Article snippet: Pentagon leaders at a press conference on Friday pushed back against the idea that the department’s leaders have not been transparent on progress in the Afghanistan War, following the publish of interviews that showed that officials claimed more progress than there was over the last 18 years. The interviews, conducted by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) and published by the Washington Post, were a look-back at the war since 2001, but current Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley served in various government roles since then and spoke from their perspectives. Both pushed back against the idea that there was any coordinated effort to deceive the public. “I know there is an assertion out there of some sort of coordinated lie over say 18 years. I find that a bit of a stretch, more than a bit of a stretch,” Milley said. “I know that I and many, many others gave assessments at the time based on facts that we knew at the time and those were honest assessments and they were never intended to deceive neither the Congress nor the American people.” Esper added, “For 18 years now the media has been over there, many of you have traveled multiple times, the Congress has been there are multiple times …We have had [SIGAR] there.” “This has been a very transparent — it is not like this war was hiding somewhere and now all of the sudden that there’s been a revelation,” he said. President Tru... Link to the full article to read more