A resident of the Baraki Barak District in Afghanistan's Logar province speaks to members of the Human Terrain System program in April 2009. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., has accused the Army of issuing a false statement about the controversial program and failed to correct it for months in order to mislead Congress.

WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — The Army issued a false statement about its controversial program to embed social scientists with combat units and failed to correct it for months in order to mislead Congress, according to a letter to the Army on Wednesday from Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

The Army has spent $726 million on the Human Terrain System since 2007, sending civilian social scientists with cultural expertise to battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan to advise commanders on how to avoid needless bloodshed. The program, at its height in 2010, was plagued with documented incidents of fraud and sexual harassment. In 2015, the Army announced that it had killed the program in 2014.

But in a letter to Hunter on March 10, acting Army Secretary Patrick Murphy wrote that the Army's combat-anthropology program remained active, and the Army planned to expand it. The program had been renamed the Global Cultural Knowledge Network, Murphy wrote, and no longer sends social scientists to war. Instead, it offers training to troops before they deploy and employs experts in the United States who can advise commanders in the field. In fiscal 2016, the Army intends to spend $1.3 million on the program.

"The Army has not received the letter," Cynthia Smith, an Army spokeswoman, said Wednesday evening. "However, the Army will respond directly to Rep. Hunter's office upon receipt and review of the letter."

Hunter blasted the Army for issuing the statement that said the program had "ended" in 2014 "as there was no longer a requirement for teams in the field." He demanded to know why the Army let that statement go uncorrected for nine months.

"The fact that it was not corrected and contradictions continue to exist lead me to believe that GCKN is simply a recreation of HTS, and the Army was content with members of Congress, including myself, thinking HTS was killed and there was no longer a requirement for such a capability," Hunter wrote.

Hunter also challenged Murphy's statement that the Army no longer intended to embed social scientists with soldiers. Hunter cited a December 2015 document that recommended deploying social scientists, and he wrote that there was already one team at an Army post in San Antonio.

"Given the contradictions in statements and consistently misleading information, it is my belief that HTS is alive and well -- in the form of GCKN," Hunter wrote.

Hunter wrote that he was "unconvinced" that the rebranded social science project provides a "new and unique capability" and won't be "subject to the same failures and shortcomings."

The battlefield social science program blossomed as the Army grew its counter-insurgency strategy. That approach emphasized protecting Iraqi and Afghan citizens, and Human Terrain Teams were seen as key to understanding the needs and concerns of local civilians.

In the field, the social science teams varied widely in ability. Some commanders disregarded their reports, internal Army documents show. Several team members were found to have fraudulently filled out time sheets, claiming overtime hours that paid them $280,000 a year, a USA TODAY investigation found.

By 2014, the program's problems had been fixed, according to the Army. Then-Army Secretary John McHugh said the teams had produced information that was "actionable and useful."

But the American Anthropological Association, an organization representing academic and professional anthropologists, has been critical of the Army's effort for years. The group issued a statement after USA TODAY reported that the social science program had not been killed.

"The fact is that when social science research is done at gunpoint, with researchers surrounded by armed combatants, it is coercive, professionally irresponsible, and highly unlikely to yield reliable and accurate results," the statement says.

The association concluded that the "Army's Human Terrain System needs to be buried once and for all."

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