Pentagon Calls Release Of Wikileaks Documents “A Criminal Act”, Says Review Will Take “Days, If Not Weeks”, Appear To Be Low-Level Classified
Jul 26, 2010 4 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Monday that its review of the leak of secret military documents on the war in Afghanistan would take “days if not weeks” and that it was too soon to assess their damage.
WikiLeaks, an organization promoting the leaking of information to fight corporate and government corruption, on Sunday said it released 91,000 U.S. military documents on the war stretching back to 2004.
Calling their release a “criminal act,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan said the defense department was scrambling to review the documents to determine “whether they reveal sources and methods,” endanger troops or harm national security.
“We’ve only seen a fraction of the documents purported to be out there so until we get a look at all of them, we can’t know exactly what the extent of the damage might be,” Lapan told reporters at the Pentagon.
Among the documents were reports that U.S. officials in Afghanistan strongly suspected Pakistan was secretly supporting Taliban insurgents, while taking massive amounts of American aid. The documents could fuel growing doubts in Congress about U.S. President Barack Obama’s war strategy as the U.S. death toll is rising in the unpopular 9-year-old war.
Lapan declined to discuss the relationship with Pakistan or any of the specific documents, saying that despite their release on the Internet, the information remained classified.
The documents appeared to only be at the secret level — still classified but at lower level than other types of secrecy within the military’s classification system, Lapan said.
“The ones that we’ve seen are along the lines of standard reporting done along the lines of a very low level,” Lapan said.
