U.S. routinely reports misleading numbers on Afghanistan

KABUL — Seventeen years into the war in Afghanistan, U.S. officials routinely issue inflated assessments of progress that contradict what is actually happening there.

More than 2,200 Americans have been killed in the Afghan conflict, and the United States has spent more than $840 billion fighting the Taliban insurgency and paying for relief and reconstruction. The war has become more expensive, in current dollars, than the Marshall Plan, which helped to rebuild Europe after World War II. That investment has created intense pressure for Americans to show the Taliban are losing and the country is improving.

But since 2017, the Taliban have held more Afghan territory than at any time since the U.S. invasion. In just one week in August, the insurgents killed 200 Afghan police officers and soldiers, overrunning two major Afghan bases and the city of Ghazni.

The U.S. military says the Afghan government effectively “controls or influences” 56 percent of the country. But that assessment relies on statistical sleight of hand. In many districts, the Afghan government controls only the district headquarters and military barracks, while the Taliban controls the rest.

On paper, Afghan security forces outnumber the Taliban 10 to 1, or even more. But some Afghan officials estimate that a third of their soldiers and police officers are “ghosts” who have left or deserted without being removed from payrolls. Many others are poorly trained and unqualified.

The Afghan government says it killed 13,600 insurgents and arrested 2,000 more in 2017 — nearly half the estimated 25,000 to 35,000 Taliban fighters an official U.S. report said were active in the country in 2017. But in January, U.S. officials said insurgents numbered at least 60,000, and Afghan officials recently estimated the Taliban’s strength at more than 77,000.

With the status of the battlefield looking grim, U.S. officials say that at least the coalition has improved Afghan living standards — although often they use exaggerated claims there, too.

The U.S. Agency for International Development points to a drastic improvement in life expectancy, to 63 years in 2010, up from 41 years in 2002. But the figures were adjusted to ignore a high death rate in early childhood, which skewed results.

The World Health Organization, meanwhile, estimated in 2009 that Afghan life expectancy was 48 years. Even the CIA does not agree with USAID’s number, estimating in 2017 that Afghans typically live to age 51.