There is no doubt that the recent troop surge to afghanistan that President Trump announced last week has upset many. But a recent report by Politico titled: "Pentagon's concealment of total troops in war zones under fire" is likely to keep those "fires" of anger lit. The report says that the Pentagon has concealed the real Number Of Troops that are currently operating in war zones in Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The report points out that a number of troops under the Force Management Level policy are not counted with others because they generally serve under 120 days and are on rotation.

These are troops that are there to build bridges, repairing airfields and what are referred to as Military artillery batteries and are deployed for short periods of time.

Restrictions under cap limits

Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland who is the deputy commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command said that journalists will sometimes say to him "aHa", believing that the military has been hiding troops. But MacFarland said that the reason for the policy was because it generally takes too long to get approval from the Pentagon under the caps that were put on by the Obama presidency. He explained that there have been some cases where they need to put in a small group of Apache helicopters in an area, for instance, and have to go through a lot of red tape under those caps.

Despite this, however, the Pentagon seems to have indeed been hiding those troops adding to another group of people (other than Republican politicians) to undermine the former President. For instance, the report states that a cap was placed on Afghanistan for only 8,400 troops but that there are already 12,000 deployed there now.

One report by the Military Times titled "Pentagon may have up to 20,000 troops in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan; it reports only 14,000 and, says that in total, between Iraq, Afghanis, an and Syria, there are 20,000 which is 6,000 more than initially reported.

Mattis wants troop transparency, Trump does not

Defense Secretary Gen.

James Mattis has said recently that he would provide transparency for the amount of troops deployed. But in President Trump's speech at the Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Virginia, he said that he would not be giving out that number. He stated that it would only serve to give the enemy an advantage where they would simply be able to wait out U.S. troops. The president has reportedly given Mattis the freedom to determine the number of troops.

But there is also the view that the American people deserve to know how many people are being deployed which seems to be more of a civilian driven process. But President Trump has only shown interest in military action that looks "tough" and is clearly not interested in the civilian involvement. It's yet unknown whether Gen. Mattis and Trump will see eye to eye.
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