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AP ReportsTaliban attacks not down after all *Duh*
WASHINGTON (AP) — The American-led military coalition in Afghanistan backed off Tuesday from its claim that Taliban attacks dropped off in 2012, tacitly acknowledging a hole in its widely repeated argument that violence is easing and that the insurgency is in steep decline.
In response to Associated Press inquiries about its latest series of statistics on security in Afghanistan, the coalition command in Kabul said it had erred in reporting a 7 percent decline in attacks. In fact there was no decline at all, officials said.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who is among the senior officials who had publicly repeated the assertion of an encouraging drop-off in Taliban attacks last year, was disturbed to learn of the error, said his spokesman, George Little.
“This particular set of metrics doesn’t tell the full story of progress against the Taliban, of course, but it’s unhelpful to have inaccurate information in our systems,” Little said.
A coalition spokesman, Jamie Graybeal, attributed the miscounting to clerical errors and said the problem does not change officials’ basic assessment of the war, which they say is on a positive track as American and allied forces withdraw.
The 7 percent figure had been included in a report posted on the website of the coalition, the International Security Assistance Force, on Jan. 22 as part of its monthly update on trends in security and violence. It was removed from the website recently without explanation. After the AP asked last week about the missing report, coalition officials said they were correcting the data and would re-publish the report. As of Tuesday afternoon it had not reappeared.
It was not clear whether or how the Pentagon might correct a separate report – its semi-annual report to Congress on security progress in Afghanistan, which used some of the same Taliban-attack statistics. The report was sent to Congress in December.
Maudie N Mandeville
February 27th, 2013
“We won, proud of our corpses, all comin’ home, off to fundraiser.”
Bayouwulf
February 27th, 2013
Of course there was absolutely no pressure from the White House to suppress any of this information during the election campaign.
Billy Fuster
February 27th, 2013
Someone spilled the beans.
RANDO
February 27th, 2013
Lyin’ scumbags.
Tim
February 27th, 2013
Clerical error my ass.
More mendacity from the socialists.
Chieftain
February 27th, 2013
So in other words, because of a “regrettable error” DOD effectively cooked the books on Afghanistan, and the Regime promptly took those stats and used them extensively for political purposes.
How “unfortunate” that it took until after the election AND after Chuckie Hagel was sworn in as Uncle Leon’s replacement before any of this came to light…
Dano
February 27th, 2013
“Now that Obama is re-elected, we can start telling the truth?!”
Jerry Manderin
February 27th, 2013
“Al-qaeda is on the run!”~Barack Obama
“Pull this leg and it plays ‘Jingle Bells.’”~Bernie Litko
Tim
February 27th, 2013
Any Senate that would approve of Hagel and Kerry for anything other than the gallows is corrupt and rotten to its heart.
Stirrin the BS
February 27th, 2013
Ah yes, the old nebulous, hard to find and unaccountable “clerical error” excuse. Yep, it ranks right up there with the “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels…”, blamed for Benghazi.
The fact is no democrap EVER accepts responsibility – WITH consequences – for anything. It’s never a liberal’s fault, ever. Someone or something is always to blame.
And because no failure is ever a liberal’s fault, they repeat the same failed policies and tactics with even more determination than before.
Liberals do not posess the emotional capability necesary to admit failure and to learn from it. And our country is suffering because of that fact.