Washington ( CNN ) -- U.S. spies `` can do little but shrug '' when commanders ask for the information they need to fight the Taliban insurgency , the top U.S. military intelligence officer in Afghanistan said in a blistering report . U.S. military intelligence officers in Afghanistan spend too much time focusing on enemy groups and tactics and not enough on trying to understand Afghanistan 's culture , people and networks , Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn wrote in a report published Monday . American military intelligence gathering is `` ignorant of local economics and landowners , hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced , incurious about the correlations between various development projects and levels of cooperation among villagers , and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers , '' Flynn wrote . Click here to have your say on the damning intelligence report . His report comes out less than a week after seven CIA officers and a Jordanian intelligence agent were killed by a double agent who set off a suicide bomb inside their base in Afghanistan . But the report is about military intelligence gathering , not the CIA 's work , one of Flynn 's co-authors , Marine Capt . Matt Pottinger , told CNN . `` This is primarily about improving intelligence within the Department of Defense , '' he said via e-mail . `` Our timing was independent of the tragic event in Khost Province , '' he said , referring to the attack that killed the CIA officers . Flynn co-wrote the report with Pottinger and Paul Batchelor of the Pentagon 's Defense Intelligence Agency for a Washington think tank , the Center for a New American Security . Flynn 's boss , Gen. Stanley McChrystal , the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan , backs the report , a spokesman for U.S. forces there told CNN . `` We support this kind of activity . Gen. McChrystal is looking for ways to make things better , '' Adm. Greg Smith said . But Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said it is `` a bit irregular '' that a report of this kind would come out through a think tank . `` I think it struck everybody a bit curious , '' he said . `` My sense is this was an anomaly and we wo n't see it again . '' He said he was not sure Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had seen the report , though he had been provided with a copy on the day of publication . `` The most I will say is that it was an unusual and irregular way to publish a document , '' Whitman said . The report said some good work is being done on the ground , and that local intelligence officers `` know a great deal about their local Afghan districts . '' But , the report said , they `` are generally too understaffed to gather , store , disseminate and digest '' information . And , critically , they do not have the resources to gather information which could give Americans a better understanding of Afghanistan , such as census data , patrol debriefs , minutes from councils with local farmers and tribal leaders , polling data , translated summaries of radio broadcasts that influence local farmers and the like . `` This vast and underappreciated body of information ... . provides ... a map for leveraging popular support and marginalizing the insurgency itself , '' Flynn and his colleagues argue . As a result , `` U.S. intelligence officers and analysts can do little but shrug in response to high level decision-makers seeking the knowledge , analysis and information they need to wage a successful counterinsurgency , '' they say . The report claims they can not answer basic questions unrelated to the military fight against the Taliban , such as : `` Is that desert road we 're thinking of paving really the most heavily trafficked route ? Which mosques and bazaars attract the most people from week to week ? Is that local contractor actually implementing the irrigation project we paid him to put into service ? '' CNN 's Richard Allen Greene , Pam Benson and Mike Mount contributed to this report .
They focus on terrorist groups , not on the Afghanistan 's culture , intel ##man says . Report comes less than a week after seven CIA officers killed by double agents . Spokesman : General Stanley McChrystal , top commander in Afghanistan , reads the report .