cv-02622, para. 40 (exhibit H quoted)
- 14 November 2018. The Washington Post Company sued SIGAR in the D.D.C. for the full Lessons Learned interview records and audio (No. 18-2622), seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. This is an act by the work's own side. Memorandum Opinion, Dkt. 44, p. 1 (exhibit Exhibit 393)
- June to August 2019. By June 2019 SIGAR had produced hundreds of records with redactions and withholdings under FOIA exemptions; CRS reports that the final batch arrived in August 2019 after other federal agencies reviewed it for classified material. Memorandum Opinion, Dkt. 44, p. 1 (status report of 17 June 2019); CRS R46197 (exhibit Exhibit 394)
- 2019 release; reported 28 January 2020. SIGAR redacted the names of 366 of 428 interviewees and identified 62, and in court filings called the interviewees whistleblowers and informants who might suffer professional or other harm if named. CRS R46197; Whitlock, Note on Sources
- 2019 to 2021. SIGAR referred interview records to the State Department and other agencies, and the State Department classified portions under Exemption 1; its declarant stated that the documents 'may not have been classified before the agency received the Post's FOIA request' and cited Executive Order 13526 section 1.7(d), which permits classification after a FOIA request. Whitlock states that the State Department, Defense Department and Drug Enforcement Administration classified material after the fact. Memorandum Opinion, Dkt. 44, pp. 9-10 and n.5; Whitlock, Note on Sources
- 15 September 2020. Judge Amy Berman Jackson granted each side's summary judgment motion in part: she upheld SIGAR's withholdings under Exemptions 7(A), 7(E) and 7(F), held that interviewees and named third parties had a privacy interest outweighing the public interest in their identities except for 'on the record' interviews, and ordered the State Department and SIGAR to justify the Exemption 1, 3 and 5 withholdings, the interview codes, locations and audio. Memorandum Opinion, Dkt. 44, pp. 2-5, describing 486 F. Supp. 3d 141 (D.D.C. 2020)
- 30 October 2020 and 2021. After the 2020 order SIGAR released some previously withheld material by 30 October 2020, including Exemption 5 passages from nearly forty records of interview, two audio recordings (Audio Nos. 2 and 8), most interview locations, and later 63 records in full after a line-by-line review. Memorandum Opinion, Dkt. 44, pp. 5, 30-31, 47
- 30 September 2021. The court granted SIGAR summary judgment on the records withheld under Exemptions 1 and 3 (State Department classification), identifying information in off-the-record, on-background and non-attribution records, interview codes, interview locations for 44 records, six audio recordings, and the names of low-ranking officials, private citizens (116) and foreign nationals (146) and of third parties named in interviews. It denied SIGAR's deliberative-process withholdings and ordered release of several passages withheld under the presidential communications privilege. SIGAR's declarant stated that a copy of the master list of interview codes and names may have been removed from SIGAR's offices by a former employee. Memorandum Opinion, Dkt. 44, pp. 22, 29-31, 42-43, 47-48
- 2011 and from 2017. The Defense Department held most of Rumsfeld's snowflakes, an estimated 59,000 pages, confidential until the National Security Archive's FOIA lawsuit led it to release them on a rolling basis from 2017; it had made a selected number public in 2011 with Rumsfeld's memoir. Whitlock, Foreword paras. 49-50; CRS R46197 n.8
- 22 September 2010. The Rumsfeld snowflake of 17 April 2002 to Doug Feith (Secret, 'Help!') carries a 'DECLASSIFIED IN PART' stamp from the Chief Records Declassification Division, Washington Headquarters Services; the book's endnote dates the partial declassification to 22 September 2010. The text withheld is not identifiable from the OCR. National Security Archive OCR page; Whitlock, endnote to Chapter 1
- 11 February 2020. Sopko told the Senate subcommittee that most indicia of measuring the Afghan military's training were 'now classified or we do not collect it', that 'we allow the Afghan government to classify what I can tell you', that SIGAR has a list of what has been classified that 'keeps growing', and that 'every time we find something that looks like it is going negative, it gets classified or it is no longer relevant.' He agreed with Sen. Hawley that metrics showing negative progress are abandoned or classified. S. Hrg. 116-203 (exhibit Exhibit 395)
- 15 January 2020. Sopko told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that 'when there's too much failure, classify it or don't report it.' CRS R46197
- 12 to 17 December 2019 and later in December 2019. SIGAR Inspector General John Sopko wrote to the Post that the Afghanistan Papers is 'not a "secret" history'. Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said the Pentagon would 'quibble with the idea that we weren't providing' accurate information, Defense Secretary Mark Esper called the idea of a large-scale conspiracy 'just, to me, ridiculous', and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said the assessments 'were never intended to deceive neither the Congress nor the American people.' CRS records no Army statement. CRS R46197, 'Reactions'
Published responses
- John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction: Wrote to the Post on 17 December 2019 that the Afghanistan Papers 'is an important contribution to public discourse' but 'is not a "secret" history.' Testified on 15 January 2020 to the House Foreign Affairs Committee of 'institutional hubris and mendacity' and 'We have incentivized lying to Congress.'
- Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense: Said on 20 December 2019 that 'it's not like this war was hiding somewhere.'
- Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: Said the assessments were 'honest' and 'never intended to deceive neither the Congress nor the American people.'
- Jonathan Hoffman, Pentagon spokesman: Said on 12 December 2019 'I would quibble with the idea that we weren't providing [accurate information] in the past.'
- Richard Boucher, former Assistant Secretary of State: Told the Senate subcommittee on 11 February 2020: 'I do not agree with many of their characterizations.'
- Congressional Research Service: States it cannot independently verify the interview quotations and that at least four named interviewees contested the views SIGAR attributed to them; does not name them.
- Conrad Crane, U.S. Army War College, and Jeffrey Michaels (H-Diplo/RJISSF Roundtable 14-9): Crane wrote that the title is misleading and 'should really be titled "The Afghanistan Interviews"', and that he knows many of the officials accused and 'consider[s] them honorable people' whose intent should be examined (p. 9). Jeffrey Michaels wrote that the evidence of deception 'is based on candid assessments of officials being interviewed by other officials with the understanding that their words would not be made public' (p. 23).
Where it connects
- What Was Said in Private: Core text for what officials said in SIGAR interviews and Rumsfeld memos against their public statements, and for the Post v. SIGAR record of redacted names, withheld audio and after-the-fact classification.
- Managing the Narrative: Documents SIGAR and State classifying or redacting interview material after a FOIA request, and Sopko's testimony that Afghan-forces metrics are classified once they turn negative.
- The Permanent War Economy: Reconstruction spending that SIGAR measured at over 100 percent of Afghan GDP by 2010 and the contracting chain the book describes.