"We didn't know what we were doing": US officials presented a false picture of the war in Afghanistan
Thousands of documents reached by The Washington Post describe the talks held by senior Pentagon officials, who admitted that American policy is not fruitful. In public, their statements were hopeful. "We lacked a substantial understanding of Afghanistan"
"We didn't know what we were doing": US officials presented a false picture of the war in Afghanistan
Pentagon officials have been voicing their deep fears about the US war strategy in Afghanistan for years, including officials who have publicly stated other sentiments - the Washington Post said yesterday, obtaining thousands of documents from Afghanistan's General Inspector General, the longest-running government oversight body in history. , Who will ask more than 600 people.
The paper received the transcripts of the calls through the Freedom of Information Act and two federal lawsuits. The exposure was announced while US President Donald Trump and the Pentagon want to reduce the number of troops stationed in Afghanistan to focus on the fight against al-Qaeda and the "Islamic State" (ISIS), in parallel with peace talks with the Taliban.
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The United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and ousted the Taliban regime after its leaders refused to extradite Rahab al-Qaeda who were responsible for the September 11 attack. Some 2,400 American soldiers were killed in the war in Afghanistan, and many thousands more were injured. The United States invested about $ 1 trillion in the war.
"We lacked a substantial understanding of Afghanistan - we didn't know what we were doing," said Douglas Lotte, a three-star general who had a pivotal role in the Afghanistan and Iraq clashes during George W.'s administration. Bush, in an interview he gave back in 2015.
The documents mentioned the "Pentagon documents" - which included secret details about the Vietnam war and leaked in 1971. They influenced the mood in the United States and the resistance to war.
About 2,400 American soldiers were killed in the war. US forces in Afghanistan (Photo: AP)
US Army troops in Afghanistan (Photo: AP)
US military officials have said during the war that they hope the Afghanistan conflict is on the way, even as Taliban continues to dominate vast areas of the country, killing US and Afghan forces - even without air capability. However, senior officials have expressed their concern about the war from time to time, especially as they seek to reinforce their strengths or reinforce their capabilities to combat the Taliban.
In 2010, General Michael Flynn, who then served as deputy chief of intelligence in Afghanistan, strongly criticized the functioning of US spy agencies in Afghanistan, calling her "ignorant" people detached from the Afghan people. Flynn was Trump's national security adviser at the beginning.
The Washington Post received several memos compiled by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld between 2001 and 2006. "We will never extradite the United States Army from Afghanistan unless we make sure that there is something to provide the stability needed for our withdrawal," Rumsfeld wrote in one 2002 memo.
John Soffco, the agency's head, told the newspaper that what emerged from the estimates indicated "that they lied to US citizens regularly."
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