Intelligence officials, past and present, are raising concerns that secret files released on WikiLeaks.org could endanger US counterterror networks in the Afghan region and damage information sharing with US allies.
People in Afghanistan or Pakistan who have worked with US intelligence agents or the military against the Taliban or al-Qaeda may be at risk following the disclosure of thousands of once-secret US military documents, former and current officials said.
Meanwhile, US allies are asking whether they can trust the US to keep secrets. And US President Barack Obama’s administration is scrambling to repair any political damage to the war effort back home.
The material could reinforce the view put forth by the war’s opponents in the US Congress that one of the nation’s longest conflicts is hopelessly stalemated. The US Congress has so far backed the war, and an early test of that continued support was to come yesterday when the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led by Democratic Senator John Kerry, was to hold a hearing on the Afghan war.
Still, the leaks are not expected to affect passage of a US$60 billion war funding bill. Despite strong opposition among liberals who see Afghanistan as an unwinnable quagmire, House Democrats must either approve the bill before leaving at the end of this week for a six-week vacation, or commit political suicide by leaving troops in the lurch in war zones overseas.
As that political battle plays out, US analysts are in a speed-reading battle against their adversaries.
They are trying to limit the damage to the military’s human intelligence network that has been built up over a decade inside Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such figures range from Afghan village elders who have worked behind the scenes with US troops to militants who have become double-agents.
Colonel Dave Lapan, a US Defense Department spokesman, said the military may need weeks to review all the records to determine “the potential damage to the lives of our service members and coalition partners.”
WikiLeaks insists it has behaved responsibly, even withholding about 15,000 records that are believed to include names of specific Afghans or Pakistanis who helped US troops on the ground.
But former CIA director Michael Hayden denounced the leak on Monday as incredibly damaging to the US — and a gift to its enemies.
“If I had gotten this trove on the Taliban or al-Qaeda, I would have called it priceless,” he said. “I would love to know what al-Qaeda or the Taliban was thinking about a specific subject in 2007, for instance, because I could say they got that right and they got that wrong,” he said.
In related news, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said on Monday the leaked US military documents on the war in Afghanistan could endanger Canadian troops in that country.
But Cannon denied suggestions made during a press conference that the US federal government has misled Canadians in any way about how dire the situation is facing the 2,700 Canadian military personnel in Afghanistan, choosing only to condemn the sensational leak of the documents.
“This is about leaked US documents, and yes, our government is concerned that operational leaks could endanger the lives of our men and women in Afghanistan,” Cannon said.
He said the documents have “nothing to do with Canada.”
But one of the notes on the site shows Canada and Washington suspected South Africa of allowing the Taliban to raise funds on its soil. And in a May 29, 2007, memo, the US asked Canada to issue a joint diplomatic rebuke, or demarche, on both Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
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