WASHINGTON (AP) — In an abrupt reversal, the U.S. military on Tuesday said it made a mistake when it ordered an independent federal auditor to stop providing the public with information about U.S. war efforts in Afghanistan that help to measure how the 16-year-old stalemated war is going.

Just hours after the report was publicly released, the U.S.-led NATO coalition in Afghanistan issued a statement blaming "human error" for the order, and provided a few segments of the data that has been restricted. The newly released information revealed that 44 percent of Afghanistan is contested or under t...