How presidents and military leaders misled Americans about the war in Afghanistan

Craig Whitlock, a Washington Post reporter and author of "The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War," explains how presidents and military leaders misled the public about the war in Afghanistan for nearly two decades. Whitlock's book is a follow-up to the Afghanistan Papers investigation, a confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post that revealed senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.

As the U.S. prepares to leave Afghanistan, Whitlock explains how every U.S. president from George Bush to Barack Obama to Donald Trump misled the public about progress in the war. Read moreSubscribe to The Washington Post on YouTube