NPR

Pentagon Questioned Over Blackout On War Zone Troop Numbers

The Pentagon has stopped reporting troop levels for Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria following President Trump's declaration that the U.S. would not talk about troop numbers in Afghanistan.
U.S. service members walk off a helicopter on the runway at Camp Bost in Helmand Province, Afghanistan on September 11, 2017.

For more than a decade, if you wanted to know how many U.S. troops there were in war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan, you could readily find that information at a public Pentagon website that's updated every three months.

But since late last year, the Pentagon's stopped posting those numbers for Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

That public information blackout, along with the recent suspension of Pentagon reports on airstrikes and collateral damage in Afghanistan, has some lawmakers on Capitol Hill raising red flags.

"What's your view on the detail of the information that should be released?," Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed Lt. Gen. Scott Miller at his June 19 confirmation hearing to be the next U.S. commander

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