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9 March 2015

Revised Afghan IG Report Reveals New Data on Shrinking Afghan Military and Wildly Inconsistent Pentagon Reporting

March 6, 2015

The following was posted on March 3, 2015 on the website of the Pentagon’s Special Inspector General for Afghan Relief (SIGAR):

Today, SIGAR released a supplement to the January 2015 quarterly report to Congress. The supplement contains information that received classified or otherwise restricted responses from DOD, but which have now been declassified. Additionally, this supplement lists 10 of the 21 missing data call questions that the State Department did not answer or respond to until after the quarterly report publishing deadline.

The report notes:

—Less than a week after SIGAR submitted a classified annex to Congress, General John F. Campbell informed SIGAR that Resolute Support Mission had reversed itself and declassified the bulk of the material it had classified only a few days earlier. (page 3)

—Some information concerning corps-level Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) personnel strength data, future requirements for Afghan Air Force (AAF) equipment, the number of trained AAF pilots, and operational data on the Afghan Special Mission Wing remains classified. (page 3)

—Just hours before this supplement was originally scheduled to be released, General Campbell notified SIGAR that the ANSF strength numbers the military provided to SIGAR between April and October 2014 were incorrect due to an “accounting error.” After the accounting error was discovered in September 2014, the U.S. military gave corrected numbers to DOD. However, the military failed to notify SIGAR of the error or provide updated numbers, despite the numerous times they had reviewed and approved SIGAR’s draft reports, including the January 2015 report, which contained the incorrect numbers. No explanation has yet been given as to why the corrected numbers were shared with DOD, but not with SIGAR. (page 3)

—The U.S. military’s inconsistent reporting on ANSF strength numbers indicates long-standing and ongoing problems with accountability and personnel tracking. (page 7)

—The Afghan National Army (ANA) has declined by 15,636 (or 8.5%) since February 2014 to 169,203 personnel, the lowest assigned ANA force strength since August 2011. (page 13)

—SIGAR has seen large quarter-to-quarter fluctuations in the ANA numbers—sometimes 20,000 personnel or more—without supporting documentation for the sudden change. (page 8)

—Attrition continues to be a major challenge for the ANSF. Between September 2013 and September 2014, more than 40,000 personnel were dropped from ANA rolls. (page 11)

—SIGAR analysis indicates a change in how Afghan National Police (ANP) numbers are calculated that raises questions about the accuracy of these numbers and the validity of the reported increase in personnel this quarter. (page 17)

—None of the $25 million in NDAA-authorized funds for programs for women in the ANSF have been used. (page 16)

—To encourage the Afghan Ministry of Defense to use electronic payment systems, beginning in July 2015, DOD plans to provide 100% funding only for those positions being paid electronically; pay for other positions will be 80% funded. To incentivize the Afghan Ministry of Interior to use electronic payment systems, beginning in July 2015, DOD plans to provide funding only for those authorized positions being paid electronically. (page 14, 19, 22)

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