For most, the GAO report from the United States Government Accountability Office is good for one thing: kindling. That is, it’s not exactly a New York Times bestseller — by any stretch of the imagination. For example, the title of this most recent version is “SPECIAL FORCES OPERATIONS: Opportunities Exist to Improve Transparency of Funding and Assess Potential to Lessen Some Deployments”.

Don’t judge a book by its cover — or title — because this latest report defies its mundane, verbose title and actually pacts some fascinating details, in particular, about the iconic special mission unit that works for Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC): Naval Special Warfare Development Group, Team 6.

SEAL Team 6.

Turn to page 46, there you’ll find that as of fiscal year 2014, the SEAL Team 6 had a total of 1,787 authorized positions — 1,342 of them military and 445 civilian.

Apparently, the fact that this information was included in the report shocked a number of current and former officials affiliated with the group famous for gunning down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.

Foreign Policy attempted to get additional reaction from military higher-ups currently heading up the group’s military hierarchy, but were met with mostly this type of response:

Patricia O’Connor, a spokeswoman for Naval Special Warfare Command, which has administrative control over Team 6, said she could not comment on the release of the information because she had not seen the GAO report. Ken McGraw, a spokesman for U.S Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., referred queries on the matter to the Pentagon, and in particular the Office of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Michael Lumpkin, who is himself a retired SEAL officer. Lumpkin’s office provided the information in the GAO report, McGraw said. A spokeswoman for Lumpkin did not respond to a request for comment by late Monday afternoon.

A former SEAL was also interviewed in the piece, and had this to say about the quoted figures:

The numbers appear to be accurate, said the former senior Team 6 official. However, the figure for military personnel should not be interpreted as meaning that Team 6 has more than 1,000 SEALs. In fact, the unit has only about 300 enlisted SEALs who have made it through Team 6’s arduous assessment and selection process, known as Green Team, the former senior Team 6 official said.