By Richard Sisk
The War Report

The Pentagon is denying claims from a whistle-blowing Army officer who says the top ranks of the military are twisting the truth when they say the United States and NATO forces are making progress in the war in Afghanistan.

“I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level” in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Daniel Davis wrote in an article for the Armed Forces Journal titled “Truth, Lies and Afghanistan – How military leaders have let us down.”

“My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces,” Davis wrote.

“What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground,” he said.

“Lt. Col. Davis is obviously entitled to his opinion,” said George Little, chief spokesman for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, but Panetta “has very strong confidence in his commanders in Afghanistan.”

The assessments of those commanders, Little said, are that al Qaeda has been devastated, the Taliban is in retreat, and the U.S. and its allies are on a glide path to handing off the combat role to the Afghans.

In interviews with reporters on his article, Davis singled out retired Army Gen. David Petraeus, now the CIA Director, for giving rosy scenarios on what was happening on the ground, but Little said “those assessments are developed with the help and input of many people. They don’t depend on what a single person’s views are.”

In his article, Davis, a former aide to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), said the drone war has backfired, the Afghan government is corrupt and U.S. troops don’t trust the Afghan police and army.

“From time to time, I observed Afghan Security forces collude with the insurgency,” Davis wrote. “The American people deserve better than what they’ve gotten from their senior uniformed leaders over the last number of years. Simply telling the truth would be a good start.”

[DoD Photo]