Small Wars Journal

SIGAR Supplement Report for Afghanistan

Tue, 05/15/2018 - 8:45pm

SIGAR Supplement Report for Afghanistan

Today, SIGAR released a supplement to its 39th Quarterly Report to Congress.

Key points:

-- United States Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A) has informed SIGAR that they had provided SIGAR with incorrect personnel strength figures for the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) for use in SIGAR’s quarterly report published on April 30, 2018.

-- This is the latest in a series of problems SIGAR has faced with DOD’s responses to our requests for ANDSF information. For the last three quarters, NATO’s Resolute Support (RS) mission, which is under American command, and USFOR-A have classified or marked not releasable to the public large amounts of data in a seemingly haphazard fashion.

-- Corrected figures indicate a total ANDSF force strength of 313,728 as of Jan. 31. Previously, USFOR-A reported to SIGAR a total ANDSF force strength of 296,409 as of Jan. 31.

-- The new numbers show a sharp decline in ANDSF force strength, but not as sharp of a decline as previously reported to SIGAR. USFOR-A did not indicate what other factors contributed to their erroneous reporting.

-- SIGAR receives all ANDSF personnel strength numbers from USFOR-A and has no means of independently verifying them.

-- In the supplement, Special Inspector General John F.  Sopko respectfully requests the appropriate Congressional committees and the Secretary of Defense remind all DOD components of their statutory duty to provide accurate and timely data concerning the ANDSF for SIGAR’s quarterly reports.

Full Supplement: https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2018-04-30qr-supplement.pdf