Pentagon struggles to provide accurate numbers for deployments

WASHINGTON — Defense Department officials were pressed Monday to explain inconsistencies between their official statements about troop counts in multiple war zones and statistics made publicly available on government-operated websites, discrepancies that raise questions about the deployment of U.S. forces worldwide.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has made assurances his agency would be more forthcoming about how many troops he has committed to operations in Syria, Iraq Afghanistan and elsewhere, but so far those changes have not taken effect.

Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Rob Manning said Monday there were about 500 U.S. troops in Syria, a number far short of the 1,720 listed in the most recent quarterly report furnished by the Defense Department Manpower Data Center. In Iraq, the number is 8,892 troops — substantially higher than the 5,000 Manning said are currently there.

The data center’s latest worldwide deployment data, accurate as of Sept. 30, was released on its website Nov. 17.

Speaking to the Pentagon press corps, Manning offered some explanations why the numbers can be different. They can fluctuate, he said, as troops rotate in an out of a region. Sometimes, he added, political sensitivities and agreements may limit the public disclosure of troop levels in certain countries.