Today's guest on the Danger Close podcast is Craig Whitlock. Craig Whitlock is a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist who has specialized in reporting on national security issues for The Washington Post since 1998. Since 2001, he has covered the Global War on Terrorism as a foreign correspondent, Pentagon reporter, and national security specialist.
His new book, The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War, asks and answers the question every American is asking in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan: after 20 years of war, thousands of lives lost with even more suffering the physical and emotional trauma of the battlefield, and trillions of dollars spent - what went wrong in Afghanistan? To gain access to what are now known as The Afghanistan Papers, The Washington Post had to sue the federal government twice under the Freedom of Information Act to force them to release unclassified interviews with 428 generals, diplomats, aid workers and Afghan officials. These documents along with 59,000 pages of Donald Rumsfeld’s memos obtained through another Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the National Security Archive at George Washington University and 600 unclassified interviews with veterans of the war conducted by the Army’s Combat Studies Institute and another series of interviews with Bush White House officials from the Miller Center at UVA form the foundation of research for Craig’s book. If you suspected that elected and appointed officials, diplomats, government bureaucrats and senior level military leaders have been lying to congress, the tactical level troops, reporters and the American people about the war in Afghanistan for the past 20 years, this book provides you the truth - in their own words.
You can follow Craig on Twitter @CraigMWhitlock.
Presented by SIG Sauer.
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