Trump's Administration Ready to Announce Drawdown of Troops from Afghanistan
ALLEN: The Trump administration is preparing to announce the drawdown of about 4,000 troops from Afghanistan. A senior administration official says the timing is still being discussed. There are 12 to 13,000 U.S. troops currently serving there. This comes on the heels of an explosive report by the Washington Post about what top U.S. officials have been telling Americans about the war. Our Jim Sciutto has the story.</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: A massive new trove of confidential documents obtained by the Washington Post reveals U.S. officials systematically lied to the American public about the Afghan war, virtually since the beginning 18 years ago. The objective, to conceal widespread fears that America was losing. The Post says it has obtained more than 2,000 pages of documents, some part of a lengthy government report called lessons learned and that, quote, "several of those interviewed described explicit and sustained efforts by the U.S. government to deliberately mislead the public." They said it was common at military headquarters in Kabul and at the White House to distort statistics, to make it appear the United States was winning the war when that was not the case. The report includes interviews with more than 600 people with firsthand war experience, and includes memos from former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who once wrote in April 2002, six months after the war began. I know I'm a bit impatient, but the fact that Iran and Russia have plans for Afghanistan, and we don't concerns me. He ends the note with, help, exclamation point. General Douglas Lute, who served as the White House Afghan War Czar for president's Bush and Security Adviser to Obama, is quoted in the report, saying in 2015, we were devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan. We didn't know what we were doing.</s>COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: What we're looking at here is something that calls into question, not only our military operations, but also is a dishonor to the sacrifices that have been made by the servicemen and women in Afghanistan over these years. This is an inexcusable way to run things.</s>SCIUTTO: The revelations are reminiscent of the Pentagon papers, a top-secret Defense Department study of the Vietnam War, which were first made public in 1971 when they were published by the New York Times.</s>LEIGHTON: It's very similar to what happened with the Pentagon papers, because again, a strategy is being called into question. The rosy picture that's been painted by our political and military leadership is not the real picture on the ground.</s>SCIUTTO: To date, the U.S. has not carried out a comprehensive accounting of how much it has spent on the war in Afghanistan. Since 2001, the government has spent or appropriated between $934 billion and $978 billion, according to an inflation adjusted estimate cited in the Post. In the report, one unnamed executive with USAID estimated that 90 percent of what the U.S. spent was overkill. The Post says it obtained the documents through the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year quest. In response to the piece, Defense Department Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Campbell said Monday, quote, "There has been no intent by DOD to mislead Congress or the public. Most of the individuals interviewed spoke with the benefit of hindsight."</s>ALLEN: Our Jim Sciutto there with that report. Next here, after five decades, yes, five decades, the main Star Wars saga is coming to a close. We will show you the lengths some fans are going to, to ensure their spot for the opening of the Rise of Skywalker. That's next.