U.S. Reverses Decision to Classify Data on Afghan Army and Police

WASHINGTON — The American military command in Afghanistan on Monday abruptly reversed its decision to classify details about the Afghan Army and police, information that it had said could pose a grave security risk if disclosed.

The data, which includes figures like the number of Afghan soldiers and what it costs to feed them, had been readily available for the past six years. But last week word leaked that the information would be kept secret going forward, a move the American command insisted was needed to safeguard Afghan and American lives.

Many in Kabul and Washington, including members of Congress, expressed skepticism about that rationale.

American officials often call the building of the Afghan security forces — a project that has cost $65 billion to date — one of the most significant achievements of the American-led coalition. Yet those forces continue to struggle against the Taliban, and about 9,500 American troops and thousands of contractors remain in Afghanistan to train Afghan soldiers and police officers and to help them battle insurgents.

The data about Afghan forces is one of the few measures that can be used to assess how the American-led project is progressing, or what still needs to be done.

On Monday, the American command did not fully back off its rationale for classifying the information. In a statement, it said the data that it believed could aid Afghan insurgents, such as readiness assessments of Afghan army and police units, would remain secret. The readiness reports were actually classified late last year, a few months before the more basic data on the composition of Afghan forces and American spending to support them was deemed secret.

But now a range of the more basic data about the security forces will again be public, the command said.

The command, explaining its reversal, said that much of the information had been deemed secret because it was combined with “related classified information. ”  Read More at NYT