Pentagon Says that WikiLeaks Endangered Soldiers in Afghanistan

The WikiLeaks website made public military files that could put the lives of the soldiers stationed in Afghanistan at risk. This is the first time that so much military information was made public and could affect the trust of the US allies. An officer of the Military intelligence which is under arrest and in an open investigation is suspected to have helped the WikiLeaks website to make public more than 90,000 secret documents, the biggest security hack in the history of US, declared the officials of the Pentagon.

The Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates didn’t want to comment on the subject but he said that there could be more leaks and announced that the security of the secret documents will be revised and enforced.

“I don’t know whether there is anyone else out there that is a party to this,” said Robert Gates in a public comment after the reveling of the documents.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, also top military officer of the US, harshly criticized the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, who claims that he is trying to show to the world the corruption in the US government.

“Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing,” said Admiral Mullen. “But the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.”

The Secretary of Defense was so astound that he didn’t know how to react and didn’t know if the founder of WikiLeaks should be prosecuted or that the website should be respected as an organization in the media department which is protected by the free speech rights under the wing of the US Constitution.

“I think that’s a question for people who are more expert in the law than I am,”

He inquired that if an extension of the investigation to contain the WikiLeaks website is possible, he also said that he talked to the FBI to join the investigation and ensure the accuracy of the facts and to have the authority in all the states of the US.

Since the start of the conflict in Afghanistan, June is the deadliest month for the foreign troops and the representative of the US announced that they estimate a rising of the number of casualties this summer.

On Thursday Barak Obama met with the security team at the White House where they talked about the WikiLeaks case.

Robert Gates who is a former CIA director declared for the press that from his opinion the biggest problem is that the allies including Afghanistan will no longer trust the US to keep their national secrets. The materials that were released contain names of contacts and intelligence reports.

“I spent most of my life in the intelligence business, where the sacrosanct principle is protecting your sources,” said the Secretary of Defense.

“It seems to me that, as a result of this massive breach of security, we have considerable repair work to do in terms of reassuring people and rebuilding trust, because they clearly — people are going to feel at risk.”

He declared that solutions are developed to assure the security of the military networks. One of the officials at the Defense department said that they could include the deactivations of the function that let the users download data from the computer.

The documents showed a link between Intelligence agency of Pakistan and the rebels who oppose the US in the area around Afghanistan. Admiral Mullen admitted that some connections are still active but he also said that Islamabad is turning against the rebels.

“There have been elements of the ISI that have … a relationship with extremist organizations and that we, you know, we consider that unacceptable. In the long run I think that the ISI has to strategically shift,” said Mullen.

“And they are strategically shifting. That doesn’t mean that they are through that shift at all.”

The investigation of this outraging incident was targeting Bradley Manning an Army specialist who is already in an active investigation for providing information to WikiLeaks at the beginning of the month, declared the representative of the Defense department.

Bradley Manning has released a video showing an attack made by US soldiers from a helicopter that ended with the death of 12 innocent civilians including two journalists from Reuters.

In the latest leak no one was blamed and the investigators are focusing on the idea of multiple sources.

Do you think that WikiLeaks founder should be prosecuted as a criminal?