Washington ? Military intelligence officers were scrambling a year ago to collect and analyze the social, economic and tribal ins and outs of each valley and hamlet in Afghanistan.

This information wasn’t the kind of secret or covert material many military intelligence specialists were used to. But it was seen as crucial to helping commanders tell the good guys from the bad, learn what Afghans really needed from their government and undermine the Taliban-led insurgency by winning hearts and minds over time.

Since last fall, top intelligence leaders in Afghanistan shifted their focus back to targeting the enemy in the more traditional way, by mapping their networks and analyzing what made the Taliban tick.

They didn’t stop collecting the other information. But their goal now was helping tell commanders what they needed to know to kill insurgents and drive the enemy to the negotiating table.

President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the United States will start bringing home U.S. troops next month. His announcement is part of a gradual scaling back of American operations and ambitions in Afghanistan that’s expected to emphasize raids over governance, making tracking Afghan culture and bolstering the government less important, three current officials in Afghanistan said.

The White House has been frustrated by Afghanistan’s corruption and the inability of President Hamid Karzai’s government to provide competent officials to serve far-flung provinces. That has helped shrink U.S. goals, and the new bottom line is a government strong enough to prevent terrorists’ safe havens from returning.

Targeting insurgent leaders and their support networks is seen as an important part of the U.S. exit strategy. The thinking is that Taliban leaders will be more ready for a deal if they feel threatened personally.

The U.S. has confirmed preliminary outreach to the Taliban, but Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said last week that fruitful talks probably are a long way off.

These developments come as the man in charge of military intelligence in Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Steve Fogarty, has shifted his focus to how the U.S. gathers social, economic and tribal data, and how troops are getting access to it.

But he may now face a closing window of opportunity to bolster those programs, with the looming drawdown of manpower and resources as ordered by an administration fed up with the war’s $10 billion-a-month cost.

A secret U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan issued in February said raids and small-scale special-operations-led stability operations were showing progress, but projects meant to bolster Afghan governance were not yet taking hold, according to the officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

That assessment was one factor in Obama’s decision to withdraw all but a small contingent of the current approximately 100,000 forces by 2015, said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive strategic discussions.