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A federal judge on Thursday ordered the release of an independent monitor’s review of HSBC’s internal cleanup after a landmark $1.92 billion settlement for laundering drug money and for sanctions violations. The U.S. Justice Department and the bank had claimed that disclosing the report could harm law enforcement efforts and provide criminals with a “road map” to holes in HSBC’s defenses against money laundering. But U.S. District Judge John Gleeson ruled that the court and the public had a right to know whether HSBC was living up to its agreement to improve internal controls and merited a deferral of prosecution by the government.

Gleeson also said it was “equally appropriate and desirable for the public to be interested and informed now in the progress” of the HSBC settlement. HSBC in 2012 reached a landmark settlement with the federal government, admitting that it had deliberately laundered funds for drug cartels and countries under trade sanctions. Prosecutors described the settlement as a “sword of Damocles” hanging over HSBC. Should the bank fail to improve, it would face prosecution for unbridled financial wrongdoing. A condition of the settlement was that the bank submit to extensive outside review of its reform efforts. The former New York State ethics chief Michael G. Cherkasky was appointed as the HSBC monitor in 2013. A leaked copy of his report recounted instances of U.S. bank managers bullying and shouting at compliance team members, and drew attention to the bank’s dealings with clients that had possible links to terrorism, according to Bloomberg.

As the U.S. prepares to send more troops to Afghanistan to combat ISIS and the Taliban, and the specter of a war hangs over every tweet the President writes about North Korea, it’s important to remember that the U.S. has been fighting in and bombing several countries in the Middle East and Asia for 16 years. According to a new study, all that war has cost the U.S. taxpayers $5.6 trillion, which is over three times what the Pentagon estimates.