Afghanistan, Jan. 16 -- John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) told US Congress on Wednesday that US officials have 'routinely lied' to the public with exaggerating reports on the Afghan war. Sopko was summoned by the US Congress to talk about the 'Afghanpapers' recently published by America's Washington Post.
"There's an odor of mendacity throughout the Afghanistan issue. . . mendacity and hubris," Sopko said in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "The problem is there is a disincentive, really, to tell the truth. We have created an incentive to almost require people to lie."
As an example, he said that US officials have lied in the past about the number of Afghan children enrolled ...