America left the Taliban in Afghanistan with a valuable weapon: data

On Sept. 10, 2001, David Tyson — the only CIA officer fluent in Uzbek, the language spoken by more than 1 million Afghans at the time — was desperately trying to prevent a cache of United States-made Stinger missiles from falling into the hands of terrorists.

But Toby Harnden's new book, “First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission To Avenge 9/11,” detailed how, according to the CIA’s tally, the Taliban already had several dozen missiles; 600 of roughly 2,500 remained unaccounted for.

Warfare had changed since the U.S. had secretly...