U.S. Military Has Halted Its Regular Assessment On How Much Of Afghanistan Is Controlled By The Taliban

New York Times: U.S. Military Stops Counting How Much of Afghanistan Is Controlled by Taliban

KABUL, Afghanistan — The American military command in Afghanistan has halted regular assessments of how many people and districts the government and insurgents there control, it emerged on Wednesday — eliminating what has long been an important public measure of progress in the war.

The military said the assessments had “limited decision-making value” for commanders. As recently as November 2017, the previous American commander in Afghanistan had called them “the metric that’s most telling in a counterinsurgency.”

The decision to end the assessments, which have been produced in various forms since at least 2010, was published in the latest quarterly report by the American special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.

“We’re troubled by it,” the inspector general, John F. Sopko, said in an interview. “It’s like turning off the scoreboard at a football game and saying scoring a touchdown or field goal isn’t important.”

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WNU Editor: The Long War Journal keeps an up-to-date assessment on what the Taliban are controlling in Afghanistan .... Mapping Taliban Control in Afghanistan (Long War Journal).

from War News Updates http://bit.ly/2GPfkuL